Some remarks on the contribution of Amedeo Giovanni Conte to a philosophical sociology of law

Although Amedeo Giovanni Conte investigated questions relevant to legal sociology through several decades of studies and discussions, his works specifically addressed to a philosophical sociology of law were mainly written between 2000 and 2011. Through these works Conte has noticeably contributed to shape some basic categories for legal sociology in different areas: the relationship between norm and action, the problem of inference of rules from observed behaviour, the principle of effectiveness, the relationship between law and language. This arti-cle discusses Conte’s theory of nomotropism (acting in function of rules) also in the light of the Friedmanian theory of the impact of law. Conte’s research, since it is addressed to the elaboration of basic categories which can be used by other scholars to undertake either theoret-ical or empirical investigations, could be conceived of as a contribution towards a pure (reine) sociology of law.