The Image of Law Deleuze, Bergson, Spinoza [Hardcover]

The Image of Lawis 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 themeshis critique of dogmatic thought, theory of time, and concept of the encounterwithin 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.

Lefebvre's plain writing style impressively clarifies philosophical concepts without simplifying them, and his reading of Deleuze's Bergsonism merits attention even if the reader has no interest in a Deleuzian theory of adjudication. Lefebvre offers a brilliant, rigorous, and innovative analysis of Bergson and Deleuze's philosophies of time. The Image of Lawis the first book to examine law through the work of Gilles Deleuze, activating his thought within problems of jurisprudence and developing a concept of judgment that acknowledges its inherently creative capacity. This is a wonderfully interesting book for readers of the three philosophers named in its subtitle. ... The present work will provide readers of continental philosophy with ample opportunity for thought as we come to grips with the provocative encounter Lefebvre has staged for us. Lefebvre's work represents an important shift in contemporary critical legal theory insofar as it answers the need for theory to address internally the categories and schemata of practical reason and judicial rationality. . . it manages to contribute something quite new to the field: a theory of judgment based on Bergsonian memory and perception. At the same time, it avoids tlcv