«When mercy seasons justice».

Jacques Derrida e la formula della giustizia

Abstract

What is the relationship between perjury, forgiveness, law, justice and its impossible beyond? In this essay, we attempt to answer this question by drawing on some of the conceptual, rhetorical, strategic, performative and philosophical resources that Derrida employs in his 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seminar series devoted to Le parjure et le pardon. By comparing the interpretations he offers in the seminar of the Hegelian theory of forgiveness set out in The Phenomenology of Spirit and that of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, the aim is to bring out Derrida’s conception of justice as an “experience of the impossible”, aligning it with the aporetic rhythm of the formula: beyond and through.