(
1925-
1998)
A professor and postmodern philosopher from France, famous for defining postmodernism as an incredulity toward metanarratives. It was Lyotard who introduced the notion of paralogy, and his postmodernism is cosidered visionary.
In 1950, he taught at a lycee in Constantine, East Algeria and, in 1955, became leader of the Algerian section of Socialism or Barbarism.
He was a council member of the Collège International de Philosophie, professor emeritus at the University of Paris, and was for several years a French and Italian professor at the University of California in Irivine.
Most of his writing goes beyond the postmodern discourse, as such. The range of his ideas includes personalities such as Karl Marx and Marcel Duchamp, art, the Holocaust, the "libidinal band", the "differend," and all sorts of politics and views on spirituality.
His works include:
(mind you, this is only a small sample)
Phenomenology (1954)
The Libidinal Economy (1974)
The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979)
The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (1983)
Peregrinations (1988)
The Inhuman (1988)
Heidegger and 'the Jews' (1990)
The Postmodern Explained (1992)
Postmodern Fables (1997)