법학과 포스트모던적 사유
Law and the Postmodern Mode of Thoughts
이소영
초록
Skepticism towards postmodern jurisprudence would generally be described in relation to one of the following assertions: a)concept of the postmodern is arbitrary, indeterminate, and vastly extensive, b) discourse regarding the concept of postmodern in Korean society had been overrun for a short period like cultural phenomena, thereby blunting the issues of social solidarity or structural contradiction, and moreover c)postmodern mode of thoughts are not adoptable to the field of jurisprudence where rationality and normativity prevails. Thus this article is aimed at illustrating three introductory discourses regarding postmodern jurisprudence, that could provide convincing answers to skepticism toward the very possibility of appropriating postmodern mode of thoughts to legal studies. The first discourse is about defining conceptual boundary of post/modern/nity(ism). It is intimately related to the interpretation and understanding of the 'modern.' This article argues that clear period division could be fallacy, that the boundary of '-modern' is constantly being (re)constructed by articulating with specific epoches, while the understanding of 'post-' may also disperse in between the range of 'late(modern)' and 'anti(modern)'. Moreover, the bewildered blurriness of distinction between '-ity' and '-ism' by itself would be interpreted as a manifestation of hybridity in disciplines. Hence, instead of providing singular definition of postmodern, this article tries to suggest diverse and heterogeneous postmodern's'. Meanwhile the second discourse is focused at the ideological mapping of postmodern thoughts, especially in regard to cynical perspective towards the notion of postmodern, criticizing that such shallow adoption of trendy theories had blurred probematiques of social class and inequality. However this article claims that such cynical understanding could be an overgeneralized assumption on dispersed ideological mapping of postmodern theories. Presuming that the main controversy of the social formationn debates had been 'modernity of Korean society', it may be argued that controversies over the postmodernity had sprouted as the aftermath of social formation debates in Korean society, rather than the mere 'directly imported hot item‘ from the beginning. Meanwhile the third discourse is related to the unique characteristics of disciplinary boundary of legal studies. Though not previously been perceived so, postmodern conditions are already prevalent in the field of law, such as the deconstruction of individual entities as legal subject, fallacy of absolute and transparent 'truth', and undecidability of justice. For instance, the tendency of legal reality being consumed as image or symbol[law as simulation], or the flourishing of alternative dispute resolutions as means to cope with dilemma of constant inter-colliding between legal justice's' [decentralization of law] could be a few among many to be discussed as postmodern conditions in jurisprudence.