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Panu Minkkinen, "Pretexts", Law and Critique VIII/1 (1997), 61-69: The essay deals with two central books in contemporary French philosophy that address the issues of community and friendship: Maurice Blanchot's La Communauté Inavouable (1983) and Jacques Derrida's Politiques de l'Amitié (1994). The essay attempts to characterise the aporetic nature of law in community, the impossibility to establish community by way of law and, yet, the necessity of a law that accounts for the absolute singularity of the other. It is further suggested that this aporia of law observes the dual structure of a pretext: a preceding text as a prescription that orders, and a singular relation to the other that foreruns all texts. E-mail: MINKKINEN@otdk.helsinki.fi

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