Article – G. Vissio, “Eccezionalmente ordinari. Il santo come modello normativo / Exceptionally Ordinary. Saint as a Normative Model” (Filosofia e Teologia 2020/2)

G. Vissio, “Eccezionalmente ordinari. Il santo come modello normativo / Exceptionally Ordinary. Saint as a Normative Model”, in “Filosofia e Teologia”, 34/2 (2020). (link)

The paper aims at providing a philosophical investigation of the cultural unity of Catholic sanctity as a normative model. The first part of this essay provides a normative analysis of saints as universal, exceptional and ordinary models of behaviour. The second part of the paper is devoted to analysing the constitutive processes producing saints as models, based on the notion of «human kind» introduced by the philosopher Ian Hacking, and the sociological study of the canonization process developed by the sociologist Pierre Delooz. In conclusion, the essay claims that Catholic saints are not an example of «human kind», because of their claim to universal validity and their nature of exception.