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The Politics Of Postmodern Jurisprudence, Stephen M. Feldman
The Politics Of Postmodern Jurisprudence, Stephen M. Feldman
Stephen M. Feldman
Forms of postmodern interpretivism, including philosophical hermeneutics and deconstruction, assert that we are always and already interpreting. This assertion has provoked numerous scholarly attacks, many of which invoke standard modernist hobgoblins such as textual indeterminacy, solipsism, ethical relativism, and nihilism. From the modernist standpoint, postmodern jurisprudence is either conservative or apolitical because it lacks the foundations necessary for knowledge and critique. In this article, I argue that these modernist attacks not only are mistaken but that they also obscure the potentially radical political ramifications of postmodern interpretivism. Postmodern interpretivism does not lead to an infinite regress of interpretations that undermines …
Diagnosing Power: Postmodernism In Legal Scholarship And Judicial Practice (With An Emphasis On The Teague Rule Against New Rules In Habeas Corpus Cases, Stephen M. Feldman
Diagnosing Power: Postmodernism In Legal Scholarship And Judicial Practice (With An Emphasis On The Teague Rule Against New Rules In Habeas Corpus Cases, Stephen M. Feldman
Stephen M. Feldman
Whereas modernists constantly attempt to reduce the meanings of texts to an essential core or single truth, postmodernists are antifoundationalists and anti-essentialists. According to postmodernists, the meaning of a text is never grounded or stable, and therefore one can always find multiple meanings or truths. Thus, one performs a postmodern flip by taking a segment of a text, event, or concept that apparently has been reduced to a static meaning or truth and suggesting the possible existence of another meaning or truth. The postmodern flip then is completed by exploring how this new meaning or truth of the segment of …