Paper's abstract

Francis Jacques, Villey and icons
Permanent feature of M. Villey’s thought: the alternation between an anti-idolatrous deconstruction and an iconic reconstruction. A theory of the idol and its subordination to the icon is to be built. In the Carnets, the system of categories works as a configuration of united icons. We fix some features of the concept of icon, its relation to the idol, the solidarity between icons. The icon is subject to salutary worship. The icon is the only valuable thing, what serves as a benchmark to think the idol. Fundamental reference and positive counterpart, antidote for a forgery, but also for a travesty, a decoy, an imbalance, a confusion or a mockery. We insist upon three linked icons: research, dialog, considering the thing itself, which all three facilitate advances in the thinking of law. One then goes from the icon to the idol by passing through the “knowledge of faith”, which is activated by love, the icon of icons.

Key Words : Icon, idol, benchmark, worship
t. 50, 2007 : p. 315-330