Gillian Rose

The Dialectic of Nihilism: Post-Structuralism and Law

This book fundamentally challenges the radical credentials of post--structuralism. Though Derrida, Foucault and Deleuze claim to have a deconstructeda metaphysics, their work has much in common with previous attempts to a enda the metaphysical tradition, from Kant to Nietzshe and Heidegger, and by sociology in general. Gillian Rose shows that this anti--metaphysical writing always appears in historically specific jurisprudential terms, which themselves found and recapitulate metaphysical categories. She reconsiders post--structuralism in this light and assesses the relationship between deconstruction and the earlier structuralism of Saussure and Levi--Strauss. She argues in conclusion that the choice between post--structuralist nihilism and Hegelian and Marxist dialectic is spurious.