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 | | The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10) by Jean-Francois Lyotard ISBN-10: 9780816611737 ISBN-10: 0-8166-1173-4 ISBN-13: 9780816611737 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-1173-7 Paperback 1984-06-21 Univ Of Minnesota Press Find Lowest Price |
Editorials | ||
Product Description Many definitions of postmodernism focus on its nature as the aftermath of the modern industrial age when technology developed. This book extends that analysis to postmodernism by looking at the status of science, technology, and the arts, the significance of technocracy, and the way the flow of information is controlled in the Western world. | ||
Reviews | ||
The introduction of Postmodernism in Philosophy The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10) With this essay Lyotard introduced the notion of 'postmodern'in philosophy. An easy readable introduction. | ||
Dazzlingly Prescient Lyotard begins what has come to be regarded as the signal epistemic statement of Post-Modernity (post 8/6/45) with these words: "Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age. This transition has been under way since at least the end of the 1950s..." How has the status of our claim to knowledge altered? It has become, continuing the assertions of Adorno, Horkheimer, Luckacs and others, "commoditized". The attainment of knowledge, in our desperate moment, can no longer ever be regarded primarily as an end in itself, a process, as well as a product, but rather, as a defeasable means to an end. And whose end? We are reduced to scrambling for our own self-legitimizing narratives, and perhaps, in the final analysis, can find none. Of course, there are contextual variations on this theme. We are essentially curious. But even when the pressing questions of ontology and semantics - like what exactly are we doing here? - are answered in some vague, unsure, and predictably transient sense - these answers invariably develop a patina of inauthencity. While I believe Lyotard's philosophic standpoint owes much to his reading of the Frankfurt School - their work is prerequisite to his - he deals more precisely and in more depth with the basic Enlightenment claim that information is power, which he claims, rightfully I think, to be the source of dominant egoist ethos of our current technocratic/totalitarian social forms driving our corporate masters' obsessive struggle for scientific information, esp military-related scientfic information. The obsession with mass-produced violence has become its own legitimization, as we are forced or alternately lulled into submission by ponderance of our technology and its seemingly inexhaustible capacity for simulation. The hegenomy of modern science has left us longing for so much that we really need, peace, personal safety, a clean, sustainable, and basically quiet habitat, universal rights for all sentient beings - to name a few - that not many of us are buying that so-called objectified claims to knowledge, legitimized by "reason", are really going to answer any of our problems, which are legion. Lyotard is right about our "incredulity". I could not enter this review without citing what for me is among Lyotard's most remarkable passsages in which he discusses, among numerous other pressing issues of the current moment, "net-neutrality" and online security, close to a decade previous to the emergence of the internet, and over a quarter century before the issue reached the mainstream. Please note that this work was published in early 1979: "Already in the last few decades, economic powers have reached the point of imperilling the stability of the state through new forms of the circulation of capital that go by the generic name of multi-national corporations. These new forms of circulation imply that investment decisions have, at least in part, passed beyond the control of the nation-states." The question threatens to become even more thorny with the development of computer technology and telematics. Suppose, for example, that a firm such as IBM is authorised to occupy a belt in the earth's orbital field and launch communications satellites or satellites housing data banks. Who will have access to them? Who will determine which channels or data are forbidden? The State? Or will the State simply be one user among others? New legal issues will be raised, and with them the question: "who will know?" Transformation in the nature of knowledge, then, could well have repercussions on the existing public powers, forcing them to reconsider their relations (both de jure and de facto) with the large corporations and, more generally, with civil society. The reopening of the world market, a return to vigorous economic competition, the breakdown of the hegemony of American capitalism, the decline of the socialist alternative, a probable opening of the Chinese market these and many other factors are already, at the end of the 1970s, preparing States for a serious reappraisal of the role they have been accustomed to playing since the 1930s: that of, guiding, or even directing investments. In this light, the new technologies can only increase the urgency of such a re-examination, since they make the information used in decision making (and therefore the means of control) even more mobile and subject to piracy. It is not hard to visualise learning circulating along the same lines as money, instead of for its "educational" value or political (administrative, diplomatic, military) importance; the pertinent distinction would no longer be between knowledge and ignorance, but rather, as is the case with money, between "payment knowledge" and "investment knowledge" - in other words, between units of knowledge exchanged in a daily maintenance framework (the reconstitution of the work force, "survival") versus funds of knowledge dedicated to optimising the performance of a project." The promise of freedom and stability through corporatized ownership of the world's resources and markets (globalization) is a metanarrative we can simply no longer afford - and the putative effectiveness of corporate modelling as a structural principle for social organization is a uptopian myth which must be publically debunked, asap - for our survival requires a new level of caring - a new ethical concientiousness. We cannot afford acts of ecological carelessness or unconscious, blatent disregard, in the name of outworn ideology. We cannot continue to curtail access to knowledge through some sort of cultural spin, weighted to the random prefrence of the status quo. The current push toward media consolidation is yet another symptom of the same terminal trend to smaller and smaller group decision-making. If knowledge is power, which is what enlightment and its socio-ecomonic cultural expression, capitalism, avers, then power must, at the least, remain accessible to all sentient beings, at least within the purview of their aspirations. | ||
Post-Nuclear Philosophical Fallout If, as William Barrett once remarked, existentialism is "philosophy for the atomic age," then the atomic age's look into the future - by way of Jean-Francois Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition - is nothing short of a nightmarish vision of what post-nuclear philosophy would be like. If the Cold War was ultimately the product of two totalizing visions - the two remaining totalizing visions of the modern age, namely liberal democracy and socialism - locked into prolonged, agonizing conflict behind facades such as international diplomacy, then the postmodern condition is the worldview of a world brought back from the brink of total annihilation. Postmodernism, claims Lyotard at the beginning of his book, is "incredulity towards metanarratives" (xxiv). Rather than seeking a new way of understanding the world en toto - a new totalizing vision/metanarrative - the postmodern condition backs away from the philosophical One and seeks what it seeks - itself or, rather, the disparate fragments that indicate the existence of itself - among the philosophical Many. As Lyotard also writes, postmodernism "refines our sensitivity to differences" - the exact opposite of the totalitarian visions that caused so much death in the 20th century. The Postmodern Condition is a work that is as fascinating as it is complicated. Lyotard is heavily interested in the question of legitimation - specifically, how knowledge is made and validated. What defines knowledge? One could, in many ways, see this work as fundamentally epistemological, for he spends a considerable amount of time in this work focusing on how it is that the university system, in particular, can survive if knowledge is both under the sway of the forces of capital and no longer considered emancipatory. I am not entirely sure if Lyotard wants a return to a pre-postmodern world; the book is written in such a straight, matter-of-fact style that it is hard to tell whether or not he is for or against that which he writes of. Perhaps there is some irony in the fact that he appears so disinterested in describing a worldview - or, perhaps better, an anti-worldview - in which the notion of disinterested knowledge or unbiased reporting is conceived as being nothing more than a fiction. If there is any irony here, it is of the driest sort. There is a certain Marxist hue, however, to many of the analyses contained in these pages. The ability of economic interests to determine the shape of research in a university with the subsequent result that some knowledge is found to sell and other kinds aren't - that which sells is therefore seen as more legitimate than that which doesn't - causes Lyotard considerable concern. Rather than philosophy or metaphysics being seen as capable of validating claims - truth, he notes, is no longer the main concern - science proves itself by way of its functionality. What it does and how that makes life on earth better becomes the sine qua non of our own material interests - and knowledge is therefore conceived as material, rather than ideal/metaphysical. There is no meta-language game that serves as the ground for other games: what matters is what you can *do* with a particular type of research, or a given object. Science is thus isolated from other fields, just as philosophy is. There is no longer a "queen of the sciences." Knowledge, in a holistic sense, is thus fragmented and all is placed under the final sway of capital - or, more specifically, market forces. Lyotard's analysis is nothing short of brilliant. Included as an appendix to the present volume is one of Lyotard's most widely re-published essays: "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism?" A short work - not quite 10 full pages in length - it is a perfect compliment to Lyotard's longer consideration of the matter. However, unlike the Report, the appendix deals little with the question of scientific knowledge, and much more with aesthetics. Whereas the Report is concerned with academia, the appendix turns towards popular culture, specifically fashion: "Eclecticism is the degree zero of contemporary general culture" (76). Thus, the appendix can be scene as something like the popular counterpart to the more densely argued Report - popular in its focus, and in terms of the audience that it is geared to. Whether or not this means that postmodern philosophy is ultimately intended to leave the academy - the philosophical-institutional One - where knowledge cannot be validated and live, instead, among the philosophical-cultural Many remains a point of debate still today. Perhaps this is good reason for believing, then, that we do live in a postmodern age - and Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition remains as prescient (future anterior) for understanding that age as ever. | ||
One of the must read works on postmodernism This work, by Jean Francois Lyotard, is one of the signature works of postmodern theory. Say what you will of this perspective, this book is necessary reading in understanding the subject. This is not an easy work; however, those who persevere will be rewarded with interesting insights, whether or not one agree with postmodern thinking. Lyotard defines Postmodern thought in contrast to modernism. Modernism, he claims, is ". . .any science that legitimates itself with reference to a metadiscourse of this kind [i.e., philosophy] making an explicit appeal to some grand narrative, such as the dialectics of Spirit, the hermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or working subject, or the creation of wealth." Postmodernism, in turn, is ". . .incredulity toward metanarratives." Science and technology, especially information sciences based on computers, are increasingly an important commodity and the focus of worldwide competition. Knowledge and political power have become linked. Thus: ". . .[W]ho decides what knowledge is, and who knows what needs to be decided? In the computer age, the question of knowledge is now more than ever a question of government." A central issue then becomes who has access to the information, since access will produce power. Lyotard sees it as inevitable that bureaucrats and technocrats will be the ones to master this basic resource of power, information. This will strengthen their hand in political circles. Research is expensive, and the pursuer of truth must purchase equipment to make the scientific process work. Thus, wealth begins to set the agenda for the scientist; scientists will go where the bucks are! The criterion for research becomes less the quest for truth and more "performativity," what is the immediate or intermediate payoff, performance value, of the scientific process and of technology. Power helps to shape what research gets funded. Lyotard argues that the Postmodern moment should emphasize "paralogy," or dissensus. He argues: ". . .it is now dissension that must be emphasized. Consensus is a horizon that is never reached. Research that takes place under the aegis of a paradigm tends to stabilize; it is like the exploitation of a technology, economic, or artistic 'idea.'" Postmodern science, in his view, encompasses: "The function of differential or imaginative or paralogical activity of the current pragmatics of science is to point out these. . .'presuppositions and to petition the players to accept different ones. The only legitimation that can make this kind of request admissible is that it will generate ideas, in other words, new statements." Thus, new statements, new presuppositions maintain science as an open system of discourse, characterized by paralogy (dissensus) as individuals strive to generate new knowledge, not imprisoned by existing consensus on what one should study and how one should study it. This book is difficult reading, but to understand postmodernism, this is one of the works that demands that readers confront its arguments, whether in agreement or not. | ||
Challenging and relevant The basic analysis is correct. For some time the conditions of information-overload, de-legitimation of authoritative sources, lack of acceptibility of grand stories about reality or human history, has resulted in a condition of dislocation/disorientation, reaction, and disempowerment that is very confusing, and very bound up in abusive power structures, the confusions of language and over-loaded symbols and games of language, and struggle to communicate. The text is very difficult to process, it is a translation from French, and his use of very large conglomerate terms makes it difficult to join together the meanings contained within some of his terms, reading it often is an experience of information overload built into his language. The challenge he presents is relevant whatever one may think about 'postmodernISM' itself. There is great value in the descriptiveness of his explorations and speculations. He saw years ago how the coming information overload and delegitimation of authoritative sources was coming, and now in the internet age he is as relevant as ever, particularly with the challenge faced between the dis-communication between Islamic culture and the West. I do not affirm or endorse 'postmodernISM' or the sort of radical relativism or extreme focus upon language games that are associated with postmodernISM -- I find these troubling. But I also find the conservative reactions to postmodernism to be extremely troubling. The condition of information overload, delegitimation of what was once considered authoritative information, the erosion of confidence in grand metanarratives of human nature or history, the symbolic overload resulting from contact between cultures and symbol systems, all of these conditions are very real, and the internet age has made the crisis more acute. There is no hiding from it, yet it is not pleasant to behold, to affirm it/endorse it as good, or to try to deny it as if one can return to some past simplicity, is equally problematic/impossible to maintain. I think this work is very important to sorting out the problems of our times, albeit the answer is not clear, and reading Lyotard makes clarity seem yet more distant. Yet read Lyotard we must, if we wish to deal with these issues. | ||