Do our present circumstances allow us to defend a specific connection (that specific connection) between «legal rules», «moral claims» and «democratic principles» which we may say is granted by an unproblematic presupposition of universality or by an «acultural» experience of modernity? In order to discuss this question, this paper invokes the challenge-visée of a plausible reinvention of Law’s autonomous project (a reinvention which may be capable of critically re-thinking and re-experiencing Law’s constitutive cultural-civilizational originarium in a «limit-situation» such as our (...) own). The discussion is developed by recognising that the claim to universality is not only incompatible with a substantive conception of juridicalness as validity but also sustained with difficulty by a procedural representation of discourse and rationality (a representation which, against its own conclusion-claims, could also be said to be culturally and civilizationally bounded). Not forgetting some specific features of contemporary juridical pluralism—namely that which emerges from the counterpoint between semiotic groups or interpretative communities (and their differently assumed claims of intersemioticity concerning the signifier law)—this train of reflection diagnoses briefly a sequence of complementary main difficulties (as «obstacles» to recognising Law’s demand as an unmistakable cultural project), namely those arising from the formalistic normativistic inheritance (confounding legal autonomy with isolationism), from the challenges and seductions of practical holism (justifying a continuum in which Law’s project loses its sense and autonomy), and also from the familiar debate between exclusive and inclusive versions of positivism and non-positivism (a debate which establishes-consecrates an equivocal counterpoint between Law and Morality). (shrink)

In the original publication of the article, the paragraph beginning “We begin with two steps or lawyers…” should read as “We begin with two steps or layers privileging jurisdictio as potestas.

The chief concern of the paper is to initiate discussion on the difference between the private and public power of judgement. The inspiration comes from Kant and his conception of the power of judgement, customs, morality and provisional law.

This article intends to ,,reconstruct“ and discuss Derrida's conception of law. The main challenge is this ,,counterpoint“: law / justice as law and right / justice as deconstruction . The development is concerned with the ,,deconstructive way“ of thinking contexts , the ,,promise of democracy“ , but also ethics . Do the problems of singularity and judgement condemn us to unsurpassable aporias? Does Derrida's understanding of law respect différance or the ,,indefinite openig“ of the involved contexts?

This introductory chapter integrates two different steps: a global consideration of the problems which the “signifier” limits is able to include and a detailed mapping of the reflective path which the following thirteen chapters effectively pursue.