From Coexistence to Coexistence: Phenomenology, Normativity, and Law in Nicola Abbagnano and Sergio Cotta

This paper reconstructs a phenomenological itinerary from existential analysis to legal normativity and back to ontology, taking coexistence as its guiding concept. Focusing on Nicola Abbagnano and Sergio Cotta, it argues that coexistence is not a secondary social notion but the original structure through which existence, meaning, and normativity are constituted within Italian phenomenology. In Abbagnano's early existential phenomenology, coexistence grounds intersubjectivity, historicity, and commitment, while already carrying an intrinsic normative tension. Although this does not yet amount to a theory of law, it discloses the existential conditions that make normativity intelligible. Cotta's philosophy of law is then read as a systematic development of this framework. Through socionomy and ontological or primary justice, law appears as a diffusive and parifying practice oriented towards preserving coexistence among finite beings. The paper thus offers a phenomenological account of legal normativity rooted in relational and historical coexistence.