File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1997/lyotard.9708, message 5


Date: Mon, 25 Aug 1997 19:30:40 -0700
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: The sublime


Tony Michael Roberts wrote:
> 
> I say Lyotard says that the sublime is that which escapes representation.
> Is the alterity of the other thus subline? 
############################################
Seems to me that what we can't represent is not something we can
converse about.  How can we be conscious of our unconscious?

In "Le Differend", Lyotard speaks about the frustration of need to say
things we we can't express when the phrase we need does not exist.

Seems to me if one should create such a phrase it would have to relate
to his/her own vocabulary and life experience.  

It would first have to make sense in talking to one's "self". Then
it could be spoken to another person.

Who might, perchance, understand it; especially if both persons bad
similar, compatible vocabularies and experience.

Chances are the inventor of the phrase would have to use additional 
words and phrases to explain its meaning.  And the addressee would 
have to respond with words and phrases from his/her vocabulay and 
experience in such a manner that the addressor would be convinced
that the newly invented phrase was understood.

This gets tedious of course, and then we have to remember that for
new humans the first language expressed and responded to, is
communication without words.

I never found out what Lyotard meant by sublime, and of course he was 
and is a teacher.

Hugh Bone


   

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