No metadiscourse can unify or totalize language games

Evidence

This distribution of roles in the enterprise of legitimation is interesting from our point of view because it assumes, as against the system-subject theory, that there is no possibility that language games can be unified or totalized in any metadiscourse. Quite to the contrary, here the priority accorded prescriptive statements—uttered by the practical subject—renders them independent in principle from the statements of science, whose only remaining function is to supply this subject with information. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 286

Categorization

• DEFINE: Articulates the anti-metadiscourse core of Lyotard’s position — the impossibility of totalizing language games is the logical heart of incredulity toward metanarratives.
• XREF: Jameson’s totalizing aesthetic/cultural logic directly contradicts this claim — the key point of disagreement between them. — connects to: Narrative and scientific knowledge are incommensurable language games with no common criterion — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 232; Social language games are heteromorphous with no common metaprescriptions — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 449; Heterogeneous language games yield only patchy, local institutional determinism. — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity: An…, 331 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Narrative and scientific knowledge are incommensurable language games with no common criterion #corroborates (0.92) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 232
• Social language games are heteromorphous with no common metaprescriptions #corroborates (0.85) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 449
• Heterogeneous language games yield only patchy, local institutional determinism. #expands (0.78) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 331
• Global English is splitting into mutually unintelligible regional variants like Latin did #exemplifies (0.78) — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 167
• Performativity cannot justify granting language absolute power #qualifies (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 46
• Conversation shifts freely among language games while institutions filter them #complicates (0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 178
• Print-languages made mutually unintelligible dialects into unified national communities #exemplifies (0.72) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 188