Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This article explores various attempts to critique law with reference to an authority or idea that is seen as transcending law in its existing forms. As heuristic tools, I use a distinction between prophetic and apocalyptic discourses, the former referring to discourses that remain sceptical to the possibility of suspending law in any absolute sense; the latter describing discourses that articulate a belief in or commitment to a radical break with the law, envisioning a coming law-free age. To give concreteness to my argument, I focus, in the first part, on the critical interaction between Daniel Bensaïd and Alain Badiou as a typical illustration of the tension between prophetic and apocalyptic discourses. In the subsequent parts, I take the analysis a step further by relating it to various historical discourses on divine law. Drawing on Christine Hayes’ claim that there are overlooked resources in the ancient rabbinic constructions of divine law, I suggest that some of these resources are reactivated – albeit unknowingly – in Bensaïd’s political thinking. Especially in his original conception of revolutionary temporality, Bensaïd provides tools for elaborating a different way of coping with the limits of law, thereby avoiding some of the shortcomings of apocalyptic political theologies.
Author: Jayne Svenungsson
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4402989139