Jean-François Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher best known for defining the postmodern. After teaching in Algeria and belonging to the radical Marxist group Socialisme ou Barbarie, he broke with Marxism and taught for many years at the University of Paris VIII. The Postmodern Condition, a report on knowledge written for the government of Quebec, described postmodernity as 'incredulity towards metanarratives', the loss of faith in grand stories of progress and emancipation. In later works such as The Differend he examined injustice, language and the sublime in art.

Key ideas

• The postmodern condition is marked by incredulity towards metanarratives, the grand stories that once legitimated knowledge and politics.
• Knowledge is increasingly legitimated by performativity, its efficiency and saleability, rather than by truth or emancipation.
• Social life consists of many incommensurable language games rather than one unified discourse.
• A differend is a conflict in which the wronged party lacks the language in which to state the wrong.
• Sublime art presents the fact that something unpresentable exists.

Major works

• The Postmodern Condition (1979)
• Discourse, Figure (1971)
• Libidinal Economy (1974)
• The Differend (1983)
• The Inhuman (1988)

In the Book corner

• The Postmodern Condition 1979 · Intermediate
  A short report on the state of knowledge in the most developed societies, written at the request of the Quebec government's council…

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