File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 87


Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 19:04:44 -0800
Subject: Re: Ludens is the Father of All Things


Thanks for the intersting discussion to all.  I want to
assert my different interpretation of the passage that Ari
recently cited and wrote about:

Ari wrote:
"On pg. 61 of PMC, Lyotard says clearly that paralogy is
not innovation, "

Look at the passage again.  I want to give you my
interpretation.  It says:

The problem is therefore to
determine whether it is possible
to have a form of legitimation
based solely on paralogy.  Paralogy
must be distinguished from
*innovation*: [innovation] is
undr the command of the system,
or at least used by it to improve
its efficiency; [paralogy] is a move
...played in the pragmatics of
knowledge.

Before I give you my interpretation of this passage lets
look at a
few terms.  "Pragmatics of knowledge"  Lyotard talks about
the pragmatics of knowledge 18-23 and the pragmatics of
scientific knowledge 23-27.
By "pragmatics of knowledge" I think he means the practice
of knowledge, how we legitimate it, how we distinguish the
knower from the one who doesn't and so forth.  In the
pragmatics of scientific knowledge he also talks about the
practice of knowledge (obaining it, legitimating it, etc.)

So, when Lyotard says that "[paralogy] is a move ...played
in the pragmatics of  knowledge," he means that paralogy
changes the way we obtain knowledge, legitimate it,
distinguish knowers, and so forth.  How do we change it?

Paralogy requires two steps: 1)  the recognition that
there are many language games each with their own rule and
2) that the rules must be defined by the conversational
community and subject to their cancellation.  (At least,
this is my interpretation of 66.) In other words, the
paralogists might say, "Well, we could talk about truth as
if it meant X, but I suggest we talk about it as if it
meant Y."  If you study this proposal a  bit, you'll see
tha the statement tends to satisfy both 1 and 2 and that
it means that the game can be played in one of several
okay ways and that they can establish the rules of the
game locally among themselves.

Now, go back to p.61.  In the next sentence after the
above excerpt, Lyotard goes onto tell us that in reality
"innovation" and "paralogy" frequently are transformed
into one another and he also says (by implication and in
the space where I put the ... above) that paralogy is
often not recognized as paralogical until later.

So, innovation is similar to paralogy but not quite the
same.  It can look the same.  What is the difference?  I
think the difference is that paralogy takes us into a new
language game.  It is not an innovation within the system
(rather like Kuhn's normal science) but a move to change
the game that allows data before us to show different
patterns.  The paralogy, then (read on for the next
paragraph) tends to destabilize the game that is being
played and allow us to move into another language game by
encouraging the promulgation of new rules and norms that
are locally and provisionally determined.

Let me return to my example of the Xerostomia dialogue
(from my recent paper - I posted this in a post
yesterday).  The scientists locally and provisionally (and
operationally) defined their terms.  When they did, then
different findings were available (from the same
databank).  New blind spots were there (we could not see
the patterns available with other definitions) and yet we
cleared away old blind spots in the process.

This is how I am reading the statement on 61 that has been
interpreted as saying that paralogy is not innovation.  It
is not "innovation" within the same language game.  It is
the creation of new language games in which new moves will
naturally be made, new ideas will be uncovered, as well as
new blind spots.  It can be hard to recognize that a new
langauge game has been created in context.  Moves that
create new language games can seem and feel like
innovation within the old languge game, and, in fact can
(and frequently do) actually work as innovation within the
old games or move back and forth between innovation in the
old games and creation of new games.

That's how I'm reading 61.

..Lois Shawver




   

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