Jean-François Lyotard
French philosopher, sociologist, and literary theorist known for articulating postmodernism after the late 1970s.
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Lyotard authored 26 books and many articles, and was a director of the International College of Philosophy.[1]
Life and work
He gained the agrégation in 1950 and taught philosophy at the Lycée d'Aumale in Constantine, French Algeria.[2][3] In 1954 Lyotard became a member of the political organization Socialisme ou Barbarie, which conducted a critique of Marxism from within the left.[4] He wrote a dozen essays analyzing the economic and political situation of Algeria during its struggle for independence.[4] Lyotard left Socialisme ou Barbarie in 1964 and joined the splinter group Pouvoir Ouvrier, from which he resigned in 1966.[5][6]
Lyotard died unexpectedly from leukemia in 1998 while preparing for a conference on postmodernism and media theory.[7][3] During the liberation of Paris in World War II, Lyotard performed duties as a medical orderly; subsequently, in the late 1940s, he commenced his philosophical studies at the Sorbonne.[8][3] Lyotard took part in the protests of May 1968; later, with his 1974 publication Libidinal Economy, he broke away from revolutionary Marxist thought.[5] A State doctorate was awarded to Lyotard in 1971 for his dissertation Discours, figure; after that, he became a faculty member in the Philosophy department at the University of Vincennes.[9][10]
What the cited sources add
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes that Lyotard's best known work was often to his chagrin his 1979 The Postmodern Condition.[3] The same source states that Lyotard's works made important contributions to aesthetics, the philosophy of science, and the philosophy of language.[3] The Telos interview records that Lyotard describes his existence up until the Second World War as a "poetic, introspective and solitary way of thinking and living"[6] The European Graduate School biography states that Lyotard became agrégé in philosophy in 1950 and received his Docteur ès lettres in 1971.[11]
References
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Caves, "Encyclopedia of the City", Routledge, 2004, p. 441; Benoit, "Derrida: A Biography", Polity, 2013, p. 342 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Bamford, "Jean-Francois Lyotard", Reaktion, 2017, p. 44 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Gratton, "Jean François Lyotard", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018. facts only, no text reused. plato.stanford.edu
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lyotard, "Political Writings", UCL Press, 1993, p. 165–170; Lyotard, "La guerre des Algériens: écrits, 1956-1963", Galilée, 1989; Lyotard, "Political writings", UCL Press, 1993 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lyotard, "Jean-François Lyotard: the interviews and debates", Bloomsbury, 2020, p. 129–135; Lefort, "An Interview", Telos, 1977, p. 177; Geoffrey Bennington, Lyotard: Writing the Event, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988, p. 1.; Mann, Doug. Understanding Society: A Survey of Modern Social Theory. Oxford University Press. 2008. pp. 257–258. (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Lefort, "An Interview", Telos, 1977, p. 177. facts only, no text reused. iep.utm.edu
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Tomb of Jean-François Lyotard" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Gratton, "Jean François Lyotard", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018; Gratton, "Jean François Lyotard", Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, 2018 (we also read that source) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Lyotard, "Why philosophize?", 21 October 2013; Bamford, "Jean-François Lyotard", 2017; Jacques Derrida, The Work of Mourning, ed. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 211.; Bamford, "Jean-Francois Lyotard: Critical Lives", Reaktion, 2017, p. 64–7; Jacques Derrida, The Work of Mourning, ed. Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 211–213. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Jean-François Lyotard" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Université de Paris VIII, "Département de philosophie : liste des UV et emploi du temps pour le semestre d'automne - 1970-1971", octaviana.fr, 1970 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- https://egs.edu/biography/jean-francois-lyotard%e2%80%a0/ Jean-François Lyotard – Former Professor of Media Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS.. facts only, no text reused. egs.edu
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Jean-François Lyotard (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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- Wikipedia: Jean-François Lyotard (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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