Three texts, one law. Or equally, three texts, no founded law, or an unfounded law of anti-foundation. The three texts of Derrida's I am going to base my comments upon are some of those which most overtly, or most directly deal with the question of law. I make this distinction between texts simply for the sake of convenience, since in my view many of Derrida's works in one way or another deal with the question of law. However, those I am here concerned with all name law – “Devant la loi,” “The Law of Genre,” “Force of Law” – and this naming of law has a special significance in the context of this chapter. In its naming, the text proclaims itself and authorizes its legal content: as Derrida comments in “Before the Law”: “A sort of intrigue is already apparent in a title which names the law … a little as if the law had entitled itself.” This comment goes to the very core of the jurisprudential problematic which is my concern here. Self-entitlement of the law is nothing more than a parental “because I say so” translated into a constitutional mandate, and – as the guardian and apologist for legitimacy – mainstream legal philosophy has struggled to escape such arbitrariness by attempting to discover or describe an absolute source of legitimacy.