Abstract

HINCAPIE-GARCIA, Alexánder  and  ESCOBAR-GARCIA, Bibiana. Language and Law. A Theological-Political Approach Based on Walter Benjamin. Opin. jurid. [online]. 2020, vol.19, n.38, pp.137-157. ISSN 1692-2530.  https://doi.org/10.22395/ojum.v19n38a7.

The article displays a theological-political approach to the relation between language and law based on Walter Benjamin as a result of the research titled Los cuerpos de la excepción (Exception’s bodies). Here we state that law is the guarantor of life, but only as capture that intensifies the inevitability of itself and not the conditions for shaping an achieved life. The methodological conditions correspond to what Benjamin (2013 and 2015) names as a montage. These allow, at least, two things: questioning the values promoted by the liberal democracy as far as this one increases the power of law above human life, and assemble different analytical perspectives of Benjamin’s work for breaking the mythical effect of the law on humans. According to the resulting conclusion, the symbolic, metaphorical and allegorical qualities of language have been taken away; and law takes advantage of this for widening the culpability net that it spreads upon humanity. Only a restored language might give back justice and creative capability to humanity.

Keywords : law; language; guilt; violence; mere natural life.

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