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Postmodern Condition The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature)

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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.

Lyotard's "The PostModern Condition", is an exciting atttempt at a postmodern Sociology of Knowledge. Using Weberian and Habermasian concepts of legitimation, Lyotard gices a critique of critique, showing how all forms of knowledge are, in the end, dependent on the Narrative, the story which humansociety tells of itself. From this Levi-Straussian concept, Lyotard builds an interesting framework for Modern, PostModern and Futuristic definitions of knowledge. So why did I give the book only 4 stars? Because Lyotard fails inhis attempts at encorparating Anglo-American philosophy into the book. His total misconception of Wittgenstein can be flabbergasting to anyone who's studied this tradition of philosophy. Still, the book is probably the easiest of its type to understand and it is quite enjoyable to read. But it's a good idea to supplement it with some Foucault and some Habermas.

I'm mostly taking it upon myself to write this review in response to much of the negative criticism it's been getting here. First, Lyotard's claim that metanarratives have been dismantled is an observation of the world he sees around him, NOT a political tactic that he's endorsing. The elements of specialization and performativity that function as tiny legitmating narratives are what have done this, and Lyotard feels that something should be done IN RESPONSE to it. In fact, what he says we should use as the major political touchstone in the somewhat fractured environment is in some sense a metanarrative: justice.

Second, it's simply disingenuos to say that the actions of science don't derive their legitimacy from the government or big business. Lyotard doesn't mean that empiricism as an epistemological framework comes from governmental authority, but scientists' opportunities to use it come from such authority. Evidence for this? The National Science Foundation, governmental grants to research universities--the evidence is all around us.

Finally, Lytoard doesn't exactly say all this is bad. There are negative consequences to it--dislocation due to specialization is one of the major ones--but he's not an ignorant man and isn't saying that we should destroy the methods of science or try to go back to the way things were in the sixteenth century.

And though there is some element of practical advice in this essay, it's not wise to come to it as if it were a manual for how to lead the revolution. That's not what it's intended to be; it was, after all, funded by the university system.

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.

Lyotard's characterization of Postmodernism as "skepticism toward grand narratives," has become the grand narrative of Postmodernism. However, much Postmodern thought has emerged since L's seminal tome: writers such as Jenks on Postmodern architecture, Deleuze and Guitarri, Derrida, Foucault, Cyberpunk and even Madonna-ologists. A good survey of this movement can be found in "Postmodernism for Beginners," by Jim Powell. Also useful: Jenck's "What is Postmodernism?"

The "Post-modern condition" is "incredulity toward meta-narratives" that arises from everyone's supposed disappointment that Marxism or even Democracy will produce a better society. These ideologies have disappointed because culture is constituted in some unexplained way by knowledge. Lyotard does not define a "condition," but it must be wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth in the academy.

Knowledge he defines as competence (18) and he says knowledge comes in two types: scientific and narrative. (He provides no information about the empirical grounding for this distinction.) Scientific knowledge is "verification about a referent... set apart from language games that form social bonds." Scientific knowledge requires a teacher who is uniquely qualified to determine what is falsifiable (Popperism) and timeless. Second, narrative knowledge (never explicitly defined) is any anecdote about the success or failure of a hero that proceeds by descriptive language about unverified events in a certain time. Scientific knowledge should be empirically verified by perfect measurements, but narrative knowledge can be verified only on the basis of trust in the narrator (the Professor, of coure)

There are two "grand narratives," he says: a "grand narrative of emancipation" (Marxism, Democracy) and a "grand narrative of speculation" (the academy). He skirts the first, but discusses the second in interesting evaluation of the French and German models for the university. The French model is the Napoleonic educational model of primary education for a technical class. The German model is the general education of a knowledge class.

The "grand narratives" are "disappointing" because Lyotard has the academic's expectation that science really ought to cook up a happy and just society. Systems theorists and ideologues identify the social system with "a totality in quest of its most "performative" unity possible." ("Performativity" is research based in the technology of measurement. "Performativity" is contrasted to "delegitimation," which is some combination of disappointment in Marxism and Democracy and disappointment in the imperfection of systems of measurement.) Because of this supposed disappointment, "systems theory and the kind of legitimation it proposes have no scientific basis whatsoever." (61)

Thus, Lyotard has the naïve positivist misunderstanding of systems theory in social science that the difference between a stable and a moving equilibrium is the difference between immobility and change.

His reason systems theory has "no scientific basis" is that Heisenberg and Gödel argue that "continuous differentiable function is losing its pre-eminence as a paradigm of knowledge and prediction." (60) Structure cannot be grounded on co-existing immeasurables, he thinks. (This means that no system can be emergent, he thinks, which illustrates his naïve positivist position.) Legitimation, he says, is now by "paralogy" (false reasoning). Lyotard admires J. S. Bell's theorem that no theory of local hidden necessities can replace the predictions of quantum mechanics. However, in this, he simply reduces external reality to the perception of it.

Reducing reality to perception drives his cynical reduction of social interaction to game theory. Performances and narratives are just zero-sum games, in which the sinister scientists and ideologues in the academy and the bureaucracy work their powers to drive each other out of the pentagram of postmodern incredulity.

This book is a classic that anyone attempting to understand postmoderism must read. Beware! This book is not for the faint of heart as some may find the language inaccessible and somewhat unapproachable. Those who aspire to understand topics such as critical race theory, post-structuralism, critical pedagogy, feminist theory, lat-crit theory, critical race feminism and other theoretical issues of diversity should come to understand postmodernism through the lens of this author and scholar.

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.

No one can deny that the 20th century has been one of wars and legitimation. Theorists from all discplines were engaged in a rush to explain and legitimate first modernism and then the collapse theoreof at the hands of the new wave of thinkers in the second half of the century. Lyotard's work is ground-breaking in the sense it reduces post-modernism to a state of collapse; the destruction of grand-narratives. He fails, however, in defending his conception of what replaced those grand-narratives. The notion of grand-narratives itself is extremely suspect and implies the complete replacement of universalised notions with localised discursive practices. Lyotard's language games, very Wittgensteinan in source, were set back by his dependance on the theory of speech acts rather than the rich insights of criticl linguistics. The notions advanced in this book are very interesting but the definition of localised language games left a lot to be desired. Maybe Foucault was correct in refusing to tie his conception of discourse and discursive practices to one theory of lingusitic analysis. Lyotard should have done the same.

I'm not sure a rating is particularly appropriate, but that's another story. The Postmodern Condition (or PMC for brevity) is sometimes outrageous, often thought-provoking, and probably worth not ignoring. Commissioned by one or another of Quebec's many bueracratic institutions as a report on education, the PMC instead is an attempt at a sweeping analysis of late-20th century knowledge.

This isn't college so I'm not going to pretend to remember all my fancy debate techniques, but a few things stick out. Lyotard asserts that the late 20th century is characterized by experts who generate self-perpetuated claims to legitimacy (he calls this process legitimation and alludes to Wittgenstein, which I have to admit was always too boring for me to read or understand due to my simple-minded nature). This small group of technocratic experts wields an unbalanced amount of influence in the shaping of knowledge, from governmental gnomes to university academics. I also remember becoming interested in the idea of "intervention". At one point can one intervene in a situation, that is, to seek to alter it? What are the rules of an ethical intervention, as opposed to what Lyotard does, which is to document the destruction? It is interesting to read Habermas as a radical contrast to Lyotard.