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Force and “Mystical Foundation” of Law: How Jacques Derrida Addresses Legal Discourse

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Petra Gehring

Extract

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In the 1970s and 80s, the philosophical works of Jacques Derrida became known well beyond the borders of France and beyond the limits of the French language. It was a radical and disturbing new form of materialism which made Derrida's thought so notorious: a philosophy of writing, of différance, of the movements of negation which always escape our grasp – with the effect that all theoretical trust in the idea of “presence” is undermined. Derrida develops his thought relentlessly on the border between form and content. It could be said that he balances on this border. And he conceives these diverse, experimental balancing acts, which are portrayed as readings of other texts, as a procedure in its own right – a procedure, called “deconstruction”, which has a distinctly irritating effect on the reader.

Type
Articles: Special Issue: A Dedication to Jacques Derrida – Justice
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 1: Articles: Special issue - A Dedication to Jacques Derrida , 01 January 2005 , pp. 151 - 169
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Derrida, Jacques, Tympanon, Marges de la Philosophie I-XXV, I (1972).Google Scholar

2 Compare further the striking profession: “En ce moment měme dans cet ouvrage me voici.“ (Jacques Derrida Psyche. Inventions de l'autre 159-202 (1987)). Derrida's early essay on Levinas (Violence et métaphysique, in L'écriture et la différence 117-228 (Jacques Derrida 1967)), by contrast, keeps a clear distance as far as the substance is concerned, dismissing the foundational claims of Levinas's ethics in their metaphysical aspects.Google Scholar

3 Compare further Rodolphe Gasché, A Relation called “Literary”: Derrida on Kafka's “Before the Law”, 2 ASCA. Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis 17-33 (1995) (German translation: Eine sogenannte “literarische” Erzählung: Derrida über Kafkas “Vor dem Gesetz”, in Einsätze des Denkens. Zur Philosophie von Jacques Derrida 256-286, 260 (Hans-Dieter Gondek, Bernhard Waldenfels eds., Antje Kapust trans., 1997); see also Hans-Dieter Gondek/Bernhard Waldenfels, Derridas performative Wende, id. at 7-18 (this formulation is also used).Google Scholar

4 Gondek, Hans-Dieter, Zeit und Gabe, id. at 183, 186.Google Scholar

5 Derrida, Jacques, Force de loi: Le “fondement mystique de l'autorité”, 11 Cardozo Law Review 919-1045 (1990) (republished: Paris 1994) (German translation: Gesetzeskraft. Der “mystische Grund der Autorität” (Alexander García Düttmann trans., 1991)). The first publication is bilingual (French and English); therefore, I shall cite three page numbers: French and English separated by a slash, followed by the page number in the German translation. If indicated, this last shall be included in a footnote with an alternative German translation.Google Scholar

6 Benjamin speaks of positive law and uses the term Rechtsordnung (legal order) for it. Compare further Walter Benjamin, Zur Kritik der Gewalt, in Gesammelte Schriften II/1 179-203 (Walter Benjamin 1977).Google Scholar

7 Derrida, supra note 5 at 946/947 (German trans. at 33).Google Scholar

8 Id. at 924/925 (German trans. at 12). Literally translated into German as “Anwendbarkeit.“ What is meant is doubtless the wide field of conditions of what is classically called the “Wirksamkeit“ (effect) of law as distinct from its mere “Geltung“ (validity).Google Scholar

9 Derrida, supra note 5 at 946/947 (German trans. at 34).Google Scholar

10 Id. at 1006/1007 (German trans. at 90).Google Scholar

11 Id. at 942/943 (German trans. at 28) (“Es gibt da ein Schweigen, das in die gewaltsame Struktur des Stiftungsaktes eingeschlossen ist.“).Google Scholar

12 Id. at 990/991 (German trans. at 78).Google Scholar

13 Benjamin, supra note 6 at 191.Google Scholar

14 Id. at 192; Derrida only quotes this formulation, prior to it the formulation “culture of the heart” (see further 1016- 1018/1017-1019, 99-100); surprisingly, he does not go into the idea of the pure means as a technique in any more detail. However, this point seems to be central for Benjamin – also with respect to language (writing?).Google Scholar

15 Benjamin, supra note 6 at 191.Google Scholar

16 Derrida confronts the anarchistic revolutionary Benjamin and the Jew Benjamin with certain questionable political implications of the metaphor of “purity”; these are passages in which his deconstruction can only be regarded as embarrassingly unsuccessful: for example, when Derrida juxtaposes the question of death without shedding blood (claiming that for Benjamin the lack of blood is the subliminal “decisive” indication of “divine” punishment) to the bloodless extermination technology of the “final solution” (compare further with Derrida, supra note 5 at 1026/1027); or when, in the postscript, Derrida raises the tormented the question as to what Benjamin “would have thought, in the logic of his text … of both Nazism and the final solution” (see further id. at 1040).Google Scholar

17 Derrida: “ultime indécidabilité qui est celle de tous les problèmes de droit” (Derrida, supra note 5 at 1020/1021 (German trans. at 102)); compare further Benjamin, supra note 6 at 196.Google Scholar

18 Derrida, supra note 5 at 1020/1021 (German trans. at 102).Google Scholar

19 Id. at 996/997 (German trans. at 83).Google Scholar

20 In contrast to the English word “justice“ and “justice“ in French (the language of Force de loi), German distinguishes terminologically between “Justiz“ and “Gerechtigkeit,” that is, between the institution which delivers justice and justice itself.Google Scholar

21 Derrida, supra note 5 at 1024/1025 (German trans. at 104).Google Scholar

22 Id. at 960/961 (German trans. at 46).Google Scholar

23 Id. at 966/967 (German trans. at 53) (“Die Fälligkeit, die den Wissenshorizont versperrt.”).Google Scholar

24 Id. at 966/967 (German trans. at 54) (“Eine gerechte Entscheidung ist immer unmittelbar erforderlich.”).Google Scholar

25 “Undekonstruierbarkeit.“Google Scholar

26 See, e.g., Derrida, supra note 5 at 944/945 (German trans. at 30-31).Google Scholar

27 Id. at 944/945 (German trans. at 30).Google Scholar

28 Id. at 970/969-971 (German trans. at 56-57). It is well known that elsewhere Derrida indeed accepted the term “messianism” to charactise deconstruction. Without a “quasi-'messianisme’ aussi inquiet, fragile et demunié / uneasy, fragile and disarmed quasi-'messianism,'” a “'messianisme’ toujours présupposé, un ‘messianisme’ quasi transcendentale/ a ‘messianism’ which is always presupposed, a quasi-transcendental ‘messianism'” there would only be “law without justice.” Jacques Derrida, Spectres de Marx 267 (1993) (German translation: Marx’ Gespenster 264-265 (Susanne Lüdemann trans., 1996).Google Scholar

29 Derrida, supra note 5 at 946/947 (German trans. at 33).Google Scholar

30 Id. at 970/971 (German trans. at 57).Google Scholar

31 Id. at 954/955 (German trans. at 40) (“Man muß mit/gegenüber der Gerechtigkeit gerecht sein.“).Google Scholar

32 Id. at 964/965 (German trans. at 52).Google Scholar

33 Compare further Emmanuel Levinas, Totalite et Infini. Essai sur l'exteriorité chapter I (1961) (republished 1991) (German translation: Totalität und Unendlichkeit. Versuch über die Exteriorität (Wolfgang Nikolaus Krewani trans., 1987).Google Scholar

34 Derrida, supra note 5 at 930/931 (German trans. at 18).Google Scholar

35 Id. at 932/933 (German trans. at 19) (“…zweifellos notwendiger und unvermeidbarer Art – zwischen einer Dekonstruktion, deren Stil eher philosophisch oder durch die Literaturtheorie angeregt ist und einer juridisch-literarischen Reflexion und den ‘Critical Legal Studies.'”).Google Scholar

36 See, e.g., id. at 980/981 (German trans. at 68).Google Scholar

37 Id. at 952/953 (German trans. at 40).Google Scholar

38 Id. at 954/955 (German trans. at 40).Google Scholar

39 Id.Google Scholar

40 Id. at 972/971 (German trans. at 58).Google Scholar

41 See, e.g,., id at 972/973 (German trans. at 59).Google Scholar

42 See, e.g,. id at 962/963 (German trans. at 50).Google Scholar

43 Special thanks to David Kennedy for his help to find the word.Google Scholar