|
The Postmodern Condition (Theory & History of Literature) | 
 enlarge | Creators: Jean-francois Lyotard, G. Bennington, B. Massumi
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Category: Book
List Price: $28.90
Buy New: $15.66
You Save: $13.24 (46%)
New (3) Used (9) from $12.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 1459402
Media: Paperback
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.5
ISBN: 0719014506
Dewey Decimal Number: 401
EAN: 9780719014505
ASIN: 0719014506
Publication Date: August 9, 1984
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Brand New. Delivery is usually 5 - 8 working days from order, International is by Royal Mail Airmail
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Postmodernism is a Deficient Metanarrative October 12, 2008
In the academic world there has been move to attempt to completely undermine the individual's ability to grasp the world. Action is a function of unconconcious modules evolved on the the African Savannah, uncertainty is the way to love, the brain is a computer basically full of unconcious subroutines, all has to be inferred - nothing is present, genes are determinative etc. Vis-a-vis the academic world the ability of the individual to grasp the world is being attacked so as to undermine the ability to form a metanarrative. Postmodernism is a program rather than a fact. Of course various 'master thinkers' make terrifc careers vis-a-vis the attack on the individual's ability to grasp the world. The difficulty with the attack on the ability for form a metanarrative is that the world is clearly present as a totality to the individual. Of course, there are universals such as Democracy, individual rights and a regulated market. Basically the attack on he ability to form a metanarrative was an attack on academic work which disputes the soley political nature of the world. In the US Lyotard's attack on metanarratives valorized a political metanarrative as the poltics of the world didn't stop with Lyotard's annoucement. Lyotard basically said leave the neo-cons alone and worry about how the paper is going to be receieved at the next conference. Lyotard's postmodernism was an academic politics. Lyotard told people that by and large people had zip to to say about the world as a whole but the neo-cons and progressives weren't listening. Postmodermism is a deficient metanarrative which cleared the way for the neo-cons. Postmodernism is an aspect of a repressive politics.
The introduction of Postmodernism in Philosophy December 25, 2007
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 10) With this essay Lyotard introduced the notion of 'postmodern'in philosophy. An easy readable introduction.
 Dazzlingly Prescient December 21, 2007
Lyotard begins what has come to be regarded as the signal epistemic statement of Post-Modernity (post 8/6/45) with these words: "Our working hypothesis is that the status of knowledge is altered as societies enter what is known as the postindustrial age and cultures enter what is known as the postmodern age. This transition has been under way since at least the end of the 1950s..."
How has the status of knowledge altered? It has become, continuing the assertions of Adorno, Horkheimer, Luckacs and others, "commoditized". The attainment of knowledge, in our desperate moment, is no longer ever regarded primarily as an end in itself, a process, as well as a product, but rather, as a defeasable means to an end. And whose end? Of course, there are contextual variations on this theme. We are essentially curious. But even when questions of ontology and semantics are answered -those answers have taken on an air of pragmatic disenchantment.
While Lyotard's philosophic standpoint owes much to his reading of the seminal, Dialectic of Enlightenment, a work really prerequisite to this one, and the Frankfort School in general, he transcends commentary. He takes his theories into the real world. In a world where information is power, and egoist, corporatized, technocratic totalitarian social forms dominate - in the struggle for the all important tech edge, scientific information, esp military related scientic information - is the pearl of great price. The great ethical issue thus becomes its legitimization, or examination of the truth conditions which engender our valuations of it.
I could not enter this review without citing, what has to be among the most remarkable passsages. Please note that this work was published in early 1974:
"Already in the last few decades, economic powers have reached the point of imperilling the stability of the state through new forms of the circulation of capital that go by the generic name of multi-national corporations. These new forms of circulation imply that investment decisions have, at least in part, passed beyond the control of the nation-states." The question threatens to become even more thorny with the development of computer technology and telematics. Suppose, for example, that a firm such as IBM is authorised to occupy a belt in the earth's orbital field and launch communications satellites or satellites housing data banks. Who will have access to them? Who will determine which channels or data are forbidden? The State? Or will the State simply be one user among others? New legal issues will be raised, and with them the question: "who will know?"
Transformation in the nature of knowledge, then, could well have repercussions on the existing public powers, forcing them to reconsider their relations (both de jure and de facto) with the large corporations and, more generally, with civil society. The reopening of the world market, a return to vigorous economic competition, the breakdown of the hegemony of American capitalism, the decline of the socialist alternative, a probable opening of the Chinese market these and many other factors are already, at the end of the 1970s, preparing States for a serious reappraisal of the role they have been accustomed to playing since the 1930s: that of, guiding, or even directing investments. In this light, the new technologies can only increase the urgency of such a re-examination, since they make the information used in decision making (and therefore the means of control) even more mobile and subject to piracy.
It is not hard to visualise learning circulating along the same lines as money, instead of for its "educational" value or political (administrative, diplomatic, military) importance; the pertinent distinction would no longer be between knowledge and ignorance, but rather, as is the case with money, between "payment knowledge" and "investment knowledge" - in other words, between units of knowledge exchanged in a daily maintenance framework (the reconstitution of the work force, "survival") versus funds of knowledge dedicated to optimising the performance of a project."
The promise of freedom and stability through corporatized ownership of the world's resources and markets (globalization) is a metanarrative we can simply no longer afford - and the putative effectiveness of corporate modelling as a structural principle for social organization is a uptopian myth which must be publically debunked asap - for our survival requires a new level of caring - a new ethical concientiousness. We cannot afford acts of ecological carelessness or unconscious, blatent disregard, in the name of outworn ideology. We cannot continue to curtail access to knowledge through some sort of cultural spin, weighted to the random prefrence of the status quo. The current push toward media consolidation is yet another symptom of the same terminal trend to smaller and smaller group decision-making. If knowledge is power, which is what enlightment and its signal socio-ecomonic cultural expression, capitalism, avers, then power must remain accessible to all sentient beings, at least within the purview of their aspirations.
Post-Nuclear Philosophical Fallout May 8, 2007
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
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.
One of the must read works on postmodernism January 1, 2007
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
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.
|
|
|
Disclaimer: This is an Amazon storefront - the products referenced on this site are manufactured and sold by other parties and sold through Amazon.com We make no representations regarding either the products or any information vendors offer about their products. Any questions, complaints, or claims regarding the products must be directed to the appropriate manufacturer or vendor, or to Amazon.com. |
| |
