File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 64


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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