Lyotard and the postmodernity debate

Abstract

Contemporary advanced Industrial societies are Increasingly computerised, and knowledge Is now a major stake In the worldwide competition for power. Jean-Françols Lyotard argues that such societies are postmodern, having rejected the principal doctrines of modern Ism. Lyotard's book, The Postmodern condition, proposes that social theory must change to reflect the arrival of postmodernity. This has generated a debate in social theory between advocates of modernity with Its liberalising potential, represented in this thesis by Jürgen Habermas, and the advocates of postmodernity, principally Lyotard, who argue In favour of an antifoundational approach to postmodern society. In this thesis, three main areas of Lyotard's Investigation of postmodern society are analysed in detail, and in the context of the debate between modernists and postmodernists. The three topics are culture, language and the organisation of society. The postmodernity debate highlights the options available to contemporary social theory, and the ways in which recent changes in social organisation have affected social theory.