The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge by Jean-Francois Lyotard (Author)

📘 Title Name: The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge
✍️ Author: Jean-François Lyotard
📚 Translators: Geoff Bennington, Brian Massumi
🖋️ Foreword by: Fredric Jameson
📦 Quality: Black White Pakistan Print

🔹 Introduction:

The Postmodern Condition is a foundational text in postmodern theory where Jean-François Lyotard analyzes how knowledge, science, and narratives have transformed in the post-industrial, computerized era. Originally commissioned by the Council of Universities of the Government of Quebec, this report explores the consequences of the postmodern shift for knowledge production and legitimacy.

🔑 Key Points:

• Highlights the decline of grand narratives (like Enlightenment or Marxism) in legitimizing knowledge.

• Introduces the concept of “language games” in knowledge production, inspired by Wittgenstein.

• Argues that scientific knowledge is no longer superior to narrative knowledge.

• Explores how technological advancement and computerization have changed the function of knowledge.

• Calls attention to the commodification of knowledge in the postmodern university system.

🔻 Conclusion:

Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition provides a powerful critique of modernity’s assumptions about truth, science, and knowledge. It is a landmark work in cultural theory, urging us to recognize and adapt to the fragmented, decentralized nature of knowledge in the contemporary world.