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Derrida and Foucault On Sovereignty

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Friedrich Balke

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In his final publication Derrida argues for a rather wide notion of the concept of sovereignty. Sovereigns are not only public officers and dignitaries, or those who invest them with sovereign power – we all are sovereigns, without exception, insofar the sovereign function is nothing but the rationale of all metaphysics, anchored in a certain capability, in the ability to do something, in a power or potency that transfers and realizes itself, that shows itself in possession, property, the power or authority of the master, be it the master of the house or in the city or state, despot, be it the master over himself, and thus master over his passions which have to be mastered just like the many-headed mass in the political arena. Derrida thinks the sovereign with Aristotle: the prima causa, the unmoved mover. It has been often remarked that philosophy here openly reveals itself as political theology. Derrida thus refers to the famous lines of the Iliad, where Ulysses warns of the sovereignty of the many: “it is not well that there should be many masters; one man must be supreme – one king to whom the son of scheming Saturn has given the scepter of sovereignty over you all.”

Type
Articles: Special Issue: A Dedication to Jacques Derrida – Theory
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 6 , Issue 1: Articles: Special issue - A Dedication to Jacques Derrida , 01 January 2005 , pp. 71 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Quoted by Aristotle at the end of book 12 of his Metaphysics (1076a).Google Scholar

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20 Compare Michel Foucault, Geschichte der Gouvernementalität I [History of Governmentality] (2004).Google Scholar

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