File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 70


Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 10:54:06 -0500 (EST)
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)

I don't have my copy of PMC with me today, but I do remember that L. 
makes a point about the language game of science not being directly 
involved with the formation of social bonds--only indirectly, though the 
creation of professional classes etc. Any language game is going to 
necessitate some sort of social arrangement of "pragmatic posts": sender, 
addressee, and and referent.

> Science legitimates itself through
> verification and falsification.

Do you see the "veri" in verification as independent of the language 
game of science? If not, then we're in agreement. Verification becomes a 
kind of *determination* of the referent.

> 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

I'm not sure I know what you mean by "accept." The shift from grand to 
petit is certainly of interest here--and I think it ties in with the 
distinction between innovation and invention.

> 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

Sure--a question of "metanarrative," with prescriptives that would 
legitimate all language games. Lyotard rejects this notion, even 
rejecting "ethics" as a meta- that would apply to all games. That 
doesn'tn mean no legitimation, but rather that legitimation is specific 
to each game (the rules of play).

> 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.

sounds like a good summary to me!

--mark

> 
> ..Lois Shawver

   

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