Abstract: William Conklin takes on Hegel’s interpretation of Sophocles’ Antigone in this essay. Hegel asked what makes human laws human and what makes divine laws divine? After outlining Hegel’s interpretation of Antigone in the light of this issue, Conklin argues that we must address what makes human law law? and what makes divine law law? Taking his cue from Michel Foucault’s “What is an Author?”, the key to understanding Sophocles’ Antigone and Hegel’s interpretation to it, according to (...) class='Hi'>Conklin, is the relationship between legal authority and an author. Antigone’s divine law opposes Creon’s human law in terms of whether the sense of legal authority presupposes an author. Antigone’s tribe recognises divine laws as nested in an impersonal Fate or Moira common to the Helenes as experienced through rituals and other personal experiences. Such an unwritten law lacks an author “whose origin we know not when”. The city-state’s citizens recognize authority in terms of whether a law has a source in a juridical representer of an invisible author. The invisible author is the city-state external to the representers. The representers interpret human laws in a manner which tries to access the invisible author. What becomes important is that philosophical consciousness observes how the characteristics of the two senses of legal authority clash. (shrink)

Hegel's Laws serves as an accessible introduction to Hegel's ideas on the nature of law. In this book, William Conklin examines whether state-centric domestic and international laws are binding upon autonomous individuals. The author also explores why Hegel assumes that this arrangement is more civilized than living in a stateless culture. The book takes the reader through different structures of legal consciousness, from the private law of property, contract, and crimes to intentionality, the family, the role of the state, (...) and international law. -/- Conklin clearly introduces Hegel's vocabulary and contrasts Hegel's issues and arguments with leading contemporary legal philosophers. The book's originality and interdisciplinary focus open up Hegel's legal philosophy, providing a background to forms of legal consciousness for a wide audience. Addressing whether Hegel succeeds in his endeavor to explain why laws are binding, Conklin comments directly on contemporary constitutional and international law and reveals how Hegel's ideas on law stand up in the world today. (shrink)

Kenneth Westphal, in his “Hegel, Natural Law & Moral Constructivism,” offers an argument to the effect that Hegel elaborated a theory of natural law. Westphal contrasts such a natural law with positivism. Such a contrast holds out an either-or prospect: either Hegel is a legal positivist or he is a natural law thinker. I ask whether it is possible that Hegel elaborated a third theory of law other than that of positivism or of natural law. In addressing this possibility, I (...) first raise a problem in Westphal’s adoption of Hegel’s regressive argument. The ultimate justification, according to Westphal, is an a priori concept: namely, the equal rational will. I then exemplify the importance of the problem when a constitutional lawyer identifies intermediate principles justifiable with reference to such a final referent of justification. The problem raises the prospect that Hegel’s theory of law has elements of both natural law and positivist law. Section 3 highlights the need to situate any natural law claim in the particular ethos of the movement of legal consciousness through the experience of time. (shrink)

Against a background of Heidegger's project of tracing the other back through the history of metaphysics, Derrida attempts to think the other as outside of identity or presencing philosophy. The other is neither present nor absent. The other is differance with an 'a'. In his important essay 'Differance', Derrida suggests that whereas difference presupposes identity, differance with an 'a' is a 'middle voice' which precedes and sets up the opposition between identity and non-identity. The soft 'a' refers to the production (...) of differences, and the 'differences between differences'. Derrida calls this preceding moment before metaphysics and before language 'the play of differ ences'. Key Words: Derrida • ethics • legal • phenomenology • semiotics. (shrink)

This essay examines an ambiguity in Hans Kelsen’s theory of a norm. On the one hand, Kelsen claims to adhere to what he considers the ‘is/ought’ dichotomy. Kelsen claims that he is describing what really is. On the other hand, Kelsen seems to be understanding the is/ought dichotomy in a very different manner than that by which his contemporaries or, indeed, today’s readers understand the distinction. The clue to this ambiguity is Kelsen’s understanding of a norm. Although legal existence is (...) said to rest with norms, this existence is very different than an existence constituted from social behaviour. Instead, in Kelsen’s view, a norm is a signifying relation between a sign and a cognitive object. Kelsen’s theory of language, however, is very different from a theory of speech acts. When addressing why a norm is binding, we find that Kelsen’s full theory of language excludes important phenomena in order to retain its purity. (shrink)

Kenneth Westphal, in his “Hegel, Natural Law & Moral Constructivism,” offers an argument to the effect that Hegel elaborated a theory of natural law. Westphal contrasts such a natural law with positivism. Such a contrast holds out an either-or prospect: either Hegel is a legal positivist or he is a natural law thinker. I ask whether it is possible that Hegel elaborated a third theory of law other than that of positivism or of natural law. In addressing this possibility, I (...) first raise a problem in Westphal’s adoption of Hegel’s regressive argument. The ultimate justification, according to Westphal, is an a priori concept: namely, the equal rational will. I then exemplify the importance of the problem when a constitutional lawyer identifies intermediate principles justifiable with reference to such a final referent of justification. The problem raises the prospect that Hegel’s theory of law has elements of both natural law and positivist law. Section 3 highlights the need to situate any natural law claim in the particular ethos of the movement of legal consciousness through the experience of time. (shrink)

A professor is brought before a secret tribunalin his law faculty for the purpose of decidingthe appropriateness of a student's grade. Thegrounds of the grade appeal are that theprofessor had taught critically instead ofpractically and that he had done so with anacademic bias and prejudice. He is also allegedto have taught philosophy rather than law. After many hours of examination andcross-examination as a defendant and as anexpert witness, the professor, Flink, begins adialogue with a spirit in an effort tounderstand the (...) nature and identity of law. Flink comes to appreciate that law is adisplacing discourse rather than a structure ofcategories signified in an official writing. The analytic method familiar to officials incommon law jurisdictions, Flink comes tounderstand, excludes the experiential meaningsthat are manifested through unwritten gesturesand rituals. Officials embody signs withexperiential expectations and past assumptions.The embodiment of meaning brings life intolegal language. But such an embodiment isforgotten as officials decompose textualfragments and reported social events intoanalytic units. Legal analysis is so successfulthat officials even forget that they hadforgotten something so important as theembodiment of meaning. The professor and the spirit also ask whetherjustice is an `ought' and where one can locatesuch an `ought'. They conclude that there is astructure within which legal officials reason.The exteriority of the structure is anunwritten `ought' realm. But the structurepossesses a gap, which enters into such anunanalysable object-less realm. Analyticreasoning has assumed that reason can take anofficial only so far until she or he mustjourney outside the structure to anunanalysable realm of personal values. However, the embodiment of meanings alsoincorporates unwritten collective values ofwhich officials, precisely because of thesuccess of the analysis project in forgettingthat something was forgotten, have never beenconscious. It is such an unanalysable realmthat grounds or authorises the analyticproject. The exterior authorising origin of theanalytic units of the structure rests upon apossibility that requires faith on the part ofthe officials, a faith that there exists afoundation, radically different from theanalytic units, on the other side of thestructure. The officials can, at best, imagineor picture the authorising origin, located asit is in the unanalysable object-less realmexterior to the written language of thestructure. The imagined origin takes the `form'of a bodiless spirit. The officials are haunted by thepossibility that the structure of humanlyposited rules are ultimately authorised by aspirit. (shrink)

The foundation of the Christian counselling movement -- Christian counselling in the UK -- The aims of Christian counselling -- Integrating psychological and biblical truth -- Sigmund Freud--the founding father of psychotherapy -- The individual psychology of Alfred Adler -- Abraham Maslow--the man with new age tendencies -- Carl Rogers--a man who believed in himself -- Albert Ellis--the aggressive atheist -- The Bible's verdict on psychological 'truth' -- The case against Larry Crabb -- Self-esteem: the secular foundation -- Self-esteem and (...) the Christian counselling movement -- Self-esteem dogma in the light of scripture. (shrink)

In 'Een handvol filosofen' staan de filosofen centraal die sinds de oprichting van de Vrije Universiteit in 1880 aan deze instelling verbonden zijn geweest. Het gaat hierbij niet alleen om de inhoud van hun werk, maar ook om de personen zelf. Er waren filosofiedocenten die zich met de universiteit identificeerden en zich volledig konden ontplooien. Er waren er echter ook voor wie dit niet gold, die geïsoleerd of in gewetensnood raakten. Veel filosofiestudenten waren actief betrokken bij wat er in hun (...) faculteit gebeurde. Zij namen initiatieven, protesteerden soms tegen de gang van zaken en kozen partij in conflictsituaties. Sinds het eind van de jaren zestig van de twintigste eeuw verloor de Vrije Universiteit geleidelijk haar christelijk karakter. Tegenwoordig werken alle stafleden vanuit hun eigen motivatie mee aan een hoofdzakelijk seculier geworden universiteit, die ruimte biedt voor religieuze en levensbeschouwelijke diversiteit. (shrink)