Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 21:49:45 -0500
Subject: Re: Local determinism? - second try


Glen/all

You ask an interesting question. One that points to a paradox in TPC.

Lyotard certainly invokes local language games as signifying the shift
away from metanarratives and universal consensus.  At the same time he
points to the paralogical development in the sciences which tend to do
away with determinism.

The model Lyotard tends to privilege in THP is one that is both local
and indeterminate. So, what about this local determinism that gives rise
to institutions in patches? I am not completely sure, but perhaps this
signals a rearguard movement of resistance in the face of the
postmodern.

One imagines those critics who embrace the notion of a canon, the Great
Books of the Western World are like poor Roman sentinels who once stood
on the ramparts of that local determinism which was all that was left of
the Roman Empire. Echoing them, they say: "From the fury of the Huns and
the critical theorists, save us, O Lord."