From: jel6-AT-acsu.buffalo.edu
Date: Sun, 20 Feb 2000 02:42:35 -0500
Subject: Basic research, Lyotard/Nancy; debate?


*This is a query regarding the possible existence of
a body of research having to do with the minor
"squabble" (that Lyotard assures us is not cause for
bickering, or is it Nancy?) over the End/Beginning of
research into Kant -- read on or read not, my warning*

I thought that this might be a good time to bring up 
a question that I was wondering, have been, about
Lyotard -- first, I wanted to say "thanks" to Brent,
who I don't know by name, but whose name I know,
for the very helpful reference to the _Lessons_ (which
I had been avoiding, don't know why, that has really
been a brilliant and great text to get to know, for 
months, it is inexhaustible -- I would be interested, in
a more colloquial mode, if anyone had some personal
reflections on why Lyotard seems to share such a 
generosity that is traditionally given, adjectivally, to
authors of prose?) he gave.

I suspect that the question I have is the
exact same as one I posted months ago, but
being now whole two semesters into The Graduate Program,
I think the whole world has changed, and therefore
deserves reappraisal and another phrasing.  Being
young and therefore crude -- peu philosophe -- I shall
eschew the traditional method of hard work, American
style, and simply ask if anyone out there has noticed
this skirmish between, to my eye, these two thinkers who 
deserve attention and the life that I can never resuscitate
by critical lavishing?  Fascinatingly, this is, and I'm not
a bibliographer, so if someone has a great memory or
a better library than I have, this could be helpful, something
that only occurs in the _L'Enthousiasme_, which, published
in 1986 I believe comes well after, although reprising technically
the arguments in _Differend_ (The sign of history), the whole
Turning.  Of course, the note in the first few pages of 
_Enthusiasme_ refers to the late-seventies essay of Jean-Luc
Nancy on the "Lapsus judicii."  Interesting research might be
done on this connection alone, since Nancy explicitly takes
up here the notion of judgment that arguably informs the concept
of the Differend -- here, as for Lyotard, in the anticipation of the
grand collectifs of _The Faculty of Judging_ and the rest.  Ben-
nington is of help, but his text doesn't give all the satisfaction of
reaching towards the present moment in what little I know of his 
brilliant gestures in _Writing the Event_, although I'm sure
it's there.  This is all very lazy, I know, but if there are any 
thoughts out there, if this is a question (?) that has been
*established* I sure wouldn't mind hearing about it...or if
this seems trivial, and you don't mind bothering the list
like y. truly I think that's equally valuable.

john


P.S.

I heartily second the reference to the Shawver web pages,
I have read what I could, and have not found any
substitutes.