Nietzsche, Critique and the Promise of not Being Thus..

A close allegiance to `critique' differentiates critical legal studies from other approaches to law. By focussing on the underlying `grammar' used to animate critical legal thinking, this paper excavates a prevalent – modern, disciplinary – reliance upon judgement against rationally founded criteria. Yet the epistemological horizons that once housed such a critical grammar no longer command the unassailable privilege they once did. This presents critics with new opportunities to formulate different (post-disciplinary?) approaches to critical analysis. The following discussion develops an alternative, Nietzschean-inspired grammar of critique that relentlessly seeks new ways of existing. It addresses processes of becoming that are not centred on judgement, faultfinding or discovering essences. Reading Nietzsche selectively allows one to reformulate critique beyond founded judgement as an art; that is, as a skilful `way of putting things together' to propel new forms of life. This grammar implies that critical legal studies might too be recast in search of an elusive promise of `justice' beyond current limits, and continuously calculated through critique. Such critique explores the promise of not being thus by creatively assembling new signs of existence in altered semiotic constellations. These practices eternally return the critic to contingent processes of our becoming