knowledge - ReviseSociology

Jean Francois Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition

the postmodern condition is a mindset sceptical about universal truths and which embraces relativist knowledges and uncertainty.

Jean Francois Lyotard (1924 to 1998) was a proponent of post-Marxist ideas.

Lyotard argued that knowledge had become fractured and fragmented in the ‘postmodern condition’, which was the title of his most famous book.

Lyotard developed his theory of knowledge by drawing on the work of two philosophers: Nietzsche and Wittgenstein who had both criticised modernist conceptions of knowledge for claiming there could be unproblematic, objective and absolute truth, and that science was the way to that truth.

Nietzsche and Wittgenstein both argued that there were a plurality of specific, localised truths which were relative to particular times and places. What counted as true in one context may not be true in another and there was no way of knowing which truth was ‘truer’ than others.

They also argued that we had to recognise the contingency and uncertainty of human knowledge.

Knowledge is subjective not objective.

Lyotard insisted that knowledge is always particular and subjective rather than universal and objective.

Different groups each have their own narratives which help them to make sense of the world and themselves, but each of these ‘mini-narratives’ is valid in its own right for each particular group and cannot be criticised or evaluated from the point of view of another, because no one narrative is more true than any other.

Narratives and language games

Narratives help to establish the social order of a society and narratives are developed through what Lyotard called language-games. Language-games are games in which participants try to assert that certain claims are true.

Each statement is a move in which participants are trying to get other people to accept their truth-claims as valid and reject the validity of other statements. Whoever wins the language game gains legitimacy or power over the truth.

Knowledge has always been relative, but at certain points in history some narratives have gained prominence and tried to cover up the truth that knowledge is relative – such as with religious world views, science or political ideologies such as Liberalism and Marxism.

Modernity and Metarranatives

in pre-modern societies the telling of stories, myths or legends was the principle language game.

The people with the right to speak these stories gained their legitimacy on the basis of who they were, on their authenticity as being born into that particular tribe and having had those stories passed down to them by their parents and grandparents.

However this changed in the 17th century with the onset of the Enlightenment…

The Enlightenment and Metanarratives

With the Enlightenment, language games were replaced with scientific ‘denotive games’ in which legitimacy was no longer based on an individual’s authenticity but on the extent to which statements stood up to testing according to agreed upon standards from by other people (other scientists in the case of science).

Scientific statements are subjected to rigorous testing by other scientists who either provide proof of a truth-claim another scientist is making or falsify that claim. Evidence found using the scientific method and rational argument are employed to establish the legitimacy of truth claims made by scientists.

Science attempted to maintain a distance between itself and other social conventions so that it could remain objective, and in doing so science established itself as a metanarrative (big stories which claim universal truths).

Scientists claimed they had access to superior knowledge based on the scientific method which was objective, and this would be the basis for emancipating humanity from the ignorance of primitive knowledge based on narratives which were in turn were legitimated by the status of the people telling those stories.

Scientists believed that their objective knowledge could form the basis for human progress.

However Lyotard criticised the ability of scientific institutions to be able to remain truly detached from the narratives of daily life, especially when science is funded by powerful institutions.

Political Metanarratives

Science was not the only ‘big story’ making claims to universal truths in modernity. According to Lyotard the two principle political metanarratives of modernity were Liberalism and Marxism.

Liberalism claimed that modernity was a period of increasing individual freedom and prosperity based on the spread of capitalism and democracy.

Marxism believed that Capitalism only advanced through subordinating the working classes and that in order to achieved true progress we needed to emancipate the working classes through revolution and communism.

However according to Lyotard both of the above are fictions, merely the idea of particular people who benefitted from trying to pass off these stories as truth.

The postmodern condition

Lyotard famously defined postmodern thought and the condition of postmodernity more generally as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’.

Starting from at least the 1950s, but certainly by the 1980s the majority of the population had people had started to be sceptical about the possibility science and reason could find universal truths. In other words a critical mass of people had become sceptical about the scientific metanarrative.

Also by the 1980s the majority of the population were sceptical about religious and political metanarratives such as Liberalism and Marxism and embraced the principles of doubt and uncertainty about everything.

Thus we can described society since the 1980s as postmodern because by that point the majority of the population had a postmodern outlook in terms of their attitude towards knowledge.

The postmodern condition and scientific knowledge

In science denotative games (the search for universal truth) are replaced by technical games as science turns more towards the most efficient way of achieving goals, rather than the search for absolute truth

Moreover for Lyotard in postmodern society knowledge increasingly becomes something which can be bought and sold, it is a market-product and thus most certainly not free from relativist context.

A mindset, not a period in history

For Lyotard the postmodern condition isn’t just a period in history like some other commentators on postmodernity have suggested, it is a mindset that has always existed.

Subjectivity, relativism and uncertainty have always been part of life, they were part of modernity too, but in modernity the postmodern mindset was subjugated by metanarratives which claimed a monopoly on truth.

Evaluations of Lyotard

Lyotard’s view of knowledge as subjective does open up the possibility for individuals to be free from those in power who claim they have access to the universal truth or the best path to progress.

However there are at least two major problems with his theory:

There are some contradictions in Lyotard’s work. He claims that all knowledge is subjective and yet he seems to be claiming to have found the ‘truth’ of how knowledge systems have progresses from pre-modern through modern and now postmodern.

If we accept the view that knowledge is subjective and that there is no universal truth it makes it difficult to criticise anything, which means Capitalism has a free for all in which those with money and power can choose to legitimate any system of knowledge they choose and the rest of us have no real basis to criticise the truth claims those in power are making.

Jean Francois Lyotard FAQ

What is the postmodern condition?

Lyotard defined the postmodern condition as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’. What he meant by this is that the postmodern mindset rejects claims to universal truth and accepts that there are a plurality of truths which are context-dependent, relative and subjective. The postmodern condition is thus one of epistemological uncertainty.

What is a metanarrative?

Metanarratives are overarching stories which claim to be able to explain everything in the world and they tend to do so in the name of increasing human emancipation or freedom.

What’s the difference between the postmodern condition and postmodernity for Lyotard?

The postmodern condition is a mindset: scepticism attitude to the possibility of objective knowledge and universal truth. For Lyotard when the majority of the population have this mindset, as was the case by the 1980s, we can talk of having entered the historical period of postmodernity.

Sources

Jean Francois Lyotard (1984) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge.

Jean Francois Lyotard by Bracha L. Ettinger, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2517804..

The Postmodern Condition book cover By Scan of book cover, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=44167713.

Part of this post was adapted from Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives 8th Edition.

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Religion and Science: Are they Compatible?

Are religious belief systems compatible with scientific belief systems? Is religious knowledge different to scientific knowledge?

This post considers the arguments and evidence for the view that religious beliefs are compatible with scientific belief systems.

One argument within the secularisation debate is that the Enlightenment started a process of rationalization within society, which led to technological developments and social progress. This in turn meant that the old, traditional, irrational religious belief systems were increasingly challenged, and so there was a corresponding decline in religion.

The above view holds that religious beliefs and scientific beliefs are incompatible, and that more rational scientific knowledge has effectively replaced religious knowledge in society, because scientific knowledge is some how superior.

However, there are others who argue that the relationship between science and religion is more complex and nuanced. This is especially understandable given the trend towards religious pluralism and the increasing diversity, or sub-divisions within science.

It is highly likely that ecumenical movements, or those with new age beliefs are more likely to find common ground with science than those from highly conservative religious movements or those with fundamentalist beliefs.

Religion and Science are compatible

There are several different lines of argument for the view that religious belief systems and scientific belief systems are compatible.

Stephen Jay Gould argued that science and religion were concerned with different aspects of human life which deal with different human needs.

Gould argued that one human need was to understand the workings of nature, which science dealt with. The job of science was to uncover objective knowledge about the ‘laws of nature’, which could be discovered using the scientific method.

Another human need was to find a meaning for their own life and to figure out a moral code which they should live by. Such meaning and morality are subjective and so cannot be discovered through the scientific method. People need religion to help them discover meaning and to lead a moral life.

According to Gould, these two spheres of human need do not overlap, and so religious knowledge systems and scientific knowledge systems can exist side by side.

Monotheistic religions which have a belief in one, universal God are compatible with science. It is possible to believe that there is ‘one God’ who created the universe and the laws by which it is governed, and then to use science to uncover exactly what those rules are.

Some recent concepts developed in the field of physics seem to support the worldview of traditional Asian belief systems, such as Taoism. A good example of this is Fritjof Capra’s ‘The Tao of Physics‘.

Some religions are actually based on science – The most obvious example here is scientology, which has developed devices such as the E-meter to track people’s progress towards the ‘Bridge to Total Freedom’.

Sources/ find out more….

Religion in the Contemporary World

What is the difference between science and religion?

Science is empirical, open, evolving and objective, but is religion the opposite?

What are the differences between science and religion? This post focuses on four areas of difference between the two:

The empirical versus the supernatural
Open versus closed belief systems

Evolving versus absolute knowledge
Objectivity versus subjectivity

Before reading this post, you might like to refresh your knowledge of what they key features of science are by reading this post: Is sociology a science?

Science limits itself to the empirical, religion concerns itself with the supernatural

Science tends to concern itself with the natural or physical world – that which can be observed and measured. If it cannot be observed or measured empirically, then it is not scientific.

Scientific knowledge is gained primarily through the experimental method: a hypothesis is formulated and then experiments designed to test the hypothesis. Experiments use standardized procedures of data collection, so that other scientists can repeat the exact same experiment in the same way and verify the data and test the findings for themselves.

In contrast religion tends to concern itself with the spiritual world, many aspects of which cannot necessarily be observed and measured in a scientific extent. For example, knowledge in many religions comes ultimately from God, and belief in the existence of God cannot be verified empirically. Belief in God is a matter of faith.

Any knowledge claims made by religions which are not verifiable by empirical observations cannot be regarded as ‘scientific’.

‘Open’ verses ‘closed belief systems

Science is an ‘open belief system’ – the data collected by scientists are open to testing by others. Research findings can thus be criticized.

According to Popper, the process of scientists critically scrutinizing findings of other scientists is fundamental to the scientific method. He argued that scientists should attempt to ‘falsify’ already existing hypotheses by designing experiments deliberately to disprove them. It is this process which ensures that scientific knowledge is valid: its ability to withstand the critical scrutiny of peers.

In contrast, religions tend to have ‘closed belief systems’ – religious knowledge is generally regarded as sacred, and should be accepted as is, rather than challenged.

Evolving versus absolute knowledge systems

Scientific knowledge is cumulative…. it evolves through a process of scientists learning about, criticizing, and improving upon the experimental work of previous scientists.

Religious belief systems, at least those based firmly on religious texts or an idea of an absolute truth are not open to change or growth. Those who challenge such religious belief systems may well be subject to sanctions.

Objectivity and value-freedom versus subjectivity

Subjective, personal feelings should be kept out the scientific process. Scientific knowledge should not be influenced by the personal opinions or biases of the researchers who conduct the experiments which provide the data to generate scientific knowledge.

In contrast, knowledge in many religious traditions is a matter of personal faith and intimate spiritual experience. Many religious experiences, prayer, for example, are highly personal, and not meant to be replicated by others.

Evaluations

This post effectively deals with the argument that science and religion are different, and thus possibly incompatible. Please see this post for some arguments and evidence for the alternative view: that scientific belief systems are compatible with religious belief systems.

Signposting

This post was written primarily for students of A-level sociology (AQA exam board) and is one of the more difficult topics taught as part of the beliefs in society module.

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Sources

The four differences above are the differences between religion and science highlighted by Dixon (2008) in ‘Science and Religion, A Very Short Introduction‘.

A Level Sociology: 10 mark questions

There are two types of 10 mark question across the 3 A-level sociology exam papers: ‘outline and explain questions’ (no item) and ‘applying material from the item’ questions.

Below is a nice wall-chart explaining the difference between them, adapted from the AQA’s ‘notes and guidance document. (source)

*the action word here might be different. Instead of ‘reasons’ it may be ‘criticisms’, ‘consequences’, ‘ways’ or something else!

**Obviously there will be an item! Not included here because it wouldn’t fit. YOU MUST REFER TO THE ITEM!

For specific examples of the two different types of 10 mark question, please click here: A-level sociology: exams and revision advice. For even more practice questions, see below!

Revision Resources for Sale….

If you like this sort of thing, then you might like my A-level sociology revision bundles – each of which contains the following:

Revision notes
mind maps in pdf and png format

short answer exam practice questions and exemplar answers
model essay questions.

NB – it’s only the bundles which contain all four of the above resources, some of the resources available are sold separately.

I’ve taught sociology for nearly 20 years, and been an AQA examiner for 10 of those, so I know what I’m talking about. If you purchase, you’d also be helping me escape the man and regain my humanity.

Learning as a Product Versus Learning as Process

Many of the theories of learning that were developed during the first decades of the twentieth century tended to conceptualize learning as an end product or outcome – most often as a distinct change in behavior.

Students and educators who subscribe to this notion of learning-as-product tend to see learning as consisting of the following:

A quantitative increase in knowledge

Memorizing or storing information that can later be retrieved.
Acquiring facts, skills and methods that can be retained and used as necessary.

However, it is also possible to see learning as an ongoing process, and people who subscribe this notion of learning tend to describe learning as:

Learning as making sense or abstracting meaning, learning that involves relating parts of the subject matter to each other and to the real world.
Learning as interpreting and understanding reality in a different way, learning that involves comprehending the world by reinterpreting knowledge.

These later two descriptions of learning as an ongoing process see the learner as building upon his or her previous experiences and, in some instances, changing his or her behavior as a result.

Learning as a process is the view of learning that many contemporary educationalists and psychologists would concur with. As Bruner (1996) puts it ‘learning is not simply a technical business of well managed information processing’. Instead, learning might also be seen to involve individuals having to make sense of who they are and develop an understanding of the world in which they live. From this perspective, learning can be seen as a continuing process of ‘participation’ rather than a discrete instance of acquisition.

IMO working within a marketised education system encourages us to see learning as a product – that is the ‘bottom line’ of education is the results, and there is much store placed on exam-training in order to game the system and get better results (the final outcome), and students, teachers and parents increasingly judge the quality of a school or it teachers on their ability ‘to deliver results’.

This is, in fact, an extremely narrow and shallow way to judge the quality of education.

If, on the other hand, we consider ‘learning as a process’ this forces us to focus on the quality of the learning experience and the context in which learning takes place – reflecting on the marketised system we realize what a poor educational experience many of us get (teachers and students alike) because of the pressure to achieve results. In such a system, there is little time to ‘understand the world and who we are’.

Another benefit of seeing learning as a process is that we come to realize that ‘learning’ takes place in many contexts outside of the formal education system – at home, at work, and through the many informal channels through which we ‘develop ourselves’.

Maybe more of us need to forget formal education with its obsession with learning as a product, and instead just focus more on life-long learning and self-development outside of formal education?

Sources

Selwyn (2017) Education and Technology – Key Issues and Debates

Asking Questions about Theories and Concepts in Sociology

My weekly ‘Monday teaching and learning’ post: I’ve been thinking about questioning in A-level Sociology recently,* in particular I’ve been asking myself ‘what are the best quick-fire questions to ask students about theories and concepts’ and ‘what’s the best way to present these questions’?

By ‘best’ I mean what kinds of questioning style will most effectively develop knowledge recall, understanding and the skills of application, analysis and evaluation? And how can this be done quickly!

I’m only really interested here in questioning as a review activity (not the kinds of question you ask during a regular lesson), so this is meant for recapping previous lessons work, as part of a plenary, or as part of a revision lesson.

As I see it, the most effective way to ask questions is to do so in a hierarchical order, starting with basic recall, and moving up through application, analysis, and evaluation, and you could even tag on a conclusion type question at the end.

I tend to ask eight questions to recap any theory or concept… In the example below, I used these questions on a PPT with the headings as titles and the prompts in the main body of each slide. This was a simple, verbal pair-work recap task (with the usual further development questions tagged on). There’s also nothing from stopping you dumping these questions onto Socrative.

Why poor countries poor

I also use prompts to speed things up, and you could of course make these prompts as cards and for each slide get students to do ranking/ sorting exercises.

Eight Questions About Dependency Theory

(which could be asked about any other theory or concept)

(AO1) Explain why poor countries are poor according to Dependency Theory

HINT: Use the following concepts…

Marxism
Colonialism

Neocolonialism
Exploitation
Core-Satellite

Communism

(A01) Give some examples which best illustrates Dependency Theory

Try to think of one ‘developed’ and one ‘less developed’ nation

(AO2) Apply Dependency Theory to something else…

Use Dependency Theory to evaluate Modernisation Theory
What do you think the function of education in poor countries might be according to Dependency Theory?

(A03) Analyse Dependency Theory: How does the theory/ concept relate to the following concepts below:

Marxist theory more generally
Inequality

Power
Capitalism

(A03) Analyse Dependency Theory

Who developed it (where did it come from)?
If you could convince everyone it’s true, then whose interests does it serve?

(AO3) Evaluate Dependency Theory using evidence

Identify as many pieces of supporting evidence as you can
Identify as many pieces of counter-evidence as you can…

(A03) Evaluate using other theories

HINT: What would Modernization Theory say about this theory?

(AO2) Interim Conclusion – How useful is Dependency Theory?

HINT: Where ’10’ is explains everything and 0 is explains nothing, what score would you give Dependency Theory out of 10 in explaining why rich countries and rich and poor countries poor?

Asking these eight questions in relation to other theories and concepts…

Other topics I’ve used this template with recently include (with different prompts) The Functionalist View of Education, The Correspondence Principle (focusing in more deeply on just one Marxist concept of education), The Neoliberal Theory of Economic Development and the concept of Gross National Income as an indicator of development (the kind of concepts this 8 question hierarchy works well for might actually surprise you).

Of course this won’t work for everything and will need tweeking, but to my mind, this is a nice general questioning structure that ticks my 20-80 rule – spend 20 mins prepping to get 80 mins of students doing – NOT the inverse!

*I’m fairly sure this is a big contributor to mental illness among teachers, it’s exhausting.

Tag: knowledge

Jean Francois Lyotard: The Postmodern Condition