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Lyotard and the Politics of Antifou Ndational Ism Stuart Sim

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Lyotard and the Politics of Antifou Ndational Ism Stuart Sim Lyotard and the Politics of Antifou ndational ism Stuart Sim 11 An increasingly important trend in recent philosophy has Postmodernism is not the easiest of terms to define, and been antifoundationalism: the rejection of the search for definition is most certainly not the strong suit of modern 10gical1y-consistent, self-evidently true "grounds" for French philosophy anyway ("incredulity towards philosophical discourse, and the substitution of ad hoc metanarratives" is Lyotard's rather cryptic formulation of tactical manoeuvres as justification for what are quite postmodern sensibility [4]), so Frederic Jameson's often eccentric lines of argument. Antifoundationalism is introductory remarks are worth noting: a category broad enough to encompass figures as diverse as he [Lyotard] has characterised postmodernism, not as Derrida, Rorty, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Baudrillard, and that which follows modernism and its particular Lyotard - a11 of whom might be described, as one legitimation crisis, but rather as a cyclical moment commentator insists antifoundationalists must, as "anti­ that returns before the emergence of ever new idealist" [1]. It is an essentia11y strategic practice modernisms in the stricter sense [5]. concerned with undermining the philosophical The clear overtones of "eternal recurrence" here help to establishment and its commitment to foundationalist situate Lyotard within the nihilistic-Nietzschean strain in principles. What might be ca11ed the "foundationalist recent French thought (Cf. Derrida, Foucault, and dilemma" has been summed up neatly in a recent study of Baudrillard in particular), although he is also capable of post-philosophy as follows: "There is proof, confirmation, introducing an optimistically libertarian note into what is evidence - and then there is what grounds proof, and is in otherwise a fairly dark discourse: "give the public free itself incapable of being proved." [2] access to the memory and data banks" [6] (th.e inadequacy This is a problem as old as Western philosophy itself, of such a solution to the so-called "knowledge crisis" and in this sense antifoundationalism is merely the latest will be dealt with later). Postmodernism is to be seen, instalment in a long-running saga which has taxed the therefore, as being essentially an attitude towards mind of nearly every major Western philosopher from modernism (however this latter is conceived within a given Plato onwards. It is not too difficult to place Rorty and era). Kuhn in this debate. For all their appearance of Lyotard's antifoundationalist credentials reveal philosophical radicalism they operate in a fairly themselves in the way he pursues the problem of tradi tional manner and pose no major methodological legitimation of authority: problems for mainstream Anglo-Saxon philosophy. There if a metanarrative implying a philosophy of history is is general agreement amongst the participants in the used to legitimate knowledge, questions are raised Kuhn-Popper debate as to the parameters of that debate, concerning the validity of the institutions governing and Rorty is at heart a reconciliationist ("I simply want to the social bond: these must be legitimated as well. suggest that we keep pragmatic tolerance going as long as [7] we can - that both sides see the other as honest, if Legitimation and proof are conspicuously different misguided, colleagues doing their best to bring light to a entities, although Lyotard is ultimately sceptical about dark time" [3]). Even Feyerabend, who has ruffled many claims to proof or truth: "Scientists, technicians, and feathers in philosophy of science in recent years, slots instruments are purchased not to find truth, but to augment easily enough into the Kuhn-Popper debate as an extreme power" [8]. Truth is a fiction not just for Lyotard, Kuhnian. The others mentioned above are more therefore, but also for those institutions which claim to be problematical, however, and certainly do seem to pose bound by it. Beneath the apparent objectivity lies a methodological problems. They would appear to be buried, and dominant, discourse of realpolitik: "the arguing for a far more radical change in our perception of exercise of terror" [9] as Lyotard calls it. Legitimation is the world than the change in emphasis called for by their accordingly a question of power, and Lyotard makes the Anglo-Saxon counterparts. Lyotard's recent book The salient point that, when it comes to socio-political (as Post modern Condition: ~ Report on Knowledge brings opposed to philosophical) practice, "utterances [are] many of these methodological problems to the fore, and expected to be just rather than true" [lO]. This ethical intend to examine the text in terms of the shift to the argument takes us into the area where antifoundationalist debate in general with the intention of rhetorics operate (justice being a far less logical concept establishing the politics of antifoundationalism. Lyotard than truth and more exposed to techniques of persuasion is one of the more accessible of the radical and emotional manipulation), where it is a question of antifoundationalists and perhaps postmodernism is the language and its indeterminacies - infinite and inescapable acceptable face of the movement, but that makes it all in the poststructuralist view - rather than proof and its the more imperative to lay bare the politics involved if, truth-value certainties. as I am going to argue, antifoundationalism is an This is a characteristic move for the antifoundationalist ideologically questionable position in which a surface to make but it leaves him with the problem of establiShing radicalism flatters to deceive. some criterion against which his method and concepts can 8 be judged (in the absence of truth-value certainties all relevance. It is revealing in this context that Lyotard is strategies are equal, which makes the need for a essentially tolerant towards the idea of short-term legitimating principle imperative if a philosopher is to contracts ("the temporary contract is in practice maintain credibility with his audience). Derrida gives us supplanting permanent institutions in the professional, "blind tactics" [11] (whatever that may mean); Baudrillard emotional, sexual, cultural, family and international "simulacra" [12]; Lyotard, less mysteriously, opts for domains" [16]). This is precisely the kind of tactical "narrativity": less mysterious, but ultimately no less approach to process we would expect the unsatisfactory as a justification for a set of theories than phenomenologically-r adical, br acket-w ielding the foregoing. Narrativity simply involves the application antifoundationalist to adopt. It conjures up the spectre of, of sequential process (in the fictive sense) to areas other at best, aimlessness, and at worst opportunism. than fiction. Narrative nonetheless provides Lyotard with a basic Narrativity has its problems, as Lyotard willingly anti-foundationalist requirement: a starting-point which is admits, and he is biased towards a certain restricted not in the stricter philosophical sense a ground and version of it, although essentially in favour of its role in accordingly does not commit one to a metaphysics of the construction of knowledge. The virtue of narrative is presence; as Vincent Descombes has pointed out, that it just ~ being in effect its own justification: "it It [narrative] has always already begun, and is certifies itself in the pragmatics of its own transmission always the story of a previous story •.• [and] ••• It is without having recourse to argumentation and proof" [13]. never finished, for in principle the narrator addresses Self-justification has a self-evidential ring to it, yet it is a listener, or "narratee", who may in his turn become by no means clear why we should accept this as some kind the narrator, making the narration of which he has of honorary (or disguised) ground for knowledge - because been the narratee into the narrated of a fresh that it how it is really functioning. Like Derridean narration [17]. erasure it cancels out metaphysical commitments, but it Taking temporal succession as an unproblematical given could be argued that it is in reality more a case of (no origin, no end, process only) and adding some measure bracketing, which temporarily suspends but never totally of order (how much, and under whose aegis, being a matter eliminates the commitments in question. of some concern for Lyotard) we arrive at narrative: a historically undetermined form with all the attractions that underdetermination has for an antifoundationalist, who does not want to be trapped in the "infinite regress" game: "what is the ground of the ground of the ground?" - and so on. Metanarrative becomes the enemy, the foundation which is perceived to limit individual creativity. Being underdetermined means that the narrative vests most of its power in the narrator. The audience is positioned by the narrative, but it is the narrator who determines the form this positioning will take, as well as the intensity of the experience. A narrator takes advantage of a narrative's legitimating power and this is a risk to which the audience must always be exposed, since it is exposed to the rhetorical talents of the narrator in the act of narration. Discriminating between narrator-power and narrative-power is not always Allow Lyotard to call life (or any other sequence you so simple, and it is not clear how the dangers inherent in care to name) a narrative, and he will draw you along the former can be avoided in Lyotard's
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