Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-9q27g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-20T07:30:58.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

30 - Law and Philosophy in the Hyperreal

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 July 2009

Francis J. Mootz III
Affiliation:
University of the Pacific, California
Get access

Summary

Ah the old questions, …

Ah, the old answers, …

How they love the old answers …

– From Samuel Beckett, Endgame (A Play in One Act), as modified by the author

Neither law nor philosophy are free. Both are beholden to and shaped by cultural and rhetorical logics of which they remain almost entirely unaware. Inasmuch as these logics construct both enterprises rather flatteringly as autonomous and in charge of their own intellectual action, it is doubtful that the resulting comedy of errors will end any time soon. As for legal studies (philosophical or otherwise) its main modus operandi is to misapprehend the character of law in simplistic ways that give rise to a set of pseudo-problems, which in turn enable legal thinkers to go to outrageous lengths in rendering the original misprision complex, intricate, multilayered, and seemingly sophisticated. This too makes it unlikely that the comedy will end any time soon. At this point, one would want to speak to legal philosophers out of both sides of one's mouth. One would want to say: “Look, don't be so philosophical about it all: the law can't take it. It cannot support or sustain such intense philosophical attention. It's just not that sort of thing.”

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baudrillard, Jean. La transparence du mal: Essai sur les phénomènes extrêmes. Paris: Galilee, 1990.Google Scholar
Cover, Robert. “Violence and the Word.” Yale L.J. 95.8 (1986): 1601–29.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. Law's Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Hale, Robert L.Coercion and Distribution in a Supposedly Noncoercive State.” Pol. Sci. Q. 38.3 (1923): 470–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Llewellyn, Karl N.On What is Wrong with So-Called Legal Education.” Colum. L. Rev. 35.5 (1935): 651–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlag, Pierre. “Values,” 6 Yale J. Law & Hum. 219 (1994).Google Scholar
Schlag, Pierre. “The De-Differentiation Problem,” Continental Phil. Rev. Forthcoming 2009a. Available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=975810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schlag, Pierre. “Spam Jurisprudence, Air Law and the Rank Anxiety of Nothing Happening (A Report on the State of the Art).” Georgetown L. J. Forthcoming 2009b.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×