Foreign thinker
Carl Schmitt
Carl SchmittPolitical philosophy, public law, theory of the stateGerman1888–1985
"The sovereign is he who decides on the exception."
Life and Thought
Carl Schmitt was a German jurist and political philosopher and one of the most influential theorists of public law and politics in the twentieth century. He profoundly influenced contemporary political theory through concepts such as the political, the friend–enemy distinction, and the theory of sovereign exception. His works remain the subject of debate and criticism in political philosophy, law, and theories of the state.
Carl Schmitt was born in 1888 in Plettenberg, Germany. He studied law at the universities of Berlin, Munich, and Strasbourg and began his academic career in public law. He taught at several German universities and became recognized as one of the most prominent twentieth-century thinkers in constitutional law and the theory of the state.
In his works, Schmitt sought to analyze the foundations of modern politics and the structure of the state. In Political Theology (1922), he connected sovereignty with the ability to decide in a state of exception and presented the famous idea that “sovereign is he who decides on the exception.” In The Concept of the Political (1932), he explained politics through the distinction between friend and enemy and emphasized the role of conflict in the formation of the political.
He also examined constitutional theory and the relationship between political power and legal order in Constitutional Theory (1928). During the Weimar Republic, Schmitt participated in debates about the crisis of democracy and the modern state. Later, his membership and cooperation with the Nazi Party during its rule in Germany became a major source of criticism against him.
After World War II, Schmitt’s ideas remained controversial. Some thinkers have drawn on his analyses of sovereignty, states of exception, and the limits of liberalism, while others have criticized his intellectual and political connections with authoritarianism and National Socialism. His writings have had a lasting influence on political philosophy, legal theory, and studies of the state and political power.