Abstract

The question in this dissertation is how to reconcile grace, which admits of no rule, with the principle that justice is treating like cases alike. In short, is it just to be gracious? ;First, through an examination of William of Ockham, the project shows that this question is the same as the central problem of the philosophy of language--how can language, which is general, describe the particular, and that the modern understanding of the question is connected to the medieval problem of reconciling infinite attributes of grace and justice in God. ;Second, through an examination of Friedrich Nietzsche, the project shows how the understanding of justice and of language that is presupposed by the question leads to platonism and therefore to nihilism. ;Third, through an examination of Martin Heidegger, the project shows how Heidegger's rethinking of the relation of man to world makes possible a new understanding of language and therefore a new understanding of justice. This new understanding of justice does not oppose the universal to the particular--justice is found always in context. The vision of justice presupposed by the original question is an abstraction of justice, not justice itself. Justice is not founded in treating like cases alike, but in treating each case properly. ;Heidegger's understanding also emphasizes the finitude of man and therefore of man's law. A universalized justice is not one that is appropriate to humanity. Law is not a triumph of human mind over matter, but a gift from the past to the future. As a gift, it is itself a grace. Justice and grace can thus be reconciled. ;Finally, the project shows how the problem of justice and grace is refined and refocused when the fact that grace is not susceptible to universalization is not considered a defect. Leaving that false conundrum behind allows us to focus on more important questions, like the nature of human and therefore limited responsibility, what sort of receptivity we must have in order to be just, and how to think the grace that always lies before us