Abstract

In his Critique of Violence, Benjamin aims at rethinking justice in the interruption of the juridical temporality of the state. The latter is characterized by the relationship between means and ends and is shared by both the positive law of the state and the natural right of the constituent power. On the contrary, Benjamin thinks of a form of violence that interrupts that relationship and finds in itself the criterion of its rightness. This violence, which Benjamin calls "divine," emerges as a third kind of violence beyond both the monopoly of state violence and the opposition between violence and non-violence. This "non-violent violence" converges with ethics and has the temporality of anticipation.