Giovanna Borradori (Ed.), Philosophy in a Time of Terror. Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2003). ISBN 0-226-06664-9, 224 pages.

An international lawyer is in part pleased, in part embarrassed when philosophers contemplating the international order put their hope in international law. True, such declarations of faith are not normally for the law as it is but as a reformed ideal. But they do enact a routine move international lawyers have made since the late 19th century: one's faith is never to present law, but always to how it will be in a desired future. Messianism may perhaps be interpreted as a defence to excessive expectations loaded on experts of a technical craft. But it must surely be taken seriously when manifested in dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, two of Europe's most influential public intellectuals.

This book is not a discussion between Habermas and Derrida but between each and the editor, Giovanna Borradori, Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. Each is invited to approach the significance of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001 from his own standpoint. The book does not develop into an encounter: perhaps this would have been too much to hope. But it does show the striking similarity of the political conclusions drawn by two philosophers, often seen as adversaries, from the attacks and their aftermath. The dialogues are framed by the editor in two lengthy exposés of the thought of each philosopher plus a commentary on each dialogue. These glosses usefully link the debate to larger themes though to suggest, as Borradori does, that the dialogues are about "the legacy of the Enlightenment in a globalized world" and that Habermas and Derrida "share an allegiance to the...