Date: Sun, 11 Jul 1999 12:01:24 -0500
From: Mary Murphy&Salstrand <ericandmary-AT-earthlink.net>
Subject: Re: Das Capital


the twist that Lyotard gives to language games
and speech acts is to politicize them and place them under the rubric of
capitalism.
> 
> -AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
> 
> I don't understand the last sentence.
> 
> Could some of our participants explain their own, personal,
> understanding of "agonistics" and "paralogy" (without reference to other
> persons).
> 
> Thanks,
> Hugh
> 
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> 
Maybe it is just me, but I sometimes get the impression that British
philosophers sit in their English drawing room smoking their pipes,
sipping their sherry and talking about the christening of the Queen Mary
as though the solution to all political problems was seen in the
vanishing of the question.

What I meant by that sentence it simply that language games and speech
act cannot be seen in abstractions as purely universal idioms without
reference to class, race, nation or historical periods (such as
capitalism). They must be situated in a manner that shows their
contextual relationship with the social bond, the inscribing socius with
its codes and rules that tend often to act in a manner that constrains
us, establishes what speech act are to be permitted, what language games
are to have meaning in a given culture in a certain place and time.

As such, these gestures are political.  I believe Lyotard uses them in a
manner that brings this out.  

I hope this helps and does not confuse the issue too much.

The agon of the paralogical will require another post.