Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

GGdel's Interbellum

2014; RELX Group (Netherlands); Linguagem: Inglês

10.2139/ssrn.2489673

1556-5068

F. E. Guerra-Pujol,

Italian Fascism and Post-war Society

In our previous paper "Gödel’s Loophole," we retold the story of Kurt Gödel’s discovery in late 1947 of a deep logical contradiction in the United States Constitution. At the time, however, and for many years thereafter, this purported discovery was discounted as nonsense or as highly improbable. Yet this assessment ignores Gödel’s Central European background and the dramatic constitutional histories of many Central European states during the interbellum period. Specifically, during his years at the University Vienna (1924-1940) -- first as a student and then as a lecturer -- Gödel would have noticed that every constitutional democracy in Central Europe ended in dictatorship. In this paper, then, we survey the series of "anti-constitutional moments" unfolding in interbellum Europe in order to shed some light on Gödel’s later discovery of a logical contradiction in the U.S. Constitution. Simply stated, Gödel’s main concern was the theoretical possibility of a "constitutional dictatorship." But how likely was this possibility as a practical matter? It turns out, very likely, if the constitutional history of interbellum Europe is any guide.