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Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority
... Jacques Derrida's (1992) concept of the mystical foundation of authority offers a critical interrogation of how the law legitimizes itself not through inherent justice but through its performative construction as necessary and unquestionable. For Derrida, the law's authority is a self-referential act of power, a performative declaration that asserts its legitimacy while concealing the coercive foundations upon which it is built. ...
... Furthermore, Agamben emphasizes the permanence of the state of exception but fails to account for how exceptional measures become normalized through everyday governance. This is where Derrida's (1992) mystical foundation of authority becomes crucial, exposing how the state performs its legitimacy through ambiguous legal language that renders coercion as restraint. ...
... I argue here that this spectacle of restraint is not merely rhetorical but a deeply performative act that curates state violence as a moral necessity. Thus, the state does not simply enforce law but stages it, producing Muslim bodies as curated sites of exceptionality, a spectacle of threat through which the state can continually assert its authority as a restrained, benevolent protector (Derrida, 1992). ...
This paper critically examines how Canadian counter-terrorism policy operationalizes the aestheticization of state violence through the strategic curation of Muslim visibility. Drawing on Agamben’s theory of the state of exception, Foucault’s biopolitics, and Derrida’s mystical foundation of authority, it argues that Canadian law stages its legitimacy through a performative act of humanitarian restraint, producing Muslim bodies as curated sites of exceptionality. The analysis situates the construction of ‘moderate’ and ‘radical’ Muslim visibility as interdependent categories that obscure structural violence, reframing coercion as protection. Case studies including Omar Khadr, John Nuttall, and Amanda Korody illustrate how legal frameworks transform state violence into a spectacle of moral governance, masking the coercive underpinnings of counter-terrorism policy as acts of benevolence. By interrogating how the law performs restraint through curatorial acts of containment and visibility management, the paper reveals how state violence is reframed as humanitarian intervention, perpetuating the logic of exceptionality as a permanent condition of governance.
... Prevailing conceptualizations of the subject and Kantian justifications of moral choices based upon universal normativity have been widely questioned from an array of schools of thought. In contrast to Kantian positions, Jacques Derrida (1992) frames ethics as a sphere that "exceeds the law," in a way that situates ethical decision-making in the sphere of uncertainty and personal responsibility. Richard Rorty, on the other hand, argues that the basis for moral behavior is not abstract reason, but "felt" solidarity that develops within particular communities. ...
... Ontological starting points that embrace relationality and uncertainty and question some of the substantialist assumptions of Western political thought about who we are as subjects are also attuned to Derrida's position that ethical decisions exceed laws and regulations and always happen in a space of undecidability (Derrida 1992). As David Campbell (1999), building on Derrida, has argued, the political salience of deconstruction resides in questioning the logics that have made violence and oppression appear natural. ...
... As a phenomenological experience, time is traditionally approached through a metaphysics of presence, although it never truly substantiates as an absolute in an ultimate experience for the subject. Instead, through concepts such as différance (Derrida 2010a(Derrida , b, c, d [1967(Derrida ], 2016b(Derrida [1974(Derrida ], 1973 and trace (Derrida 2016a(Derrida , b [1974)-which expresses the unstoppable performativity of the 'punctual' historical event through dynamics of constant iteration, conflict and deferral-Derrida captures the nonlinear ways in which time, as an event, reaches the subject, determining nonlinear and unpredictable logics of interpretation and Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
... Though anchored in the past time, or to be discovered in the future, the meaning of truth is always there but still to come. Differently from 'the now', time is spectrally (Derrida 2010a(Derrida , b, c, d [1994, 2010a) present but still and always to come. This makes Derrida a prophet of time, a phenomenological announcer of time always present as onto-epistemologically embedded with its (epoch of) meaning and its truth to come. ...
Deconstructionist depiction of fictionality within the relationship between truth and sovereignty helps to understand how time relates to post-truth politics and to counter its proliferation within politics. The article connects the philosophical arguments of Jacques Derrida and Giorgio Agamben to explore the pervasive nature of post-truth within politics. Their differing conceptualisations of the place of time are both fundamentally rooted in the ontological problem of sovereignty, though they yield significantly different implications for post-truth politics. Derrida’s deconstruction of the temporal dimension in politics highlights the intricate relationship between the temporal and epistemological aspects inherent in the fictional narratives reinforced by sovereignty—narratives that fuel post-truth politics. This approach contrasts Agamben’s archaeological political theory, which reveals fictionality by subsuming sovereignty over time. This illuminates the epistemic challenges posed by post-truth politics and contends that deconstructionist epistemological standards are essential heuristics to counter the rise and proliferation of post-truth politics.
... His work is as a writer of performative utterances (Austin 1975), but one whose force comes from the violence latent in law (Graeber 2012;Derrida 2016). The resulting documents constitute legal beings and legal actions between them. ...
... Without the promise of enforcement, the nexus of contracts-being, as we have seen throughout this dissertation, the legal embodiment of the process of capital circulation-can be reduced to a worthless stack of papers. Violence, in this sense, is always present indirectly as that which gives force to law (Derrida 2016). In this chapter, I call attention to the constant work of contract enforcement that co-constitutes the value of even the most alienated piece of fictitious capital-of every stock, power purchase agreement or loan contract. ...
(Resumen en español abajo) This thesis examines the recent expansion of wind energy projects into Mapuche lands in the province of Malleco in the South of Chile. It shows that when wind energy arrives on these lands, it reinforces existing property relations and the land tenure of large landowners and forestry companies, and increases the criminalization of competing land claims by Mapuche groups. It argues that this is possible because of the legal work that multinational energy companies undertake to legalize their operations. Methodologically, the thesis is based on twelve months of multifaceted ethnographic fieldwork in Chile, between the capital Santiago de Chile and Collipulli, a community in the heart of Wallmapu, the Mapuche ancestral territory. It follows two specific wind farm projects, the San Andrés Wind Farm and the Malleco Wind Farm, at different stages of development. The author used a strategy of investigative ethnography, combining research in notaries' archives with interviews and participant observation. Conceptually, this thesis considers how law facilitates the circulation of capital, combining Marxist work on the circulation of capital with an institutionalist attention to capital as legally coded through private legal instruments. It shows that for the process of profit maximization and investment to take place, corporations encode exchange relations for extended periods into the future, effectively locking in property relations and giving them priority over competing, democratizing concerns. Chapter one argues that property in Malleco is conditioned by histories of colonial and dictatorial dispossession that are cemented with the arrival of wind energy. Chapters two through four detail the process of legal coding of rights for green capital. Chapter two interrogates the politics of legal personhood through which corporations and financiers legalize their operations. This chapter argues that to understand what an energy project is from a legal perspective, it is useful to think of it as a bundle of property rights that are made transferable to distant actors through law. In chapter three, by following the coding of new land rights for the arrival of wind energy, which are contingent on the maintenance of the land tenancy of large landowners. In chapter four, by asking how power purchase agreements enable the circulation of electricity as a commodity. Taken together, these three chapters show that in order for energy companies to raise capital to build wind farms, they engage in a legal coding of the future that cements social relations over land and electrical infrastructure for decades into the future. 228 Chapters five and six both question the enforcement of contracts and the relationship between the political and the economic. Chapter five describes the public and private security arrangements that were put in place to secure the construction site of the Malleco wind farm. It shows that legal certainty for investors translated into a mobilization of the state's capacity for security, i.e. the suspension of its own rules. Chapter six asks how corporations mobilize legality to manage responsibility for the externalities of their operations. It does so by asking how two different deaths on the roads outside the wind farm are constructed as events. It argues that the legal nature of the corporation makes it possible for the corporation to manage its externalities. Taken together, this thesis draws attention to the tensions between the goals of the inherently future- oriented politics of energy transitions and the futures that are legally sanctioned by corporations and investors in the private contracts of energy companies. It argues that the latter forecloses democratic politics by cementing property relations far into the future.
Resumen
Esta tesis examina la reciente expansión de proyectos de energía eólica en tierras mapuches de la provincia de Malleco, en el sur de Chile. Muestra que cuando la energía eólica llega a estas tierras, refuerza las relaciones de propiedad existentes y la tenencia de la tierra de los grandes terratenientes y las empresas forestales, y aumenta la criminalización de las reivindicaciones territoriales en competencia por parte de los grupos mapuches. Sostiene que esto es posible gracias al trabajo jurídico que realizan las multinacionales de la energía para legalizar sus operaciones. Metodológicamente, la tesis se basa en doce meses de trabajo de campo etnográfico multifacético en Chile, entre la capital Santiago de Chile y Collipulli, una comunidad en el corazón del Wallmapu, el territorio ancestral mapuche. Sigue dos proyectos concretos de parques eólicos, el Parque Eólico San Andrés y el Parque Eólico Malleco, en diferentes fases de desarrollo. La autora utilizó una estrategia de etnografía investigativa, combinando la investigación en archivos notariales con entrevistas y observación participante. Desde el punto de vista conceptual, esta tesis examina cómo el derecho facilita la circulación del capital, combinando el trabajo marxista sobre la circulación del capital con una atención institucionalista al capital codificado legalmente a través de instrumentos jurídicos privados. Demuestra que para que el proceso de maximización de beneficios e inversión tenga lugar, las corporaciones codifican las relaciones de intercambio durante largos periodos de tiempo en el futuro, bloqueando de forma efectiva las relaciones de propiedad y dándoles prioridad sobre otros intereses competidores y democratizadores. El capítulo uno argumenta que la propiedad en Malleco está condicionada por historias de desposesión colonial y dictatorial que se cimentan con la llegada de la energía eólica. Los capítulos segundo a cuarto detallan el proceso de codificación legal de los derechos del capital verde. El capítulo dos cuestiona la política de la personalidad jurídica a través de la cual las empresas y los financieros legalizan sus operaciones. En este capítulo se argumenta que, para entender lo que es un proyecto energético desde una perspectiva jurídica, es útil considerarlo como un conjunto de derechos de propiedad que se hacen transferibles a actores distantes a través de la ley. En el capítulo tres, siguiendo la codificación de los nuevos derechos sobre la tierra para la llegada de la energía eólica, que están supeditados al mantenimiento de la tenencia de la tierra de los grandes terratenientes. En el capítulo cuarto, preguntándose cómo los contratos de compraventa de energía permiten la circulación de la electricidad como mercancía. En conjunto, estos tres capítulos muestran que, para que las empresas energéticas consigan capital para construir parques eólicos, participan en una codificación legal del futuro que consolida las relaciones sociales sobre la tierra y la infraestructura eléctrica durante décadas. Los capítulos cinco y seis cuestionan el cumplimiento de los contratos y la relación entre lo político y lo económico. El capítulo cinco describe los dispositivos de seguridad pública y privada que se pusieron en marcha para proteger las obras de construcción del parque eólico de Malleco. Muestra que la certeza jurídica para los inversionistas se tradujo en una movilización de la capacidad de seguridad del Estado, es decir, en la suspensión de sus propias normas. El capítulo seis se pregunta cómo las empresas movilizan la legalidad para gestionar la responsabilidad por las externalidades de sus operaciones. Para ello, se pregunta cómo se construyen como acontecimientos dos muertes diferentes en las carreteras fuera del parque eólico. Argumenta que la naturaleza legal de la empresa hace posible que ésta gestione sus externalidades. En conjunto, esta tesis llama la atención sobre las tensiones entre los objetivos de la política inherentemente orientada al futuro de las transiciones energéticas y los futuros sancionados legalmente por las corporaciones y los inversores en los contratos privados de las empresas energéticas. Sostiene que estos últimos excluyen la política democrática al cimentar las relaciones de propiedad en un futuro lejano.
... Such an overwhelming break-as the historical limbo in which members of the Crow Nation found themselves-calls to mind Jacques Derrida's (1990=1992) treatise on 'Force of Law', subtitled 'the mystical foundation of authority'. Derrida ...
... The first concerns the temporal dimension, and specifically the type of actions taken in the present that may yield sought-after results in the future. The question concerns what kind of conditions in the present can result in a better state of affairs in the yet-to-come (Derrida 1990=1992). The second and related goal concerns the central role that AFFECT plays, and specifically fear. ...
The article examines hope as employed in short political speeches given by a Palestinian resident and activist, Mr. Saleh Diab, to a small audience of Jewish-Israelis, during the weekly Sheikh Jarrah protest in East Jerusalem. Informed by linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics, hope is viewed contextually as a resource or affordance that enables indexical connection-projection from the narrative time of the present to a future that is yet unforeseeable (yet-to-become, Derrida 1990/1992). The analysis of future-facing utterances highlights the indexical semiotics that underlie hope, connecting collaborative political action performed here-and-now in the occupied Palestinian neighborhood to its future ramifications. Examining Saleh's employment of hope points at its essential moral and affective entanglement. The article seeks to contribute to a sociolinguistic understanding of hope, as collaboratively and consistently sustained (specifically within the Israeli-Palestinian context), and more broadly to supply a clearer view of the sociolinguistics of grassroot political activism resisting oppressive regimes. (Narrative, time, indexicality, Israel-Palestine, Sheikh Jarrah, protest, demonstration, political discourse)1
... Isso porque, conforme explanado, os litígios familiares envolvem, muitas vezes, questões exógenas ao Direito. Citando o filósofo franco-argelino Jacques Derrida, o autor ainda pontua que o discurso psicanalítico, por exemplo, não apenas influencia o Direito, mas também enseja uma desconstrução do que se entende por velho discurso jurídico, dotado de "fórmulas centenárias e estabilizadas pelo dogmatismo e positivismo" (Derrida, 1990apud Pereira, 2015, p. 1877. ...
... Excedem o cálculo. São "aporéticas" pois, tal como a "Justiça", mostram-se inalcançáveis (Derrida, 1990). Desconstrói-se, assim, a ideia de um direito positivo, ou puramente impositivo. ...
Em muitos casos, os filhos são negligenciados durante o processo de separação dos pais. Questionou-se, então, sobre o que é necessário para que esses seres vulneráveis sejam protegidos dentro de seus próprios lares. Para isso, estudaram-se as legislações vigentes sobre o tema, bem como expuseram-se os efeitos dos sofrimentos advindos do divórcio dos pais na formação da personalidade da personagem Júlia, na obra Pequena coreografia do adeus, de Aline Bei. Constatou-se que os caminhos a serem implementados devem se pautar primordialmente na conscientização dos pais quanto aos achaques que se sobrepõem à separação. É preciso que se dê importância à visceralidade dos sentimentos dos filhos, para que só então a Lei, de fato, os proteja. A obra de François Ost auxiliou sobremaneira, ao lecionar que precisamente a literatura pode denunciar e liberar os possíveis, para que o Direito, em choque com a desordem exposta, cumpra seu papel de (re)codificar a realidade. Com isso, elaborou-se um caminho literário experimental do gênero “conto”, o qual, em homenagem à história de Júlia, evidenciou como o apoio incondicional por parte dos protetores legais pode auxiliar na cura e, quiçá, na precaução contra os efeitos diretos ocasionados por alguns desenlaces conjugais.
... Although law inevitably "posits an ideality that it can never realise" (Butler 1988: 18), in an authoritarian context, repetition -the "forced reiteration of norms" (Butler 1993: 94) or continuing to perform professionally as if the rule of law was real -may itself be viewed as an act of subversion. It represents a sort of "citation" (Derrida 1992: 18) to a substantive rule of law which is otherwise absent. The work of cause lawyers in particular represents "a constitutive voice of law's idealized vision and its institutional practices" (Scheingold and Sarat 2004: 141). ...
Using Cambodia as a case study, this article examines cause lawyering in a repressive political environment. It focuses on “closeted” cause lawyering, a practice that we define as the intentional pursuit of change through the legal process that is concealed for strategic purposes. Situated within the wider scholarship on (cause) lawyering in general and authoritarian Southeast Asia and China in particular, the article draws upon interviews conducted over seven years in Cambodia with 37 lawyers and human rights defenders working in practice areas considered politically controversial by the authoritarian state. We identify how closeted cause lawyers operate in such a way as to ensure professional and personal survival while quietly advancing their goals across three settings, including dignity restoration work with clients, legal professionalism in court and sustaining a moral community of like-minded lawyers. The article underscores the ongoing relevance of cause lawyering even where intentionality must be hidden, as well as the enduring importance of cause lawyers’ efforts to preserve an ideal of the rule of law. We conclude by suggesting that the authoritarian turn in a range of democracies, including the Unites States, suggests that closeted cause lawyering may be required to defend democracy even among conventional lawyers.
... The subsequent deconstruction is explicitly Derridean. On a basic level, the project of Derridean deconstruction involves the examination, complication or creation of dichotomous and aporetic structure with the goal of creating productive, irresolvable tension (Derrida, 1992). Unlike a Hegelian dialectic, Derridean deconstruction does not strive for a mediating synthesis between a thesis and antithesis. ...
Introduction. Hannah Arendt argues that, in the twentieth century, there arose diffuse systems of mendacity tied to information communication. Such ‘modern lies’ engendered self-deception among both officials and citizens, allowing the perpetuation of atrocities. In this paper, I examine self-deception from within philosophy of information, confronting and deconstructing a central dichotomy in self-deception research: that between ontological and psychological renderings of the concept. Method. Derridean deconstruction is used to create and mine tension between ontological and psychological self-deception. Ultimately, informational self-deception is reconstructed within this tension. Analysis. Ontological self-deception positions deceit as a natural and passive condition of being-in-the-world. As members of an entropic infosphere, we are all subject to self-deception, and we thus have an imperative to continually question ourselves and our information. Psychological self-deception positions such deceit as an active concept; rather than the passive condition of the many, self-deception is the active choice of a few. This opens questions surrounding intentionality, motivation and variances in levels of deceit. Conclusions. Ultimately, I reconstruct informational self-deception as sustained by the tensions between ontological and psychological self-deception, raising new questions for philosophy of information regarding what it means to be deceived.
... Penurunan ini membuat kecenderungan ketidakpercayaan dan ketidakpatuhan masyarakat terhadap aturan dan larangan yang diberlakukan karena beranggapan bahwa hukum yang semestinya netral dan adil, ternyata bias terhadap kepentingan tertentu. Dengan kata lain, ketidakselarasan sollen dan sein diakibatkan hilangnya keabsahan hukum akibat penurunan kepercayaan masyarakat atas institusi penegakan hukum dan produk hukum itu sendiri (Derrida, 1990). ...
Konsep hukum sebagai kontrol sosial merujuk pada peran hukum dalam mengatur dan mengendalikan perilaku masyarakat sehinga terwujud ketertiban yang diimplementasikan sebagian besar melalui aturan hukum tertulis. Salah satu contoh upaya kontrol sosial melalui hukum dapat ditelaah pada kendala pemberlakuan larangan impor pakaian bekas (ballpress). Meskipun telah terdapat larangan impor pakaian bekas melalui Permendag No. 40/2022, perdagangan dan permintaan pakaian bekas masih tinggi, didorong oleh faktor ekonomi dan preferensi konsumen terhadap tren berbusana dengan harga terjangkau. Dalam penelitian ini, digunakan metode penelitian hukum normatif-empiris dan pendekatan sosiolegal untuk menjelaskan kesenjangan antara idealitas hukum (sollen) dan realitas sosial (sein). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penegakan hukum yang tidak efektif dan pengaruh sosial ekonomi, seperti keterbatasan lapangan kerja dan rendahnya daya beli, menghambat efektivitas implementasi peraturan tersebut. Oleh karena itu, diperlukan evaluasi kebijakan dalam rangka menciptakan kerangka hukum yang mampu berfungsi sebagai kontrol sosial sekaligus memberikan keadilan dan kemanfaatan hukum bagi masyarakat.
... But it can also be seen as a continuation of some of the themes discussed in the previous special issue on Nietzsche, and as a prelude to the next issue on Derrida, who offered a deconstructivist reading of Kafka (cf. Derrida 1992 and2002). Although Max Brodthe savior and editor of Kafka's literary legacyexplicitly emphasizes that Nietzsche is the "exact opposite of Kafka" (Brod 1966, 259) and that the two authors should not be placed side by side, various scholars have identified certain common themes in their texts (Ries 1973;Bridgwater 1974;Grimm 1979;Engel/Auerochs 2010, 60-62) In the following, I will point out some that are particularly relevant from the axiological perspective. ...
In this editorial for the special issue on Franz Kafka, Yvanka B. Raynova examines Kafka's relationship to Nietzsche as well as the very different and often contradictory interpretations of Kafka's work by philosophers and literary critics. She argues that although Kafka's novels cannot be directly "translated into a philosophical, theological, sociological, or psychoanalytical discourse" (Jürgen Born), they should not be interpreted and evaluated solely from a literary perspective, as they raise institutional questions that have led to socio-critical and political associations that are just as urgent for us today. In this context, she refers to the controversies surrounding Kafka's work in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, to his current socio-political reception in art, and to the Kafkaesque in the contemporary world.
... As Silva argues, the state needs violence to enforce the legal rule that in itself is ineffective (Silva 2009). Her discussion of violence differs strongly from Derrida's (1992) and Benjamin's (2004) elaborations on the relationship between law and violence. The problem for Silva is not the metaphysical or mystical foundation of the law and its intimate relationship to violence, but instead the intimate relationship of the modern legal structures with race as a marker that distinguishes the bodies that do not belong to the rational space of European modernity and its legal and political architecture (Silva 2007). ...
In the last two decades in Brazil, indigenous peoples have been struggling for their rights through the practice of what they call “retomada de terras” (reappropriation of lands), which consists of reoccupying ancestral lands that were invaded by farmers or other explorers. Inspired by indigenous perspectives, new social movements are struggling for land and territory. After years of reclaiming the legal demarcation of indigenous lands or agrarian reform without a resolution from the State, they decided to act directly in the building of their territories. Within this process, there is also a production of another space, another ecology, another relationship to the land. If Carl Schmitt is right when he says that the original movement that makes law arise is the taking of land, which produces an ordering of space and defines borders that establish internal and external relations, what happens when lands are retaken and borders are reshaped? If we conceive of law in a very modern and technical conception, solely linked to an institutional image, it cannot help us to answer this question. The practice of “retomada” by the Tupinambá people and the agroecological experience of the Web of the People (Teia dos Povos) in Brazil can be an interesting path to investigate how the conditions of existence can be produced beyond abstract rights and more-than-human arrangements can change the way we live together. These practices produce justice spatially in a given territory and bring conceptions of rights rooted in the entanglements of bodies and their territories.
... The legitimation of claims enables claimants to lock assets, entitlements, and rights into seemingly neutral structures of arbitration. The institutional power to make a declaration, a distinction, or endorse a right, produces and subsequently re-produces what it merely claims to represent (Bourdieu, 1994;Butler, 1990;Derrida, 1986Derrida, , 2002. An institution that structures access and exclusion as if it merely observes a custodial function of a more hallowed, ancient, or legal principle, produces rather than representsaccess and exclusion. ...
Institutions and frontier dynamics describe apparent opposites, yet they are mutually constitutive. While institutions are characterized by rules, regulation, and order, frontier dynamics represent destruction of existing rules, the elimination of established authorities, and the active redacting of prior social contracts. We argue that frontier dynamics are characterized by a rupture of scale, which breaks down local institutional arrangements and dislocates power and decision-making. The new resources emerging in frontiers are relevant, valuable, and commodified outside of their original locales. The scalar disjuncture between the physical resource and its institutional control effectively enables the dispossession of local communities, producing frontier spaces by reshaping the visibility of rights subjects, redrawing the boundaries between property and theft, and re-embedding places in narratives of progress and development. We look at three constitutive elements of the institutionalization of resource access and control by examining performative representation, discussing the drawing of jurisdictional boundaries, and engaging the languages of legalization and legitimation. We develop the argument through the cases of fracking in Argentina and palm oil plantations in Indonesia.
... Over the past two decades, humanity has been on the edge of at least 2-3 apocalyptic events, which have led to the emergence of a generalized sense of hopelessness (Baciu et al., 2016) and doomsday scenarios, which persist in the global imaginary. Reflexive modernism (Baxter, 2020;Beck, 2009;Giddens, 1994Giddens, , 1998 and postmodernism (Derrida, 1992;Foucault, 1990Foucault, , 1995Lyotard, 1984;Wittgenstein, 2009) as contemporary philosophical paradigms (e.g., D' Andrade, 1995;Roseneau, 1993;Sahlins, 1993;Spiro, 1996), offer a weak conceptual response to the crises and are deficient in terms of providing humanity with a road map or at least a viable scenario for the upcoming future. ...
In today’s complex and unsettling global landscape, it is crucial to seek, define, and legitimize educational perspectives and research that are underpinned by philosophical paradigms that enable us to respond to unforeseen challenges and effectively address the ever-growing complexity and multiplicity of reality. The evolving nature of education – in particular – underscores the urgent need for a paradigm shift. Education itself is in crisis, dominated by unsustainable approaches and narrowly conceived solutions. The main objectives of this study are to provide a summary of the metamodernist paradigm as introduced in previous works and to conceptualize the newly established interdisciplinary principles of metamodernism for the current and future educational research. The theoretical discussion in this paper adopts a constructivist-based integral eclecticism as its methodological framework. Following a concise introduction to metamodernism as an emerging cultural paradigm, the main body of the paper examines the ontological, epistemological, axiological, and methodological dimensions of research through a metamodernist lens. These four aspects of educational research are then contextualized within a broader interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach to educational sciences, emphasizing their relevance to social practice. The paper concludes with a brief discussion on the practical implications of the concepts and conclusions presented.
... While these efforts are necessary to the objectives of equality and diversity, many feminist scholars have become stuck in the trap of exclusion and reciprocal critique in their efforts at creating just categories, as justice always lingers in the moment, the pause or the rest, i.e., the excess from the categorisations. As such, the desire for just or innocent categories within conventional as well as critical legal projects has a messianic ring to it, as a sort of Derridian 'to come' moment that can never be actualised (Derrida 1992), while situated accounts of law and justice are indeed possible (Haraway 1988). This article is not written with a desire for innocence or purity, but rather wonders with the virtual potential of law and justice as a trajectory, among others, not an arrival. ...
In legal theory and practice, the legal subject has traditionally been theorised as an autonomous and independent individual with almost superhuman intellectual and physical capabilities, whereas groups and people that do not fit this theoretical norm are conceptualised as vulnerable others. In this article, the legal subject is prefigured as a relational and affective being (or becoming), through the new materialist concept of affectivity. It is argued that the paradigmatic liberal conception of legal subjectivity and the ‘vulnerable groups’ approach to discrimination deters a multifaceted understanding of diverse and heterogeneous legal subjects situated within complex economic and ecological webs. In conclusion, the article suggests a new direction for discrimination assessment as a transformative process of reconstructing legal principles to indiscriminately accommodate the vulnerability and affectivity of all legal subjects and further diverse life forms.
In Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, Roman laws are replaced by a barbarian logic of revenge. It is a play about the collapse of an exemplary legal order and therefore of civilization as such. At a first glance, the barbarian Goths provoke the conflict: they come from the outside and subvert the state by occupying key positions in Rome’s administration. However, something else determines Rome’s downfall. On closer inspection, it becomes clear that the reason for the downfall derives from the nature of the Roman order itself and its conflicting claims of ‘piety’ (as fidelity to the law) and ‘pity’ (as human compassion). My interpretative approach is based on this discrepancy between piety and pity. It addresses the inner tension within English law in Shakespeare’s time. This tension is based on a conflict of law and equity and the differences between Roman civil law and English common law. With the help of Derrida’s understanding of justice, I will interpret this irresolvable aporia of law as a tragic structure.
This article examines The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC), assessing its achievements, challenges, and impact on transitional justice. Established in 2018 to investigate human rights abuses under Yahya Jammeh’s regime, the TRRC documented testimonies of torture, enforced disappearances, and systemic violence, creating a historical record and recommending reparative measures. However, its lack of prosecutorial power, political resistance, and structural limitations raise concerns about justice and accountability. Based on ethnographic research at the Women’s Association for Victims’ Empowerment (WAVE), this study explores how families of the disappeared navigate mourning and memory in the absence of closure. Drawing on Derrida, Ricœur, Foucault, and Arendt, it analyzes truth, power, and collective memory in shaping post-TRRC reconciliation efforts. While the TRRC provided a crucial platform for truth-telling, its legacy depends on sustained civil society advocacy and structural reform. This article argues that effective transitional justice requires grassroots activism, victim-centered approaches, and community-led initiatives beyond formal commissions.
Can legal systems make sense of the agency of autonomous technologies through prior legal codes like intellectual property law (which requires a human author or inventor), torts (which traces liability for a wrong committed to a singular agent responsible for that wrong), and contract law (whereby two rational parties agree to certain terms)? This paper uses legal theory and scholarship on artificial intelligence (AI) and society to argue that current legal systems are as yet ill-equipped to regulate autonomous technologies, particularly in terms of understanding the nature of technological agency. As a result, courtroom disputes and legal jurisprudence attending to the rights and responsibilities of AI systems depend upon and amplify popular animistic discourse that positions AI systems as quasi-human entities worthy of legal rights. After reflection on the legal frameworks available to make sense of and regulate autonomous technology, this chapter investigates controversies around AI-generated patents in order to explore how the law both fails to account for new forms of technological agency and inadvertently reaffirms the power of AI as it is deployed to radically reconfigure various sectors of the contemporary information economy.
This article poses the question, What is rhetoric enough? as a provocation about the hurdles emerging scholars must traverse. The first is fear that their scholarship is not “enough” to meet the topical, theoretical, and evidentiary standards of rhetoric studies, while the second is the criticism that there is “too much” rhetoric in communication scholarship. Together, these create a wicked polarity. This article answers this question by drawing on the strategy of prepositional criticism, which posits “both/and” answers as affirmative rejoinders to “either/or” framings of rhetoric’s grounding in either tradition or transformation. To that end, it offers five provisions that elaborate distinct forms in and of rhetoric scholarship: (1) rhetoric can be understood as a contained feature in and productive effect of discourse; (2) exigencies define the context in and purpose of scholarship; (3) theory is embedded in and an enactment of rhetorical criticism; (4) community is invoked in and a creation of academic discourse; and (5) citation can be thought of as a way to document scholars’ due diligence in their writing and as an active habit or practice of constituting a conversation.
German sociologist Norbert Elias devised a comprehensive sociological analysis of the interconnections between the processes of state formation, institutional dynamics, individual subjectivity, habitus, and the logic of their transformation over time. The historical sociology of the self, violence, crime and punishment, organizations, emotions, sexuality, social control, and sports are just a few of the many areas in which his work has significantly influenced social scientific thinking. His views have only sometimes been applied to other areas of law and social science study, with his influence in legal academia centered on criminology. This review emphasizes the potential future directions in which Elias's process-figurational approach could advance in sociolegal research and scholarship by outlining (a) the core elements of Elias's "process-figurational" sociology and his analysis of processes of civilization and decivilization, (b) Elias's observations on law and state formation; (c) a selection of the sociolegal research related to his sociological approach, in fields such as crime and punishment, evolving modes of regulation, and international relations; and (d) the potential future directions in which Elias's process-configurational approach might move in sociolegal research and scholarship. These encompass the emotive aspects of family law, human rights, and humanitarianism, as well as the interfaces between legal evolution and broader social change, legal pluralism and legal culture, tort law, constitutionalism, and the rule of law
This chapter explores the basis of the unique status and effectivity that Kant accords literary representation in the Third Critique in comparison to the basis of those actions he defines as “moral” in the Second Critique. Whereas Kant’s descriptions of the singular power of literature focus on the poet’s ability not merely to represent the natural world but to “use nature as schema[ta]” for the representation the “supersensible,” his account of moral action rests on the apparently mundane “ground” of what he calls the “the possible.” Yet the content of that account demonstrates its own remarkable condition: That any subject’s “recognition” of the “capacity” to act in “freedom” from the purely mechanical causality of the natural world can itself only be made apparent in words, a series of specifically verbal actions, all resulting in the expressed “acknowledgement” that such “free,” “moral” action is indeed “possible.” Kant’s new critical economy of our intellectual capacities thus makes of “the possible” a new, radically counterintuitive category dependent not upon a theoretical division between noumenon and phenomenon but upon the real, practical distinction between the verbal and the phenomenal. Finally, the chapter compares Kant’s description of “what the poets do” and his own specifically verbal realization of the critical moral category of the possible with Schleiermacher’s understanding of the “unity” of language with thinking and resulting equation of “critique” with “literary interpretation.”
O presente trabalho aborda a tensão inerente entre democracia e constitucionalismo, endossando a complexidade e o paradoxo dessa relação. A ideia central é a de uma "Democracia suicidária", que explora como a ação política popular, ao tensionar os limites impostos pelo constitucionalismo, pode levar à contestação constitucional e, enfim, a mudanças drásticas no arranjo jurídico-político. Discute-se a noção de um constitucionalismo democrático, que se mantém contínuo através da constante reinvenção dos direitos, destacando que o poder constituinte é uma força disruptiva que desafia o poder constituído. Ao longo do texto, é enfatizada a natureza dialética e conflitante entre a vontade popular e a estrutura formal da constituição, propondo que a ação política, mesmo sem mediação, é medular para a vitalidade democrática. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa desenvolve-se por meio de enfoque qualitativo e abordagem crítico-propositiva, fundamentada na literatura constitucional progressista e na teoria política radical. O artigo conclui que, apesar da aparente estabilidade do constitucionalismo, a democracia continua a se afirmar por meio de ações que questionam, transformam e antagonicamente ameaçam as normas constitucionais estabelecidas.
The current era of environmental crises and their seeming intractability, particularly in the context of an entrenched capitalist order, has given rise to a deep-felt pessimism about the possibility of meaningful change. Despite this pessimism, a utopian impulse can still be imagined within the very terms of that pessimism. Drawing from the work of Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler, an analysis of the iterated violence that constitutes the political status quo points to an always available opening in which the utopian impulse for an environmental democracy can be imagined and problematized. That utopian moment points toward the substantive content of such an environmental democracy even as it enjoins an ongoing critique of such a utopian aspiration, underwriting a reflexive, critical ethos premised on a noninstrumental relationship to both the human and nonhuman others diminished by the progress-centric spirit of our time.
Is the state monopoly on the use of legitimate violence a modern invention that refers exclusively to a particular provincial sociohistorical phenomenon that emerged in seventeenth-century Europe? The answer this paper presents is no. Instead, I argue that the canonical Eurocentric epistemic communities have sought to displace other systems of governance and administration and replace them with European and Westphalian-like models. Yet, an urgent question remains unanswered: Why were political scientists and political sociology scholars from the Global South forced to adopt these [Eurocentric] theses and apply them to other, diverse regions, which have had different and prior historical, social, political, cultural, and economic experiences from Europe? To answer these questions, the paper adopts a decolonial approach to examine the following hypothesis: internal violence, repression, and control (from above) were the constitutive factors of forming and preserving political authority necessary for the establishment and development of modern states outside the Western hemisphere. To do so, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn Ḵẖaldūn’s (1332–1406) theses on the ontological and constitutive role of violence are deployed to critique the Weberian principle of the state’s monopoly over the legitimate use of physical force. I present what I call the Ḵẖaldūnian trilogy of ʿasabiyya, al-Daʿwa al-Diīniyah, al-shāwkāh wa al-ghālbāh wa al-qāhr (i.e., the dominant group, religious-ideological discourse, force majeure, and repression-domination), upon which state/authority relies to constitute and consolidate its power and legitimacy, without being occupied with either the legality or the justice of this violence, as epistemic alternative of the Eurocentric conceptions of state-building.
The multilateral territorial dispute over the South China Sea has intensified in recent years. In response, some observers endorse the apparent turn to "lawfare" on display in the ongoing Philippines v. China arbitration, conducted under Annex VII of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Yet the limited subject matter of this arbitration means that it can contribute only modestly to any ultimate resolution between claimants. Indeed, the Chinese side has argued against tribunal jurisdiction precisely on the basis of the primacy of questions over territorial sovereignty-which are barred from UNCLOS proceedings-to the determination of all other legal issues being contested between the parties. This Article assesses the merits of these and other major objections to the UNCLOS arbitration and proposes a supplemental legal mechanism: an international Commission of Inquiry (COI) by involved states, addressing French, Japanese, and other extra-regional states' now inactive claims regarding the sovereign status of the region's various island territories through the end of World War II hostilities in 1945. Such a COI would acknowledge, as the UNCLOS arbitration does not, the centrality of the legal issue of territorial sovereignty to the dispute. Yet by limiting its findings to the islands' contested status during the period of European and Japanese colonialism in Asia, rather than determining current ownership, a COI could nonetheless avoid exacerbating tensions or alienating claimants.
In this article I analyze different approaches that, from diverse fields are aimed to take action in connection with poor childhood. In Argentina, among the most outstanding narratives, psychoanalysis is the one that stands out from the rest; after its success in clinical practice, it continues showing vocation towards the long- suffering and excluded childhood.However, psychoanalytic interventions (in the slums, at school, etc.) frequently seem to psychologyze the conflict and the social drama. The political efficiency of psychoanalysis has been also questioned by the new philosophical pragmatism which distrusts the public utility of psychoanalysis. The analysis is closed by a theoretical debate about this huge controversial issue that brings deconstruction theoreticians and the American philosopher, Richard Rorty, face to face, in order to finally retake Lacan's reflections on psychoanalysis and politics. Key words: Psychoanalysis, politics, childhood, poverty, pathologization, Deconstruction, Pragmatism.
What went right in the Philippine EDSA Revolution of 1986? A protracted martial law was ended. What went subsequently wrong? Normalised emergency has come to define Philippine political society, tragically demonstrated by the continuing drug war and the recent Anti-Terrorism Law-sanctioned slaughters. The transition from permanent martial law to a normalised emergency is driven by the liberal fear of the Schmittian challenge of the absolute sovereign—thus pushing the encodement of emergency powers within the law and, as such, normalising them. But Carl Schmitt was primarily correcting a perceived weakness of the Weimar Republic by preserving the potential for exceptional powers within the law, and as such, within its liberal system. Instead, his real opponent was Walter Benjamin, the other protagonist in what Giorgio Agamben describes as a “gigantomachy concerning a void.” At stake was the theoretical appropriation of the concept of exception. Is its decision the monopoly of the sovereign as Schmitt claimed? Or is it outside the
law and the sovereign can only exclude it as Benjamin maintained? But, for us trapped in a state of exception that is the rule, the more important question is: How does this debate resolve the theoretical and practical puzzles raised by the ruinous practice of an after-martial law experienced as normalised emergency?
This paper investigates the intersection of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and educational justice, analyzed through Derrida's deconstruction theory. Using a qualitative conceptual analysis, it examines Derrida's critique of technology and AI, demonstrating how his philosophy offers new insights into the challenges of achieving educational justice in the digital age. Key issues addressed include access to information, the transformation of knowledge, the redistribution of power, and the potential redefinition of educational objectives due to technological limitations. Also, the study through concrete examples, demonstrates how AI reflects Derrida's deconstructive philosophy, particularly in decentralizing traditional educational structures. The rise of AI-powered platforms challenges the authority of conventional educational institutions and reshapes the teacher-student relationship by blurring the boundaries between educator and learner. Additionally, AI technologies disrupt conventional notions of time and space, enabling asynchronous and remote learning that transcends geographical boundaries. The paper also explores the dissolution of the speech-writing dichotomy, where AI-driven chatbots blur the distinction between oral and written communication. Finally, it examines the transformation of authorship in the digital realm through AI-generated content, highlighting the ethical and philosophical implications of machines' participation in creative processes. This study offers critical insights into how AI is reshaping education, with significant implications for justice and inclusivity.
The ‘hermeneutical transcendental’ of divinity poses the question of the capacity of the self (and indeed of nature) to realise itself. This question is at the core of the myth of the fall and in this chapter this myth is examined through three (or in fact four) attempts to interpret it. These are those of Kant (two distinct attempts), Hegel and Benjamin. It is shown how despite their differences these four accounts all show the fall as an ambiguous event: both a falling away from nature and an assertion of the human self as a reasoning being. This shows the human as being in tension with both the natural and divine modes of being. The way this tension has been discussed in Christian theology is through the motif of grace and the chapter explores the manner in which the question of grace threatens to set up a chasm between the natural and the supernatural. However, within the notion of grace is the idea that grace is itself graced, i.e., that the human recognition of incapacity is a turning towards a source traced in itself and in nature, but irreducible to either. The chapter closes through an attempt to think this relation through an account of the Incarnation as the becoming material of the divine. Such an understanding can give an account of the relation of self, nature and divinity as aspects of world, in tension, but never separate. Leading in the end to a kind of pantheism.
In legal dilemmas and tragic cases the identification and application of the correct and relevant norms able to solve the controversy is extremely difficult. In this essay I argue that the argumentative patterns chosen in the adjudication process play a major role in grounding the legal decision, even if this may move us far from the usual depiction of judicial discretion as a choice between equally legitimate alternatives. Grounding on the philosophical significance of the relationships between law, tragic and the phenomenon of undecidability as well as on cases from different jurisdictions, I claim that it is possible to argue for a “right to justification” in legal dilemmas.
Both Durkheim and Derrida think through the ‘structurality of structure’, or the arbitrary and empty nature of a central, onto-theological/metaphysical authority. In response, Derrida articulates a deconstructive ethics and politics that remains continuously open to the infinite alterity of the other and that subverts metaphysical thought. Durkheim, however, concludes that structure is an inherent feature of social life. He argues that all moral systems necessarily contain metaphysical dimensions that deconstruction actively works against, notably through the notion of the sacred. This article discusses Derrida's deconstructive ethics and politics, assesses its claims from a Durkheimian perspective, and argues that deconstruction contains a notion of the sacred in the form of infinite alterity. Deconstruction thus contains a moral authority and is marked by an unacknowledged onto-theology. Derrida's democracy to come thus creates a stable and structured group identity and constitutes a form of what Durkheim identifies as the cult of the individual.
Durkheim et Derrida réfléchissent tous les deux sur la ‘structuralité de la structure’, ou la nature arbitraire et vide d'une autorité centrale onto-théologique/métaphysique. En réponse, Derrida articule une éthique et une politique déconstructives qui restent constamment ouvertes à l'altérité infinie de l'autre et qui subvertissent la pensée métaphysique. Durkheim conclut, au contraire, que la structure est un élément inhérent de la vie sociale. Il argumente que tous les systèmes moraux contiennent nécessairement des dimensions métaphysiques auxquelles la déconstruction s'oppose, notamment par la notion du sacré. Cet article examine l’éthique et la politique déconstructives de Derrida, évalue ses arguments d'un point de vue durkheimien, et argumente que la déconstruction contient une notion du sacré sous forme d'altérité infinie. La déconstruction contient donc une autorité morale et elle est marquée par une onto-théologie non-reconnue. La démocratie à venir de Derrida crée donc une identité de groupe stable et structurée, et elle constitue une forme de ce que Durkheim appelle le culte de l'individu.
This chapter focuses on the notion of seal in the last sentence of Walter Benjamin’s “Toward the Critique of Violence.” Benjamin uses seal as a metaphor of divine violence. By putting this metaphor in the broader context of Benjamin’s work, the author demonstrates that it plays a strategic role in the conceptualization of divine violence. By turning to works like Origin of the German Trauerspiel, “Fate and Character,” fragments on painting, and “The Work of Art in the Age of its Reproducibility” the author demonstrates that in Benjamin’s thought printing and sealing which are necessarily connected to iterability are endowed with an anti-mythical potential. Special attention is paid to the examples of mythical and divine violence—Niobe and Korah. Iterability of the seal interrupts the homogeneous temporality of myth and brings about legibility which is understood as a rhythm of interruptions and legible imprints. Relying on Derrida’s reading of the essay on violence, the author establishes a connection between the notion of seal and Benjamin’s signature at the end of the essay. This chapter demonstrates that the motif of sealing is associated with liberation from myth throughout Benjamin’s entire oeuvre from early essays and the text on violence to “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Reproducibility.”
In this article, we examine some of the theoretical and methodological challenges facing Participatory Action Research (PAR), including the continued challenge of the silence of the subaltern, the re-subjugating power relations in many traditional epistemologies of research production, and the problems of representation. We attempt to address these considerations by looking beyond the relational, outlining the originary call to ethics at the heart of PAR in terms of a commitment to a sustained engagement with that which outstrips relationality, namely the radical alterity of the other. Proposing a rigorous articulation of the concept of translation as a means of meaningfully and ethically thinking with the subaltern, disenfranchised, and at-risk — including young people — in PAR, we unpack Spivak’s articulation of a hesitant love in translation that is marked by a surrendering to the call of the other, and to the work of putting oneself into a position not to ‘speak for’ but to ‘hear from’ the unknowable, and un-preemptable other. Understanding love as a doing that affects, we outline the need to consider ‘action’ in PAR in terms of practice beyond happenings, representations, and method, to acknowledge the movements and shifts in the research encounter that refuse representational knowing. We add to this by outlining the researcher’s ontological indebtedness to this alterity by re-considering our notion of translation in terms of Heidegger’s trans-position, highlighting the ‘rhizovocality’ of the research encounter as fundamentally beyond any notion of authentic voice or settled subjectivities. In highlighting the ontological dependency inherent in the research encounter, we revisit the commitment of PAR as a work of being vulnerable — of putting ourselves into play by dwelling with the foreignness of the other, and in doing so, trans-posing ourselves unto new understanding.
To shoot from a pistol: this essay explores the anxiety of beginning through a reading of Hegel and Gillian Rose. Hegel is anxious about philosophical beginnings and the presuppositions which they might take for granted. Yet he is also anxious to begin, to not waste time securing the beginning in advance, which would indefinitely forestall beginning altogether. For Hegel, one must take the risk of beginning, without any guarantees, if only to discover in retrospect the beginning's shortcomings and failings. Gillian Rose takes this up in her reading of the philosophical canon. Past works are not dogma, unquestionable authorities which tell us what to think, but the work of authorships which, if followed, open up a space for self-reflexive and self-corrective thinking. She also takes it up in her conception of identity. She does not write ‘as a woman’ or ‘as a Jew’, for that would presuppose and fix those identities in advance as a beginning without anxiety. Instead, writing is the means of anxiously developing these identities and discovering their plasticity. Furthermore, Rose takes up the anxiety of beginning in her critique of those philosophies which infer from our failure to think the absolute that the absolute itself is a failure. For Rose, the failure to think the absolute must be recognised as a failure determined by its beginning in the middle of bourgeois property law (or capitalism). In this, I mount a Rosean critique of Slavoj Žižek who transforms the determined failure to think the absolute into an undetermined metaphysics which says that the absolute is a failure. Finally, she takes it up in her notion of justice. Unlike Derrida, for whom justice is a messianic promise outside the law, Rose argues that justice may only be realised through the anxiety of beginning, through the risky activity of the assuming and exercising of power for the sake of the universal interest, activity arising from a comprehension of actuality. This essay will recover the essential point that the (broken) middle for Rose is not only a spatial term, but a narratological or temporal term, naming the passage between the beginning and the end, which at once undoes the certainty of any beginning or end. The essay ends with some reflections on the anxiety of beginning in Palestine.
Throughout, the paper examines the concept of the unexpected. Heraclitus, Kostas Axelos, and Bernard Stiegler are invoked to decipher the impossible-possibility encapsulated in Heraclitus’ Fragment 18. The term ‘unhoped-for’ signifies the ‘un-passable’ or ‘un-traversable,’ akin to an insurmountable enigma. Aporia, or a difficult-to-resolve impasse, is associated with this sense. The unexpected challenges all expectations, revealing the hidden truth within aporia. The ‘methodology’ to transcend the aporon echoes Heidegger’s pursuit as Being tends toward self-concealment. This exploration urges us to consider the utterly unforeseen and discover possibilities in the impossible itself, emphasizing the need to be radically open to the as-yet undiscovered. With this in mind, the paper considers Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of absolute deterritorialization, the question of utopia, and engages with an array of contemporary continental thinkers to highlight the transformative potential of crisis, exhaustion, and uncertainty. The image of the spiral is invoked as a metaphor for the creativity inherent in thought itself.
Multispecies Justice (MSJ) is a theory and practice seeking to correct the defects making dominant theories of justice incapable of responding to current and emerging planetary disruptions and extinctions. Multispecies Justice starts with the assumption that justice is not limited to humans but includes all Earth others, and the relationships that enable their functioning and flourishing. This Element describes and imagines a set of institutions, across all scales and in different spheres, that respect, revere, and care for the relationships that make life on Earth possible and allow all natural entities, humans included, to flourish. It draws attention to the prefigurative work happening within societies otherwise dominated by institutions characterised by Multispecies Injustice, demonstrating historical and ongoing practices of MSJ in different contexts. It then sketches speculative possibilities that expand on existing institutional reforms and are more fundamentally transformational. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
The paper explores the intersection of feminist legal theory and the concept of neutrality, addressing the challenges contemporary feminist legal scholarship faces in reconciling the ideal of gender or sexual neutrality with the realities of legal practice. It examines the evolution from liberal feminism, which emphasises sex-blind equality, to difference feminism, which highlights the importance of recognising and accommodating differences. Through a critical analysis of supposed ‘double binds’ confronting difference feminism, the paper investigates the implications of contextualising legal subjects within broader social and relational contexts. It also evaluates the interplay between feminist legal theory and other critical theories, particularly concerning class and race. By delving into current debates on legal subject conceptualisation, the role of psychoanalysis in feminist thought, and the advocacy for special rights for women, the paper aims to provide a nuanced understanding of how feminist strategies can navigate and potentially subvert entrenched stereotypes and power dynamics within the legal system.
Starting out from some early reservations in Derrida about linearity and formal deduction, both in general and as possible descriptions of his own work, this essay revisits some figures of lines and boundaries, limits and borders, frontiers and terms, to suggest the possibility of a more complex but still somewhat formalizable structure, a braided line or fractal curve, a quasi-linear and quasi-deductive ‘order of reasons’ that might hope to respect the inventive unpredictability of Derrida’s oeuvre, while also claiming something of a formalizable coherence, a through line running from the early thought of originary complexity or the trace, through the pervasive deconstructive logic of necessary possibility, to the quasi-transcendental structures exemplified here by the complex relation of ‘universal structure’ and ‘historical instantiation’ in what Derrida calls a ‘messianicity without messianism’.
O artigo trata de mostrar que há uma “estrutura do ouvido” tacitamente anunciada por alguns textos de Derrida, produzida pelo seu próprio gesto de cortar notas, orações e frases de seus textos ao longo dos anos. Especificamente, examina-se a relação entre Otobiographies (Derrida, 1984), “Prénom de Benjamin” (Derrida, 1994a) e “Geschlecht IV” (Derrida, 1994b). Propõe-se que se podem ouvir outros sentidos no que se diz em “Prénom de Benjamin”, seguindo as cicatrizes desses cortes nos textos em suas diferentes versões. A exposição começa considerando momentos da relação de Derrida com o Estruturalismo, derivando daí que essa relação pode ser caracterizada pela multiplicação de estruturas, aproximando-se dos traços que Deleuze (1972) reconhecia como “estruturalistas”. Logo, entra-se na substância do artigo tendo em mente que uma “estrutura do ouvido” se projeta em negativo ao se acompanharem as considerações explícitas de Derrida acerca do ouvido constrasando-as com o que se ouve nos cortes realizados em seu texto.
Pascal's work is punctuated by a paradox. On the one hand, only a handful of the texts that constitute it are explicitly political; on the other hand, it is haunted by a constant political concern. In order to resolve this paradox, the author shows that Pascal asks us to rethink the very definition of politics. Emerging on the basis of a double human nature marked by the Fall, violence is an ontological problem that arises from the need to preserve an infinite object for human love. For this reason, its solution lies in affective self-regulation that makes politics an exclusively behavioralist field that cannot be a part of the intimacy of individuals that belong to another order. Thus, Pascalian politics does no more than serve the same gesture of the divine creation of the human being that keeps him alive in order to praise God; Pascalian politics is, then, an indirect way of realizing God’s will: its différance.
In N.K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy, core laws are written on stone. But the tablets are incomplete, open to interpretation and their authorship uncertain. Nonetheless, Stone Law forms the basis of the governance system. Ultimately, the narrative reveals that the Stone Laws are recent in origin and an instrument of subjugation whose claims to common sense belie its harms. This article considers immutability in law and the ways in which particular laws become as if written in stone. Constitutional law and jus cogens are two examples of immutable worldbuilding laws represented as inevitable, absolute, unyielding and perpetual. Debates in law and humanities on genre, performance, interpretation and the concerns of a particular era are often reflected and refracted through both the laws and the literature of an era. In particular, the practice of worldbuilding is used to demonstrate the wariness necessary when laws are represented as immutable.
As biological taxonomists have only recently begun to acknowledge, humanity is stuck in a tension between its myriad social, cultural, political and religious cosmologies – its various umwelten – and the desire for rational, scientific classification. What does it mean that the rational logics of classifications that we so readily employ to recognise the reality before our eyes cannot account for the passionate attachments that exceed any categorical identifications and actually make us who we are, because these are the lives we live beyond our ability to define them? What our focus upon the politics of recognition often misses is that intimate connections between persons – what we might call a more authentic form of recognition, a true seeing of the other – often goes beyond recognition, beyond any classifications that society foists upon us. I explore this question directly, pointing to possibilities for better recognition of this tension and how such recognition can reform society.
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