Suchergebnisse

Why Philosophize? is a series of lectures given by Jean-François Lyotard to students at the Sorbonne embarking on their university studies. The circumstances obliged him to be both clear and concise: at the same time, his lectures offer a profound and far-reaching meditation on how essential it is to philosophize in a world where philosophy often seems irrelevant, outdated, or inconclusive. Lyotard begins by drawing on Plato, Proust and Lacan to show that philosophy is a never-ending desire - for wisdom, for the 'other'. In the second lecture he draws on Heraclitus and Hegel to explore the close relation between philosophy and history: the same restlessness, the same longing for a precarious unity, drives both. In his third lecture, Lyotard examines how philosophy is a form of utterance, both communicative and indirect. Finally, he turns to Marx, exploring the extent to which philosophy can be a transformative action within the world. These wonderfully accessible lectures by one of the most influential philosophers of the last 50 years will attract a wide readership, since, as Lyotard says, 'How can one not philosophize?' They are also an excellent introduction to Lyotard's mature thought, with its emphasis on the need for philosophy to bear witness, however obliquely, to a recalcitrant reality.

In this interview, originally given in 1988, Jean-François Lyotard discusses his then recently published book, Que Peindre? Adami, Arakawa, Buren (What to Paint?: Adami, Arakawa, Buren), situating it in the context of his broader interest in art and in terms of his insistence on painting as "presence" or "matter." In addition to describing the composition and structure of What to Paint?, he links its concerns to the problematic of presentation/unpresentability, and from there to the very "destiny" of Western philosophy itself.

In this essay, Jean-François Lyotard revisits the question of the postmodern in relation to the "foundation crisis" in the mathematical sciences, arguing that this crisis should be conceived not in terms of the establishment of the foundations of scientific discourses but in terms of the foundation of sense experience in the given. He opposes Karl-Otto Apel's attempt to resolve the crisis through a metapragmatics that would ground reason according to the rules of argumentation of a community of rational agents. The crisis of foundations, he argues, is rather one of the retreat of the forms of space and time. Rather than a crisis of reason or cognitive discourse pure and simple, Lyotard situates the crisis in terms of Kantian aesthetics, as the loss of the immediate community of feeling in the beautiful and the advent of an "anaesthetics" of formlessness in the sublime.

Discusses postmodernism in respect to the nature & legimation of social & scientific knowledge. Based on a definition of postmodern as skepticism toward metanarratives, it is suggested that the postmodern condition is characterized by unstable, continually changing, & evolving language games composed of overlapping & often contradictory forms of meaning & action. Although decisionmakers & authorities may attempt to subject these language games to universal rules & power structures, knowledge in the postmodern world avoids fixed meanings & highlights the contradictions inherent in supposedly stable knowledge. Under these circumstances, the traditional borders between & within the sciences & the real world blur & disappear, creating new forms of knowledge & meaning. In regard to science, legitimation can still be sought through some form of consensus; however, consensus is neither possible or desirable in terms of communication. Therefore, the success of the postmodern world relies on a form of social justice not dependent on consensus & language games based on free & open access to all forms of knowledge, information, & opinion. T. Sevier

1. Lyotard and the decline of 'society' / Chris Rojek -- 2. Forgetfulness and frailty : otherness and rights in contemporary social theory / Bryan S. Turner -- 3. The politics of difference and the problem of justice / Barry Smart -- 4. Saying goodbye to emancipation? : where Lyotard leaves feminism, and where feminists leave Lyotard / Caroline Ramazanoglu -- 5. Narrative, knowledge and art : on Lyotard's Jewishness / Ioan Davies -- 6. Identity, memory and difference : Lyotard and the 'the Jews' / Victor J. Seidler -- 7. Lost in the past : (post)modernity explained to youth / John O'Neill -- 8. Lyotard's early writings : 1954-1963 / Mike Gane.