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The meaning of a phrase—an event (something happens)--cannot be fixed by appealing to reality (what actually happened). Lyotard develops this view of language by defining "reality" in an original way, as a complex of possible senses attached to a referent through a name.
- Jean François Lyotard
- 1983
Jan 1, 2001 · The differend: Phrases in dispute. Jean-François Lyotard, Georges Van Den Abbeele (Translator) 4.00. 170 ratings7 reviews. English, French (translation) Genres Philosophy Theory History Politics Nonfiction 20th Century. 208 pages, Hardcover. First published January 1, 1983. Book details & editions. About the author. Jean-François Lyotard.
- (169)
- Hardcover
May 15, 2019 · The differend : phrases in dispute. by. Lyotard, Jean François. Publication date. 1988. Topics. Philosophy. Publisher. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press.
A differend is a wrong or injustice that cannot be expressed or proved because the discourse that could do so is denied or precluded. The term was coined by Jean-François Lyotard and applied to cases such as Holocaust denial and Guantanamo Bay detainees.
In The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, Lyotard asks the fundamental question of the "name": to what does the term "Auschwitz" refer? How can we speak meaningfully about this referent "Auschwitz" if there is no final appeal to an absolute code of knowledge? if there is no absolute judge or criterion for validity?
In Jean-François Lyotard. …his most important philosophical work, The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (1983), Lyotard compared discourses to “language games,” a notion developed in the later work of Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951); like language games, discourses are discrete systems of rule-governed activity involving language.
Having now briefly examined the context of Lyotard’s work prior to the publication of The Differend, this chapter seeks to more thoroughly explore the book’s philosophical findings, particularly his concepts of the phrase, concatenation, the wrong, and most obviously the differend.
