Lyotard - The Postmodern Condition

Theory and History of Literature

• Edited by Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse

• Volume 1: Tzvetan Todorov - Introduction to Poetics

• Volume 2: Hans Robert Jauss - Toward an Aesthetic of Reception

• Volume 3: Hans Robert Jauss - Aesthetic Experience and Literary Hermeneutics

• Volume 4: Peter Bürger - Theory of the Avant-Garde

• Volume 5: Vladimir Propp - Theory and History of Folklore

• Volume 6: Edited by Jonathan Arac, Wlad Godzich, and Wallace Martin - The Yale Critics: Deconstruction in America

• Volume 7: Paul de Man - Blindness and Insight: Essays in the Rhetoric of Contemporary Criticism, 2nd ed., rev.

• Volume 8: Mikhail Bakhtin - Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics

• Volume 9: Erich Auerbach - Scenes from the Drama of European Literature

• Volume 10: Jean-François Lyotard - The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge

• Translation from French by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi

• Foreword by Fredric Jameson

• University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis

The Postmodern Condition

1. The Field: Knowledge in Computerized Societies

• Transition to postindustrial age altering the status of knowledge since the 1950s.

• Difficulty in creating an overview due to temporal disjunction.

• Scientific knowledge as a discourse impacted by leading sciences and technologies.

• Examples include phonology, linguistics, cybernetics, and modern informatics.

• Anticipated impact of technological transformations on research and learning transmission.

• Genetics as an example of research influenced by cybernetics.

• Miniaturization changing how learning is acquired and classified.

• Expectation that knowledge will be expressed in quantifiable information.

• Anything not translatable into computer language may be abandoned.

• Knowledge production akin to commodity production, emphasizing the goal of exchange over use-value.

2. The Problem: Legitimation

• Legitimation of knowledge interlinked with authority and societal norms.

• Historical connection of scientific knowledge and political/legal authority since Plato.

• The role of scientific legitimacy affected by societal power dynamics.

• Knowledge increasingly viewed as a commodity in the global competition for power.

3. The Method: Language Games

• Importance of language and its pragmatic aspects in analyzing societal knowledge.

• Differentiation of utterances (denotative vs. performative).

• Examples show how language positions the speaker, listener, and referent.

The Nature of the Social Bond: The Modern Alternative

Methodological Representations of Society

• Two basic models: functionalist (e.g., Parsons) vs. dualistic (e.g., Marxist).

• Cybernetics as a new model for understanding societal systems.

• Functionalism vs. critical theory in the analysis of societal inequalities.

Social Evolution

• Critique of traditional theories becoming symptomatic of modernism's decline.

• The relationship between knowledge and its utility in a capitalist society.

Technocratic Governance

• Increasing withdrawal of regulatory functions from traditional political structures to technology and machines.

• Decision-making power increasingly held by corporate leaders over traditional politicians.

Conclusion: Postmodern Society

Challenges of New Knowledge

• Fragmentation of grand narratives leading to individualism.

• Individuals located at communication 'nodal points' influencing knowledge spread.

• Language assumed a new priority, impacting methods of social governance.

Postmodern Knowledge Dynamics

• Knowledge functions shifting towards flexibility and communication.

• Language games emerge as a method of societal interaction and knowledge construction.