S u m m a r y

The subject of the article is the concept of Pierre Legendre, a contemporary French philosopher and historian of law. Legendre, combining references to psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan with the analysis of the history of law and contemporary legal practice perceives the law as a set of symbols, through the internalization of which an individual gains subjectivity as rational being and identity as a member of society. These symbols primarily reflect the fundamental human condition: the constitutive impossibility of realization of the desire and the need to transfer it to the realm of language. The law communicate in this way the importance of basic cultural patterns and authority of socio-political institutions, being rooted in a particular culture, can rely on a rational interpretation. According to Legendre modernity destroys this function of law, reducing it to the methods of implementation of desires (the paradigm of human rights), or a variety of social engineering. The results are the extinction of subjectivity and social bonds, the inflation and infantilization of the law. Finally, society is sinking into „naturalness” – aggression and chaos, masked by the myth of „management”.

Key words: Legendre, Lacan, the law as a symbol.