Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
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Augusto Ponzio
Abstract
It is not with the State that personal responsibility arises towards the other. According to Emmanuel Levinas, the other is every single human being I am responsible for, and I am this responsibility for him. The other, my fellow, is the first comer. But I do not live in a world with just one single “first comer”; there is always another other, a third, who is also my other, my fellow. Otherness, beginning with this third, is a plurality. Proximity as responsibility is a plurality. There is a need for justice. There is the obligation to compare unique and incomparable others. This is what is hidden, unsaid, implied in legal discourse. But recourse to comparison among that which cannot be compared, among that which is incomparable is justified by love of justice for the other. It is this justification that confers a sense to law, which is always dura lex, and to the statement that citizens are equal before the law. From this point of view, State justice is always imperfect with respect to human rights understood as the rights of the other, of every other in his absolute difference, in his incomparable otherness.
References
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©2016 by De Gruyter Mouton
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Hidden meanings in legal discourse
- Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
- Two assumptions in legal discourse: To answer for self and to tell the truth
- Le sens caché: Refoulement et impensé dans le discours de la loi sémiotique des significations cachées du discours juridique
- Multiple historical and social layers of interpretation of marital rape in England
- Revisiting judgment translation in Hong Kong
- Exemption and exegesis: Judicial interpretation of exemption clauses in England, Australia, and India
- Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency
- The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse
- Exploring identities in police interrogations
- Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia
- An exploration of the semantic domain of legal language
- The hidden meanings in the case law of the European Court for Human Rights
- Crimes of the sign: Politics and performatives in the Treason Trials of 1794
- Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign
- A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China
- Uncovering hidden meanings in legal discourse on the elderly: A semioethical perspective
- Deontic meaning making in legislative discourse
- Hidden meanings of the words “religion” and “religious” in legal discourse
- Hidden cultures in law: Metaphor and translation in legal discourse
- Negotiating language status in multilingual jurisdictions: Rhetoric and reality
- Burying attitudes in words: Linguistic realization of the shift of judges’ court conciliation style
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Introduction: Hidden meanings in legal discourse
- Comparing the incomparable and legal discourse
- Two assumptions in legal discourse: To answer for self and to tell the truth
- Le sens caché: Refoulement et impensé dans le discours de la loi sémiotique des significations cachées du discours juridique
- Multiple historical and social layers of interpretation of marital rape in England
- Revisiting judgment translation in Hong Kong
- Exemption and exegesis: Judicial interpretation of exemption clauses in England, Australia, and India
- Identifying the meanings hidden in legal texts: The three conditions of relevance theory and their sufficiency
- The consequences and effects of language transformations in legal discourse
- Exploring identities in police interrogations
- Rights, responsibilities, and resistance: Legal discourse and intervention legislation in the Northern Territory in Australia
- An exploration of the semantic domain of legal language
- The hidden meanings in the case law of the European Court for Human Rights
- Crimes of the sign: Politics and performatives in the Treason Trials of 1794
- Showing what “marriage” is: Law’s civilizing sign
- A sociosemiotic approach to the legal dispute over the crime of whoring with an underage girl in China
- Uncovering hidden meanings in legal discourse on the elderly: A semioethical perspective
- Deontic meaning making in legislative discourse
- Hidden meanings of the words “religion” and “religious” in legal discourse
- Hidden cultures in law: Metaphor and translation in legal discourse
- Negotiating language status in multilingual jurisdictions: Rhetoric and reality
- Burying attitudes in words: Linguistic realization of the shift of judges’ court conciliation style
