JF Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition A Report on Knowledge

Lyotard, J, F. (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. 10th ed. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Introduction

"The object of this study is the condition of knowledge in the most highly developed societies".

- Only developed 'societies' i.e.. America, the UK and parts of Europe (in Asia Japan). Lyotard only concentrates on these geographical areas, as it cannot be analysed in less developed countries because there is no late capitalism displayed.

"I have decided to use the word postmodern to describe that condition. The word is in current use on the American continent among sociologists and critics; it designates the state of our culture following the transformations which, since the end of the nineteenth century, have altered the game rules for science, literature, and the arts. The present study will place these transformations in the context of the crisis of narratives."

- Lyotard describes postmodernism as a kind of 'crisis of narratives' which could suggest that the way that modernism aimed to progress was starting to split and warp, and this then resulted in a number of different and separate narratives. This supports Lyotard's theory of postmodernism as an 'incredulity toward metanarratives'. Postmodernism becomes multiple in meaning, and does not stay within the confinements of rules as modernism did.

xxiv

"Science has always been in conflict with narratives".

"Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives."

"The decision makers, however, attempt to manage these clouds of sociality according to input/output matrices, following a logic which implies that their elements are commensurable and that the whole is determinable. They allocate our lives for the growth of power. In matters of social justice and of scientific truth alike, the legitimation of that power is based on it's optimizing the system's performance - efficiency."

xxv

"Postmodern knowledge is not simply a tool of the authorities; it refines our sensitivity to differences and reinforces our ability to tolerate the incommensurable."

p. 3

"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."

- Lyotard used technology to explain his theory on postmodernism.

"Scientific knowledge is a kind of discourse."

"The relationship of the suppliers and users of knowledge to the knowledge they supply and use is now tending, and will increasingly tend, to assume the form already taken by the relationship of commodity producers and consumers to the commodities they produce and consume - that is, the form of value."

p. 4

"Knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold."

- A difficult concept to grasp, Lyotard looks at knowledge in an objective way, and suggests that there are controllers of this knowledge, and this could mean that the status of knowledge is perceived, not justified, as is distributed by those who are in control.

p. 7

"Scientific and technical knowledge is cumulative is never questioned."

- Lyotard questions the authority that science often has on society and categorises this in the same vein as other discourses, such as applied arts etc. and explains that science is not a means to progress. Lyotard simply describes scientific knowledge as a narrative. In relation to postmodernism, this is also applied to the incredulity postmodern thinkers have to narratives, and so any kind of discourse is never acknowledged as being an absolute.

"scientific knowledge does not represent the totality of knowledge; it has always existed in addition to, and in competition and conflict with, another kind of knowledge, which I will call narrative."