The Narrative Subject of Law: An Introduction to and Outline of a Long-Awaited Turn in Law

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the current concept of the legal subject should be expanded to include narrative identity, in other words that the narrative subject of law should be recognised. With this aim in mind, we firstly (i) identify the philosophical assumptions and tools necessary to articulate the thesis of homo narrans. We find them in Martin Heidegger’s work Being and time, where he made a groundbreaking contribution to twentieth-century philosophy by deconstructing the concept of the subject. Then (ii) we discuss the key theoretical-legal assumptions and tools related to the legal turn we advocate, and finally (iii) we indicate – provisionally and in broad outline – the key consequences of recognising the narrative legal subject of law in the justice system.