Phenomenologies of the political: law, power and violence between Schmitt and Derrida

Abstract

Based on a reading of Carl Schmitt proposed by Jacques Derrida, this article examines the modern conceptual architecture that organizes the notions of « power », « State », « politics » and « law » into a system. In his Politics of Friendship, Derrida develops the thesis that an important Western intellectual tradition, whose apex is the work of Schmitt, tried to isolate the meaning of politics through a teleology of enmity. He demonstrates, then, that this teleology is permeated by insurmountable contradictions, and the project of a phenomenology of the political is doomed to failure. We will add another layer to this critique. By reading the texts that revolve around Schmitt’s magnum opus The nomos of the Earth, we explore the modern division between two levels of violence. The first, organised by European public law, is the one that has seen the political realm centred on the State and its people. The second, marked by unlimited violence, is the one whose aim is the complete appropriation of the lands and bodies discovered in the New World. We argue that the meaning of politics depended not only on a contradictory teleology, but also on a discharge of annihilation.