Exemplarity, Singularity and Generality. Remarks made between Law and Literature

In this paper I argue (i) that the relationship between individual case and general norm shows interesting similarities between law and literature; (ii) that the emergence of one case as exemplary reflects the identity of the community in which the case emerged. (i) Paradigmatic cases are sources of normativity and they become normative by raising questions of precedent and repeatability: they perform the functions of a model and produce a split that involves singularity and law, accidental and necessary. (ii) There is a prescriptive force in exemplary cases and the passage from the case to the example is ethical from the start. The prescriptive force is performed in a context of which the exemplary case is the touchstone. The classification of a case as exemplary involves socio-identity-making processes of recognition that assimilate or differentiate human communities and fields of knowledge. Exemplarity thus shows how both law and literature can function as “identity-making” discourses.