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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