Online research in philosophy

Recently, James Smith and Merold Westphal have sought to reconcile Christianity with Lyotard’s definition of the postmodern – “incredulitytowards metanarratives” – by claiming that Christianity is not a metanarrative in Lyotard’s sense. This paper argues that their understanding of theLyotardian metanarrative is too restrictive, and that the term specifically includes Christianity within its scope. Despite this, though, there is a meansby which Christianity and Lyotard can be brought closer together. That method is to understand Lyotard’s refusal of metanarratives as being tosome extent provisional. Combining this idea with Lyotard’s notion of the differend allows Christianity and Lyotardian postmodernism to be found, ifnot in agreement, at least to coexist.

The surge of interest in Jean-Francois Lyotard's writings has pushed him into the centre of debate on the postmodern.

Jean-Francois Lyotard is often considered to be the father of postmodernism. Here leading experts in the field of cultural and philosophical studies, including Barry Smart, John O' Neill and Victor J. Seidler, tackle many of the questions still being asked about this controversial figure.

The systematic philosophical foundation for Jean-François Lyotard's postmodern and post-Marxist politics is described. The central principle of the right to create different "phrases" is uncovered and examined. The political consequences of this philosophical system are explored, leading to the conclusion that Lyotard's commitment to difference leads to political indifference. The philosophical roots of this indifference are detailed in Lyotard's Cartesian starting point and his analysis of Holocaust revisionism. This analysis reveals an idealist basis to Lyotard's philosophy of difference. Lyotard's concept of difference is compared to that of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe.

The thesis is an attempt to develop a speculative (Hegelian) critique of the ethical and political questions raised by Jean-Francois Lyotard's book The Differend. I have argued that these questions are dependent upon the reading of Kant's three Critiques, and his political essays, which Lyotard develops in The Differend's four `notices' on Kant, and that it is this reading which opens up his concept of difference (`heterogeneity') to the possibility of a speculative critique. Chapter one comprises an examination of Lyotard's attempt to establish speculative thinking's dependence upon a metaphysical idea of the self as the possibility of ethical sublation. I have argued that Lyotard's appropriation of Adorno's idea of "Auschwitz" as blocking dialectical sublation, fails to recognize the speculative significance of the concrete conditions which produced the historical emergence of Nazism. The following three chapters are concerned to develop the argument that Lyotard's misrepresentation of the spirituality of Hegel's philosophy, conditions his reading of the critical philosophy as disclosing the possibility of a spontaneous (ethical) judgement of difference. Chapter two argues that Lyotard's claim to show critical subjectivity to be a `litigation' of self-conscious faculties, fails to recognize the actual lack of unity which characterizes Kant's `transcendental unity of apperception'. The exclusion of `otherness', which Lyotard claims is disclosed and suppressed in Kant's notion of cognitive experience, actually necessitates concrete selfrecognition. In chapter three, Lyotard's attempt to abstract an ethical `obligation without conditions' from Kant's critical morality is interrogated. I have argued that the aporias constituted through the spontaneity of practical reason, are reinforced through Lyotard's concept of `ethical time'. The final chapter develops a speculative approach to the notions of ethics and politics which Lyotard abstracts from the Third Critique. I have argued that the notion of an `unpredetermined' judgement which Lyotard articulates in the final sections of The Differend, constitutes a subjective `culture' which is ultimately non-ethical and apolitical.

Jean-François Lyotard. First acquaintance with Lyotard -- Kant's notion of the sublime and its appropriation by Lyotard -- Transposing Kant to the key of the postmodern -- The role of feelings in Lyotard's political judgment -- Universality revisited -- Jacques Derrida. The Nietzschean influence -- Derrida and phenomenology -- Derrida's exploration of exteriority and anteriority -- Derrida's political ethics : foundations -- Derrida's political ethics : further elaborations : the international scene.

Lyotard and the Political is the first book to consider the full range of the French philosopher Francois Lyotard's political thought and its broader implications. Author James Williams clearly and carefully traces the development of Lyotard's thought from his early Marxist essays on the Algerian struggle for independence to his break with the thought of Marx and Freud. This book explains why Lyotard lost his belief in revolutionary politics and seeks to draw out the positive and negative consequences of this loss. Encompassing all of Lyotard's thought, early and late, the book situates his work in terms of the dominant political and philosophical positions of the twentieth century.Williams clearly explains the relationship between Lyotard's thought and the thought of Kant, Heidegger, and Deleuze.

Jean-François Lyotard, the highly influential twentieth-century philosopher of the postmodern, has had an enormous impact on the course and commitment of contemporary philosophy. Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime is a thoroughgoing reassessment of his extraordinary legacy and contribution to contemporary cultural, political, ethical, and aesthetic theory, and an indispenable guide to key issues in his philosophy. Fifteen distinguished scholars have contributed new, original essays examining the main themes in Lyotard's work with a focus on the special intersections of philosophy, psychoanalysis, politics, and the experience of the sublime in art. The volume includes an up-to-date bibliography of works by and about Lyotard, previously unpublished photographs of Lyotard, and an incisive essay by Lyotard himself on the philosophical significance of Freud's case of Emma.

Jean-Francois Lyotard was one of the most influential European thinkers in recent decades.

Colour plays a fundamental role in the philosophical treatments of painting. Colour while it is an essential part of the work of art cannot be divorced from the account of painting within which it is articulated. This paper begins with a discussion of the role of colour in Schelling's conception of art. Nonetheless its primary concern is to develop a critical encounter with Jean-François Lyotard's analysis of the Dutch painter Karel Appel. The limits of Lyotard's writings on painting, which this paper will attribute in part to Lyotard's ‘empiricism’, becomes most apparent in his treatment of colour.