The Image of Law: Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza

The Image of Law is the first book to examine law through the thought of twentieth-century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Lefebvre challenges the truism that judges must apply and not create law. In a plain and lucid style, he activates Deleuze's key themes--his critique of dogmatic thought, theory of time, and concept of the encounter--within the context of adjudication in order to claim that judgment has an inherent, and not an accidental or willful, creativity. The book begins with a critique of the neo-Kantian tradition in legal theory (Hart, Dworkin, and Habermas) and proceeds to draw on Bergson's theory of perception and memory and Spinoza's conception of ethics in order to frame creativity as a necessary feature of judgment.

Author: Alexandre Lefebvre
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 08/26/2008
Pages: 336
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.00lbs
Size: 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9780804759854

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 10/10/2008 pg. 21

About the Author
Alexandre Lefebvre is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, McGill University