On the Deconstruction of Jurisprudence: Fin(n)is Philosophiae

Abstract

This chapter proposes a rhetorical and deconstructive reading of a text of modern jurisprudence. It focuses on knowledge two different figures which are used to align the reader with the philosopher against the sceptic; seduction and destruction. Deconstruction shows how figurality never permits an assured correspondence, how indeed it dissolves any prioritisation between 'proper' and 'figurative' senses. Flourishing in one sense expresses notions of vigorous luxuriant growth, of meaningful and successful activity. Philosophical texts are linguistic constructs, inevitably subject to the figurality of language. Post modernists claim that all forms of enquiry that concern themselves with texts are simply exercises in literary criticism. Jacques Derrida reverses this familiar claim, and with it announces a death greater than that carried in our text. The text sets up its own claims to a rigorous epistemology in order to establish the universal form of reason which demands natural law as the result of its investigations.