The Wild and the Sublime: Lyotard's Post-Modern Politics

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.