¹ Plato, The Republic 488a–489d, at 161–63 (G. M. A. Grube trans., 1992) (in particular 488a).

² Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, or, The Matter, Form, and Power of a Common-Wealth Ecclesiastical and Civil, at I (1651) (“Art goes yet further, imitating that Rational and most excellent work of Nature, Man. For by Art is created that great Leviathan, called a Commonwealth . . . which is but an Artificial Man; though of greater stature and strength than the Natural . . . .”).

³ The book in parts is based on: Goldsmith, Jack & Levinson, Daryl, Law for States: International Law Constitutional Law, Public Law, 122 Harv. L. Rev. 1701 (2009)Google Scholar.

⁴ The author is not explicit on this essential point. Tellingly, however, he entitles the book “Law for Leviathan” and thereby, of course, plays with the whole range of associations evoked by the metaphor.

⁵ Generally on the interplay between metaphors and external reality: Hans Blumenberg, Paradigms for a Metaphorology (Robert Savage trans., 2010).

⁶ Paul de Man, Allegories of Reading 5 (1979).

⁷ See in particular: Hans Kelsen, Pure Theory of Law 328 (translated from the Second (Revised and Enlarged) German Edition by Max Knight, 1967) (“[T]he epistemological postulate: to understand all law in one system—that is, from one and the same standpoint—as one closed whole.”).

⁸ For a sophisticated distinction of several types of indeterminacy see: Severin Meier, Indeterminacy of International Law? 19–71 (2021).

⁹ McCulloch v. Maryland, 17 U.S. 316 (1819).

¹⁰ Factory at Chorzów (Ger. v. Pol.), 1928 PCIJ (ser. A) No. 17, 47 (Sept. 13).