Jean-Francois (1924-1998) is the philosopher most responsible for the awakening the reading public to the emerging culture of postmodernism. 

Want an easy introduction? 

          Watch a 54 minute movie that dramatically presents Lyotard's basic concepts. The movie is called "When Wittgenstein and Lyotard Talked with Jack and Jill". [NEW: You can see a preview of the movie by clicking here. NEW] Order by phone at 1-800-431-1579, or click on the link (above right) to learn more about this dramatization on Amazon.        

Or, read past PMTH NEWS articles on Lyotard:

Wittgenstein as a Lyotardian Pagan
Bakhtin on paralogy
Wittgenstein's Paralogy and Our Postmodern Quest for a Fertile Point of View
Can there be paralogy without agonistics?
Is the notion of performance pagan?
Lyotard on Legitimating
Lyotard's concept of legitimation
The Problem with Metanarratives
David Bohm and Paralogy
Lyotard versus Kuhn
Differends

Learn a few of Lyotard's Concepts

differend - causing difficult conversations
felt sense
legitimate
language game
little narrative
metanarrative
pagan
postmodern
paralogy

Read a paraphrase
          Of the last chapter of Lyotard's book

Summaries of recently published articles by Lois Shawver on Lyotard

1. What Postmodernism Can Do for Psychoanalysis: A Guide to the Postmodern Vision.
2. Postmodernizing the Unconscious
3. On the Clinical Relevance of Selected Postmodern Ideas: with a Focus on Lyotard's  Concept of "Differend". (How differends cause difficult conversations and how these difficult conversations can be detected and reresolved.)

Wittgenstein's concept of a language game
Commentary assistance for reading the first section of
     Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations