Jean-François Lyotard

Car enfin on ne peint pas pour parler, mais pour se taire 1 . 1. Le propos L'enjeu des arts visuels au 20 e siècle est avant tout (mais pas seulement bien sûr) de donner forme et écoute au silence. Ce silence « n'est pas le contraire du langage » comme le dit Merleau-Ponty, mais se définit et se délimite par rapport au langage, comme contrepoint, fond ou comme dehors du langage. Deux philosophes en particulier sont revenus tout au long de leur parcours sur ce silence particulier du visuel : Maurice Merleau-Ponty et Jean-François Lyotard. Tous deux ont interrogé la nature du visuel en tant que tel, en tant que différent du langage et ont pour cela admiré, voire envié, les peintres modernes comme Cézanne, Klee ou Kandinsky. Lyotard a poursuivi de son côté une relation étroite et féconde avec un grand nombre d'artistes contemporains. Ils n'ont pourtant que rarement été étudiés ensemble, sans doute à cause des prises de position très tranchées de Lyotard contre la phénoménologie. Pourtant, la continuité entre les deux crève les yeux lorsqu'on lit les textes de près, et on verra apparaître les enjeux de l'esthétique contemporaine de manière bien différente sur le fond de cette comparaison, sur le fond de ces deux écoutes du silence, apparemment conflictuelles et néanmoins complémentaires. Ces enjeux concernent le rapport de l'art et du politique, le rapport de l'art et de l'éthique, sur le fond de la question plus fondamentale encore de la perception. Pour clarifier ces enjeux, et pour en montrer aussi l'extrême actualité, j'introduis l'oeuvre de Thierry Fontaine (La Réunion, 1968) dont les travaux mettent en jeu de manière très puissante les relations paradoxales et indissolubles entre vision et langage. 2. Les cris de Thierry Fontaine Du point de vue des artistes, on trouvera sans difficulté de nombreux exemples de pratiques qui travaillent dans cet écart du langage, à la recherche de la spécificité du visuel. Ceux qui viennent à l'esprit ressortissent surtout aux figures majeures de la 1 Jean-François Lyotard, « Freud selon Cézanne », in Des dispositifs pulsionnels, Paris, Galilée, 1994, p. 86. peinture moderne. Aujourd'hui par contre, on observe une relative domination du discursif dans les pratiques de l'art contemporain, qui est due, entre autres, à l'héritage de l'art conceptuel, mais aussi au développement de démarches documentaires et militantes 2 . La démarche de Thierry Fontaine 3 est singulière dans son obstination à interroger quelque chose qui semble de l'ordre du visuel pur. Un ensemble de photographies, réalisées entre 1998 et 2002 contiennent presque toutes dans leur titre le mot « cri ». On y voit un personnage masculin dont le visage est couvert d'une épaisse couche d'argile. Ce sont des portraits, mais des portraits dont le centre -le visage -est recouvert, oblitéré, obstrué. Le visage n'est pas masqué puisque le personnage ne porte pas une identité autre -il est simplement neutralisé, comme étouffé par le poids de l'argile et empêché par son épaisseur. Le mot « cri » qu'on entend dans la plupart des titres peut être interprété de différentes façons : soit il indique que l'appel, l'interpellation signifiée par le cri est un appel visuel et non seulement sonore, et qu'on devrait en quelque sorte l'entendre avec les yeux ; soit il indique que le bruit du cri, en réalité, est un silence, et qu'il s'agit néanmoins de percevoir ce silence qui agit néanmoins comme un appel. Dans le premier cas, on doit supposer que le cri est de l'ordre du langage, mais d'un langage transposé dans l'ordre du visuel, qui se laisse transposer sans trop de pertes vers le discours, un peu comme la notion levinassienne du visage signifie en réalité la Parole du Très-Haut, le « Tu ne tueras point ». Mais il me semble évident que l'interpellation vécue par le regardeur face à ces images n'est pas saisissable entièrement par le discours. Il faut par conséquent poursuivre le second cas, et s'interroger sur la nature de ce silence spécifiquement visuel. De quoi s'agit-il ? Reprenons la description de ces images. Fontaine appelle sa démarche de la sculpture, il donne à ses images des titres qui comportent le mot « cri » et du point de vue technique, ce sont des photographies. La structure formelle est complexe et ne saurait être réduite à de la photographie, de la sculpture ou à une démarche sonore. Ce n'est pas pour autant une composition de ces différents aspects entre eux pour former une oeuvre « multimédia ». On est en présence d'une structure très singulière où chacun de ces trois aspects constitue ce que Merleau-Ponty appelle une « partie totale » du même être, des dimensions. Chacune des appellations -sculpture, photographie, oeuvre sonore -exprime une dimension totale, mais compatible avec les deux autres. Cela signifie aussi qu'aucune de ces trois dimensions n'exprime seule la portée de ces oeuvres, mais qu'elles pointent ensemble en direction d'une puissance qui échappe aux possibilités du langage et de la représentation. Certes, les oeuvres de Fontaine s'inscrivent dans le contexte des débats sur la créolisation ; il est inséparable de son identité réunionnaise, son travail puise à la question du colonialisme et, bien sûr, ces cris muets sont aussi une expression de la domination subie par les descendants des esclaves en pays créole. Cet phénoménologie, qui se donne pour tâche de décrire les manières dont les phénomènes nous apparaissent. Dans Discours, figure, son parti pris de se situer au sein du discours ou de l'image pour décrire les déformations et transgressions opérées par le désir, peut être considéré comme phénoménologique au sens rigoureux d'une description des modes de donation de la chose dans le tissu de la signification, seul système à même de recueillir et de conserver des phénomènes quels qu'ils soient. Son parti pris de se situer du point de vue du discours ou des images et d'interroger ce qui les trouble, qui les ébranle du dehors, rejoint finalement la méthode merleaupontienne du langage indirect afin de rendre compte des mouvements et des formes de la perception. Ce qui se manifeste indirectement n'est pas cependant du signifiant, mais des intensités qui affectent de différentes manières le signifiant. Par la suite, dans un tout autre paradigme, celui du « tournant linguistique » de la philosophie des années 1980, Lyotard thématise la question du silence du témoin placé dans le double bind du négationniste qui le somme de prouver qu'il était voué à la mort : s'il prouvait qu'il devait mourir, il ne peut pas témoigner puisqu'il serait mort, et s'il témoigne de sa mort, c'est qu'il est vivant et que son témoignage est donc falsifié. Le jeu de langage typique du témoignage, celui du document, a pour effet d'exclure radicalement l'expérience du témoin lui-même, expérience dont l'objet est précisément sa propre élimination. Le silence qui résulte de cette situation folle 30 est la marque la plus fondamentale de la terreur et de la domination la plus implacable.

This paper explores the mechanisms of construction of ‘otherness’ at both the levels of language and content in Elfriede Jelinek’s text Die Schutzbefohlenen and in its English translation.
Firstly, Jean-François Lyotard’s critique of Hegel and conception of a politics of forgetting will be applied to the text as a productive tool to enrich a post-modern reading. In Heidegger and the “jews”, Lyotard introduces the “jews” as the unrepresentable excess of our identity, that unconceivable element which needs to be removed, exterminated, forgotten for a sense of unified, pure identity to be secured. Jelinek’s “wir”/“we” in Die Schutzbefohlenen, hovering between being and non-being, untimely beyond time and space, dissolving in water into nothingness, indeed embody the Lyotardian ‘forgotten’ that the West drowns in a desperate attempt to prevent this threat from coming to the surface to be seen, heard and disturb the illusion of an identity.
Secondly, the analysis will incorporate a queer perspective by applying Sara Ahmed’s concept of ‘spatial orientation’ and ‘normalisation of directions’ to highlight the way in which the textual references to movements reveal and challenge totalizing ideals of “sameness” and spatial identity (nationalism).
In this respect, the paper pays close attention to linguistic mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion and to the tension/interplay between patterns of unification and fragmentation. These include: alternations of the particles “ein-“ and “aus-” and the personal pronouns “wir”, “Sie”, “du”, “ihr”; the conflation between an all-encompassing divine and bureaucratic authority; play on words in revealing the hypocrisy of democratic ideals.
These aspects are analysed by comparing the text with the English translation (Charges (The Supplicants)), highlighting potential translation challenges, gains, losses and the way the two languages use their linguistic and cultural specificities in ‘othering’ and ‘queering’.
Lyotard’s forgotten “jews” and Ahmed’s displaced others emerge as productive elements which, applied to the German and English texts, enhance Jelinek’s disruption of any comforting, unifying pattern of identity and of those grand narratives of freedom and humanity that Europe holds dear, exposing their hidden yet dangerous mechanisms of selective inclusion and oppressive exclusion.

“Power is war, the continuation of war by other means”: Foucault’s reversal of Clausewitz’s formula has become a staple of critical theory — but it remains highly problematic on a conceptual level. Elaborated during Foucault’s 1976 lectures (“Society Must Be Defended”), this work-hypothesis theorises “basic warfare” [la guerre fondamentale] as the teleological horizon of socio-political relations. Following Boulainvilliers, Foucault champions this polemological approach, conceived as a purely descriptive discourse on “real” politics and war, against the philosophico-juridical conceptuality attached to liberal society (Hobbes’s Leviathan being here the prime example).
However, in doing so, Foucault did not interrogate the conceptual validity of notions such as power and war, therefore interlinking them without questioning their ontological status. This problematic conflation was partly rectified in 1982, as Foucault proposed a more dynamic definition of power relations: “actions over potential actions”.
I argue, somewhat polemically, that Foucault’s hermeneutics of power still involves a teleological violence, dependent on a polemological representation of human relations as essentially instrumental: this resembles what Derrida names, in “Heidegger’s Ear”, an “anthropolemology”. However, I show that all conceptualisation of power implies its self-deconstruction. This self-deconstructive (or autoimmune) structure supposes an archi-originary unpower prior to power: power presupposes an excess within power, an excessive force, another violence making it both possible and impossible. There is something within power located “beyond the power principle” (Derrida). This (self-)excess signifies a limitless resistantiality co-extensive with power-relationality. It also allows the reversal of pólemos into its opposite, as unpower opens politics and warfare to the messianic call of a pre-political, pre-ontological disruption: the archi-originary force of différance. This force, unconditional, challenges Foucault’s conceptualisations of power, suggesting an originary performativity located before or beyond hermeneutics of power-knowledge, disrupting theoreticity as well as empiricity by pointing to their ontological complicity.
The bulk of this essay is dedicated to sketching the theoretical implications of this deconstructive reading of Foucault with respect to the methodology and conceptuality of political science and social theory.

Heidegger’s critique of modern technology and its relation to metaphysics has been widely accepted in the East. Yet the conception that there is only one—originally Greek—type of technics has been an obstacle to any original critical thinking of technology in modern Chinese thought.

Yuk Hui argues for the urgency of imagining a specifically Chinese philosophy of technology capable of responding to Heidegger’s challenge, while problematizing the affirmation of technics and technologies as anthropologically universal.

This investigation of the historical-metaphysical question of technology, drawing on Lyotard, Simondon, and Stiegler, and introducing a history of modern Eastern philosophical thinking largely unknown to Western readers, including philosophers such as Feng Youlan, Mou Zongsan, and Keiji Nishitani, sheds new light on the obscurity of the question of technology in China. Why was technics never thematized in Chinese thought? Why has time never been a real question for Chinese philosophy? How was the traditional concept of Qi transformed in its relation to Dao as China welcomed technological modernity and westernization?

In The Question Concerning Technology in China, a systematic historical survey of the major concepts of traditional Chinese thinking is followed by a startlingly original investigation of these questions, in order to ask how Chinese thought might today contribute to a renewed, cosmotechnical questioning of globalized technics.

RESUMO: A iconologia do anjo, analisada à luz das reflexões de Walter Benjamin e de Jean-François Lyotard, leva-nos a investigar os efeitos de presença e a presentificação da ausência que essa figura gera nos diversos meios da criação artística.

ABSTRACT: The angel's iconology, in the light of Walter Benjamin and Jean-François Lyotard's reflections on this theme, leads us to analyse both the effects of presence and a presentification of the absence that this figure enables in various media of artistic creation.

Social acceleration may be described through the analogy of software updates. That is, updating to the latest requires some sort of forgetting of the former. This article argues that knowledge is increasingly severed from learning and thinking, following Bauman's (2005) insight that contemporary society no longer produces a culture of learning but rather a culture of forgetting, disengagement and discontinuity. First, I will review the development of the knowledge society and its promise, which social acceleration will let us forget that the same promise is still pending in contemporary discourse. Then I will address the problem of disengagement, or fear of involvement, which consequently alters the relation people have with each other and learning. Discontinuity is when society loses its connection with its past and future alternatives. Time ceases to be inscribed in duration to become scattered moments, drifting loose with the relentless overflow of information. However, learning takes time; it is a built-in property that was also forgotten alongside the 'updating' of the contemporary conceptions of knowledge. One needs time to think and connect what was, what is and what could be to foster imagination and creativity, to figure out that society could be otherwise and become an object of critique, and most importantly, an object of involvement and learning.

« Le visage et la parole » s’ouvre par le mimesis : Si nous retirons tous ce qui est sur la fiction, la mimesis et l’art – l’art qui, en s’excluant de la vie, s’oriente à résoudre les conflits dans son propre domaine (le domaine de la « représentation » et de la « mise en scène ») – que reste-t-il de nous ?  La réflexion de ce qui est divin, n’est-elle pas une imitation ou même une simulation ?  Ainsi, à travers ces questions, Başaran trace-t-il une « arkhè » à partir des cheminements phénoménologiques chez Husserl, N. Uygur, Nancy, Lacoue-Labarthe et Lyotard vers l’economimesis de Derrida et glisse sur les diagrammes de la « déformation » et de la « désubjectivation » chez Deleuze et Guattari (il s’agit du débat de la première personne du singulier et de la théorie de « speech act » de Pierce, Jakobson et Benveniste à Blanchot et à Kafka)  et chez Agamben ? Quelles sont les origines de la philosophie de Melih Başaran ? Quelle est la structure de sa philosophie ? Quelles sont ses notions privilégiées ? En faisant une relecture de ses deux œuvres principales, Gıyabında, yerineler / Par contumace, aux lieux de (2004) et Kurbansal Sunu / L’Exposition sacrificielle (2005), nous allons essayer d’élucider les prémisses, rhizomes et oscillations de sa philosophie et sa logique du sens.

Si Jean-François Lyotard et Thierry Chaput avaient fait appel à de nombreux concepts pour la réalisation de l’exposition « Les Immatériaux », celle-ci avait été en même temps pensée pour s’adresser avant tout à la sensibilité des visiteurs. Ce paradoxe rendait la compréhension du public particulièrement compliquée, voire impossible. Dans cet article, il s’agit de montrer, par l’étude des différentes stratégies mises en place par les commissaires, comment cette mauvaise transmission du message était incluse dans le projet même de l’exposition.

If Jean-François Lyotard and Thierry Chaput used many concepts in the conception of the exhibition “Les Immatériaux”, at the same time it addressed above all the sensitivity of visitors. This paradox made public understanding particularly complicated, if not impossible. This article shows, by studying the different strategies implemented by the curators, how this poor transmission of the message was included in the project of the exhibition.

Dancefilm: Choreography and the Moving Image is a rich exploration of the choreographic in cinema.  It traces the history of the dancefilm form from some of its earliest manifestations in the silent film era, through the historic avant-garde, musicals and music videos to contemporary experimental short dancefilms. In so doing it also traverses some of the most significant collaborations between dancers, choreographers, and filmmakers.  Bringing film theory and dance theory into dialogue, the book argues that the combination of dance and film produces cine-choreographic practices that are specific to the dancefilm form. As whole, the book thus presents new models of cinematic movement that are historically informed and interdisciplinary in nature.  An extensive companion website provide key video illustrations and links to online resources.

La società contemporanea sta vivendo un'epoca del frammento la cui complessità è determinata da una serie di fattori che hanno definitivamente mutato l'ordine della società moderna: l'innovazione tecnologica, la globalizzazione, la crisi delle ideologie e Internet, sono solo alcuni degli elementi che hanno contribuito a ridefinire la nostra epoca come postmoderna, attributo che non indica una fase tardiva della modernità, ma un periodo storico segnato da una discontinuità netta con il passato. È stato Lyotard il primo ad inaugurare il termine postmodernità. Nel 1979, in La condition postmoderne, sottolinea infatti come l'ingresso nell'epoca postmoderna sia stato determinato dalla fine delle grandi narrazioni e delle interpretazioni totalizzanti della realtà, a cui è conseguito un indebolimento dei modelli, delle forme e dei valori universali che in passato erano prodotti proprio da questo tipo di narrazioni. Sarà questa fine, causata dai processi storici del Novecento, a produrre una discontinuità con la modernità 1 . Bauman definisce la postmodernità come modernità liquida, poiché "nessuna delle forme di vita sociale è in grado di mantenere a lungo la propria forma" 2 : siamo insomma entrati nell'era del post-paradigma, in cui la cultura si contrappone ad ogni tipo di meccanismo omeostatico in grado di dettare norme e doveri e consolidare la società attraverso forme solide e conformistiche 3 . La liquidità impone un tipo di meccanismo votato al cambiamento costante e alla flessibilità, il quale genera individui dal forte senso di smarrimento e frustrazione generale, causati dall'inconsistenza della propria identità liquida: "l'individuo indossa tante identità nel grande palcoscenico del sociale, coerenti con la rappresentazione di sé che intende comunicare agli altri [...]: il rischio è che, quando le luci del palcoscenico si spengono o si attenuano, dietro a ogni maschera non resti che il vuoto." 4 La flessibilità della cultura liquida è perfettamente aderente e funzionale ad una società fondata sul consumo come valore di vita, nella cui dimensione l'individuo può esprimersi costruendo, cambiando o sostituendo con frequenza e rapidità la propria identità con i pezzi di ricambio che il mercato propone. Il consumismo, vero e proprio attributo della società postmoderna, acquista infatti il ruolo cardine che nell'epoca moderna era riservato al lavoro. In questa prospettiva, la felicità è associata alla crescita quantitativa e intensiva di desideri, i quali producono un meccanismo di facile sostituzione degli oggetti, incaricati di soddisfare il desiderio fugace e transitorio solo per un breve lasso di tempo. Il meccanismo infatti deve garantire la rapida sostituzione delle merci per alimentare l'economia consumistica: un circuito edonista composto dalla mancata soddisfazione del desiderio e 1 Cfr.

Il movimento della cosiddetta riabilitazione della filosofia pratica, nato in Germania agli inizi degli anni Sessanta con la formula di Rehabilitierung der praktischen Philosophie, si connota come un movimento di rinascita dell’interesse filosofico per le tematiche della morale, del diritto e della politica, affrontate da una prospettiva alternativa rispetto sia a quella tecnico-scientifica che a quella metafisico-trascendentale(2). Per superare il relativismo ed il pluralismo etico della moderna società, globalizzata e policentrica, il movimento della Rehabilitierung rifiuta sia il modello della razionalità tecnico-scientifica (avvalendosi in ciò delle argomentazioni della prima Scuola di Francoforte) con il suo “divisionismo etico”(3), sia quello metafisico con la sua lontananza dagli ambiti della vita pratica (a partire dalla sua pretesa fondazione trascendentale), volgendosi invece alla ricerca di un modello di razionalità che, conciliando l’ethos con il logos (quindi né tramite una ratio calcolante e strumentale, né tramite la fede in ciò che risiederebbe prima e/o oltre la vita pratica), possa fungere da guida per l’azione.

The field of the production of knowledge has moved from the guarded precincts of academia to the Internet with important and still unexamined consequences. This paper investigates the interaction between the end of the Modernist metanarrative and the birth of what Leotard called petits récits, or the introduction of unauthorized knowledge into the discourse. An investigation the academic process of "evaluating" knowledge, peer review and publish and perish, this paper reveals that parallel universes have emerged in the past decade. On one side, there is the traditional method, which does not acknowledge the little narratives and on the other side there is the world of digital humanities. The production and dissemination of knowledge is increasingly shifting to the web with real consequences of traditional practices in the academic world.

The article presents an attempt to use the logical theory of Dignāga (ca 480 - ca 540) to address the critique levelled against the treatment of “truth” as an unattainable ideal in postmodern/poststructuralist philosophy. Dignāga has famously endorsed the Buddhist critique of language as an imperfect tool to articulate valid statements about reality, but he has also shown how double negation can be used to make limited positive statements by denying their opposites. In practice, this method can be used for the development of ethical concepts that can be shared between parties who would not agree, for example, on a positive definition of “justice”, but would nonetheless all consent to characterize certain practices as unjust.

Pojęcie piękna u Immanuela Kanta W refleksję o sztuce nieodłącznie wpisane są rozważania o pięknie. Za ojca estetyki, który zrezygnował z jej epistemologicznego pojmowania, konstytuując estetykę jako odrębną dziedzinę filozofii, naukę o pięknie i sztuce, uważa się Immanuela Kanta (od publikacji Krytyki władzy sądzenia, 1790). W księdze pierwszej tego traktatu, zatytułowanej Analityka piękna, wyróżnia Kant cztery właściwości piękna. Piękno to: 1. Przedmiot bezinteresownego upodobania. 2. To, co bez pośrednictwa pojęcia powszechnie się podoba. 3. Forma celowości danego przedmiotu, o ile zostaje ona w nim spostrzeżona bez wyobrażenia jakiegoś celu. 4. To, co bez pomocy pojęcia poznaje się jako przedmiot koniecznego upodobania. 1

In this paper, I relativize the widespread representation of the generalized relativism of 1970s philosophy. I will show how the group of thinkers of this period often referred to as the 'French Theory' movement is not always defined by the affirmation of a radical relativism, but rather by the obstinate search for an original 'reality' (as thing in itself) capable of competing and denouncing the false 'reality' constructed by reason. To demonstrate this, I will focus on the journey of a philosopher who is emblematic of this period, namely Jean-François Lyotard. I will demonstrate that Lyotard claims a form of realism, which I will qualify as 'tragic realism.' Then, I will compare this 'tragic realism' with the more contemporary forms of realism , in particular speculative realism.
Nous voudrions, dans cet article, relativiser la représentation (aujourd'hui largement répandue) d'un relativisme généralisé de la philosophie des années 70, en montrant comment la constellation formée par les penseurs de cette période ne se définit pas toujours (et pas seulement) par l'affirmation d'un relativisme radical ou conséquent, mais bien plutôt par la recherche obstinée d'un « réel » originaire, susceptible de concurrencer et de dénoncer une « réalité » construite par la raison. Pour le démontrer, nous nous concentrerons sur le parcours d'un philosophe emblématique de la période, à savoir Jean-François Lyotard. Nous nous attacherons à remonter au geste principiel qui, à notre sens, structure toute sa philosophie, par-delà ses apparentes évolutions, à savoir : le nouage qu'il effectue entre l'idée d'une critique de la raison et l'affirmation d'un réel en soi. Ce lien d'implication qui caractérise le premier moment de sa philosophie (I), demeure inchangé dans les années 80, marquées par sa reprise de Kant (II). Ce geste fait de Lyotard le représentant d'un réalisme tragique, que nous pourrons situer, dès lors, par rapport à différentes formes plus contemporaines de réalismes (III), en particulier le réalisme spéculatif.

"FormaMente" è la rivista ufficiale di GUIDE, l’Associazione delle Global Universities In Distance Education; i volumi vengono pubblicati in forma cartacea presso Gangemi Editore di Roma; per la versione on line del volume e del paper si veda: https://formamente.guideassociation.org/ethics-and-politics-in-the-postmodern-condition/

Abstract: In this paper I analyze the postmodern condition with particular reference to the ethical and political spheres. Postmodernism attempts a radical break with all of the major strands of post-Enlightenment thought. For postmodernists as the French Jean-François Lyotard and the Italian Gianni Vattimo, the orthodox Enlightenment "meta-narrative" of progress and the "speculative" narrative of Hegel and Marx have lost their explanatory force. In particular, Lyotard speaks about five large meta-narratives of Western culture: 1) Christianity (understood also in the secularized form which its values have taken into modernity); 2) Enlightenment; 3) Idealism as a "theory of progressive freedom in history"; 4) Marxism, and 5) Capitalism. According to Lyotard, one can consider "the incredulity" towards these meta-narratives (méta-récits or grands récits) as postmodern. He points out that after Auschwitz it is impossible to speak of rationality and progress in Western history: In the twentieth century the Nazi genocide showed that history is not a continuous ethical progress towards the best. From the philosophical point of view the precursor of postmodern atmosphere is Friedrich Nietzsche. This German philosopher elaborated a radically anti-metaphysical thought and proposed an ethic of emancipation. Postmodernists refer to Nietzsche's thought and theorize ethical-political practices aimed at the emancipation of women and socially weak subjects. Postmodernism's rejection of "totalizing" theories with universal pretentions is complemented by positive celebration of diversity or "difference" and emphasis on the ethical demands of "the other": this is, for example, the ethical perspective of Michel Foucault.

The meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism is an artificial, i.e., man-made construct, designed solely to indoctrinate, subjugate, and dominate, the general-population in service of a state-financial-corporate-aristocracy, that is, a select few, who are its active material and ideological agents. All the empty-promises and fools-possibilities, the meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism has showered unto the workforce/population has, in all intent and purpose, come to naught. These empty-promises and fools-possibilities have only served to occupy the workforce/population, while, the agents of bourgeois-capitalism have robbed the workforce/population of its property, i.e., capital, both quantifiable and unquantifiable. Consequently, although the Enlightenment has not been wholly vanquished to the dustbin of history, since, the Enlightenment meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism continues to stalk the planet, the Enlightenment must not be resurrected, by any means. It must not be re-animated, all-over again, so that it can enact its tyranny over humanity, all-over again. The way forward is to leave the past in the past, where it belongs. The way forward is towards the Nth degree of heterogeneity, equality and plurality, devoid of any overarching, meta-narrative, especially the cunning hydra, that is, the Enlightenment meta-narrative of bourgeois-capitalism.

This essay collection examines the current status of the interaction between literary studies and the philosophy of literature, articulates its potentialities and difficulties, and implements a genuine dialogue between the two fields by featuring twelve essays on shared issues written by scholars coming from both disciplines with an interdisciplinary audience in mind.

Literary studies and the philosophy of literature share an object (literature), in part a methodology (at a minimum, an investment on proposing generalisable theses about literature), and a number of crucial issues (how to determine the value of literature, how can we learn from fiction, what is the role of the author in understanding a literary work, etc.). Each of the two fields has given a range of answers to these questions, and their reciprocal relevance is often obvious to those few who are acquainted with both fields. Nonetheless, genuine interaction remains very scant: while philosophers of literature often talk about literary works, and literary scholars often talk about philosophy, very rarely do their outputs engage with the other discipline’s rationale and findings satisfactorily. This state of affairs stems largely from institutional separateness and from the relative heterogeneity of the respective intellectual frameworks and rhetoric.

This collection shows that this need not be the case. Twelve scholars from both disciplines have produced essays that span the two fields. We aim to show that the possibility of interaction is real and has an ample potential to open up new approaches and issues to enquiry. As such, this is an addition to the literature both for philosophers of literature and for those literary scholars who have an investment in the theory of literature.

The book contains essays by Catherine Belsey, Stein Haugom Olsen, Jukka Mikkonen, Michael Rose-Steel, Ery Shin, Manuel García-Carpintero, Maximilian de Gaynesford, Derek Matravers, Samuel O'Donoghue, Andrea Selleri, Marianna Ginocchietti and Giulia Zanfabro, and Heiko Zimmermann.

Jean-François Lyotard foi um filósofo francês e líder do movimento conhecido como "pós-estruturalismo". Filósofos como Gilles Deleuze, Derrida e Foucaut compartilham quase a mesma perspectiva no que também é conhecido como pós-modernismo. Lyotard se associou ao grupo marxista Socialisme ou Barbarie, fundado por Cornelius Castoriadis e Claude Lefort. O trabalho de Lyotard se concentrou em questões de arte, linguagem e política. Lyotard escreveu "A Condição Pós-moderna", um texto avulso escrito a pedido do governo de Quebec, que lançou Lyotard na vanguarda do debate crítico, onde ele introduziu sua definição de pós-moderno como "incredulidade em relação às metanarrativas".

I det här arbetet undersökte jag tre olika författares syn på det postmoderna: Alexandr Dugins, Jean- François Lyotards och Zygmunt Baumans. Vidare undersökte och diskuterade jag deras syn på postmodernitetens inverkan på kunskap och bildningsfrågor och de utmaningar den för med sig.
Undersökning har visat att världen har trätt in i en ny tidsålder – postmoderniteten som påverkade både kunskapssynen, vetenskapen och utbildningen i hela världen. Detta ledde till en kris inom nämnda området, eftersom modernitetens modeller och metoden har visat sig föråldrade. Krisen berörde frågan om legitimering av kunskapen och därmed vetenskapen. Situationen kräver därför nya, annorlunda modeller och tillvägagångssätt inom dessa områden som vore relevanta för vår tids utmaningar och detta arbetar man på i alla länder.

Nada de grandioso, transcendental, mas menor, banal, cotidiano, concreto, material. O sublime é uma alternativa ao discurso fatigado das transgressões tardo-modernas (que artistas perfomáticos, cineastas experimentais insistem em ressuscitar) e à ladainha de um mundo povoado de imagens, clichês e informações, não para recusá-lo, mas de dentro dele afirmar uma adesão. Como nos provoca Nelson Brissac Peixoto: “o destino das imagens não está mais sendo jogado no experimentalismo da vanguarda nem no engajamento ideológico, discursos completamente integrados no sistema de produção de clichês. O futuro das imagens está na produção do sublime” (PEIXOTO, 1997, p. 318). O sublime midiático, tecnológico, o sublime pop. O sublime não como fuga do mundo, escapismo, mas afirmação da possibilidade do encontro, da presença.
O sublime é a base de uma educação dos sentidos a partir do precário, do fugaz, do contingente, de tudo o que evanesce rápido, mas que brilha inesperada e sutilmente. Um tesouro para ser guardado.
O sublime faz da arte uma ambiência, uma paisagem onde se pode habitar e caminhar lentamente como se houvesse o tempo todo do mundo, é a volta em torno de um lago que bem pode ser uma vida, é o retorno ao mar, ao indefinido, ao inumano, que bem pode estar não só na natureza, como para Kant e os românticos, mas numa tela de televisão criada por computadores (ROLFE, 1998, p. 51) ou nos espaços urbanos (ver PEIXOTO, 1997, p. 310/1). O sublime não implica mais a perda do eu como triunfo da linguagem, mas que o próprio sujeito seja traduzido como paisagem.
Talvez todo este esforço tenha sido em vão. Por que buscar renomear, torcer uma palavra com sentidos tão arraigados, por que não falar em outra palavra: leveza? O sublime é um posicionamento ético e estético diante do mundo frente ao populismo midiático sem ignorar os meios de comunicação mas pensando-os em sua diversidade. Pensar os frágeis limites entre o sublime e o banal implica recolocar a atualidade ou não de uma estética hoje em dia. Em contraponto a um discurso da negação e de transgressão, reduzido hoje a uma estratégia de marketing, defendo uma gentil subversão. Também em contraponto a uma estética da violência, ao fascínio pelo grotesco e pelo abjeto, o sublime se traduz em leveza e delicadeza. Não consigo deixar de pensar no primeiro princípio da estética de Nietzsche (1999, p. 11): “O que é bom é leve, tudo divino se move com pés delicados”.  Mas esta já seria uma outra paisagem.

L’ouvrage qui se veut introductif décrit les principaux motifs de la théorie sociale et culturelle postmoderne, en simplifiant l’abord de la pensée post-68 (Baudrillard, Deleuze, Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Guattari). Ce livre a l’ambition de clarifier les incompréhensions et les erreurs qui ont alimenté les débats parfois polémiques concernant ce courant de pensée. Il a le grand avantage de relire les textes essentiels, de les composer de façon lisible, en cernant la composante progressive de la pensée postmoderne.
À travers des champs variés, social et culturel, esthétique et artistique, philosophique et métaphysique, l’essai explore la sensibilité d’une avant-garde toujours très actuelle pour les sociétés contemporaines. Nous sommes les témoins d’une synchronie manifeste entre tous ces changements qui offrent des configurations inédites pour la pensée et l’action.
Le postmodernisme ne représente pas simplement une constellation théorique car il déploie aussi ses valeurs propres au sein d’une utopie assumée. Construire un développement humain et une civilisation nouvelle sur des fondations qui seraient épurées des pathos de la modernité.
Et si, finalement, le postmoderne était moderne ?

Docteur en Sociologie de l’Université Paul Valéry de Montpellier, Thomas Seguin est également diplômé de l’Institut d’Études Européennes de Bruxelles et de l’Institut d’Études Politiques de Grenoble. Spécialiste du courant de pensée postmoderne, il est actuellement enseignant-chercheur à l’Université Galatasaray d’Istanbul.

Ok Computer and Kid A are the two most significant albums in the discography of Radiohead. These two albums represent a distinct boundary point in Radiohead’s career; between the derivative, alternative rock style of their formative years and the intellectually complex, experimental and eclectic artistic identity of their latter. However, these albums also mark the beginning of Radiohead’s embrace of the intellectual aesthetic that defines contemporary culture; postmodernism. In this investigation, I define the manifestation of postmodernism in these two albums, analysing their highly contrasting interpretations of the style and critically analysing the negative and positive effects of Radiohead’s embrace of the postmodernist aesthetic.

I begin by attempting to define the intricate intellectual character of postmodernism, defining its historical origin and initial artistic emergence in the late 20th Century. Using this definition as an initial framework for my investigation, I then begin my analysis of Radiohead’s third album, Ok Computer.  Having defined the distinct differences between ‘postmodernism’ and ‘postmodernity’, I first explore the album’s narrative and consider whether Yorke portrays a postmodernist ideological standpoint on its themes. I proceed by exploring the album’s aesthetic presentation, identifying the utilisation of a bricolage approach to aesthetics and the use of intertextuality in the construction of narrative and composition. I then begin an exploration of Ok Computer’s successor, Kid A. Investigating its embrace of poststructuralist thinking, bricolage aesthetics and anti-aesthetics, I explain that while Postmodernist, Kid A is an extremely contrasting interpretation of the style to its predecessor. In the face of its obscure intellectual, artistic and musical character, I attempt to identify the existence of a decipherable underlying narrative and to classify it stylistically with more precision. In the final phase of the investigation, I construct a critical analysis of the successes and failures of Radiohead’s embrace of postmodernism. Applying an array of critiques of the style, I consider whether and the extent to which Ok Computer and Kid A embody or defy these critiques, and whether postmodernism had a positive impact upon the artistic development of Radiohead.

Postmodern literature, fiction in particular, is, according to Barth (1984), a literature of exhausted possibility due to its entangled thematic and technical approach which defies the conventional modern fictional form. It reflects the zeitgeist or the spirit of postmodernism which is regarded as a revaluation of the modern enterprise; an enterprise that embodies universality and coherence. The present research paper attempts to address the recurrent thematic element that postmodern fiction revolves around: that of the presence of the historiographic element in postmodern fiction which reflects in itself the evaluation of past history; such a fictional preoccupation reflects the major postmodern philosophers' and thinkers' concerns, such as those of Lyotard and Baudrillard, on the impossibility for the existence of a universal coherent history. This criterion is one amongst other criteria that justify the exhaustion of postmodern fiction.

Die Arbeit diskutiert die Frage, was das ökonomische Feld, und speziell die "Managementlehre", aus Überlegungen der Postmoderne und vor allem der Soziologie Niklas Luhmanns ziehen kann.
"Summa cum laude"-bewertete Dissertation der Hochschule St. Gallen für Wirtschafts-, Rechts- und Sozialwissenschaften vom Juni 1994.
Referent: Prof. Dr. Armin Wildermuth, Ordinarius für Philosophie der Hochschule St. Gallen. Co-Referent: Prof. Dr. Emil Walter-Busch, Professor für Sozialpsychologie und angewandte Sozialforschung, Hochschule St. Gallen.

This paper explores the possibilities of examining four of Jim Jarmusch’s films (Stranger than Paradise, Down by Law, Dead Man and Ghost Dog) from the perspectives of various postmodern philosophies. It places Jarmusch’s opus within the larger frame of modern and postmodern cinema employing the theory of Jean-François Lyotard. Philosophies of Nietzsche, Baudrillard, Foucault and Heidegger are used to analyze several aspects of these films. However, the main focus is on a psychoanalytic approach relying on theories of Jacques Lacan and Slavoj Žižek. Thus, Stranger than Paradise is explained through the concepts of big Other and the repressed Other. Down by Law is seen as a quest for the Other which is “deprived of its Otherness”. Dead Man is a Heideggerian Exploration of the Being whose Beckettian character resonates with neurotic anxiety and childhood trauma. The ancient mythology in Ghost Dog concludes the discussion of the Other with mechanisms of condensation and projection, and with an attempt to find a religious solution to postmodern skepticism and relativism.

This book reassesses Primo Levi’s Holocaust texts in light of the posthumanist theories of Adorno, Levinas, Lyotard, and Foucault which together critique humanist notions of subjectivity, ethics, culture, and science. I argue that Levi positions himself as an exemplary subject of Western modernity who experiences and interprets Auschwitz through the lens of Enlightenment humanism. Even as Levi speaks for the victims, his texts suggest that Holocaust writing framed by humanist assumptions risks complicity with the murderous master narratives of Nazism that it seeks to overturn. My book explores the consequences of this potential complicity for the future of the humanist subject.
Reviewed in The Journal of the Association for the Study of Modern Italy. See https://doi.org/10.1080/13532944.2012.756706

Abstract: This article provides, through a discussion of the work of Jacques Derrida, an examination of the philosophical basis of postmodernism. The first section identifies and explains the positive claims of postmodernism, including the key claim that all identities, presences, etc. depend for their existence on something which is absent and different from themselves. The second section further illustrates the positive claims through an analysis of Derrida's "deconstructionist" reading of Plato. The final section raises a number of critical problems for postmodernism: that it confuses aesthetics with metaphysics; that it mistakes assertion for argument in philosophy; that it is guilty of relativism; and that it is self-contradictory.

With the 1641 publication of René Descartes’ Meditationes de Prima Philosophiae, in its inexorable movement toward the exclusion of dreams, modern philosophy reaches a moment in the ultimate paragraph of the sixth Meditation where at last it is able to sleep at night, unhindered by the disruptions of the dream, certain it has exceeded the bounds of the preceding philosophical epoch.

Should we choose to take Descartes at his word, modernity has arrived on the scene of philosophy in the guise of an awakening of philosophy’s reason from a long slumber of uncertain dreams. If any event in the history of modern philosophy should continue to concern us today, as philosophy rewrites its relation to modernity under the influence of postmodernism, it is the moment in the Meditations on First Philosophy when Cartesian reason, in order to become Cartesian reason, both encounters and overcomes the dream, the moment when modern philosophy awakens. Here, we are witness to the singular event of philosophy’s attempt to awaken itself as reason. At philosophy’s inception within and as the discourse of modernity, it has finally succeeded in excluding the dream from the reasonable discourse of philosophy, thereafter confining the metaphysical and epistemological problems of philosophy to the enclosed terrain of Reason. As if awaking from a dream, philosophy enters the modern age . . . .