From: Elizaphanian (elizaphanian@tiscali.co.uk)
Date: Mon Mar 31 2003 - 10:53:51 BST
Hi Matt,
> Matt:
> On Lyotard, I don't think he's commited to relativism because Lyotard
wants
> to commit himself to local narratives. But, as I'm not that familiar with
> Lyotard, I know this is how Rorty reads him. Local narratives are
imbedded
> in history, while a metanarrative is another attempt to get that one,
true,
> perfect context and narrative in which all things, past, present, and
> future, have, do, and will fit into. So, I think Lyotard escapes (on this
> count, though perhaps not on others) "half-baked" post-modernism.
Hmm. I don't think 'meta-narratives' have to be essentialist, although
obviously the dominant one precisely IS. How would you relate
'meta-narratives' and 'final vocabularies'? I would say they are different
aspects of the same thing, although, because we are fundamentally
story-telling creatures (that is how we discern meaning) I prefer
'meta-narrative'. The vocabulary is, of course, the words making up the
story. So for me, the meta-narrative is the bedrock of your perspective,
beyond which you cannot go. (What Wittgenstein calls the 'inherited
background against which you judge true and false' - the full quote was in a
post a couple of days ago). That bedrock is bound up with all sorts of
pre-conscious and pre-rational perspectives, language-games, mythologies
etc. We can mine into it to gain a deeper awareness, but I don't think we
can escape from it (occasionally Wittgenstein talks about language as a
prison or a cage, that's what he means, I think).
I would recommend Lyotard's 'Postmodern condition'. Remarkably easy to read,
for a Continental-influenced philosopher. Also Wittgenstein's On Certainty,
which I keep quoting from - you might find some interesting differences to
Rorty in there, although I don't know Rorty well enough to guarantee it.
Cheers
Sam
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