The Postmodern Condition

1
The Postmodern Condition

• A Report on Knowledge or a glaring example for
  Harry Frankfurts On Bullshit?

2
Jean-François Lyotard(1925 1998)

• The Man and His Works
• The Accidental Philosopher
• In his book Peregrinations Law, Form, Event
  (1988) Lyotard points out that as a child he
  really wanted to become either a monk, a painter
  or a historian. However, after attending the
  Sorbonne University, he says, that he
• soon became a husband and a father when I was
  still really only old enough to be a son, and
  was compelled by this drastic situation to earn a
  living for a family. As you can see, it was
  already too late to pronounce monastic vows. As
  for my artistic career, it was a hopeless wish
  because of an unfortunate lack of talent, while
  the obvious weakness of my memory was definitely
  discouraging my turn toward history. Thus I
  became a professor of philosophy at a lycée in
  Constantine, the capital of the French department
  of East Algeria. (1-2)

3
Jean-François Lyotard

• Member of the revolutionary group, Socialism or
  Barbarism (1954 1966)
• Independent Political Activist and Writer
• Major Publications
• The Postmodern Condition A Report on Knowledge
  (1979)
• The Differend Phrases in Dispute (1988)
• Peregrinations Law, Form, Event (1988)
• The Inhuman Reflections on Time (1991)
• Libidinal Economy (1993)
• Towards the Postmodern (1993)
• Political Writings (1993)
• Postmodern Fables (1997)

4
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Modernism is a name for a period in the history
  of art which emerged around late 1880s in Europe
  and America and lasted until the Second World
  War. Values that consistently underpin modernism
  include a propensity to create culture shock by
  abandoning traditional conventions of social
  behaviour, aesthetic representation, and
  scientific verification the celebration of
  elitist or revolutionary aesthetic and ethical
  departures and in general the derogation of the
  premise of a coherent, empirically accessible
  external reality (such as Nature or Providence)
  and the substitution of humanly devised
  structures or systems which are self-consciously
  arbitrary and transitory. (Craig 1998)
• Modernisation is a social process in which it is
  tried to make changes in the social, political
  and economic institutions and relations so that
  they become more harmonised with the requirements
  of the modern age. Large scale programmes of
  modernisation, especially in the third world,
  tend to give rise to unwanted consequences which
  are contrary to the expectations of those who
  have planned and engineered the changes.
•  

5
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Modernity, from an ontological point of view, is
  a vast and complex social entity (in the rich
  sense of the term social) whose time and
  location of emergence can only be approximately
  and to some extent, arbitrarily, defined. Since
  its appearance, this entity has constantly
  evolved and undergone various changes and has
  assumed various forms and shapes.
• Different writers have suggested different
  starting points for this phenomenon. Thus for
  example, Milan Kundera says that Modern time was
  stared when Don Quixote left his home and began
  his knight errantry. (Kundera 1980) Others have
  regarded the publication of Copernicus De
  Revolutionibus (1543) as the starting point of
  the modern world. However, the common thread
  among all these various suggestions is that
  modern time, and hence by implication the
  phenomenon of modernity, have emerged in Europe
  around 16th century.

6
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• From an epistemological point of view the very
  notion of modernity, as used by different
  writers, denotes a set of stories or models
  created to account for and give meaning to a huge
  number of complicated and complex events,
  processes, activities which cropped up in a
  certain space-time and since then and from there
  its influences have touched almost all corners of
  the globe. These events, processes and activities
  were the result of interactions between various
  social actors with each other and with their
  surroundings.
• From a methodological point of view it should be
  borne in mind that each and every one of the
  stories or models constructed to make sense of
  and explain the phenomenon of modernity are
  necessarily simplified pictures of the entity in
  question. In each of these models, to varying
  degrees, simplifying assumptions, idealised
  structures, abstract mechanisms, and approximate
  accounts are being invoked in order to make the
  task of explaining a messy reality manageable.

7
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• In the books on modernity usually a number of
  factors are listed as major causes which gave
  rise to this phenomenon. Chief amongst these
  factors are emergence of bourgeoisie and decline
  of feudalism, discovery of new lands, religious
  Reform Movement, artistic and literary
  Renaissance, and the advent of modern science. 
• The modern age which emerged from the old one
  witnessed the explosion and release of huge
  amount of energies in various artistic,
  scientific, social, spiritual, and intellectual
  fields. These energies, in turn, paved the way
  for the appearance of a plethora of diverse forms
  of life and accelerated the pace of social
  changes. The rapid tempo of change and
  development helped to create a fluid situation in
  which in Marxs words All that was solid melted
  into air. (Marx Engels 1848)

8
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Amongst the main features which distinguished
  modern time and modernity from the old world, the
  notion of mans coming of age which Kant has
  succinctly and brilliantly described in his What
  is Enlightenment? is worth-mentioning.
  Enlightenment, according to Kant is man's
  release from his self-incurred tutelage. Tutelage
  is man's inability to make use of his
  understanding without guidance from another.
  Self-incurred is this tutelage when its cause
  lies not in lack of reason but in lack of
  resolution and courage to use it without the
  guidance from another. Sapere aude! "Have courage
  to use your own reason!"- that is the motto of
  enlightenment. (Kant 1784)

9
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Mans use of his own critical reason gradually
  enabled him to not only improve his first order
  knowledge, that is, knowledge about the material
  and the social world, but also his second order
  knowledge, namely, knowledge about the first
  order knowledge and how to improve it. Modern
  man, among other things, realized that what he
  calls knowledge is the product of his endless
  conjectures for understanding and explaining
  phenomena. Conjectures which are constantly being
  refuted in the light of fresh evidence and
  experiments or new arguments and analyses. Modern
  man gradually realized that his ignorance is
  boundless and yet it is not impossible to improve
  his knowledge by means of methodic investigation
  of various realms of reality. Moreover, he also
  became aware of the fact that it is not
  impossible to achieve emancipation and spiritual
  freedom through knowledge.

10
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• However, making use of the capacities of critical
  reason and relying on the promises of
  enlightenment which had an optimistic view of
  future of the mankind was not the only
  significant trend within the complex phenomenon
  of modernity. There were other moderns who were
  suspicious of critical reason and were opposing
  the project of enlightenment. In view of these
  critics, what the modern man needed was a strong
  will to move beyond the present order and create
  a new order according to the vision of the
  Uberman (Nietzsche ) or to revive the lost links
  with a glorious tradition which had disappeared
  in the mist of history (Heidegger).

11
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Postmodernity is a challenge to mostly
  critical-rational version of modernity.
  Postmodern thinkers argue against the modern form
  of social and political organisation. They claim
  that modern ways of organising knowledge and the
  world have become outmoded and need to be
  rethought. For example, the American critic
  Fredric Jameson argues that recent developments
  in capitalism such as its international spread
  and its movement away from industrial
  organisation in factories towards the virtual
  trade of the internet and global communications
  means that the ways of analysing it developed in
  19th century by eriters such as Marx have to be
  rethought. (Jameson 1991)

12
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Postmodernism is basically a movement in art,
  architecture and literature. It marks a return to
  concerns about the past rather than a continual
  drive towards newness. However, the recovery of
  the past is ironically used to disturb traditions
  and problematise the present.
• In this way, postmodernism is a radicalisation of
  modernism in which artistic experimentation is
  pushed to extremes in order to disrupt
  established ideas about class, gender, race and
  politics.

13
Modernism, Modernisation, Modernity,
Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

• Postmodern world is viewed fragmented into many
  isolated worlds it is a collage, a pastiche of
  elements randomly grouped in a plurality of local
  discourses which cannot be unified by any grand
  or meta narrative.
• Lyotard describes the route to the postmodern
  perspective as follows
• A recognition of the heteromorphous nature of
  language is a first step The second step is the
  principle that any consensus on rules defining a
  game and the moves playable within it must be
  local (PC 66)
• Similarly Zygmunt Bauman argues that
• The postmodern perspective reveals the world as
  composed of an indefinite number of
  meaning-generating agencies, all relatively
  self-sustained and autonomous, all subject to
  their own perspective logics and armed with their
  own facilities of truth validation. (1988)

14
Modernity Postmodernity Projects in a nutshell

• Two rival triangles

Irony
Rationality
Truth
Realism
Solidarity
Contingency
15
Lyotard and Postmodern Condition

• PCs Table of Contents (1)
• The Field Knowledge in Computerized Societies
• The Problem Legitimation
• The Method Language Game
• The Nature of the Social Bond The Modern
  Alternative
• The Nature of the Social Bond The Postmodern
  Perspective
• The Pragmatics of Narrative of Knowledge
• The Narrative Function and the Legitimation
  Function of Knowledge

16
Lyotard and Postmodern Condition

• PCs Table of Contents (1I)
• Narrative of the Legitimation of Knowledge
• Delegitimation
• Research and Its Lgitimation through
  Performativity
• Education and Its Lgitimation through
  Performativity
• Postmodern Science as the Search for
  Instabilities
• Legitimation by Paralogy
• Appendix Answering the Question What is
  Postmodernism?

17
Gist of Lyotards Main Claims

• In Postmodern era
• Science has lost its Legitimacy and
• The nature of knowledge has altered.
• What Postmodern Writers Ought to do is to pave
  the way for the emergence and legitimation of a
  new type of Science

18
Lyotards Main Arguments (1)

• In the Computerized Societies and with the advent
  of Digitalisation, the nature of knowledge
  has changed Whatever cannot be digitalised will
  be thrown away.
• Knowledge, once an aim in itself, is now a mere
  commodity.
• Knowledge and Power are two sides of the same
  coin.
• Political and Economic Powers compete over the
  control and dissemination of knowledge.

19
Lyotards Main Arguments (2)

• Science is a narrative on a par with all other
  narratives.
• Scientific knowledge and other types of
  narratives are all language games.
• Narrative knowledge obtains its legitimacy from
  its use in the everyday life of the people.
• Legitimation of Science is much harder On the
  one hand, Science should provide proof for its
  claims. On the other, it need to invoke
  Meta-Narratives or Grand Narratives which provide
  necessary basis for its legitimation.

20
Lyotards Main Arguments (3)

• Historically, Two Meta-Narratives/Grand
  Narratives have been used to legitimate Science
  Enlightenment and the Hegelian Zietgeist.
• In Postmodern era both of these Meta/Grand
  Narratives have become discredited.
• As a result, Science has lost one of its
  legitimation foundations. Its other foundation,
  namely, establishing the Truth of the
  Scientific Statements has also become untenable.

21
Lyotards Main Arguments (4)

• To regain its legitimacy, Modern Science, has
  resorted to Performativity. But in doing so it
  has turned into a commodity.
• In Postmodern era, the process of delegitimation
  of Modern Science should be sped up in order to
  pave the way for the emergence of Postmodern
  Science.
• Postmodern Science uses Paralogy, which is part
  of its main discourse, to legitimate itself.
• Such a Science, contrary to Modern Science, is
  against the established universal systems of
  organisation and therefore provides power that
  destabilizes the capacity for explanation. and
  hence makes resistance and critique more
  effective.

22
A Quick critical assessment of Lyotards project

• Knowledge vs. Information Data
• Narratives Science vs. Fables
• Meta and Grand Narratives
• Language Games and Legitimation (justification)
• Legitimation (Justification) Epistemological vs.
  Socio-political
• Paralogy