An Amiable Jurisprudence: Derrida, Lyotard, and the Law

International Journal for the Semiotics of Law - Revue internationale de Sémiotique juridique, 2009

This chapter examines Derrida's distinction between law and justice, looking at the heritage of Pascal and Montaigne and examining issues of ethical and political responsibility in the process, taking some examples from contemporary American political discourse ________________________________________________________________________________ One of the strongest criticisms aimed at the project of Jacques Derrida in particular, and indeed at literary and cultural theory in general, is the relativistic and apolitical nature of its epistemological position. Derrida has been seen as a nihilist and a relativist and as someone for whom anything goes in terms of ethics and politics. One of the most celebrated examples of this was the Cambridge affair where Derrida's putative award of an honorary doctorate from Cambridge University became a point of contestation among the fellows of that college, and later among the wider academic community.

IIS University Journal of Arts, 2019

This short review of Derrida's book considers the relationship between Deconstruction and justice. It also makes references to Lyotard's and Deleuze's writings on justice and the law to establish some sort of a comparative dialogue.

*Political Theory* 29:3 (June 2001) 395-423.

IN THE WAKE of the Paul de Man controversy nearly a decade ago, Jacques Derrida delivered a lecture on the "Force of Law." 1 It had only recently come to light that de Man, an intimate of Derrida and high-profile practitioner of deconstruction, had collaborated with fascism in wartime Belgium. 2 Derrida's work and the poststructuralist movement with which it was associated had long been suspected of-perhaps unwittingly and unintentionallypromoting nihilism and authoritarianism. L'affaire de Man rendered these charges more plausible than ever before. I suggest that the "Force of Law" lecture and subsequently published essay is an apologia, a response to critics, a manifesto on deconstruction and poststructuralism, in the midst of this crisis. 3 To be sure, it is hardly a straightforward declarative statement of purpose or principles. Rather, it demonstrates by example, by action-through "performance," one might saypoststructuralism's understanding of enlightenment, learning, law, and justice. In fact, I argue that Derrida's essay pursues an expositional strategy centered around three less than obvious performances, overlooked or misrecognized by both friendly and critical interpreters: (1) Derrida's restaging of the trial of Socrates, with himself cast in the starring role; (2) his reposing, in the two "testaments" of the essay, the Greek versus Hebraic tension at the core of the so-called Western tradition; and (3) Derrida's deliberate

Book review of Jacques Derrida: Law as Absolute Hospitality By Jacques de Ville. Routledge (Nomikoi: Critical Legal Thinkers), 2011, 220 pp. £75.00/$125.00 (Cloth). ISBN: 978-0-415-61279-1 Published - doi: 10.1177/1743872112440393d Law, Culture and the Humanities, June (2012) vol. 8 no. 2 382-384 http://lch.sagepub.com/content/8/2/382.full.pdf+html

Revista Direito GV, 2017

In this paper, we would like to advocate for a certain reading of Jacques Derrida’s thinking about law, against the grain of most of his reception in legal studies. In this process, we aim to develop a better theoretical understanding of the dynamics of how law institutes itself, and continues to function as an institution, through interpretive practices that must, on one side, respect the rules of the institution and, at the same time, re-institute it on new grounds, as Jacques Derrida points out in his lecture “Force of Law: The ‘Mystical Foundation of Authority.’” The problem under investigation is how law manages to differentiate itself symbolically from violence and what are the consequences of this concerning legal interpretation. This paper’s partial conclusion is that ultimately we are better off viewing interpretation as neither fully determined by nor fully free from text and/or context.

Vol. 26(2) 208–229

This article critically engages with a particular reading of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive legal theory which argues that his methodology marginalizes engagements with the ‘socio-historical’ of law at best or is incapable of such engagements at worst. After explaining this meta-ethical reading, the piece offers a retort via a broader and more in-depth reading of Derrida’s legal theory. Here the article problematizes the distinction at the core of the meta-ethical reading; this being that Derrida’s work established a mutually exclusive separation between a ‘sociolegal’ critique of law and one considered of ‘critical legal theory’. This separation will be shown to be misleading by firstly referring to Derrida’s essay ‘Force of Law’ and arguing that therein the sociolegal and ‘critical legal’ theories are in fact mutually dependant and that Derrida’s concept of surenchère illustrates this. Secondly, a wider reading of Derrida’s work will then illustrate that such a conceptual binary is incompatible with his deconstructive metaphysical critique. This will be evidenced with reference to what is argued to be the central point of the meta-ethical reading, something which is itself born from Derrida’s work; this being the distinction between la and le politique, ‘politics’ and ‘the political’. With due regard for the history of this important and complicated deconstructive distinction, it will be argued that the reductive reading in the meta-ethical critique does not do justice to the inherent paradox in maintaining a separation between sociolegal theory, la politique, and critical legal theory, le politique.

Catholic University of America Press eBooks, 2019

Social & Legal Studies, 2016

This article critically engages with a particular reading of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive legal theory which argues that his methodology marginalizes engagements with the ‘socio-historical’ of law at best or is incapable of such engagements at worst. After explaining this meta-ethical reading, the piece offers a retort via a broader and more in-depth reading of Derrida’s legal theory. Here the article problematizes the distinction at the core of the meta-ethical reading; this being that Derrida’s work established a mutually exclusive separation between a ‘sociolegal’ critique of law and one considered of ‘critical legal theory’. This separation will be shown to be misleading by firstly referring to Derrida’s essay ‘Force of Law’ and arguing that therein the sociolegal and ‘critical legal’ theories are in fact mutually dependant and that Derrida’s concept of surenchère illustrates this. Secondly, a wider reading of Derrida’s work will then illustrate that such a conceptual binary...