In this pathbreaking and provocative analysis of the aesthetics of law, the historian, legal theorist, and musician Desmond Manderson argues that by treating a text, legal or otherwise, as if it were merely a sequence of logical propositions, readers miss its formal and symbolic meanings. Creatively using music as a model, he demonstrates that law is not a sterile, rational structure, but a cultural form to be valued and enhanced through rhetoric and metaphors, form, images, and symbols. To further develop this argument, the book is divided into chapters, each of which is based on a different...

Proximity, Levinas, and the Soul of Law links the controversial ethical philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas and the common law legal tradition that has recently invigorated the idea of "the duty of care." Desmond Manderson argues that the ethicists and lawyers struggle with the same basic questions of why we should care for others and what responsibility really demands of us, using the same language of care, neighbourhood, and proximity. Without compromising the integrity of either Levinas' poetic evocations of our spirit or the law's dense descriptions of our society, Manderson's powerful...

This collection brings together major writers and major works on what Emmanuel Levinas means to law, and injects Levinas' provocative ethics right into the heart of living law, radically changing our understanding of both.

This volume addresses the legacy of contemporary critiques of language for the concept of the rule of law. Can the rule of law be re-configured in light of the critical turn of the past several years in legal theory, rather than being steadfastly opposed to it?