Subject: Re: Reason & Metanarratives
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 1997 23:40:50 PST


Hugh wrote,
 
>> Maybe we can discuss in depth the problem of the metanarrative, for I
>> am not sure I understand it.

Yes - this one interests me too.  Until coming across Lyotard, I'd been 
operating not with the idea of ideology, but rather that of 
essentialism. The notion of Metanarrative has always seemed a little bit 
problemmatic to me, because it seems to assume that it is held in a 
fixed form by many people (ie that everyone has the same notion of 
'scientific progress' as everyone else), and as a result, it has the 
same kind of power/knowledge effects everywhere.  Perhaps I am 
misconstruing it.

Is the difference between ideology, essentialism, meta-narrative, etc. 
simply one of preferred vocabulary (and  if is is, how is the differend 
involved?)?  They all seem to be orientated in some way around 
univeralisms.

Jon

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