Tending the Garden: Equity and Exscription
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Jan-Patrick Oppermann
Jan Patrick Oppermann is an independent scholar of philosophy, politics, literature, and the law. He holds a PhD in political philosophy from Harvard University and a JD from the University of Washington. He has taught at many colleges and universities, including Bowdoin College, Michigan State University, the University of Washington school of public affairs, and Seattle University. His current research mostly focuses on the connections between philosophy, literature and analytical psychology but he occasionally also thinks about law and politics.
Abstract
The first part of this essay means to make a modest contribution to the critical – that is to say investigative and non-traditional – study of the philosophical origin, sense, and parameters of the concept of equity. Its focus will at first be on Aristotle. Then I will seek to widen the Aristotelian concept of equity by a consideration of the moral and intellectual capacity of “enlarged mentality” as found in Hannah Arendt’s interpretation of Kant. In doing so, I will actively seek to loosen the legal or judicial bonds of this concept, instead allowing it to freely enter a larger conceptual space involving the political and the psychological. In the second part of the essay, this larger conceptual space leads me to a wider meditation with speculative moments concerning the possibility of an ontological extension of a trans-legal interpretation of equity through a consideration of some aspects of the work of French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, particularly his notion of “exscription.” In the third part of the essay, I then supplement this Nancean meditation with a psychological turn focusing on Nancy’s commentary on Freud’s remark on the “extension of psyche.” I offer these speculative moments to step beyond Aristotelian and Arendtian/Kantian constraints and also in order to advance possible philosophical exploration of equity and justice against overly narrow containers in “legal philosophy” including “critical legal theory.”
About the author
Jan Patrick Oppermann is an independent scholar of philosophy, politics, literature, and the law. He holds a PhD in political philosophy from Harvard University and a JD from the University of Washington. He has taught at many colleges and universities, including Bowdoin College, Michigan State University, the University of Washington school of public affairs, and Seattle University. His current research mostly focuses on the connections between philosophy, literature and analytical psychology but he occasionally also thinks about law and politics.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Equity and the Resources of Critique: Part II
- Aristotle’s Pharmacy
- Law and Equity, and “Law and History” as a Resource of Critique
- Equity and Legal Reasoning
- Equity and the Social Reproduction of Capital
- Equity, Property, and the Ethical Subject
- The Castrated Trustee: Jouissance and Breach of Trust
- Tending the Garden: Equity and Exscription
- From Helen’s Pharmacy to the Multiverse of Equities: Difference, Opposition, Différance
- Research
- Paul Johnston’s Body Politic: A Speculative Fable
- Utopias in The Tempest
- Spatial Imaginaries and the Sovereign Crisis
- From Hard-Copy to Digital Law via “Illustrated Courtrooms”: Visualising the History of Legal English
- “The Last Laugh?” A Multimodal Analysis of Captions in Photojournalism
- How to Enforce the Law: Video-Shocks for Road Security
- Book Review
- Sidia Fiorato and John Drakakis: Performing the Renaissance Body. Essays on Drama, Law, and Representation
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Focus
- Equity and the Resources of Critique: Part II
- Aristotle’s Pharmacy
- Law and Equity, and “Law and History” as a Resource of Critique
- Equity and Legal Reasoning
- Equity and the Social Reproduction of Capital
- Equity, Property, and the Ethical Subject
- The Castrated Trustee: Jouissance and Breach of Trust
- Tending the Garden: Equity and Exscription
- From Helen’s Pharmacy to the Multiverse of Equities: Difference, Opposition, Différance
- Research
- Paul Johnston’s Body Politic: A Speculative Fable
- Utopias in The Tempest
- Spatial Imaginaries and the Sovereign Crisis
- From Hard-Copy to Digital Law via “Illustrated Courtrooms”: Visualising the History of Legal English
- “The Last Laugh?” A Multimodal Analysis of Captions in Photojournalism
- How to Enforce the Law: Video-Shocks for Road Security
- Book Review
- Sidia Fiorato and John Drakakis: Performing the Renaissance Body. Essays on Drama, Law, and Representation
