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A major figure in the contemporary critical world, Jean-Francois Lyotard originally introduced the term 'postmodern' into current discussions of philosophy. The Postmodern Explained is an engaging collection of letters addressed to young philosophers, including the actual children of some of Lyotard's colleagues, that inform the trajectory of his thinking in the period before The Postmodern Condition through The Differend.
First published January 1, 1986
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About the author
Jean-François Lyotard
124 books346 followersJean-François Lyotard (DrE, Literature, University of Paris X, 1971) was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and for his analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
February 9, 2023
"Nazism burns, assassinates and exiles the avant-gardes; capitalism isolates them, speculates on them, and delivers them muzzled to the culture industry" (85)
April 2, 2024
Spoiler: no es para niños
August 27, 2008
Lyotard and Butler are totally having mental make-out time ALL up in my head right now.
WHAT WOULD BARRY SAY???
WHAT WOULD BARRY SAY???
July 1, 2020
I got this book in my final semester of seminary. I learned a good deal there about post-structuralism and post-modernity, so I thought, "yeah, I could probably read some primary sources and understand it." Well, I picked up about 60% of this book. It's a series of letters that Lyotard wrote explaining the tenets of post-modernity. While I can't tell you everything in this book, I can offer a few insights:
- Post-modernity is not a sharp break with modernity. Rather, it is a continuation of the thoughts of modernity adapted to the historical absurdities of the 20th centuries.
- Modernity was primarily preoccupied with "the beautiful". Post-modernity is concerned with "the real."
- Modernity sought to liberate humanity. There were various narratives that promised liberation, such as neo-liberal economics, democracy, or the progress of science. Auschwitz destroyed this notion of progress and liberation.
That's the 60% I understood!
- Post-modernity is not a sharp break with modernity. Rather, it is a continuation of the thoughts of modernity adapted to the historical absurdities of the 20th centuries.
- Modernity was primarily preoccupied with "the beautiful". Post-modernity is concerned with "the real."
- Modernity sought to liberate humanity. There were various narratives that promised liberation, such as neo-liberal economics, democracy, or the progress of science. Auschwitz destroyed this notion of progress and liberation.
That's the 60% I understood!
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May 3, 2025Complexo, sinto que os primeiros 3 capítulos focaram-se na questão essencial do Pós-Moderno e os restantes se afastaram do mesmo, mas muito sinceramente, esta é a perceção de uma pessoa que está a contactar pela primeira vez (eu penso) com este conceito, por isso, a chances de estar errada são enormes.
Honestamente não sei se deveria ter começado por ler A Condição Pós-Moderna ou invés de começar por aqui (uma vez que este livro se trata de correspondência), mas certamente que vou ler essa obra.
Li cada capítulo duas vezes, btw
Isto é uma leitura para a dissertação (!), já agora. A Arte Relacional é um claro exemplo do Pós-Moderno.
Honestamente não sei se deveria ter começado por ler A Condição Pós-Moderna ou invés de começar por aqui (uma vez que este livro se trata de correspondência), mas certamente que vou ler essa obra.
Li cada capítulo duas vezes, btw
Isto é uma leitura para a dissertação (!), já agora. A Arte Relacional é um claro exemplo do Pós-Moderno.
July 30, 2019
Ei olnud lastele. Suuremale osale täiskasvanuist ka ei olnud. Eriti peale Rein Raua "Mis on kultuur?" lugemist võib Lyotard'ile öelda, et ausalt, suurtest ideedest on ka arusaadavalt ja mõistlikult võimalik kirjutada. Siiski-siiski tuleb arvesse võtta, et tegu on intellektuaalidevahelise kirjavahetusega ning täielikuks adumiseks oleks tarvis teada nii mõndagi. Raamatu lõpuks sai stiiliga küll harjutud, kuid kui mõelda, mida ma nüüd juurde sain, siis ega ei oskagi kohe midagi kosta.
October 9, 2024
A COLLECTION OF LETTERS PROVIDING SOME INTRODUCTION TO THE MOVEMENT
Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist, best known as a pioneer of Postmodernism. He was co-founder of the International College of Philosophy with Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, and Gilles Deleuze.
The Preface to the French edition of this book explains, “We have collected some letters by the author that take up the issue of postmodernity. Obtaining [Lyotard’s] consent to their publication was not without its difficulties. We argued that it could help to clear him of certain accusations… his main objection was the naïveté of these texts addressed to children; that, if they were published, their deceptive, pedagogical clarity would do nothing to life the quality of a controversy that was already confused enough. And, he added, he was too far from being clear about the question himself to venture a pronouncement on a hazy intuition.”
The translator explains in his Foreword, “In these pages Lyotard approaches the postmodern as a way of maintaining the possibility of thought ‘happening’---in philosophy, art, literature, and politics; of thought proceeding when it has lost faith in its capacity to repair the crimes of the past by guiding the present toward the end of the realization of ideas… the promise of the French title to ‘explain to children’ … is surely ironic and not to be taken literally. It will not have explained the postmodern. Rather, it will have shown why it is necessary to approach the philosophical questions raised by postmodernity … with the mind of the child. For childhood is the season of the mind’s possibilities…”
Lyotard states in the first essay, “What then is the postmodern? What place, if any, does it occupy in that vertiginous work of questioning the rules that govern images and narratives? It is undoubtedly part of the modern.” (Pg. 12) He continues, “The postmodern would be that which in the modern invokes the unpresentable in presentation itself, that which refuses the consolation of correct forms, refuses the consensus of taste permitting a common experience of nostalgia for the impossible, and inquires into new presentations… to better produce the feeling that there is something unpresentable.
"The postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher; the text he writes or the work he creates is not in principle governed by preestablished rules and cannot be judged according to a determinant judgment, by the application of given categories to this text or work. Such rules and categories are what the work or text is investigating. The artist and the writer therefore work without rules and in order to establish the rules for what will have been made.” (Pg. 15)
He states, “There is no reasonable excuse for the confusion of reasons. The confusion lies in the very ‘modern’ project of a universal language, that is, a metalanguage capable of collecting together every shred of meaning established in specific languages. The doubt case on ‘reason’ springs not from the sciences but from the critique of metalanguage, that is, from the decline of metaphysics (and therefore of metapolitics as well).” (Pg. 65)
He observes, “the ‘post’ of postmodernism has the sense of a simple succession, a diachronic sequence of periods in which each one is clearly identifiable. The ‘post-’ indicates something like a conversion: a new direction from the previous one. Now this idea of a linear chronology is itself perfectly ‘modern.’” (Pg. 76)
"He continues, “Technoscientific development has become a means of deepening the malaise rather than of allaying it. It is no longer possible to call development progress. It seems to proceed of its own accord, with a force, an autonomous motoricity that is independent of us… The question of postmodernity is also, or first of all, a question of expressions of thought: in art, literature, philosophy, politics.” (Pg. 78-9)
One may finish reading this book and still be confused about what precisely “postmodernism” is---which, by the nature of the movement, is to be expected. But Lyotard’s words are surely helpful in explaining, and in clearing up some misconceptions.
Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist, best known as a pioneer of Postmodernism. He was co-founder of the International College of Philosophy with Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, and Gilles Deleuze.
The Preface to the French edition of this book explains, “We have collected some letters by the author that take up the issue of postmodernity. Obtaining [Lyotard’s] consent to their publication was not without its difficulties. We argued that it could help to clear him of certain accusations… his main objection was the naïveté of these texts addressed to children; that, if they were published, their deceptive, pedagogical clarity would do nothing to life the quality of a controversy that was already confused enough. And, he added, he was too far from being clear about the question himself to venture a pronouncement on a hazy intuition.”
The translator explains in his Foreword, “In these pages Lyotard approaches the postmodern as a way of maintaining the possibility of thought ‘happening’---in philosophy, art, literature, and politics; of thought proceeding when it has lost faith in its capacity to repair the crimes of the past by guiding the present toward the end of the realization of ideas… the promise of the French title to ‘explain to children’ … is surely ironic and not to be taken literally. It will not have explained the postmodern. Rather, it will have shown why it is necessary to approach the philosophical questions raised by postmodernity … with the mind of the child. For childhood is the season of the mind’s possibilities…”
Lyotard states in the first essay, “What then is the postmodern? What place, if any, does it occupy in that vertiginous work of questioning the rules that govern images and narratives? It is undoubtedly part of the modern.” (Pg. 12) He continues, “The postmodern would be that which in the modern invokes the unpresentable in presentation itself, that which refuses the consolation of correct forms, refuses the consensus of taste permitting a common experience of nostalgia for the impossible, and inquires into new presentations… to better produce the feeling that there is something unpresentable.
"The postmodern artist or writer is in the position of a philosopher; the text he writes or the work he creates is not in principle governed by preestablished rules and cannot be judged according to a determinant judgment, by the application of given categories to this text or work. Such rules and categories are what the work or text is investigating. The artist and the writer therefore work without rules and in order to establish the rules for what will have been made.” (Pg. 15)
He states, “There is no reasonable excuse for the confusion of reasons. The confusion lies in the very ‘modern’ project of a universal language, that is, a metalanguage capable of collecting together every shred of meaning established in specific languages. The doubt case on ‘reason’ springs not from the sciences but from the critique of metalanguage, that is, from the decline of metaphysics (and therefore of metapolitics as well).” (Pg. 65)
He observes, “the ‘post’ of postmodernism has the sense of a simple succession, a diachronic sequence of periods in which each one is clearly identifiable. The ‘post-’ indicates something like a conversion: a new direction from the previous one. Now this idea of a linear chronology is itself perfectly ‘modern.’” (Pg. 76)
"He continues, “Technoscientific development has become a means of deepening the malaise rather than of allaying it. It is no longer possible to call development progress. It seems to proceed of its own accord, with a force, an autonomous motoricity that is independent of us… The question of postmodernity is also, or first of all, a question of expressions of thought: in art, literature, philosophy, politics.” (Pg. 78-9)
One may finish reading this book and still be confused about what precisely “postmodernism” is---which, by the nature of the movement, is to be expected. But Lyotard’s words are surely helpful in explaining, and in clearing up some misconceptions.
September 2, 2020
La postmodernidad es, según Lyotard, la constante reafirmación de lo nuevo. Es el periodo en el que se cuestiona el pensamiento de las luces, el fin unitario de la historia y el sujeto.
El postmodernismo no es el fin del modernismo, sino su estado naciente, y ese estado es constante. Lo postmoderno forma parte de lo moderno.
Los artistas contemporáneos caen en el eclecticismo, en la mezcla de las vanguardias.
LO PORNOGRÁFICO: es el resultado de no valorar el desafío mass-media.
LOS CRITERIOS ESTÉTICOS DEL ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO (POSTMODERNO) LOS IMPONE EL PROPIO MERCADO DEL ARTE. La autoridad artística ha sido sustituida por la autoridad del capital.
LAS ARTES INDUSTRIALES: el CRITERIO DE LA TECNOCIENCIA.
LA SUSTITUCIÓN DE LA CREENCIA Y LA FE (PROPIAS DE LA MODERNIDAD) POR LA CIENCIA (POSTMODERNIDAD).
Lo bello es aquello que, de forma consensual, se dice que produce placer.
RELATOS DE LA MODERNIDAD:
1. Emancipación progresiva de la razón y la libertad
2. Fuente del trabajo alienada en el capitalismo
3. Progreso
4. Cristianismo
Los relatos dan legitimidad a los proyectos del futuro. EL PROYECTO MODERNO HA SIDO DESTRUIDO (Y NACE CONSTANTEMENTE DE NUEVO)
LA CUESTIÓN DEL SUJETO: DESFALLECIMIENTO DEL SUJETO MODERNO
PUESTA EN CUESTIÓN DEL MAÑANA
LA POSTMODERNIDAD CREE EN LO EMPÍRICO (IDEOLOGÍA TECNICISTA)
LA ARQUITECTURA POSTMODERNA NIEGA EL QUINTO POSTULADO DE EUCLIDES (GEOMETRÍA NO EUCLIDIANA)
LA MUERTE DE LAS VANGUARDIAS ARTÍSTICAS. ARTE: ANAMORFOSIS
UNA HUMANIDAD TRANSPARENTE
El postmodernismo no es el fin del modernismo, sino su estado naciente, y ese estado es constante. Lo postmoderno forma parte de lo moderno.
Los artistas contemporáneos caen en el eclecticismo, en la mezcla de las vanguardias.
LO PORNOGRÁFICO: es el resultado de no valorar el desafío mass-media.
LOS CRITERIOS ESTÉTICOS DEL ARTE CONTEMPORÁNEO (POSTMODERNO) LOS IMPONE EL PROPIO MERCADO DEL ARTE. La autoridad artística ha sido sustituida por la autoridad del capital.
LAS ARTES INDUSTRIALES: el CRITERIO DE LA TECNOCIENCIA.
LA SUSTITUCIÓN DE LA CREENCIA Y LA FE (PROPIAS DE LA MODERNIDAD) POR LA CIENCIA (POSTMODERNIDAD).
Lo bello es aquello que, de forma consensual, se dice que produce placer.
RELATOS DE LA MODERNIDAD:
1. Emancipación progresiva de la razón y la libertad
2. Fuente del trabajo alienada en el capitalismo
3. Progreso
4. Cristianismo
Los relatos dan legitimidad a los proyectos del futuro. EL PROYECTO MODERNO HA SIDO DESTRUIDO (Y NACE CONSTANTEMENTE DE NUEVO)
LA CUESTIÓN DEL SUJETO: DESFALLECIMIENTO DEL SUJETO MODERNO
PUESTA EN CUESTIÓN DEL MAÑANA
LA POSTMODERNIDAD CREE EN LO EMPÍRICO (IDEOLOGÍA TECNICISTA)
LA ARQUITECTURA POSTMODERNA NIEGA EL QUINTO POSTULADO DE EUCLIDES (GEOMETRÍA NO EUCLIDIANA)
LA MUERTE DE LAS VANGUARDIAS ARTÍSTICAS. ARTE: ANAMORFOSIS
UNA HUMANIDAD TRANSPARENTE
July 1, 2020
Este libro es un compendio de la correspondencia de Lyotard en la que trata de dar sentido a las incógnitas que surgen de su obra sobre la posmodernidad. Entre los temas principales se encuentra la naturaleza de la posmodernidad, la función de los relatos en el proceso de la civilización, la ilusión de la emancipación, el problema de la legitimidad en las formas de gobierno, la relación con lo sublime y la lucha por la unificación de la razón.
June 22, 2022
таке собі доповнення Ліотара до його класичної праці "Стан постмодерну", зокрема уточнено про метанаративи. найкумедніше, що це зроблено у формі листів до дітей знайомих, але бідні ті діти, коли розуміють усі ці філософські мудрагельські розмови
November 8, 2022
Компилация от десет писма на Лиотар (писани в периода 1982 - 1985 г.), в които обяснява накратко смисълът на префикса "пост-", съотнасяйки го към "модерността". В последното, десето, писмо обяснява защо трябва да се върнем към преосмислянето на "детската"/философската перцепция.
October 8, 2025
c'est pas pour les enfants !! recueil de lettres, donc ça part un peu partout, ça a pas un intérêt particulier de fou sauf si on veut lire des choses philosophies plus ou moins aléatoires énoncé du pdv du "postmodernisme"
June 15, 2022
Doesn’t fulfill the promise of its title
May 4, 2024
Bien
September 12, 2024
Make me have a new perspective of world
November 12, 2024
A straightforward as it culd be, pretty sure bro wrote this to explain his life’s work to his kid. Very awesome
June 15, 2015
Their Big Fat Macronarratives are dying away, - and at the same time - like an undeveloped house* they are a squat for occasional overnight stops, stops for people who don't have a home adress anymore. Not you, your father is a tramp, not you, your mom is just looking for a place to jack off and get stoned. Maybe, you need it too. But better - to walk on the streets looking for different, get down too far and fly away. Travel to the other side of a city.
_______________________
* - the house that should be undeveloped, cannot be developed - the old manufactory that produced materials has closed, those workers have gone, ages, ages ago, all future attempts will be self-defeated, fated to be a kitsch.
_______________________
* - the house that should be undeveloped, cannot be developed - the old manufactory that produced materials has closed, those workers have gone, ages, ages ago, all future attempts will be self-defeated, fated to be a kitsch.
April 19, 2014
Un poco difícil de manejar si no se tiene un conocimiento amplio sobre varios temas en los que suele ser reiterativo.
February 4, 2014
Es para niños de 24 años como yo.
Sigo sin comprender el posmodernismo, tal vez debí empezar con La Condición Postmoderna.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilean 1984.
Sigo sin comprender el posmodernismo, tal vez debí empezar con La Condición Postmoderna.
Spoiler Alert: Spoilean 1984.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews