Date: Thu, 18 Dec 1997 21:57:06 EST
Subject: Re: wittgenstein, lyotard, foucault


To: jon roffe

Regarding the reference to both Kant and Wittgenstein, this takes place in the
section called pretext.  Here, Lyotard as the author (A) acknowledges the
various approaches of both philosophers as precursors to the differend.  Kant
in the third critique and the historical-political writings laid the
groundwork for the conflict of the faculties (knowledge/ethics/aesthetics) and
the difficulties of homogenizing them.  The later Wittgenstein emphasized the
heterogenity of various language games.  Both helped to create the space in
which the differend operates.

The criticism that Lyotard makes, however, is that both remain tied to the
notion of a human subject in which language operates as a tool (use).  This
ties them to modernist notions of emanciation whether this is conceived of as
Enlightenment (Kant) or theraputic (Wittgenstein).  To make them available for
an "honourable postmodernity" they must be stripped of these humanistic
notions. Thus, Lyotard speaks of "genres of discourse" rather than language
games and faculties.  

This is how I understand the argument that is being made in this section.