后现代:状况,抑或实验精神?——从利奥塔的《后现代状况》解读后现代的两重含义

Double Meanings of "Postmodern" in Lyotard's The Postmodern Condition

在利奥塔的《后现代状况》中,后现代一词有两种不同的理解。一方面,利奥塔将后现代理解为一种状况,而该书的首要目的在于剖析后现代状况及其特征,例如知识的商品化、启蒙元叙事的去合法化、科学技术元叙事的兴起等,并由此诊断出现代社会危机的根源。另一方面,后现代被理解为某种实验精神:利奥塔认为,在一个知识成为商品、人沦为科学技术的附庸的时代,如果个体不想陷入系统、市场、资本和技术的掌控,惟一的方式就是不断地进行实验和创新,寻找新的游戏规则,打破已经获得权威的共识状态。作为一种批判和创新精神,后现代的目的不在于建立共识,而在于进行"背谬推理"。

In The Postmodern Condition,Lyotard introduces the term 'postmodern' to a broad public and endows it with two different meanings.On the one hand,'postmodern' is understood as a condition,and the main purpose of this book is to analyze the characteristics of this postmodern condition,for instance,the commercialization of knowledge,the delegitimation of Enlightenment meta-narrative and the rise of science-techno meta-narrative.On the other,'postmodern' is portrayed as a creative force against meta-narratives.If an individual refuses to submit himself to the domination of system,market,capital and technology,the only way is to create and experiment,breaking the outworn conventions,challenging the fixed consensus and,finally,looking for new rules of game.Postmodern theorists should initiate a new form of legitimation based on paralogy instead of consensus.