ABSTRACT
Jacques Derrida's argument about an inevitable referentiality and the inevitably referential character of the referentiality means that on account of the endless substitutability there can be no unique or final meaning to the text. Specifically, the "power" and the "expertise" that they crave is conceded to comparatists-at-law as soon as "the law" is re-presented as consisting exclusively of technically arcane materials inaccessible to anyone but the high priests of comparative legalese themselves. In the case of comparative legal studies, the governing text is without doubt Hein Kotz's primer. R. Descartes's goal is to provide new epistemological sophistication in order to sustain the idea of cognitive assessments going beyond a mere sense of personal conviction. Deconstruction is a counter-motion in as much as it opposes everything resonant of a mastery of meaning that would lead to safe, assured, uncontrovertible knowledge.
