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Postmodern Fables
This latest offering from one of the most important philosophers of our time is a collection of fifteen "fables" that ask, in the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, "how to live, and why?" Here, Lyotard provides a mixture of anarchistic irreverence and sober philosophical reflection on a wide range of topics, paying particular attention to issues of justice and ethics, aesthetics, and judgment. Acerbic, critical, relentlessly ironic, continually burning bridges and burning rubber, always at high risk and in high gear, Postmodern Fables throws down the gauntlet to any and all who idealize comfort. In sections titled "Verbiages, " "System Fantasies, " "Concealments, " and "Crypts, " Lyotard unravels and reconfigures idealist notions of subjects as various and fascinating as the French Revolution, the Holocaust, the reception of French thought in the Anglo-American world, the events of May 1968, the Gulf War, academic travelers as intellectual tourists, the collapse of communism, and his own work in the context o others'.
- GenresPhilosophyFiction
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1997
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304 people want to read
About the author
Jean-François Lyotard
120 books342 followersJean-François Lyotard (DrE, Literature, University of Paris X, 1971) was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well-known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and for his analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
He went to primary school at the Paris Lycées Buffon and Louis-le-Grand and later began studying philosophy at the Sorbonne. After graduation, in 1950, he took a position teaching philosophy in Constantine in French East Algeria. He married twice: in 1948 to Andrée May, with whom he had two daughters, and for a second time in 1993 to the mother of his son, who was born in 1986.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 1, 2011
Sort of frustrated with Goodreads minimalist rating system, this is more like a 4.5 (or a 9 on a 10-scale...).
This anthology is a collection of non-objective compositions playfully entitled fables throughout the career of Lyotard. They are fables because implicit to them all is a non-ontological morality to each of them perfect for our post-modern times. The writings are separated into four separate categories for the reader to ultimately determine their linkage: verbiages, system fanatasies, concealments, and crypts.
For me, Lyotard is strongest on his practical application of these moral observations such as The Wall, The Gulf, The System or The Intimacy of Terror which shows a very advanced critique of the political. Then there are the conceptual but not ethereal subjects such as the post-facto rebuttal to his debate with Rorty over a decade earlier, The Bizarre Partner (interestingly Rorty seems to be the most regular referrent spanning these disparate works) or the call for the downfall of the world's megalopolises into infinitely tangential interstitial comminuties in The Zone. Meanwhile, on the aesthetic side, the beautiful and lyrical wit of Music, Mutic and Directions to Servants showcases Lyotards skill with semantics (with due credit to the translator, a key point in Servants).
I find the greatest short-comings in Interesting?, A Monument of Possibles, and Unbeknownst, for almost the same reasons I liked the aforementioned, except they languish in what I find as the worst part of post-modern antirationalism. Similarly, Paradox on the Graphic Artist just held no interest to me whatsoever. Though, again, what is basically the same stylistic approach to different subject matter (East-West modal tensions) is subject matter that moves me in the opening Marie Goes to Japan and "The earth had no roads to begin with".
With all this said, perhaps the most phenomenal post-modern essay to date is exhibited in the "title track" to this anthology, A Postmodern Fable. Here, Lyotard assesses the whole of anti-humanist ahistoricity in a few short pages and leaves us from this description with the idea that this is perhaps the most poetic view of existence in the ernacular of this time of western thought whereas any other assessment will merely be a ideological grand narrative of failure.
Lyotard was perhaps the most comphrehensible of the adimitedly post-modernists and this collection solidifies this observation. If you have any interest in this school of philosophy without the commitment to embark on any magnus opus, consider these brilliant meditions as a start, or a supplement.
This anthology is a collection of non-objective compositions playfully entitled fables throughout the career of Lyotard. They are fables because implicit to them all is a non-ontological morality to each of them perfect for our post-modern times. The writings are separated into four separate categories for the reader to ultimately determine their linkage: verbiages, system fanatasies, concealments, and crypts.
For me, Lyotard is strongest on his practical application of these moral observations such as The Wall, The Gulf, The System or The Intimacy of Terror which shows a very advanced critique of the political. Then there are the conceptual but not ethereal subjects such as the post-facto rebuttal to his debate with Rorty over a decade earlier, The Bizarre Partner (interestingly Rorty seems to be the most regular referrent spanning these disparate works) or the call for the downfall of the world's megalopolises into infinitely tangential interstitial comminuties in The Zone. Meanwhile, on the aesthetic side, the beautiful and lyrical wit of Music, Mutic and Directions to Servants showcases Lyotards skill with semantics (with due credit to the translator, a key point in Servants).
I find the greatest short-comings in Interesting?, A Monument of Possibles, and Unbeknownst, for almost the same reasons I liked the aforementioned, except they languish in what I find as the worst part of post-modern antirationalism. Similarly, Paradox on the Graphic Artist just held no interest to me whatsoever. Though, again, what is basically the same stylistic approach to different subject matter (East-West modal tensions) is subject matter that moves me in the opening Marie Goes to Japan and "The earth had no roads to begin with".
With all this said, perhaps the most phenomenal post-modern essay to date is exhibited in the "title track" to this anthology, A Postmodern Fable. Here, Lyotard assesses the whole of anti-humanist ahistoricity in a few short pages and leaves us from this description with the idea that this is perhaps the most poetic view of existence in the ernacular of this time of western thought whereas any other assessment will merely be a ideological grand narrative of failure.
Lyotard was perhaps the most comphrehensible of the adimitedly post-modernists and this collection solidifies this observation. If you have any interest in this school of philosophy without the commitment to embark on any magnus opus, consider these brilliant meditions as a start, or a supplement.
August 9, 2025
A COMPREHENSIVE AND DIVERSE COLLECTION OF THE POSTMODERNIST'S WRITINGS
Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist, best known as a pioneer of Postmodernism. He was co-founder of the International College of Philosophy with Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, and Gilles Deleuze. He also wrote 'The Postmodern Explained,' 'The Lyotard Reader,' etc.
He states, "The destruction of metalanguages is at stake in the women's struggle... The philosopher, as philosopher, is a secret accomplice of the phallocrat. For philosophy is not just any discipline. It is the search for a constituting order that gives meaning to the world, society and discourse. Philosophy is the West's madness and never ceases to underwrite its quests for knowledge and politics in the name of Truth and the Good. By specifically considering the QUESTION of men's relationship to women, philosophy... sends us in the direction of an ANSWER. But this answer will be preceded by the constitution... of this relationship, and therefore of the terms... `man' and `woman.'" (Pg. 118)
He explains, "The time is past when we can plant ourselves in front of a Vernet and sigh along with Diderot, `How beautiful, grand, varied, noble, wise, harmonious, rigorously coloured this is!' Don't think we don't regret it. We are philosophers though, and it's not for us to lay down how you should understand what artists do. Recently in France, philosophers have made enough of an incursion into art to prove pretty irritating... so it is futile now for us ... to flaunt pretended innocence in front of works of art. If something systematic is wanted, doesn't the fault lie with those philosophers who, by getting involved in commentary on art, transformed it into something of a theoretical treatise and dared the specialists to do the same?" (Pg. 181)
He continues, "The powers of sensing and phrasing are being probed on the limits of what is possible, and thus the domain of the perceptible-sensing and the speakable-speaking is being extended. Experiments are made. This is our postmodernity's entire vocation, and commentary has infinite possibilities open to it." (Pg. 190)
He points out, "It is not advisable to grant the genre of narrative any absolute privilege over other discursive genres when we come to analyse human phenomena, and particularly the phenomena of language (ideology); it is still less advisable to do so when we adopt a philosophical approach. Certain of my earlier reflections ... may have succumbed to this `transcendental appearance.' It is, on the other hand, advisable to approach one of the great questions posed for us by the historical world at the end of the twentieth century... by examining some `stories' or 'histories.' For to declare the world to be historical, is to assume that it can be treated in narrative terms." (Pg. 314)
He argues, "what is at stake here is the contingency of what follows on from the situation I have described as the defaillancy of modernity. There are several possible ways to follow on, and we have to decide between them. Even if we decide nothing, we still decide. Even if we remain silent, we speak. Politics depends entirely upon how we follow on from one sentence to the next. This is not a matter of the volume of discourse, nor of the importance of the speaker or the addressee. One of the sentences which are currently possible will become real, and the real question is: which? A description of defaillancy does not give us even the beginnings of an answer to that question. This is why the word postmodernity can refer simultaneously to the most disparate prospects." (Pg. 319)
He says, "for it is not man who articulates language, but language which articulates not only the world and sense, but also man. To articulate is not anthropocentric. No more than to PHRASE is. Is this structuralist? No, not that either. Speech is not language. While the latter is understood as a structure made up of codes, the former is composed of moves in games. The rules for phrase games are not structures of language." (Pg. 373)
This is a very broad, balanced collection of Lyotard's writings, and makes an excellent reference for anyone beginning to study him.
Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was a French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist, best known as a pioneer of Postmodernism. He was co-founder of the International College of Philosophy with Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, and Gilles Deleuze. He also wrote 'The Postmodern Explained,' 'The Lyotard Reader,' etc.
He states, "The destruction of metalanguages is at stake in the women's struggle... The philosopher, as philosopher, is a secret accomplice of the phallocrat. For philosophy is not just any discipline. It is the search for a constituting order that gives meaning to the world, society and discourse. Philosophy is the West's madness and never ceases to underwrite its quests for knowledge and politics in the name of Truth and the Good. By specifically considering the QUESTION of men's relationship to women, philosophy... sends us in the direction of an ANSWER. But this answer will be preceded by the constitution... of this relationship, and therefore of the terms... `man' and `woman.'" (Pg. 118)
He explains, "The time is past when we can plant ourselves in front of a Vernet and sigh along with Diderot, `How beautiful, grand, varied, noble, wise, harmonious, rigorously coloured this is!' Don't think we don't regret it. We are philosophers though, and it's not for us to lay down how you should understand what artists do. Recently in France, philosophers have made enough of an incursion into art to prove pretty irritating... so it is futile now for us ... to flaunt pretended innocence in front of works of art. If something systematic is wanted, doesn't the fault lie with those philosophers who, by getting involved in commentary on art, transformed it into something of a theoretical treatise and dared the specialists to do the same?" (Pg. 181)
He continues, "The powers of sensing and phrasing are being probed on the limits of what is possible, and thus the domain of the perceptible-sensing and the speakable-speaking is being extended. Experiments are made. This is our postmodernity's entire vocation, and commentary has infinite possibilities open to it." (Pg. 190)
He points out, "It is not advisable to grant the genre of narrative any absolute privilege over other discursive genres when we come to analyse human phenomena, and particularly the phenomena of language (ideology); it is still less advisable to do so when we adopt a philosophical approach. Certain of my earlier reflections ... may have succumbed to this `transcendental appearance.' It is, on the other hand, advisable to approach one of the great questions posed for us by the historical world at the end of the twentieth century... by examining some `stories' or 'histories.' For to declare the world to be historical, is to assume that it can be treated in narrative terms." (Pg. 314)
He argues, "what is at stake here is the contingency of what follows on from the situation I have described as the defaillancy of modernity. There are several possible ways to follow on, and we have to decide between them. Even if we decide nothing, we still decide. Even if we remain silent, we speak. Politics depends entirely upon how we follow on from one sentence to the next. This is not a matter of the volume of discourse, nor of the importance of the speaker or the addressee. One of the sentences which are currently possible will become real, and the real question is: which? A description of defaillancy does not give us even the beginnings of an answer to that question. This is why the word postmodernity can refer simultaneously to the most disparate prospects." (Pg. 319)
He says, "for it is not man who articulates language, but language which articulates not only the world and sense, but also man. To articulate is not anthropocentric. No more than to PHRASE is. Is this structuralist? No, not that either. Speech is not language. While the latter is understood as a structure made up of codes, the former is composed of moves in games. The rules for phrase games are not structures of language." (Pg. 373)
This is a very broad, balanced collection of Lyotard's writings, and makes an excellent reference for anyone beginning to study him.
May 15, 2022
First Lyotard I've read and I enjoyed it. Not sure where to place him amongst French theorists, it's feels like the pessimism of Baudrillard is closest but I like L's writing less. The short form was good though some of the more "fable" like and less essayistic chapters really didn't land for me. Lots of aesthetics, interesting chapter on graphic design.
March 7, 2023
bought it 25 years ago. finally got around to reading it.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews