The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I

When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With "The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I", the University of Chicago Press inaugurated an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. This volume, now in paperback, launched t...

When he died in 2004, Jacques Derrida left behind a vast legacy of unpublished material, much of it in the form of written lectures. With "The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I", the University of Chicago Press inaugurated an ambitious series, edited by Geoffrey Bennington and Peggy Kamuf, translating these important works into English. This volume, now in paperback, launched the series with Derrida's exploration of the persistent association of animality with sovereignty. "The Beast and The Sovereign" are connected, he contends, because neither animals nor kings are subject to the law - the sovereign stands above it, while the beast falls outside the law from below. An astonishing array of texts - from La Fontaine's fable "The Wolf and the Lamb" to Machiavelli's "Prince" - come into critical play as Derrida focuses in on questions of force, right, justice, and philosophical interpretations of the limits between man and animal.

雅克•德里达（1930—2004），20世纪后半期最重要的法国哲学家之一，曾任教于巴黎高等师范学校、巴黎社会科学高等研究院、加利福尼亚大学人文学院等，并创建国际哲学学院。他开创了解构的思想方法，成为后结构主义的主要代表，其理论动摇了传统人文科学的基础，也是各种后现代思潮最重要的理论起点之一。20世纪90年代前后，德里达越来越关注当代政治和伦理论题，在研讨班和著作中对于决断、责任、自由、好客等概念进行解构性分析，引起广泛探讨和争论。

王钦，毕业于美国纽约大学比较文学系，哲学博士，现为东京大学综合文化研究科准教授。译有《赠予死亡》《新自由主义简史》《根本恶》（合译）等。