Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 13:31:41 -0800 Subject: Re: legitimation Mark, We were talking about legitimation in Lyotard and you were discussing his study (pp. 23-24) of legitimation in science. Remember "Science plays its own game." It is a different language game than that of social narratives that form a social bond. (#2, p.25) Here is how I am interpreting the role of legitimation: There is a relationship between science and narrative, but it is indirect and the criteria for judging the two are different (bottom 26). Science legitimates itself through verification and falsification. I believe he accepts the language game of science as is, and what interests him is the narrative, the switch from reliance on grand narritives to reliance on petit narratives, the similarities and differences. It is easy enough to see how the grand narratives legitimated. Every spoken narrative was judged on its relationship to the grand narrative because the narrative was legitimated by the function of having been told. But, since the Enlightenment, the question is "WHO has he right to decide for society?" (p.30) And during modernity, everywhere people struggle for the right to be the one who decides for society what is right. These are our schools of thought that replace traditional authorities. With schools of thought there is a loosening of obligation, however, to any particular school and thus incredulity towards these narratives begins to seep in. The question, then, is whether there can be legitimation. If no narrative in and of itself has sufficient authority to legitimate, how can we have faith in narratives? I think Lyotard's answer to that would be something like, "Postmoderns can have faith in the paralogical culture of conversation and debate." One might ask, "How can paralogy legitimate?" Just as science never presents a conclusion that is beyond falsifiction, so paralogy does not require access to apodictic truth in order to legitimate. The legitimation is a judgment that the move is proper within the language game. And within the language game of paralogy, which is our postmodern conversation, what is legitimate is a move that takes the conversation forward, that presents us with a fertile perspective, or destabililizes the status quo taken-for-granted explanation and allows he generation of new ideas. Beyond that, the rules of the game are determined locally and provisionally. But, even so, these rules exist and allow us to determine if a particular statement is legitimate within the community. ..Lois Shawver mnunes-AT-gpc.peachnet.edu wrote: > > Here are some working notes I have made on the concept > of > > legitimation. I think the concept of legitimation > needs > > to be included as part of our understanding of > > metanarrative -- but I haven't put anything together > on > > this at this point. > > > > <http://www.california.com/~rathbone/legitima.htm> > > > > ..Lois Shawver >
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