Description:
States of exception cannot be understood in the terms of any otherwise prevailing rules or discourses. They are, after all, exceptional. They mark, by definition, special cases, anomalies, irregularities. And, because of this special status, we may of course take exception to them. Now this is not a new insight, we can all think of exceptional people for whom the rules just do not seem to apply, and exceptional situations where the normal rules just do not seem able to help.
Description:
Modern worldviews must accept the conditions of post-metaphysical thought tothe extent that they recognize that they are competing with other interpretations of the world within the same universe of validity claims. This reflective knowledge concerning the competition between equally warring "gods and demons" creates an awareness of their fallibility and shatters the naiveté of dogmatic modes of belief founded on absolute truth claims (Habermas, 2001: 94).