Jean-François Lyotard
1924–1998 · Postmodernism · Known
Lyotard was a French philosopher who watched the big stories stop working by the 1970s: progress, emancipation, reason marching forward. He named that loss of belief the postmodern condition, an incredulity toward the grand narratives that had justified the modern age. In The Differend he studied disputes where the court wrongs one side whichever way it rules, because the two parties share no language to settle the case in.
Signature
The position Lyotard is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Identity
- Unchanging – Changing
- Language
- Language-Game
Positions on the 6 axes the sources answer
- Meaning
- mildly leans Constructed (31 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Nature of Reality
- leans Multiplicity (88 on a 0–100 scale from Unity to Multiplicity)
- Truth
- leans Subjective (16 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Opposition
- leans Sublation (25 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
14 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Lyotard refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Theology
- Atheism
What is your position on the existence and nature of God or gods? - Government
- Other
What is your ideal form of government? - Highest Good
- Freedom
What is the highest good? - Good and Evil
- Social Invention / Genealogical
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil? - Perception
- Symbolic Forms
What do we directly perceive? - Knowledge
- Power-Knowledge
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge? - Ethics Basis
- Relational
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Social Determinism
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Authority
- Other
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Language-Game
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Law
- Other
What is the ultimate source of legitimate law? - Human Nature
- Socially Constructed
What is human nature?