Constructing Justice: Theories of the Subject in Law and Literature

• NCJ Number: 140012
• Journal: Minnesota Law Review Volume: 75 Issue: 3 Dated: (February 1991) Pages: 581- 598
• Author(s): B B Baker
• Date Published: 1991
• Length: 18 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This essay explores the way that literature and the law address their human subjects, with emphasis on the works of Paul de Man, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Steve Fuller, and John Noonan, Jr.

Abstract

The discussion focuses on the relationship between literature and legal theory and practice and on whether that relationship affects the concept of the human "self" within the legal system. Noonan states that the central problem of the law is defining the relation of love to power. In contrast, Lyotard and de Man distinguish the living, breathing, empirical human subject from the ontological, discursive human subject and thereby diminish or remove the power of the empirical human subject in systems of discourse. They and Fuller seek structural understanding of certain discursive systems and are interested in the role of the human subject in developing the language that will affect it. Footnotes