"Carl Schmitt, one of the most influential legal and political thinkers of the twentieth century, is known chiefly for his work on international law, sovereignty, and his doctrine of political exception. This book argues that greater prominence should be given to his early work in legal studies. Schmitt himself repeatedly identified as a jurist, and Hugo E. Herrera demonstrates how for Schmitt, law plays a key role as an intermediary between ideal, conceptual theory and the messiness and complexity of practical, concrete situations. Law is concerned precisely with balancing the extremes of theory and reality, and in this respect, Schmitt associates it with philosophical thinking broadly as being able to understand and explain the tensions in human experience. Reviewing and analyzing prevailing interpretations of Schmitt by Jacques Derrida, Heinrich Meier, and others, Herrera argues that the importance of Schmitt's legal framework is both significant and overlooked"--.

• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction
  • Schmitt’s Self-Understanding
  • Two Contemporary Interpretations
  • An Argumentative Roadmap
  • The Juridical and the Political
• Chapter 1 Law and Technology
  • Jacques Derrida’s Interpretation
  • Two Kinds of Understanding
    • Closedness versus Openness to the Exceptional
    • Excluding versus Attending the Manner in Which Existence is Revealed
    • Closedness versus Openness to the Other, and Technological Control
    • Understanding
  • Jacques Derrida and Schmitt’s Juridical Thought
    • The Exception
    • The Subject
    • Understanding
    • The Juridical Nature of Existence
    • Juridico-Political Exception
    • Friend and Enemy
• Chapter 2 Law and Theology
  • Heinrich Meier’s Interpretation
  • Differences between Law and Theology
    • Substantialism and Juridical Epistemological Control
    • Surrendering to Meaning Without, or Without Sufficient, Epistemological Control
    • Institutionalization and Recognition of the Other
    • Broader Scope of Understanding
  • Heinrich Meier on Schmitt’s Thought
    • Omissions
    • The Applicability of Meier’s Criteria and Clarifications to Schmitt
      • The Three Marks
      • Three Additional Clarifications
• Chapter 3 Juridical Thought
  • Juridical Thought as Philosophy of Concrete Life
  • Systematic Exposition of the Fundamental Aspects of Juridical Understanding as the Manner of Understanding of the Philosophy of Concrete Life
    • The Poles of Understanding
    • The Hermeneutical Dialectic
    • The Law as Fundamental Form of Understanding
  • The Manner of Juridical Understanding in Schmitt’s Texts
• Notes
• Works Cited
• Index