Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 12:59:15 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: legitimation > But I think Lyotard was looking for legitimation of science in the > history of philosophy, following the usual suspects, Plato, Kant, > Wittgenstein, whom he studied assiduosly and quoted copiously in > "Le Differend". > > Ultimately, he seemed to be interested in the social bond and justice, > and how humans use language or language uses them in the pursuit of > such interests. > > Paralogy seems to have been a name for an attempt to get out of the > rut of narratives, traditions, practice that do not fit the postmodern > condition. > > Hugh Toward the end of PMC, Lyotard writes: "The function of the differential or imaginative or paralogical activity of the current pragmatics of science is to point out these metaprescriptives (science's 'presuppositions') and to petition the players to accept different ones" (65) Since "paralogy" (para-logics) falls out of Lyotard's vocabulary, we might not want to hold on to it so tightly, instead thinking about its relation within a string of synonyms (or differential definitions perhaps?) As Hugh points out in the second half of his post, it's the relation between language games and social bonds (pragmatics) that interests Lyotard--and its relation to justice. One way to think through what this paralogical/differential/imaginative might point to is to take up something like "passing" in the Inhuman, or "working through." Science, with its denotative language game, is all about determinations. Lyotard sees great *potential* in openness. My favorite Lyotard sentence has to be: "Being prepared to receive what thought is not prepared to think is what deserves the name of thinking" ("Time Today," _The Inhuman_ 73). It seems that legitimation by paralogy would involve one one hand a deligitmation of the limits of what can or cannot be thought and on the other an affirmation of the "petit recit": the imaginative that cannot be reduced to the "innovative" (the next/new step in an ongoing game. Ed, I think your question about the difference between a new move and a new game (options c & d) comes in here: the difference between imaginative invention and innovation. In re justice, ethics, and "rules"--here's a long, long quote from a published interview with Lyotard: [quote begins here] "I would say that even ethics is a specific genre of discourse (in _The Differend in any case, I've expressed it quite clearly). What constitutes ethics is the consciousness of duty: "Thou shalt do this" or "Thou shalt not do that," without knowing in advance how you have to act. I'm entirely in agreement with Kant or Levinas on this point. The problem that presents itself here is the following: Does ethics cover the totality of modes of conduct as they are to be taken into each genre of discourse? [....] "I'm not so sure about this point. I see very well that ethics is indispensible, that we must make judgements to be able to conduct ourselves, and that we assume the resposibilty to judge reflectively without knowing the rules. But on the other hand, I'm tempted to say that ethics doesn't present any metaprescriptive; it's that genre of discourse in which the question of probity is asked. Instead of simply saying, 'You must be honest,' it asks 'What does it mean to be honest when you don't know the rules?' [....] The real ethical question comes when no rules are prescribed and despite this you must judge, i.e., you must, whether consciously or unconsciously, show yourself to be just, without possessing any rules or criteria. We don't--thank God--fall into this situation every day, but it keeps happening and it usually happens under different circumstances. "That does not at all mean there is no justice any more, but, on the contrary, the problem of justice presents itself today with special urgency. This is due, on the one hand, to the multiplication of genres of discourse, each demanding its specific probity, and on the other hand, to the fact that precisely tbecause of this multiplication we lack a rule of coherence." [endquote] >From Florian Rotzer, _Conversations With French PHilosophers_ [1986], Trans. Gary Aylesworth (Atlantic Hiughlands, NJ: Humaniteis Press, 1995), pp 76-77.
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