Dies Irae

Edited by Angela Condello, Carlo Grassi and Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos
With an introduction by Carlo Grassi
Translated by Cadenza Academic Translations and Angela Condello

What does it mean to judge when there is no general and universal norm to define what is right and what is wrong? Can laws be absent and is law always necessary?

This is the first English translation published of Jean- Luc Nancy’s acclaimed consideration of the law’s most pervasive principles in the context of actual systems and contemporary institutions, power, norms, laws. In a world where it is impossible to imagine the realisation of an ideal of justice that corresponds to every person’s ideal of justice, Nancy probes the limits of legal normativity. Moreover, the question is asked: how can legal normativity be legitimised? A legal order based on performativity and formal validity is questionable and other forces than juridical normativity are at the heart of Dies Irae. Such leads inevitably to the processes of inclusion and exclusion that characterise contemporary juridical systems and those issues of identity, hostility and self-representation central to contemporary political and legal debates

JEAN-LUC NANCY is Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Chair and Professor of Philosophy at the European Graduate School/EGS. His numerous books include The Inoperative Community and Being Singular Plural.