Lyotard

Towards a Postmodern Philosophy

James D. Williams

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9780745669106
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

Jean-François Lyotard was one of the most influential European thinkers in recent decades. He was a leading participant in debates about post-modernism and the decline of Marxism, and he made important contributions to ethics, aesthetics and political philosophy.

In this authoritative introduction, Williams tracks the development of Lyotard's thought from his early writings on the libidinal economy to his more recent work on the post-modern condition. Williams argues that despite the wide-ranging character of Lyotard's writings, they are animated by a long-standing concern to develop a new theory of political action. Lyotard's productive use of avant-garde art and the aesthetics of the sublime are interpreted within this context. In the final chapters some of the main criticisms that have been levelled at Lyotard's work are outlined and assessed.

A challenging but also accessible book, it will be welcomed by students and researchers in continental philosophy, literary theory and the humanities generally.

1

Introduction: Rethinking the Political

Jean-François Lyotard’s work is indispensable to any reflection on the most difficult problems of late twentieth-century society and culture. In his definition of the postmodern condition, he gives us an overview of these problems and one of the most important theories to draw them together. Lyotard reflects on the relation between the social fragmentation of contemporary societies and the global interconnection of markets and media. In fact, the concern with this relation, between radical differences and structures that attempt to bridge them, connects his account of the postmodern to his work as a whole. He tries to structure and decide upon the opposition of positive and negative reactions to fragmentation and globalization. Should we rejoice in differences drawn out of the end of unifying forces such as religion, nationhood, universal ideals? Or should we lament the passing of systems that legislate against conflict and difference in the name of greater progress and community? What are the political implications of fragmentation? How can we act with justice if there are no universal moral or legal norms?

A first response to these questions extends Lyotard’s influence to the arts. According to his philosophy, if we are to testify to difference and to fragmentation, then we must do so in art and literature. He is also, therefore, an all-important theorist of and apologist for avant-garde arts. His contribution there is as important as his political and social theory. In his work, we find new and influential ways of thinking about the avant-garde and the experience of art. The political and philosophical roles of aesthetic experiences and creativity are thought anew and in a manner consistent with the latest representations of society, language and individuals. This explains his ubiquity in works on the postmodern, whether at the level of politics, sociology, philosophy, literature or art. Where all these spheres are considered in unison, in terms of general theories of postmodernity, he is invariably one of the main protagonists. This does not mean that he is taken as correct. The contrary is more often the case: Lyotard is the main representative of a strain of divisive postmodern thought that many have sought to prove wrong or to decry. This is because he champions difference and division against reconciliation. But the role of villain does not detract from his importance. It is impossible to understand the resurgence of arguments on modern values without referring to his attack on them.

The great frequency of references to Lyotard’s work across a wide range of topics can also be explained by the pivotal role played by his writing in terms of schools of thought and influential debates. This role is best surveyed through an analysis of the main stages of his career, from his earliest postwar essays to his latest works. His first consistent set of essays (1956–63), collected in La Guerre des Algériens (1989) and translated in Political Writings (1993), brings together Marxist theory and a critical concern with a development of Marx in the context of the struggle for Algerian independence. These essays link him to Marxism, but also to theories on the development of Marxism by, for instance, Cornelius Castoriadis and Jean Baudrillard. His next main publication, Discours, figure (1971), connects poststructuralism, Marx and Freud in a critique of phenomenology through a study of art. In Économie libidinale (1974), Lyotard’s work rejoins the post-1968 rebellion against theory and turns towards materialist enactments of desire. This book connects him to Deleuze and Guattari and to the contemporary attempt to think beyond Marx and Freud.

Later, Lyotard drifts away from this extreme materialism and his work takes a turn towards a combination of aesthetics, social critique and analytic philosophy of language, in the context of the postmodern. This work is announced in La Condition postmoderne (1979), but the key book is Le Différend (1983). He claims that this is his most philosophical work. It has become an important book for questions of justice and political action within the postmodern condition. Lately, Lyotard has contributed to debates on postmodern ethics and aesthetics in the collections L’Inhumain (1988) and Moralités postmodernes (1993). Lyotard’s pivotal role does not only reflect movements. He has entered into important debates with many of the most influential thinkers of his generation: Derrida, Levinas, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe, Habermas (by proxy), Rorty, Deleuze and Guattari. These debates and his original work on the postmodern also involve interpretations of key figures from the history of philosophy, notably Marx, Freud, Kant and Wittgenstein. Put together, his contribution to important debates, his position within key movements and his influential definition of the postmodern explain why future developments across many subjects will continue to depend on reactions to his work. Our contemporary desire to think ‘after’ the postmodern must refer back to Lyotard, not only for historical accuracy in terms of theory, but in terms of lessons to be drawn from his efforts to think ‘with’ the postmodern condition.

Thus, in a century when specialization has become the norm, the work of Jean-François Lyotard stands out for its range and variety. Few contemporary thinkers have had his ability and determination to cover and contribute to topics and subjects as disparate as art and aesthetics, politics and active political engagement, the philosophy of language, psychoanalysis, the interpretation of texts from the history of philosophy, literary criticism and critical analysis, and social critique. This richness is as rare as it is difficult to maintain, for the price of the division of his efforts could be that depth is achieved nowhere. This book seeks to show that, with Lyotard, philosophical range is accompanied by profundity, and what appears at first sight to be mere variety is in fact a variation and a deepening of thought across a wide area. Here thought reacts against the pressures which force philosophy towards specialization and away from an engagement with the complex connections which bring together the multiple aspects of modern life and societies.

My account of Lyotard’s philosophy depends on the isolation of a central concern that runs through most, if not all, of his work: a rethinking of the political. Here ‘political’ stands for all forms of action linked to change, or resistance to change, in our societies. Politics is not limited to political parties or institutions. In fact, these may be seen to be far removed from political action – for example, when financial markets are seen to control the future of nations. Yet a series of familiar political and philosophical positions can be used to justify acts within this broad definition of the political. In line with this broad view of the political, Lyotard develops a wide-ranging philosophy that allows him to discard established positions with regard to political action, values and institutions. These are then replaced by new forms of action in tune with a new way of thinking about how acts can bring about just or valuable outcomes. For example, his later philosophy runs against any appeal to universal rights as the basis for action. Instead, the just act involves a recognition of radical differences between individuals, cultures and systems. These differences cannot be bridged by an appeal to the universality of rights. Similarly, in the case of the dominance of financial markets as agents of change, Lyotard’s philosophy rejects the argument that claims that the greatest performance and hence the greatest well-being can be achieved in capitalist systems. Instead, he draws our attention to the necessary injustice of systems dependent on a criterion of performance that cannot be sensitive to radically different ways of living.

This disruptive and original way of thinking about political action depends on a teasing out of a set of recurring figures typical of Lyotard’s work: the idea of the limit, the event, absolute difference and the avant-garde. The central concern and the recurring figures are brought together in his dissatisfaction with established or traditional ways of thinking about the political dimension in art, philosophy and linguistics. Thus the figures provide a new frame of reference for thinking the political, for example in Lyotard’s turn away from totalization and towards fragmentation, which can be traced back to his awareness of the importance of limits and absolute difference. Thus, at the same time as political thinking undergoes a radical change through a reflection on different topics, the thought of the political in those topics is rebased and reinvigorated:

What I have to tell you is driven by a work that is neither linguistic, nor semiological, not even philosophical, but rather political. This, in a sense of political that is not institutional (parliament, elections, political parties …), nor Marxist, a sense too close to the one already dismissed – political in a sense that is not determined yet and that will always, must always, remain to be determined. (Lyotard 1973: 127)

The stress on a sense of the political which involves a duty to desist from final definitions and judgements, and which defeats the will to determine the political with any such finality, is characteristic of Lyotard’s approach to the political. For example, Bill Readings gives an illuminating account of this understanding of the political in the context of the modern–postmodern opposition (1993: xiii). Lyotard’s work reflects a suspicion of knowledge as a basis for action. There will always be limits to such knowledge and the task of philosophy can be seen as revealing them in and through art and language.

Lyotard’s most famous book, The Postmodern Condition, attempts to reflect on the political aspects of modern science and knowledge in terms of their claims to validity. Where claims to truth in science would appear to be above the raw competition more readily associated with politics, he shows that they involve conflicts that can only be understood as power struggles at the boundaries of different social practices. Thus, although different social practices (science and art, for example) involve quite legitimate rules when they operate within their proper spheres, these rules fail at their limits. There are valid tests of the validity of a scientific hypothesis; however, when this hypothesis is used in a social application then it enters into competition with other rules from other practices. For instance, it is possible and legitimate for medicine to determine the best form of treatment for a given illness, but that ‘best’ treatment becomes involved in a further struggle when financial and ethical considerations come into play. There may be best treatments from many different points of view: the most effective, the most economical, one that saves more valuable lives (the young, for instance). Lyotard’s work in The Postmodern Condition is a rethinking of the political because it insists on the political element that enters into any discussion once claims from different spheres come into contact with one another.

This also explains how the book fits into Lyotard’s work as a whole. It is a particular instance of his thought on the way specific philosophical problems become part of practical political struggles. In The Postmodern Condition, the incommensurability of language games (that is, the way rules from different spheres are inconsistent) throws all action at the boundaries between spheres into a power struggle. Lyotard’s philosophy is characterized as the effort to understand and guide this struggle across a wide range of topics and issues.

In no way, though, does my decision to focus on a central concern imply a lack of interest in Lyotard’s analysis of society, his theories of language, or in his studies of law and morality. On the contrary, these are the most interesting and influential facets of his philosophy, alongside his work on aesthetics and modern art. It is more that these facets are best understood when they are seen as leading to a rethinking of the effort to bring about change in society through a political act. Though this does not imply that Lyotard has always wanted to act ‘for society’, or even less ‘for a new society’. He has advocated utterly rebellious acts that break the organization of society and turn to individual or group desires and interests. The consideration of the political act allows us to make sense of the models of society found in his works, but that consideration can only be felt with full force in those models. The rethinking of the political also allows us to appreciate Lyotard’s understanding of the fabric of the world, his rules for moral practice or his attacks on such rules, his aesthetics, his theory of language and his study of avant-garde art. Again, these aspects of Lyotard’s philosophy can be studied alone, but never to the same effect as when an eye is kept on the evaluation and critique of the political acts they entail. For example, it will be shown that the sense of ‘avant-garde’ is fully political in art, but also that the sense of ‘political’ is revolutionized by avant-garde art. The deepest sense of the political comes with the avant-garde, as it disturbs established knowledge and laws, and turns our attention to the constant possibility of further disturbances.

Lyotard’s most extended study of art Discours, figure, his well-known articles on the figure, the libidinal and the sublime in art, as well as his studies of individual artists like Duchamp, show this application of philosophy to art in terms of revolutionary acts. Here, the shock value and innovation of the work of art take on a political significance as acts that disturb an established status quo and force us to think anew. Artists can show the limits and flaws of set ways of thinking and acting. They can return us to more fundamental sensations that have become hidden under elaborate forms of thought. Lyotard’s influence among artists and aestheticians can be explained by this philosophical engagement with the work of art as a motivator of revolutionary action and thought.

The political act or, more accurately, the planning of such an act sets a series of awkward and inhibiting questions in motion: questions as to the best course of action to take, as to the most just course of action, as to why any action is necessary or even possible, questions as to where to act and as to what is sought as an end to the action. All are pushed to the fore as soon as we plan anything. Experience, often painful, teaches us to be wary of acts. There is a deep fount of wisdom on the dangers and pitfalls of idealist action, perhaps expressed most famously by Robert Burns in ‘To a mouse’ (1990: 72):

The best-laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men
Gang aft agley,

An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!

However, the counterbalance to this wisdom born of experience is equally persuasive: what is the point of thought and feeling if it does not lead to action? Aristotle shows us the real sadness of Burns’s lesson: ‘so those who act win, and rightly win, the noble and good things in life’ (Aristotle 1925: s. 1099 a.). The role of a philosophy of action, of a philosophy aimed at a political commitment within society, is to answer the questions raised at the outset of action. It is to resolve the conflict of two forms of wisdom, wisdom born of painful experience and wisdom aware of the futility of an action-free existence – scepticism against commitment and commitment against scepticism. The questions arising at the outset of an action are the expression of that scepticism, but also, the fact that these questions have been raised at all is testament to a commitment, a will towards action in the world. Lyotard thinks on the cusp of this commitment and of the questions put forward by the sceptic, the voice of experience. In his early works on Algeria and in his works around the postmodern, he attempts to resolve the tension between political optimism and scepticism. His libidinal philosophy is more of an effort to ignore their debilitating effects. This depends on the argument that the effects come to bear only on certain forms of political action, in particular those that depend on negative critique or on utopian ideals.

To understand Lyotard in this way is to respond to his own political commitment, again in the widest sense of a reflection on the acts designed to change society or to change specific elements in society, rather than in the narrow sense of a deliberation on the government of society. This commitment can be found in his earliest works, for example in an essay for Jean-Paul Sartre’s Temps Modernes, ‘Nés en 1925’, written when Lyotard was twenty-three. (In 1948 the French review Temps Modernes commissioned three students born in 1925 to record their observation on life after the war; Lyotard was one of them.) The essay strives for an appropriate response to the horror of the Second World War and to the implication of prewar politics and ethics in the horror (a preoccupation that was to stay with Lyotard for the rest of his life, recurring in the name Auschwitz):

We will come out of war, the Twentieth Century’s most concrete product, with a monstrous poverty of thought and morals. We are twenty years old when the camps disgorge that which they have had neither the time nor the appetite to digest. Those hollow faces plague our thinking: in the camps, Europe has assassinated its liberalism, three or four centuries of Greco-Latin tradition. (Lyotard 1948: 2053)

Political commitment is found in its more traditional form in Lyotard’s militant phase, in his writings for the militant journal Socialisme ou Barbarie on Algeria, collected later in the book La Guerre des Algériens (as a young man Lyotard taught in a lycée in Constantine, Algeria). He argues there on the side of the Algerian and French working classes and works for a just overcoming of French colonial rule in Algeria. What is sought is a just resolution for all Algerians, not only for a surrogate ruling class still in the pay of Gaullist France and the USA or for a totalitarian resolution plummeting Algeria into misery and tyranny: ‘the problem posed by this deep decomposition of activities and ideals is exactly to know where, by what means the revolutionary project can be expressed, organized, fought.’ Yet even here a problematic situation calls for a rethinking of the political against a prevalent militant ideology:

A certain idea of politics is dying in this society. For sure, the ‘democratization’ of the regime called for by out-of-work politickers, or the creation of a ‘great unified socialist party’ that would only be the regrouping of the scraps of the left, will not bring that idea back to life. All that is without perspective, tiny when compared to the size of the crisis. Now is the time for revolutionaries to size up to the revolution we need. (Lyotard 1989a: 196)

Lyotard’s political commitment is developed in his two major books Libidinal Economy and The Differend, where he puts forward philosophies offering an alternative to, or a critique of, the traditional conception of the political. In particular, these offer the possibility of a political act that does not depend on universal measures and values. Such universality is seen to be dependent on types of representation that seek to account for all aspects of society in a general theory: totalizing discourses and metanarratives. According to him, these are suspect because they threaten to cancel the differences they seek to describe and incorporate. A legal system based on universal human rights may be unjust because its definition of the human may be inconsistent with some of the people or individuals it is applied to. If a standard Western set of practices and values is taken as the template for universal human rights this may lead to great injustice when it is applied to individuals who do not share that Western religious, cultural and economic basis. Lyotard’s philosophy reminds us of the fundamental importance of difference in the face of totalization. It also seeks to spur us into action on the side of difference and against the unjust application of universal standards and values. Finally, it sets about these two aims in the most appropriate manner: a rich and multifaceted enquiry into science, art, politics, language and ethics where no field dominates and all contribute to our feel for difference.

2

Lyotard’s Materialism

Theory and practice

Very few acts serving to change or preserve the world escape doubt. Each action can fail in the most miserable and unforeseen manner. Often the very injustice that we seek to set right returns as a consequence of our actions. This risk is all the stronger where a radical philosophy of action is put forward. How can Lyotard’s rethinking of the political escape such risks and doubts? Has he taken the right approach? Is his politics just, as he sometimes claims (and sometimes denies)? Is it realistic? Does it conform to the facts?

The first step towards a ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Key Contemporary Thinkers
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: Rethinking the Political
• 2 Lyotard's Materialism
• 3 States of Society: the Postmodem Condition
• 4 States of Society: the Libidinal Economy
• 5 Methodology
• 6 Politics
• 7 Hegel, Levinas and Capital
• 8 Critical Debates
• References
• Index
• Back Cover