The Wild and the Sublime: Lyotard's Post-Modern Politics
- 1 June 1994
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Political Studies
- Vol. 42 (2) , 259-273
- https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.1994.tb01911.x
Abstract
This paper examines the thought of Jean-François Lyotard in relation to the problems of justice and the constitution of a post-modern politics. It argues that Lyotard is highly influenced by Kant's aesthetics and specifically by the idea of indeterminate judgement in the formulation of a conception of justice that, in an age of social variegation and fragmentation, underlies a politics which strives to promote different ways of looking at, and living in, the world. The text concludes that Lyotard's conception of justice and its resultant politics are founded upon a skewed reading of Kant's work such that claims of truth and morality are separated from those of judgement. The result is a politics marked by radical individualism which poses the threat of social atomization.Keywords
This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: