Without negative origins and absoeute ends: A jurisprudence of the singuear

Law and Critique

Volumn 13, Issue 2, 2002, Pages 197-230

  Zartaloudis, Thanos ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LONDON   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Absolute ends; Agamben; Dike; Ground; Heidegger; Heraclitus; Immanence; Jurisprudence; Justice; Metaphysics; Myth; Nancy; Negativity; Nihilism

Indexed keywords

EID: 0037713251     PISSN: 09578536     EISSN: 15728617     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1019952401498     Document Type: Article

References (130)

1. To engage with M. Heidegger's thinking does not mean that my analysis is 'Heideggerian', as a peculiar convention seems to attach this 'naming' to any such engagement. My analysis is proximate and different to Heidegger's questioning, in order for a certain realignment of questioning to move, to an extent, into other directions (while not in the sense of a meaningless 'overcoming'). Nor is my engagement, here, ignorant of Heidegger's involvement with Nazism. Without silencing or apology, thinking may be seen to be still needed.
2. See generally, J-L. Nancy, The Sense of the World (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).
3. Such negative presuppositions are shared by legal theorists from J. Finnis' 'reason' in Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)
4. to R. Dworkin's 'integrity' in Law's Empire (London: Fontana, 1986), to a mention only a few examples. Indeed, the dialectical discourse that has defined jurisprudence in the relation between natural law and positivism is a decision on the presupposition (irrespective of whether one aims to unite, distinguish or silence the relation between the two planes).
5. J-L. Nancy, The Gravity of Thought (New York: Humanity Books, 1997), 34.
6. Jacques Derrida's deconstruction has performed the late modern critique of such mythological metaphysics, but to risk a bold claim, it may have not gone far enough. To undertake such a critique of western metaphysics and to then posit the impossibility of overcoming the (in)finite undecideability of/on the limit of metaphysics is one significant gesture. To question even further the risk of such undecideability becoming yet another repetition of the limit after its deconstruction, may indeed require a critique that aims at the destruction of such an impossibility granted out of yet another possibility.
7. The nihilism that Nancy criticizes is the 'return to the same (an unaltered identity)', while Nietzsche's, for Nancy, is an 'exposure to an infinity of meaning' (this is what I call here 'absolute nihilism'), see supra n. 3, at 4.
8. See generally M. Blanchot, The Unavowable Community (New York: Station Hill Press, 1988)
9. and J-L. Nancy, The Inoperative Community (Minneapolis: University of Minessota Press, 1991).
10. It is crucial to rethink the problem of such ends. To this direction, see J-L. Nancy's treatment of the 'end' in supra n. 2.
11. "The term metaphysics indicates the tradition of thought that conceives of the selfgrounding of being as a negative foundation", see G. Agamben, Language and Death, the Place of Negativity (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1991).
12. This cannot be treated here in any significant detail; see G. Agamben, Potentialities (California: Stanford University Press, 1999), 177-185.
13. For critiques of 'presence', see J. Derrida, Speech and Phenomena and Other Essays on Husserl's Theory of Signs (Evaston: Northwestern University Press, 1973), 97;
14. J. Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 1978), 280-281;
15. and C. Douzinas and R. Warrington, Justice Miscarried (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), Chapter 1.
16. See A. Badiou, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000).
17. The main reference, henceforth, is to M. Heidegger, Being and Time (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1962).
18. 'One cannot undertake to define being without falling into this absurdity. For one cannot define a word without beginning in this way: 'It is . . .'. This beginning may be expressed or implied. Thus, in order to define being one must say 'It is . . .' and hence employ the word to be defined in its definition', see Pascal, Pensees et Opuscules, trans. H.F. Stewart (New York, Pantheon Books, 1950), 169.
19. This is the basis for what Heidegger conceives, at this stage of his work, as the ontic-ontological difference: the ontic is the everyday particularity of our understanding of being(s), while the ontological is the underlying phenomenon of Being.
20. See Part I of Being and Time, supra n. 12.
21. Supra n. 8, at 56.
22. Where a liberal legal system provides moral content as to a certain conception of 'community' in its division-fusion of private-public domains of activity and interaction, it never questions the very presupposition that lies before and under the moralising content of what is held to be 'in common': that is the questioning of being-with, or being-incommon which comes prior (and against moralization while it still remains 'too close to it'). Indeed, with E. Levinas a critique of Heidegger's 'Being-with' becomes necessary, yet whilst keeping in mind J. Derrida's critique of the Levinasian reading of Heidegger; see, J. Derrida, Writing and Difference (London: Routledge, 1978), Chapter 4. A different reading of both Heidegger and Levinas, however, is Nancy's reinterpretation of 'being-with';
23. see J-L. Nancy, Being Singular Plural (California: Stanford University Press, 2000).
24. See paragraph 40 of Being and Time, supra n. 12.
25. See Heidegger, Being and Time, ibid., 84f, 187, 234, 405, 464, for some of the more detailed accounts of this.
26. Heidegger, Being and Time, ibid., at 344.
27. 'Aletheia', with a risk of oversimplification, can be explained as Heidegger's attempt to break away from the conception of truth as adequatio or correctness (what could be called the 'common sense' of truth).
28. For Heidegger non-philosophy, at this stage, is pre-philosophy, the pre-ontological (which will later in his work 'remain' continuous with philosophy).
29. This implies a critical rereading of the structuring of Dasein in Heidegger, which I borrow from G. Agamben's early work, see further supra n. 8. Da-sein, usually translated as Being-there, is here to be re-translated into Being-the-there, in order to highlight the positioning of Dasein's thereness as a negative 'presence'.
30. Supra n. 8, at 2, and Heidegger, supra n. 12, 329-331; Death is conceived here as a human capacity. Dasein anticipates its impossibility, for it cannot experience death 'as such', by conceptualising another 'death' that it places on a negative register of (im)possibility. Only thus, by negativizing 'death-as-such' can Dasein anticipate its 'own' death, and discourse on his/her own totality.
31. Supra n. 12, at 318.
32. Supra n. 8, at 59.
33. See further, M. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959);
34. Early Greek Thinking (New York: Harper & Row, 1975)
35. and the "Letter on Humanism", in D.F. Krell, M. Heidegger: Basic Writings (New York: Harper, 1977).
36. Supra n. 12, at 358. Heidegger discusses the problem of negativity in crucial passages of Being and Time, see ibid., 312-348.
37. Alternatively, but most crucially, this is what Agamben thinks on the plane of language as between Voice-voice; see Agamben, supra n. 9. Jean-Luc Nancy thinks of something similar on the plane of existence as between Sense-meaning. See, J-L. Nancy, supra n. 2.
38. This reference to the human rights discourse, presupposes the analysis of C. Douzinas, The End of Human Rights (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2000).
39. For my proximity and difference to this analysis, see my (with S. Motha) forthcoming Human Rights: With and Against the Final Word (2002).
40. Consider, for instance, all the definitional attempts in jurisprudence to define law, and distinguish law from non-law (Hart), jurisprudence from non-jurisprudence (Austin) and so forth. A similar argument is provided by M. Davies in Delimiting the Law (London: Pluto Press, 1996).
41. The interpretation of nihilism I prefer is offered by G. Deleuze in Nietzsche and Philosophy (London: Athlone Press, 1988).
42. Supra n. 3.
43. The 'protection of western security' justifying the embargo imposed on Iraq, the 'humanitarian' intervention in Kosovo, under the auspices of the 'international' legal community, and the retaliation against Afghanistan, present some of the most symbolic instances of this rhetoric of a neo-humanist enforcement of 'lesser violence'. The danger of a militarized neo-humanism is not merely imminent, but already present.
44. Supra n. 3, at 23.
45. G. Deleuze in Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1988, Ibid.
46. G. Deleuze in Nietzsche and Philosophy, 1988, Ibid.
47. See Douzinas, supra n. 30, at 28.
48. Supra n. 3, at 35.
49. M. Heidegger, Basic Concepts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), 80;
50. and see further M. Heidegger, An Introduction to Metaphysics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1959).
51. See generally J.F. Courtine, "The Destruction of Logic: From Logos to Language", in C.D. Jacobs, ed., The Presocratics afler Heidegger (New York: Sunny Press, 1999).
52. On the 'ought' in such 'abiding valuation', see Heidegger (1959), supra n. 40, 196-199.
53. J.F. Courtine, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, Ibid., at 18.
54. Supra n. 8, at 57.
55. J.F. Courtine, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, Ibid., at 63.
56. "Ex on de i genesis esti lois ousi kai tin fthroran eis tauta gignesthai kata to chreon didonai gar auta diken kai tisin allilois lis adikias kata tin chronou taxin", in M. Heidegger (1975), see supra n. 27, at 13.
57. J.F. Courtine, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, Ibid., at 30.
58. Heidegger writes, 'the real core of emerging and with that the difference between emerging and what emerges, got forgotten (. . .); The difference (Unter-schied) meant here is infinitely other than all being that remains being of beings. Thus it is no longer appropriate (no longer in accordance) to name the difference with the word being/Sein (. . .)': J.F. Courtine, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, 30, ibid.
59. Heidegger, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, ibid.
60. Heidegger, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, ibid.
61. Heidegger ( 1975), supra n. 27, 49.
62. Heidegger, The Presocratics Afler Heidegger, ibid., 91.
63. Under 'chreon' (interpreted from chrao, chraomai - I get involved in something, I reach for it, I extend my hand for it) the 'delivery' of some-thing keeps the transfer in at hand and with it what is transferred. This is in contrast to other interpretations of 'chreon' as 'of necessity or obligation'; see Heidegger (1975), supra 27, at 54.
64. For a reading of potentiality in its proximity/difference to Aristotle's that I incorporate here, see G. Agamben, Homo Sacer, Sovereign Power and Bare Life (California: Stanford University Press, 1998),
65. and also G. Deleuze, Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994);
66. and G. Deleuze, The Logic of Sense (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990).
67. In D.C. Jacobs, The Presocratics after Heidegger (New York: Sunny Press, 1999), 178.
68. T.M. Robinson, Heraclitus, Fragments (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991).
69. Fragmentation does not here mean 'individuation through essentialisation' or 'the fragment of a universal unity'. Fragmentation is the be-coming of singularity itself, the scattered existence in itself. On this, see G. Agamben, The Coming Community (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993).
70. Heidegger (1975), supra n. 27, 69.
71. See Fragments 10, supra n. 56, at 108, 41, 114.
72. Heidegger (1975), supra n. 27, at 69.
73. A different Same (One-All) from the logic of the same (One) and the logic of the different (All).
74. See generally Heidegger (1975), supra n. 27.
75. G. Agamben, The Coming Community, 1993, Ibid.
76. G. Agamben, The Coming Community, 1993, Ibid.; for in ancient Greek, 'moira' (apportionment of life) is closely linked to 'moros' (apportionment of death); what these two closely linked words refer to, is the tragic view of being wherein the fateful is 'En Panta', One-Multiple, Multiple-One. 'Moira-Moros' in Heraclitus is homonymous to Logos, Aletheia, Dike, the En and it follows the same path in the opening. Moira-Moros unfolds as/in the opening.
77. Heidegger (1975), supra n. 27.
78. See Fragment 10, supra n. 56.
79. See generally, K. Axelos, Pour une Ethique Problematique (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1972). 68
80. G. Agamben, Potentialities (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999), 117-118.
81. G. Agamben, Potentialities, Ibid., 118.
82. On another approach to the 'Situation' see A. Badiou, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil (London: Verso, 2001).
83. J-L. Nancy, The Birth to Presence (California: Stanford University Press, 1993), 162.
84. My reading of Heraclitus is indebted to K. Axelos in Heraclite et la Philosophie (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1962);
85. Systematique Ouverte (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1984);
86. and Lettres a un jenne penseur (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1996). Ail page references to Axelos are from the Greek editions of his works; translations are mine.
87. K. Axelos, Heraclite et la Philosophie (Paris: Les Editions de Minuit, 1962), 152.
88. Heraclitus writes of 'nomos' from a Kosmological-gignomentological gaze on the 'polis'. He does not give politics a 'form' or a directive ethical 'command'.
89. G. Agamben, Idea of Prose (New York: State University of New York Press, 1995), 87.
90. G. Agamben, Idea of Prose, Ibid.
91. Supra n. 8, at 105.
92. G. Agamben, Idea of Prose. Ibid., at 106.
93. See Heiddeger, Contributions to Philosophy (From Enowning) (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1999).
94. C. Douzinas and R. Warrington, Justice Miscarried (London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1994), 133.
95. In late modern legal theory, two problematic trends are often seen when either the differential nothingness of the ground of law is infinitely repeated (to become a new ground in-itself); or the violence of old (legal) humanism is seemingly 'understood', only for a another absolute ordering to be imposed as the neo-theological-political 'planetary nomos' that repeats the violence of its past under the simulacrum of a 'lesser violence'.
96. Crucially, this is not the immanence of Kantianism, of positivism, or of modern profane reason, but a different conceptualization of the immanent metamorphosis of thinking that the fold of the inside-outside, outside-inside effectuates for this questioning. The immanence of such a folding in its coming and continuous refolding, does not emanate from a transcendental law-giver-from-above, but from 'a without' that is immanent to the fold of its conjunction of potentiality and actuality, whereby the dialectic of the inside/ outside loses its legislative force.
97. See Deleuze and Guattari's distinction between two types of immanence: an immanence-to-something, that is, 'to transcendence' which for Deleuze and Guattari is an illusionary immanence; and an immanence-to-immanence itself, with which I am concerned with in this work. See generally, G. Deleuze and F. Guattari, What is Philosophy? (London: Verso, 1994).
98. See M. Heidegger, Identity and Difference (New York: Harper & Row 1969), 77;
99. and M. Heidegger, "The Letter on Humanism", in D.F. Krell, ed., Basic Writings (London: Routledge, 1971), 217.
100. See P. Goodrich, Law in the Courts of Love, Literature and Other Minor Jurisprudences (London: Routledge, 1996), Chapter 7.
101. R. Schurmann, "Ultimate Double Binds", in J. Risser, ed., Heidegger Toward the Turn (New York: Sunny Press, 1999), 249-250.
102. The individuality of individuation as the essence of subjectivity is radically distant from the conception of the singular of singularity in its absolutely-relative fragmented existence. See further the analysis of J-L. Nancy, supra n. 2; and for a proximate but also different conception of the singular, see G. Agamben, supra n. 57.
103. Schurmann, supra n. 86, at 263.
104. Heidegger, On Time and Being (New York: Harper and Row, 1972), 54.
105. Heidegger, On Time and Being, 1972, 54, Ibid.
106. G. Agamben, Means without End, Notes on Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000), 111-112.
107. The concealment which belongs to metaphysics as its limit must belong to Ereignis itself. Ereignis is in itself expropriation (Ent-eignis); see supra n. 89, 40-41.
108. Supra n. 91, 131.
109. M. Heidegger, From Enownitig: Contributions to Philosophy (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1999), 214.
110. M. Heidegger, From Enownitig: Contributions to Philosophy, Ibid., at 233.
111. See M. Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology and other Essays (New York: Harper & Row, 1977). The techno-humanus presents the 'thing' in question or production as unmediated, non-oppositional in a tautology of emptiness (in law, the subject 'before the law' stands as this objectivized thing-hood reproducing law's desire for ordered needs). Law's legal-political technology imposed on actuality, imprisons experience in a monocular stagnation of potentiality ('nomothetic monothesis', re-production). Yet, the techno-logical metamorphosis of the previous hegemonic figures (Nature, God, Man and Society) has to be thought more insightfully, beyond its dogmatic forms.
112. On such different readings see K. Axelos, Marx, Penseur de la Technique (Paris: Editions de Minuit, 1961);
113. and B. Stiegler, Technics and Time, vol. 1, The Fault of Epimetheus (California: Stanford University Press, 1998).
114. See G. Agamben, supra n. 91, Ch. 7 & 8.
115. J-L. Nancy, supra n. 71, at 44;
116. and see also G. Agamben's critique of Nancy in Homo Sacer, Sovereign Power and Bare Life (California, Stanford University Press, 1998), 58.
117. For a reading of Hegel that shows the proximity and difference with Heidegger's Ereignis, see Agamben, supra n. 9.
118. G. Deleuze, Negotiations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 170.
119. G. Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997), 94.
120. G. Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical, Ibid., 92.
121. G. Deleuze, Essays Critical and Clinical, Ibid., 92.
122. "Absolute immanence is in itself: it is not in something, not to something; it does not depend on an object and does not belong to a subject", see G. Deleuze, "Immanence: A Life", in Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 14(2) (London: SAGL, 1997), 3-7.
123. G. Agamben, Stanzas, Word and Phantasm in Western Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1993), 149.
124. On this notion of historicality see generally, G. Deleuze, Foucault (London: Athlone Press, 1988).
125. J-L. Nancy, supra n. 71, at 44.
126. G. Deleuze, Foucault, Ibid., at 76.
127. G. Deleuze, Foucault, Ibid., at 44.
128. A. Benjamin, The Plural Event (London: Routledge, 1993), 23.
129. G. Deleuze, The Logic of Sense (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), 180.
130. For A. Bottomley, D. Cheney, M. Drakopoulou. Thanking C. Douzinas, S. Motha, A. Schutz, E. Loizidou, P. Fitzpatrick, M. Diamantides, A. Hirhoven and the anonymous reviewer for their comments and criticisms on various versions of this paper.