Date: Fri, 19 Dec 1997 10:02:57 -0800 (PST)
Subject: Re: wittgenstein, lyotard, foucault


Dear Eric,

I was actually the one who asked you about Lyotard's references to Kant,
while responding to a post by Jon.

Thankyou for what you wrote below--I can see Lyotard's dilemma regarding
subjectivity and Kant.  It reminds me of Levinas and Husserl: the desire
of the former to retain the language and positing of the Other but
without reifying the assumption of subjectivity found in
Husserl's work.

Matt

On Thu, 18 Dec 1997, EricMurph wrote:

> 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.
> 
>