Postmodern Thought I.

Prelude

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The Differend: Phrases in Dispute has been suggested as Lyotards most philosophical work. The essence of his language theory stems from an understanding that reality must be studied from a nihilistic and logological standpoint (Lyotard 1988, p.16), which Lyotard reaches in light of Gorgias concluding that truth must be "demonstrated," that is, argued and presented as a case (Ibid. p.16). Consequently, Lyotard is problematising a grasp of reality as unavoidably there in its truth. The problem for Lyotard is that when you look to express the immediacy (the presentation of a phrase; nature) as if it was in its truth, but you come to necessarily express it as a truth i.e. you cannot present what a phrase presents. Language in this sense does not simply convey truth, as if truth was laying there before it, but it objectifies the being of truth or brings truth precisely into being.

II. The Concept of the Differend: On the face of it Lyotards theory of language stems from its instability; rests in the necessary presence of unavoidable conflict that is consequent of the heterogeneity of discourse. This instability culminates in the case of a conflict between (at least) two parties that cannot be equitable resolved for lack of a rule of judgement applicable to both arguments1 (Lyotard 1988, p. xi). This is the case of the differend where a wrong suffered by one party cannot be expressed or signified in the idiom that speaks, and hence unjustly and violently depicts, the apparent truth of reality. Consequently, a sense of reality is, in effect, suppressed and left behind, unable to be synthesised into the truth of the matter. Importantly, it is not the case that this sense is accordingly suppressed because it has no proper essence in and as truth the occurrence is just an unstable state and instant of language wherein something which must be able to put into phrases cannot yet be ... [but such] phrases are in principle possible (Ibid. p. 13, my emphasis). The logic of the differend suppresses the possibility (hence necessitates the impossibility) of the victim of a wrong to express her position; as if she could, she would thus not be a victim. The logic is as follows: either p or not-p; if not-p, then p is false; if p, then not-p, then p is false where p = you are the victim of a wrong; and not-p = you are not. In this very instance of a differend Lyotard speaks of the victim as being confronted with a sense of the sublime, as he writes: [It is within the differend] when the human beings who thought they could use language as an instrument of communication learn through the feeling of pain which accompanies silence (and of pleasure which accompanies the invention of a new idiom), that they are
1

Lyotards concept of the differend draws heavily on the ideas of Immanuel Kant. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant shows how reason falls into conflict with itself, developing two opposing propositions about the same object (Crome 2006); reason is inherently exposed to antinomies insofar as it tries to express the truth of an unobservable whole, an Idea which is not subject to protocol. Transcendental logic is concerned with the rules that condition thoughts relation to objects (Crome 2006), but as an object which is thought under the category of the whole (or of the absolute) is not an object of cognition (whose reality could be subjected to protocol, etc.) (Lyotard 1988, p. 2), such logic becomes dialectical it is applied illegitimately as such a whole has no possibility to be experienced. Consequently, Kant suggests that antinomies are sophistications not of men but of pure reason itself (Kant cited in Crome 2006).

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summoned by language ... to recognize that what remains to be phrased exceeds what they can presently phrase, and that they must be allowed to institute idioms which do not yet exist. (Ibid. p. 13) It is important to understand that this subliminal silence does not point to the other idiom in which these instances *of the referent, the addressor, the addressee and the sense+ could be presented (Ibid. p. 13). It is, rather, a negative formulation (importantly still a phrase) that only den*ies+ the ability of the referent, the addressor, the addressee and the sense to be presented in the current idiom (Ibid. p. 13-14), albeit inexpressibly. This understanding of language has big implications for ethics and justice. If we cannot hold recourse in a meta-narrative based possibly by reason that stabilises a sense of truth and reality, then how are we to realise whether we are partaking in an argument where truth can ultimately be synthesised at no expense due to a consensus over a referent, or rather that we are within a case of the differend, where one partys idiom overruns the situation with its truth and sense of reality? The point is we cannot know this as it happens2. But this should not stop us from institut*ing+ new addressees, new addressors, new significations, and new referents in order for a wrong to find an expression and for the plaintiff to crease being a victim (Ibid. p. 13). In fact, this is what we ought to do a new competence (or prudence) must be found (Ibid. p. 13). What is at stake with Lyotards concept of the differend? To answer this we must look to what conditions the possibility of the differend. Does the differend only have implications in matters of ethics and justice? Or will an inquiry into its conditions reveal to us that there are more fundamental, philosophical ideas at stake? This essay will not maintain its focus on the concept of the differend in its manifestation but will rather look to delineate the conditions for the possibility of the differend to occur. Consequently, it will lead us into the thick of Lyotards theory; into an examination of the essence of the phrase as a happening.

III. Phrase; Phrase Regimens; Genres of Discourse: The conditions for the differend So what are the conditions for the possibility of the differend? Firstly, we must see that Lyotard suggests that our being or presence is, (or simply that we are), always situated3 within a phrase. The phrase is the most fundamental concept as there is no ontological ground that exists behind or before the phrase4 and it consists of an addressor, an addressee, a referent and a sense. Even the most radical account of scepticism (e.g. Descartes practice of universal doubt) is within a phrase There is no phrase is a phrase; it happens that you doubt (Ibid. p. 65, p. 67, my emphasis) causing Lyotard to suggest that it is this, the passage, time, and the phrase (the time in the phrase,
2

Justice thus becomes a reactive practice as you try to recover the wrongs you unknowingly, passively, but necessarily cause. It also may be the case that humans are inadvertently inherently non-ethical beings as they are necessarily victims themselves of the instability of language. The practice of ethics in this light would also be a reactive procedure as you try to bring justice to those who are, unknowingly at the time, wronged (even possibly by you). 3 Situated simply thought as being there always in a phrase. Its meaning should not be conflated with situation as denoting a particular relationship between instances in a phrase universe. 4 This claim will be expressed in more detail in the next section.

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the phrase in time) that survives the test of doubt5 (Ibid. p. 66). It is very important to see that the being-there or happening of the phrase is indubitable neither from its being real nor from its being true, but from its being merely what happens, what is occurring, ce qui arrive, das Fallende (Ibid. p. 66). Being true and being real are only instances pertaining to a phrase universe and with their essence questioned, they are grasped as referents and consequently always open to doubt always open to discussion. For there to be no phrase is impossible, Lyotard (Ibid. p. 66) accordingly concludes. And he continues, for there to be And a phrase is necessary ... to link is necessary, but how to link is not it is suitable or unsuitable (Ibid. p. 66). At precisely this point we catch a glimpse of why the differend is a possibility the necessary linkage of phrases occurs contingently, and as there is no essential way phrases must be linked, it is a definite possibility that we may arrive at conflict. One may think that this contingency will lead us to nihilism, permanence of the differend, but for Lyotard this is not the case. There exist genres of discourse6 which fix rules of linkage, and it suffices to observe them to avoid differends (Ibid. p. 29). In addition, there also exists another aspect in Lyotards language on top of a phrase and genre of discourse the phrase regimen which presents a mode of the phrase universe (e.g. reasoning, describing, questioning, showing, ordering etc). For every phrase regimen, there corresponds a mode of presenting a universe. A genre of discourse inspires a `mode of linking phrases together, and these phrases can be from different regimens (Ibid. p. 128). Differends occur on the scale of the genre of discourse where the success (or the validation) proper to one genre is not the one proper to others (Ibid. p.136). Why is a phrase resilient to doubt but not on the basis of it being true or real? If the phrase is necessarily always there as a happening, what does Lyotard mean about truth and reality? Is reality not there in its truth? Answering these questions is where we will now turn.

IV. Truth and Reality: Being or Not-Being We think something is real when it exists, even if there is no one to verify that it exists; for example, we say that the table is real if it is always there, even if there are no witnesses to the place it occupies. -Or again: imagine a relay race. Reality would be that object called the "baton (temoin) that the relay runners transmit to each other. The runners do not make this object exist by sheer force of running. Likewise, interlocutors do not make what they discuss in argument real. Existence is not concluded. The ontological argument is false. Nothing can be said about reality that does not presuppose it. (Ibid. p. 32) This is Lyotards outline of the idea of reality we are said to spontaneously have. He wants to entirely reject this conception a misunderstanding, he suggests, that has roots in Ancient Greece as

This emphasis of phrase in time as its happening, seems fallacious in the sense that, as Jeff Malpas (1999) highlights, time and space cannot be separate dimensions, but are equiprimordial they are part of dimensionality per se. 6 Science (not including the highly speculative sort like cosmology) is one strong example where a genre of discourse fixes a referent by means of rules of linkage to allow claims to be agreed by consensus.

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Plato reacts against the consequences that came with the sophistication of Parmenidean ontology7 (Crome 2006). In a phrase, there is nothing behind or beyond it no ontological grounding. Ontology, for Lyotard, does not suffice recourse to truth or reality, these instances cannot be expressed for it supposedly reveals (addresses) what it is (as a referent). As Lyotard writes, As a genre of discourse, ontology presupposes [the] obscure illumination [of] what it phrases, Being, is also what is phrased through its mouth: the referent is also the addressor. Being and thinking are the same (Lyotard 1988, p.20). To understand the essence of the phrase, Lyotards take on truth and reality and his ill reception to ontology, we must head back to Ancient Greece and delineate the philosophical ideas expressed by both Parmenides and Gorgias. Parmenides was a pre-Socratic philosopher who advocated that Being, (precisely because it is Being), is Being and that Not-Being, (precisely because it is Not-Being), is Not-Being. Thus truth and reality are held in the essence of Being as Being is what is Parmenidean ontology. Gorgias was another pre-Socratic philosopher who seemingly defends Parmenides thesis by voicing nothing is. But by arguing for it, Gorgias has simultaneously dismissed it as the case nothing is, either because Being and Not-Being are the same thing [(Being is NotBeing)], or because they are not [(Being is not Not-Being8)+ (Ibid. p. 15). As it is possible to say NotBeing with as much force and as much right as Being9 (Crome 2006) Gorgias concludes that it is possible neither to be nor not to be. And consequently, this neutralisation of reality (neither Being nor Not-Being) leads Gorgias to the principle that demonstrations say everything without exception (Lyotard 1988, p. 46). Drastically, Gorgias reasoning transforms the essence of truth and reality. Reality is not grasped in revealing what is it is not what is given to this or that subject, it is a state of the referent (that about which one speaks) which results from the effectuation of establishment procedures defined by a unanimously agreed-upon protocol, and from the possibility offered to anyone to recommence this effectuation as often as he or she wants (Ibid. p. 4). Truth and reality thus must be demonstrated, that is, argued and presented as the case (Ibid. p. 16)10. For Lyotard, language is the very sign that one does not know the being of the existent Ibid. p. 22). We can now see that the essence of Lyotards text, The Differend, stems from the reasoning of Gorgias it is from this simultaneously nihilistic and logological11 standpoint that we receive and study the question of reality as Lyotard (Ibid. p. 16) says. As truth and reality need to be demonstrated, they are open to doubt. This is the reason why Lyotard suggests a phrase can be
7

In light footnote 1, Lyotard also grasps this essence of sophistry in reason only so far as it has roots in Ancient Greece Lyotard historicising Kants idea of reason. Reason is not an atemporal phenomenon, it is not a natural fact; it itself has evolved into a concept. Here we can see affinities with Foucault who shows that there are only regimens of rationality reflecting structures of power (Hudson 2011) and thus reason is not an atemporal concept with a capital R. Schelling, too, was aware of this point as he emphasised a distinction between applying reason to a problem and explaining how, when and why rationality appeared (Hudson 2011). What Lyotard ultimately suggests is that the sophistication in reason only has presence precisely as Western philosophy from Ancient Greece indentified and created its idiom (its rules/genre of discourse) up against sophistry as another body of (seemingly unwarranted) discourse. 8 Affirmed only through a double negation not with the simple premise of Being is Being 9 Both have become referents, instances to be established (Lyotard 1988, p. 20). 10 The word logos changes meaning. It is no longer speak-welcome, it is speak-argue (Lyotard 1988, p. 20) 11 Logology is used to indicate that being, inasmuch as it is, is first produced, performed, by speech (Footnote 18 in Crome 2006)

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thought of as neither fundamentally real nor true it is a happening. But in taking this stance, issues do arise. What in what sense does a phrase deposit something to be argued for as reality? Our commonsensical idea is, as Lyotard suggests, that we inadvertently communicate what is being there (that is, we hold a concept of nature as phusis that which in itself comes to presence; the being of beings), but what is there for a phrase to present (i.e. what is the event of its presentation)?12 It would seem that with Gorgias reasoning that nothing is, to speak of nature is not to speak of what is, but of what is not (Crome 2006) amounting to a loss in the concept of nature. Is this the case in Lyotard?

V. Presentation: Time and the absolute A phrase presents a universe it entails a There is (Il y a). This is the presentation-event of a phrase as long as a phrase takes place, it presents (Lyotard 1988, p. 75). However, the presentation does not last, in fact, it cannot even be grasped. It is the case that what the phrase/presentation presents can only be presented in another phrase, in which situates it13. Thus a presentation does not present a universe to someone: it is the event of its (inapprehensible) presence (Ibid. p. 61). We can turn to Aristotles mediation on time to see the essence of what is fundamentally occurring here. Aristotle understood that the phenomenon of the now plays an essential role in the ability to grasp time it is only in distinguishing ... successive nows that we recognise that time has passed (Crome 2006). But what is the nature of the now? Does it always remain one and the same or is it always other and other? (Aristotle cited in Lyotard 1988, p. 74). Lyotard suggests that to privilege the permanence of now in the sense that it gives meaning to the instances of before and after and is which the transcendental subject is anchored, is ill-guided14. Aristotle (cited in Lyotard 1988, p. 74) continues to suggest that the now in one sense is the same [(ho pot n being what it is this time)+, in another it is not the same *(to einai as an entity)+. It is here that Lyotards nontraditional interpretation of Aristotle is very important in relation to his notion of the Il y a of a phrase-event. The sense in which now is one and the same is not as something always present to the subject (or that the subject is always present in), but as an absolute that can never be grasped or presented15. We can see the connotations with Gorgias understanding that nothing is as the now remains fundamentally in its Not-Being whereas traditionally the now is seen as an always-is-there within the permanence of Being.

12

It might be evident here had Lyotards theory is stuck in a sense of Cartesian (whilst being anti-Cartesian) as although he has removed the world as being in opposition to the I, he is still in a sense committed to the phrase-event being presented to a subject a relation between There is (even if it is Not-Being) and the addressor/addressee in the phrase. 13 We can plainly see that the sense in which the presentation dissolves into situation is drawn from Kants Transcendental Aesthetic as the matter-phrase is transmitted into form-phrase. Importantly here we see that whilst Kants bridging is through the activity of the transcendental subject, Lyotards is bridge passively and thus the concept of nature as phusis is enacted. 14 This is privilege of the now is found in Augustine and Husserl as Lyotard suggests (Lyotard 1988, p. 77) 15 We see that this is a very Kantian idea (as outlined in footnote 1) Reason cannot grasp the absolute as the whole is beyond all possible experience. And thus the absolute is not presentable (Lyotard 1988, p. 77).

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Coming back to the presentation of a phrase, we can see that the Il y a of the presentation-event is the absolute now that is never grasped. This is precisely because each phrase as a now cannot be phrased without being destroyed, cannot be directly synthesised or placed on a diachronic line (Crome 2006). The instant the phrase is presented in what it presents, it becomes situated in the necessary following phrase and thus temporalised and removed from its immediacy16. Therefore Il y a, the absolute now has foundations before or beyond time. As Lyotard writes, The presentation is that a phrase happens. But as such, as what, it is not within time (Lyotard 1988, p. 75). This is because time is a category of the existent (Ibid. p. 75) time takes place as it situates what is presented now. What is the basis of the presentation of a phrase? The occurrence, the phrase, as a what that happens, does not at all stem from the question of time, but from that of Being/nonBeing. This question is called forth by a feeling (Ibid. p. 74)17.

V. Conclusion So where does this leave us? The There is takes place, it is an occurrence (Ereignis), but it does not present anything to anyone, it does not present itself, and it is not the present, nor is it presence. Insofar as it is phrasable (thinkable), a presentation falls short as an occurrence (Ibid. p. 75). In a sense Lyotards There is holds close proximity to the Greek understating of nature as phusis as the phrase-event brings forth and presents a universe comprising of instances (Crome 2006). Nevertheless Lyotard has no account of spatiality that could deposit this bring-forth of things in their physicality (Crome 2006). Lyotards theory makes recourse to time but not spatiality and this weakens his overall thesis as implications of questions like the claim that language is a phenomenon that so only be issues in a place (space-time) needs to be examined in relation to Lyotards theory. Nevertheless as Lyotard has shown that the now is never presentable, he brings to light that modern philosophy rests on the mistake of grasping the absolute now as it is always there in which truth can be examined and found; additionally, in the same sense, the idea of the transcendental is also diminished. This is critical as many theories are precisely based in the ever-presence of the now (Augustine, Husserl) whilst others practice the idea of the transcendental and look to describe such conditions for possible experience (Kant) or say the condition for the encounter of phrases (and therefore the condition for differends) without realising that the condition of the encounter is not this [transcendental] universe, but the phrase in which you present it (Ibid. p. 28). And as our commonsensical conception of reality stems from this (the understanding that at the fundamental level reality, truth and the world is18) we are in less a position to seek justice to victims of differends.

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To visualise this we can loosely conceive of time taking place in a line horizontally with the presentationevent hovering in the space above this ever-moving line. An occurrence of a phrase can be represented by an attempt of a vertical line that stems down from this space and as it connects with the moving horizontal line it is situated (but notice the vertical line has consequently become situated on an angle), the presentation is made a referent in the realm of existents. 17 It could maybe be suggested that at this moment we can see how, for Lyotard, the some things (if not all things) are matters of judgment. Knowledge is in the realm of the existent but which ultimately stems from an aesthetic judgement of the absolute and thus we cannot recourse to a meta-narrative. 18 The Univocity of Being Duns Scotus

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Word Count: 3,156

References: Crome, K. (2006). Lyotard and the Greeks, Angelaki, 11:3, 93-105 Hudson, W. (2011). Lecture Handout and Recordings, University of Tasmania Lyotard, J. (1988). The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, (Trans. by Van Den Abbeele, G), University of Minnesota, Manchester University Press, UK Malpas, J. (1999). Place and Experience: A Philosophical Topography, Cambridge University Press, UK