Jean-François Lyotard (1924-1998) was one of the most important French philosophers of the Twentieth Century. His impact has been felt across many disciplines: sociology; cultural studies; art theory and politics. This volume presents a diverse selection of interviews, conversations and debates which relate to the five decades of his working life, both as a political militant, experimental philosopher and teacher. Including hard-to-find interviews and previously untranslated material, this is the first time that interviews with Lyotard have been presented (...) as a collection. Key concepts from Lyotard's thought – the differend, the postmodern, the immaterial – are debated and discussed across different time periods, prompted by specific contexts and provocations. In addition there are debates with other thinkers, including Emmanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida, which may be less familiar to an Anglophone audience. These debates and interviews help to contextualise Lyotard, highlighting the importance of Marx, Freud, Kant and Wittgenstein, in addition to the Jewish thought which accompanies the questions of silence, justice and presence that pervades Lyotard's thinking. (shrink)

Nouvelle édition critique et traduction française annotée de la _Lettre à Marcella_ de Porphyre. Le philosophe néoplatonicien Porphyre (234-305) y adresse à sa femme un témoignage unique sur la manière dont une vie philosophique peut être conduite et se préserver. This book presents a new annotated and translated edition of neoplatonist 3rd-century Greek philosopher Porphyrius’ _Letter to Marcella_. This letter, adressed to his wife, gives a unique account on the ways and principles along which a philosophical life should be led (...) so as to perpetuate itself. (shrink)

The political writings of Jean-Francois Lyotard, the prophet of the postmodern, are presented here as both the missing dimension of his work and the key to understanding his position within contemporary debate.

Jean-Francois Lyotard's contribution to the debate, Heidegger and 'the Jews, ' is a marked departure from the standard fare. In the first of the two interrelated essays, 'the Jews, ' Leotard quickly establishes the theme of the entire text, placing 'the Jews' in lower case, plural, and in quotation marks to represent the outsiders, the nonconformists: the artists, anarchists, blacks, homeless, Arabs, etc. --and the Jews; as an alien and dangerous disruption, they represent an 'other' to be excised from (...) the West's dream of unbounded fulfillment and development. (shrink)

This latest offering from one of the founding figures of postmodernism is a collection of fifteen "fables" that ask, in the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, "how to live, and why?

" Le nihilisme est devant la porte : d'où nous vient ce plus inquiétant de tous les hôtes? ", demande Nietzsche dans un fragment posthume. L'hôte est ici celui qui vient chez nous et non celui qui octroie l'hospitalité. Le nihilisme est donc cette figure étrange qui vient nous saisir dans notre maison et faire de nous, en dépit de notre résistance, des nihilistes. Mais alors, si " la catastrophe nihiliste " dont parle Nietzsche s'abat sur nous et nous pétrifie (...) sur notre propre seuil, comment devons-nous entendre la dénonciation nietzschéenne du nihilisme et sa tentative héroïque de le surmonter? Les auteurs réunis dans ce volume tentent d'éclairer le sens de la direction à prendre en ces temps obscurs où, toujours selon Nietzsche, nous ne savons plus où aller, où venir parce que nous avons perdu le sens de la terre. Le nihilisme est peut-être la seule lumière qui permet d'éclairer le caractère équivoque du monde moderne. Mais c'est une lumière noire. Ont participé à la rédaction de cet ouvrage : Yannis Constantinidès, Marc Crépon, françoise Dastur, Paolo D'Iorio, Thierry Gontier, Dominique Janicaud, Mathieu Kessler, Jean-Paul Larthomas, Marc de Launay, Jean-François Mattéi, Olivier Ponton, franco Volpi. (shrink)

Le "livre-testament" de Jean-François Mattéi, préfacé par Raphaël Enthoven, qui défendra dans les médias la mémoire de son professeur et ami.

Si les interprétations de ce qu'il est convenu de nommer la « dernière philosophie » de Heidegger sont aujourd'hui monnaie courante, non sans risque d'inflation parfois quand on les lie sans précaution à l'engagement politique de l'auteur de Sein und Zeit, personne pourtant n'avait jusqu'ici pris le risque d'aborder la question controversée du « tournant » de front. Les différences évidentes entre un Heidegger I, parti de la phénoménologie pour revenir à une « ontologie fondamentale », et relevant encore à (...) ce titre de la philosophie, et un Heidegger II, voué désormais à une « autre pensée » réfractaire à l'élaboration conceptuelle, sinon à une sorte de mysticisme poétique, paraissent si tranchées à la plupart des commentateurs qu'ils entérinent sans plus attendre une telle division. Celle-ci a d'ailleurs été accréditée par l'auteur lui-même qui, le premier, mentionna l'existence d'un « tournant » de sa propre pensée, en termes réservés toutefois, sinon énigmatiques. (shrink)

This translation of Lyotard's first book, La phenomenologie (first publication in 1954; the translation is from the 10th edition of 1986, Presses Universitaires de France) supplies an important link to Lyotard's more recent work.

Qu'est-ce que la fameuse caverne de Platon si ce n'est la plus grande chambre noire que l'on ait jamais réalisée? Reprenant cette intuition de Paul Valéry, Jean-François Mattéi procède à une relecture magistrale des grands dialogues de Platon, de La République au Timée, pour y découvrir la matrice de notre monde, un monde envahi par les images et les simulacres. Du cinéma aux jeux vidéo en passant par Internet, le cyberespace et les téléphones portables, nouvelles "cavernes personnelles ", (...) les images ont en effet pris le pouvoir. Censées initialement représenter le réel, elles se sont mises à le simuler, à le dupliquer, voire à l'absorber pour faire surgir une nouvelle dimension, celle du virtuel. Matrix, Avatar, World of Warcraft, Toy Story, la 3D, sont le vecteur de cette révolution. Pour la plupart des philosophes, la victoire des simulacres constitue un renversement sans précédent du rapport entre image et réalité, institué il a 2500 ans par Platon. Les images ne seraient plus le miroir d'une réalité intelligible qui leur confère consistance, mais de purs simulacres sans aucun rapport avec le réel. En croisant la lecture minutieuse de Platon avec une plongée passionnante dans les processus les plus contemporains de modélisation des images, cet essai démontre qu'il n'en est rien. Loin d'être autonomes, les phénomènes de simulation proviennent de procédés rationnels qui projettent leur intelligibilité dans le sensible. Et ces procédés artificiels redoublent l'opération première, advenue dans la nuit des temps, au cours de laquelle le monde fut structuré grâce à des modèles intelligibles qui se sont inscrits en lui. (shrink)

Enthusiasm is Lyotard's most elaborate and provocative statement on the politics of the sublime.

Enactive metaphorizing is about making something “tangible” and “familiar” that is not. One way to describe this process more precisely is to think in terms of traces of and for ….

This article starts, on the one hand, with a consideration of the paradoxical way in which, namely when he wanted to evoke those intellectual figures that have decidedly contributed to the revelation of the "true Pascal", i. e., of the Pascal that had known the good usage of reason, Fortunat Strowski comes to the idea of putting side by side Pierre Duhem and Leon Brunschvicg. On the other, a reference is made to the fact that Duhem only published two articles (...) and a preface on Pascal while Brunschvicg is the author of a major work on the great figure of the XVIIth -Century. Hence, the question raised is about the consideration that shall be given to a paradoxical affirmation that seems to place on equal terms the few pages that Duhem has written on Pascal with the imposing contributions of Brunschvicg. For the author of the article, it would not be very consequent to take such affirmations as if they were unreflected ones, since it is clear that Strowski knew exactly what he was writing as we can see from the very good knowledge he had of the writings of both Blaise Pascal and Pierre Duhem. Indeed, and more than anyone else, Strowski was in a very good position to enlighten us about these two thinkers and to write about them in the terms he effectively did. The goal of the article, therefore, is to justify that assertion, which on its face is quite paradoxical, by showing in concrete terms the extent to which Pierre Duhem was truly influenced by Blaise Pascal. ––– O presente artigo começa por realçar o modo paradoxal como, uma vez que ele se dá ao trabalho de evocar aqueles autores que contribuíram para a revelação do verdadeiro Pascal, ou seja, daquele que conheceu o bom uso da razão, Fortunat Strowski não hesita em colocar o nome de Pierre Duhem lado a lado com o de Léon Brunschvicg. O facto, porém, é que Pierre Duhem não fez mais do que publicar dois artigos e um prefácio sobre Blaise Pascal, ao passo que Brunschvicg lhe dedicou uma obra que haveria de ficar famosa. O problema, portanto, consiste em saber qual o valor que se deve atribuir a uma tal afirmação desconcertante, a qual parece simplesmente equalizar as poucas páginas de Duhem sobre Pascal com as imponentes contribuições de Brunschvicg. Nesse sentido, a estratégia do autor do artigo consiste em não tomar de forma ligeira uma tal afirmação, como se Strowski não tivesse considerado bem as consequências e o alcance daquilo que escrevia, pois a verdade é que ele conhecia não só a obra de Pascal mas também a de Duhem. Ou seja, mais do que ninguém, ele estava perfeitamente à altura de nos comunicar algo de substancial acerca de cada um destes pensadores e de escrever a seu propósito aquilo que ele efectivamente escreveu. Em suma, o presente artigo não tem outra pretensão que não a de justificar essa afirmação aparentemente paradoxal segundo a qual Pierre Duhem foi um verdadeiro pascaliano. (shrink)

La niche en conglomérat SD 108 est proche de l’entrée du sanctuaire delphique d’Apollon. Depuis sa découverte, on a beaucoup écrit au sujet de son architecture, de sa datation et surtout de sa destination première, mais la connaissance des réalités du terrain égalait rarement celle des textes. Au bout de près de soixante-dix ans, G. Roux a démontré, contre l’opinion commune, qu’elle ne pouvait pas avoir contenu les statues des «Navarques » érigées en mémoire de la victoire lacédémonienne d’Aigos-Potamoi, mais (...) il s’est trompé sur le reste. Le dossier archéologique constitué à partir de 1966 a permis d’établir que SD 108 était d’époque classique et comportait une colonnade prostyle irrégulière de douze colonnes doriques dressées sur un podium. Cette forme insolite se doublait d’un aménagement intérieur extraordinaire. Enfin l’orientation, différente de celle des autres niches, semble avoir correspondu à celle du monument des «Navarques » et découlé d’un remaniement de tout le secteur Sud-Est. (shrink)

The Postmodern explained to children : Correspondence 1982- 1985.

A major figure in the contemporary critical world, Jean-Francois Lyotard originally introduced the term 'postmodern' into current discussions of philosophy. The Postmodern Explained is an engaging collection of letters addressed to young philosophers, including the actual children of some of Lyotard's colleagues, that inform the trajectory of his thinking in the period before The Postmodern Condition through The Differend.

A collection of 15 fables from a founding figure of postmodernism that ask in the words of Jean-Francois Lyotard, "how to live and why?" It provides attention to issues of justice and ethics, and aesthetics and judgement - unravelling and reconfiguring idealistic notions of subjects.

Une simple anecdote peut révéler des enjeux philosophiques inattendus. Dans une lettre à Clément Rosset du 18 juin 1983, Gilles Deleuze mentionnait l’ « étrange livre » qu’il avait reçu de ma part. Il s’agissait de L’Étranger et le Simulacre, paru quelques mois plus tôt dans la collection « Épiméthée ». Je l’avais adressé par courtoisie..

The characterisation of normal stem cells and cancer stem cells uses the same paradigm. These cells are isolated by a fluorescence‐activated cell sorting step and their stemness is assayed following implantation into animals. However, differences exist between these two kinds of stem cells. Therefore, the translation of the experimental procedures used for normal stem cell isolation into the research field of cancer stem cells is a potential source of artefacts. In addition, normal stem cell therapy has the objective of regenerating (...) a tissue, while cancer stem cell‐centred therapy seeks the destruction of the cancer tissue. Taking these differences into account is critical for anticipating problems that might arise in cancer stem cell‐centred therapy and for upgrading the cancer stem cell paradigm accordingly. (shrink)

The ambition and proposal for data modeling of myths presented in this paper is to link contemporary technical affordances to some canonical projects developed in structural anthropology. To articulate the theoretical promise and innovation of this proposal, we present a discrete-event system specification modeling and simulation approach in order to perform a generative analysis and a dynamic visualization of selected narratives, aimed at validating and revitalizing the transformational and morphodynamic theory and methodology proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss in his structural analysis (...) of myth. After an analysis of Lévi-Strauss’s transformational methodology, we describe in detail how discrete-event system specification models are implemented and developed in the framework of a DEVSimPy software environment. The validation of the method involves a discrete-event system specification simulation based on the extension of discrete-event system specification models dedicated to provide a dynamic Google Earth visualization of the selected myth. Future work around the discrete-event system specification formalism in anthropology is described as well as future applications regarding the impact of computational models to new contemporary anthropological domains. (shrink)

On the basis of a historical reconstruction of the stages through which the Christian notion of sin took shape in Protestantism, the significance of this term for modern bioethics is derived from its opposition to a holiness of God and his creatures, which in turn translates into the secular moral concept of dignity. This dignity imposes obligations to respect and to relationships that are sustained by faithfulness and trust. In being based on the gratuitousness of God’s grace, such relationships preclude (...) attempts at instrumentalization, denial of singularity, and subjection to market forces. Accordingly, reproductive cloning as well as exposing medicine to economical considerations can be classified as sinful. The difference between sinful acts and humans’ sinful state furthermore permits to address the problems of evil and misfortune in the world, and to acknowledge humans’ responsibility for the threats to humanity entailed by those ills. While the Christian faith relies on God’s mercy, it also imposes the task of following Christ by fighting against evil and misfortune. (shrink)