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Jean-François Lyotard (August 10 1924-April 21 1998) was a French philosopher and literary theorist.
Life and work
Among other things, he is well-known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s.
Before that, he was a member of Socialisme ou Barbarie, a group formed in France in 1948 around a view of the inadequacy of the Trotskyist analysis of the new forms of domination in the Soviet Union. Socialisme ou Barbarie became increasingly anti-Marxist and Lyotard was prominent in the Pouvoir Ouvrier group who rejected that position and split in 1963.
Later he became a founding member of the European Graduate School.
Lyotard maintained in Le Différend (The Differend) (1983) that human discourses occur in any number of discrete and incommensurable realms, none of which is privileged to pass judgment on the success or value of any of the others. Thus, in Économie libidinale (Libidinal Economy) (1974), La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge) (1979), and Au juste: Conversations (Just Gaming) (1979), Lyotard attacked contemporary literary theories and encouraged experimental discourse unbounded by excessive concern for 'truth'.
Lyotard famously declared that now - in our postmodern or late-capitalist world - the 'Metanarratives' are dead.
On his passing, Lyotard was interred in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
See also
External link
- Jean-Francois Lyotard European Graduate School (http://www.egs.edu/faculty/jeanfrancoislyotard.html)
- The Post Modern Condition (The first 5 chapters) (http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/lyotard.htm)cs:Jean-François Lyotard
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