The Postmodern Condition and The Differend: Key Passages

“Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: 'I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives... The grand narrative has lost its credibility, regardless of what mode of unification it uses, regardless of whether it is a speculative narrative or a narrative of emancipation.' [...] On performativity: 'The question... is no longer "Is it true?" but "What use is it?" In the context of the mercantilization of knowledge, more often than not this question is equivalent to: "Is it saleable?" And in the context of power-growth: "Is it efficient?"' [...] Lyotard, The Differend: 'A wrong results from the fact that the rules of the genre of discourse by which one judges are not those of the judged genre... The differend is the unstable state and instant of language wherein something which must be able to be put into phrases cannot yet be.' [...] On paralogy vs. consensus: 'The goal is no longer truth, but performativity... Postmodern science, by concerning itself with such things as undecidables, the limits of precise control, conflicts characterized by incomplete information, "fracta", catastrophes, and pragmatic paradoxes, is theorizing its own evolution as discontinuous, catastrophic, nonrectifiable, and paradoxical.' — Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition (1979); The Differend (1983); IEP 'Lyotard, Jean-François'”