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Postmodern Views of Knowledge
I will be presenting lecture material on Jean-Francois Lyotard's
The Postmodern Condition of which you have an excerpt in your readings.
My goal will be to tell Lyotard's story, more or less from start to finish.
Here are some of the major stepping stones along the way:
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Elements of the postmodern condition: information science, cybernetics
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Contrast: Traditional vs. Contemporary models of education: Bildung vs.
Mercantilization of Knowledge. The latter goes along with a view
of society in which exchange is the dominant transaction.
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The Problem facing this new model of education & society: Legitimation
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Digression: The split between Science and Humanities: What is Narrative
knowledge?
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The Method: Language Games
Lyotard shows us that his method of analysis involves
presenting social conflict and legitimation problems as part of a rhetorical
"agonistics" among players in a society.
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The Social Bond: Modern vs. Postmodern
the modernist understanding of the social bond is based on
"functionalism"
the postmodern understanding of the social bond is based on
a recognition of the place of the individual in a language game and the
revival of an "agonistics" or set of strategies for that individual.
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Contrast: Pragmatics of Narrative Knowledge vs. Pragmatics of Scientific
Knowledge
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Postmodern Science: rules of legitimation are internal to scientific enterprise:
modelling as a paradigm.
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Narratives of legitimation of knowlege
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theoretical knowlege: knower as hero of knowledge
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practical knowledge: knower as hero of liberty.
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Bottom Line: What's the best strategy for a Postmodern to follow?
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Modernist project: Search for Consensus, universality
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Post-modern: anarchic, search for dissent, search for paralogy, an idea
of justice not linked to consensus.
