In the last issue of Isonomía we confirmed the trend towards the growing internationalization of the Journal and celebrated the significant presence of female authors – both an unplanned and reassuring outcome. In this issue, and equally unintentionally, internationalization continues both linguistically and geographically. Indeed, we are delighted to publish, for the first time, contributions in Italian and Portuguese, and happy to share that authors’ national and academic backgrounds represent seven countries: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italy, Mexico, and Spain.

Another aspect worth mentioning is the great variety of topics and approaches deployed: from the philosophy of private law and the constructive critique of classical thinkers to the more traditional meta-debates around legal positivism and the interdisciplinarity of law and society.

Although the editorial note is not designed to summarize the topics covered by each contribution, I would like to highlight at least one converging theme. Giovanni Bisogni’s essay on Massimo La Torre`s book Il Diritto contro se stesso seems to communicate secretly with the Symposium, edited by Thomas Bustamante, on Margaret Martin’s captivating book Judging Positivism. In light of all these works, one can realize that what is perhaps the most classical theme of legal theory – legal positivism and its limits – still lives. Something that was already visible in our last issue considering Silvia Zorzetto’s review essay on Cristina Redondo’s book Positivismo jurídico “interno”.

As such, the search for new frontiers, novel and sophisticated positivist conceptions, or for new attacks on positivism (in its different types), continues to motivate important and innovative works that once again examine and theorize the core issue of the authority of law. The outcome are theories that abandon positivism and enter the quicksand of ancient absolute and essentialist values (or their shadowy contemporary versions, disguised as constitutional states).

Furthermore, Bisogni’s essay assessing the critique of positivism developed by La Torre highlights an aspect that has long seemed central to us: the importance of returning to the classics – in line with the path traced by our mentor Rodolfo Vázquez, to whom we owe the collection series Lectura contemporánea de los clásicos (published in Mexico by Fontamara) – to study, analyze, and criticize them, not as museum relics but as living elements of a legal culture that would be nothing without them, both on the side of legal positivism and on the side of any form of non-positivism.

Finally, I am glad to stress the interest taken by two Mexican researchers, Francisco Iracheta and Emilio Méndez, in two classic authors of Western philosophical thought: Immanuel Kant and David Hume respectively. At the same time, I warmly invite you all to submit manuscripts that enable us to broaden the existing Western classics canon by delving in and incorporating other legal traditions and cultures. After all, the Western tradition, despite its achievements grounded on the enlightened idea of progress, secularism, and instrumental rationality, has undoubtedly come to a standstill. A stasis that was prophesied, several decades ago, by the German-Jewish philosopher Hans Jonas, to whom we are dedicating soon a special issue.

English version by Guilherme Vasconcelos Vilaça