The sophistications of philosophy: The place of sophistry in Jean-François Lyotard's the differend

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology

Volumn 32, Issue 3, 2001, Pages 277-299

  Crome, Keith ^a  

^a MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84994214374     PISSN: 00071773     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/00071773.2001.11007346     Document Type: Article

References (50)

1. Bennington, G., : Lyotard: Writing the Event, (Manchester, MUP, 1988), p. 2.
2. Lyotard, J-F.: Le Différend (Paris, Minuit, 1983), hereafter referred to as LD. “Mon livre de philosophie» dit-il”. Engl, trans. The Differend: Phrases in Dispute, trans. G. Van Den Abbeele, (Manchester, MUP, 1988), hereafter referred to as D.
3. See Misère de la philosophie (Paris, Galilée, 2000).
4. Milner, J-C.: ‘Jean-François Lyotard, du diagnostic à l'intervention’, in Jean-François, Lyotard : L'exercice du différend, ed. D., Lyotard, J-C., Milner & G., Sfez, (Paris, PUF, 2001), p. 261.
5. Kant, I.: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Can Qualify as a Science, trans. p. Carus, (Illinois, Open Court, 1902), p. 63.
6. See Kant, I.: Critique of Pure Reason, trans. N. Kemp Smith, (London, Macmillan, 1929) ‘Transcendental Dialectic, Bk. II, Chapter II, The Antinomy of Pure Reason’ (A405/B432—A567/B595). All further references will be given in the text according to both A and B pagination.
7. Prolegomena, §52.
8. In § 12 of The Differend Lyotard writes “I would like to call a différend the case where the plaintiff is divested of the means to argue and for that reason becomes a victim”.
9. Gorgias, trans. W. Lamb, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1991) 520a 6ff.
10. Metaphysics, trans. H. Tredennick, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library), IV, 1004b 17–20.
11. In the introduction to a lecture course delivered at Vincennes in 1975, Lyotard suggests that his objective is “to restore a type of reasoning, a type of life, and also probably a type of politics…which are sophistical. At this moment, I would be ready to say that what interests us, is for us to restore to ourselves the means that were effectively those of sophistry” (transcribed lecture, 7th February 1975, Vincennes; the text of this lecture is available on-line at www.imaginet.fr/deleuze). There is an almost constant appeal to the Ancient Greek philosophers and sophists in Lyotard's work. Yet despite this their role in his work remains largely unconsidered. It is with the intention of opening up this aspect of his work that this particular essay has been written.
12. I have used the translation of Parmenides' Poem given by J., Barnes, trans. & ed. Early Greek Philosophy, (Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1987). In referring to the Greek I have used the version given in The Presocratics, ed. M.R., Wright (London, Bristol Classical Press, 1995), based on that established by H., Diels : Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, rev. W. Kranz, Vols. I and II. (Berlin, 1961, 10th ed.). All references to the Greek are indicated by the abbreviation DK.
13. All Greek citations from Gorgias' Treatise are taken from the anonymous On Melissus, Xenophanes and Gorgias, included in Aristotle's Minor Works, trans. W. Hett, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1980), 979a 12.
14. Barnes, J., : Early Greek Philosophy, p. 130.
15. Barnes, J., : Early Greek Philosophy, p. 132.
16. Barnes, J., : Early Greek Philosophy, p. 129.
17. D 15, my emphasis. Translation slightly modified.
18. Barnes, J., : Early Greek Philosophy, p. 132.
19. See, for example, J., Barnes, p. 129.
20. Cassin, B., : Si Parménide: Le traité anonyme De Melisso, Xenophane, Gorgia, (Lille, Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1985). Henceforth abbreviated Sp.
21. See in particular Heidegger, M., : What is Called Thinking? trans. J. Glenn Gray, (New York, Harper & Row, 1968), in the final chapters of which Heidegger, reading paratactically DK 28 B 6, 1, Xρὴ τò λέγειν τε νoεῖν τ´ ὲòν ἕμμεναι (conventionally translated as “One should both say and think that Being is”), lays stress upon the role of participle, noun and verb.
22. DK 28 B 2, 3.
23. Cassin, B., : SP, p. 49.
24. Cassin, B., : SP, p. 50.
25. The “que” omitted here, refers back in the Greek to the verb ‘to say’.
26. Cassin, B., : SP, p. 64.
27. Heidegger, M., : An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim, (Virginia, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 82.
28. Heidegger, M., : An Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. R. Manheim, (Virginia, Yale University Press, 1987), p. 101.
29. Beaufret, J., : Parménide: le poème, (Paris, PUF, 1996) p. 16.
30. The full passage runs: “L'ontologie comme genre de discours présuppose cette obscure illumination: ce dont elle phrase, l'être, est aussi ce qui phrase par sa bouche; le référent est aussi le destinateur. ‘C'est le même, être et penser’”. At the risk of losing the continuity of translation, and with some freedom, I have rendered “phrase” as “speaks”. I have done so however to make clear the basic sense of the passage which is lost by Van Den Abbeele's translation: “As a genre of discourse, ontology presupposes this obscure illumination: what it phrases, Being, is also what is phrased through its mouth: the referent is also the addressor.” (my italics). Abbeele's rendering of the central explanatory clause confounds the difference between referent and addressor, saying the same thing both times.
31. Gorgias' Treatise, from Aristotle's Minor Works, henceforth abbreviated MXG, 979a 12.
32. MXG 979a 14.
33. MXG 979a 14.
34. MXG 979a 25, cf. Cassin, p. 436. LD, p. 32.
35. MXG 979a 25.
36. Cf. Cassin: SP, p. 445.
37. p. 448. This difference does not appear at all in the English translation of The Differend, English lacking the ability to render with the same immediacy the substantivisation of the verb either by way of the formal identity of the infinitive and the participle or even by means of employing the definite article as it occurs in both the French and the Greek.
38. p. 449
39. Where the Greek says τò μὴ ὄν, and the French “le non-étant”, the English translation gives “the non-existent” in order to mark the difference with the “Not-Being” which translates the verbal τò μὴ εἶναι/“le ne pas être” of the Greek and French.
40. Cassin: SP, p. 451.
41. MXG 979a 32–34. Cassin translates “Mais si c'est la même chose, en ce cas aussi ne serait rien: en effet le non-étant n'est pas, ainsi que l'étant, si du moins il est bien la même chose que le non-étant.”, p. 445–6.
42. Art of Rhetoric, trans. J.H. Freese, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1996) 1042a lOff.
43. See, for example, Sophistical Refutations, trans. E.S. Forster, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1990) 5, 166b 37ff.
44. Categories, trans. H.p. Cooke & H. Tredennick, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1980), V, 2a 11ff.
45. V, 2a 14.
46. Philebus, trans. H.N. Fowler, (Cambridge, Mass., Loeb Classical Library, 1992) 16c.
47. Metaphysics, θ, 10, 1051b 24, translation slightly modified.
48. Letter VII, 342a–d. (cited D 22).
49. MXG, 980a 9 (cited, D 15–6).
50. See, for example, Sophistical Refutations, 34, 184a 1ff.