Jean-François Lyotard

Agora

Jean-François Lyotard

1924–1998

A first way ina deliberate simplification – the portrait says more

Nobody believes the grand stories of progress and liberation anymore – knowledge today is many small language games with no master narrative.

Placement

Structuralism & Poststructuralism · Western Europe · Epistemology, Politics & Law, Aesthetics

The Postmodern Condition: the end of the grand narratives.

Key ideas

End of the grand narratives
The differend
The sublime

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Influence

Influenced by 4

Immanuel Kant

influenced by
Lyotard took from Kant the heterogeneity of the faculties and the sublime as presentation of the unpresentable (Le différend, 1983; Leçons sur l’Analytique du sublime, 1991). J.-F. Lyotard, Le différend (1983); L’enthousiasme. La critique kantienne de l’histoire (1986); Leçons sur l’Analytique du sublime (1991); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Sigmund Freud

influenced by
Lyotard took Freud’s dream-work as a model of the figural that disrupts discourse (Discours, figure, 1971) and his economics of libido for Économie libidinale (1974). J.-F. Lyotard, Discours, figure (1971); Économie libidinale (1974); Dérive à partir de Marx et Freud (1973); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Sigmund Freud › 1856–1939
Ludwig Wittgenstein

influenced by
Lyotard took Wittgenstein’s language games as the model for the heterogeneity of discourses in The Postmodern Condition (1979), later recast as incommensurable phrase regimens (Le différend, 1983). J.-F. Lyotard, La condition postmoderne (1979); Le différend (1983); L. Wittgenstein, Philosophische Untersuchungen (1953); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Cornelius Castoriadis

influenced by
As a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie (1954–64) Lyotard adopted Castoriadis’s critique of bureaucracy, Soviet and capitalist, before splitting with him in 1963 over his revision of Marxism. J.-F. Lyotard, La guerre des Algériens. Écrits 1956–1963 (1989); Pérégrinations (1988); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: AI draft
Cornelius Castoriadis › 1922–1997

Criticism

Criticizes 3

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

criticised
Lyotard treated Hegel’s speculative unity of knowledge as one of the grand narratives of legitimation that have lost their credibility (The Postmodern Condition, 1979, §§ 9–10). J.-F. Lyotard, La condition postmoderne (1979), §§ 9–10; Le différend (1983)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Karl Marx influenced by

influenced by
In Socialisme ou Barbarie Lyotard analysed the Algerian war in Marxist terms of class and colonial exploitation (1956–63; La guerre des Algériens, 1989), before breaking with Marxism. J.-F. Lyotard, La guerre des Algériens. Écrits 1956–1963 (1989); Pérégrinations (1988); SEP “Jean François Lyotard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
criticised
Lyotard broke with Marxism in Libidinal Economy (1974) and later counted the narrative of proletarian emancipation among the grand narratives that have lost credibility (The Postmodern Condition, 1979). J.-F. Lyotard, Économie libidinale (1974); La condition postmoderne (1979)
Evidence: AI draft
Karl Marx › 1818–1883
Jürgen Habermas

criticised
Lyotard objected that Habermas’s aim of universal consensus through discourse rests on an outdated narrative of emancipation and does violence to heterogeneous language games (The Postmodern Condition, 1979). J.-F. Lyotard, La condition postmoderne (1979), §14; “Réponse à la question: qu’est-ce que le postmoderne?” (1982)
Evidence: AI draft
Jürgen Habermas › 1929–2026

Works

1979The Postmodern Condition
Incredulity toward metanarratives.
1983The Differend
Conflicts with no common rule of judgment.

Position

Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition, originally a report on knowledge in advanced societies commissioned by the government of Quebec, made “postmodern” a key word. Modernity, he argued, legitimated itself through “grand narratives”: the emancipation of humanity, the progress of reason, the realisation of the spirit. Postmodernity is defined by “incredulity toward metanarratives”; knowledge splits into many heterogeneous language games, and science legitimates itself increasingly through performance and efficiency. In The Differend he analysed conflicts in which there is no common rule for judging both sides, so that one party’s wrong cannot even be expressed. Lyotard also revived the aesthetics of the sublime as a way to bear witness to what cannot be represented.

Life & context

Lyotard was born in Versailles in 1924 and taught philosophy in Algeria in the early 1950s. For a decade he belonged to the left-wing group Socialisme ou Barbarie before breaking with Marxism. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes), co-founded the Collège international de philosophie and later also taught in the United States, at Irvine and Emory.