How could one conclude the preceding collection of texts and create the closure necessary for the recognizability, citability, and, indeed, untouchability of this "Special Section on Derrida" within the German Law Journal ? And how could one determine the multiple significations of each and all these texts, and connect them through a single thread? And, finally, how is one to respond to the preceding questions ? Do they call for an analytical reflection on the structural indeterminacy of conclusion, or for an ethical reflection on its justice?

The answer to all these questions must, of course, consist of an uneasy gesture towards différance, the necessary and desired quest for closure in space and time, and the impossibility of ever attaining it. All texts in this collection circle around a word, notably a name, Jacques Derrida, the signification of which, however, remains ultimately elusive; it leaves its traces all over these texts, indeed, it seems to haunt each of them in a ghost-like manner, though, like a ghost, it always escapes. It is also such an escape that underlies the logic of this homage, namely that of the other of that word, that is, the flesh, the person Jacques Derrida, who has escaped far beyond our reach.

But this escape is not the end of the end. It is just the end of our attempt to conclude, to "find" the end of his word. Yet, it leaves intact, and, indeed, is a precondition for the necessary, but entirely arbitrary ending of our words on his word, for the inherently violent but inescapable imposition of a final full stop, a cut off point, a dead-line. Such an end, however, is not one...