Law and violence

Christoph Menke is a third-generation Frankfurt School theorist, and widely acknowledged as one of the most interesting philosophers working in Germany today. His work builds on Adorno and Horkheimer to show how the repressive features contained in the promises of equality, autonomy and freedom from domination inevitably structure contemporary societies. But, in contrast to his predecessors, Menke argues that reflexive awareness of such antinomies can counter the hold they have on us. Menke's lead essay focuses on a fundamental question for legal and political philosophy: the relationship between law and violence. The first part of the essay shows why and in what precise sense the law is irreducibly violent; the second part establishes the possibility and the possible form of the law becoming self-reflectively aware of its own violence. In both parts Menke uses works of dramatic literature - two classical tragedies and two modern dramas - to shed light on the paradoxical nature of law. The volume contains response to Menke's essay and to his research programme by a variety of influential interlocutors and concludes with Menke's response to his critics. LEAD AUTHOR: Christoph Menke is Professor of Philosophy at Goethe University, Frankfurt INTERLOCUTORS: María del Rosario Acosta López, DePaul University Alessandro Ferrara, University of Rome 'Tor Vergata' Andreas Fischer-Lescano, University of Bremen Alexander García Düttmann, University of the Arts, Berlin Daniel Loick, Goethe University, Frankfurt Ben Morgan, Worcester College, University of Oxford