Social language games are heteromorphous with no common metaprescriptions

Evidence

Social pragmatics does not have the “simplicity” of scientific pragmatics. It is a monster formed by the interweaving of various networks of heteromorphous classes of utterances (denotative, prescriptive, performative, technical, evaluative, etc.). There is no reason to think that it would be possible to determine metaprescriptives common to all of these language games or that a revisable consensus like the one in force at a given moment in the scientific community could embrace the totality of metaprescriptions regulating the totality of statements circulating in the social collectivity. As a matter of fact, the contemporary decline of narratives of legitimation—be they traditional or “modern” (the emancipation of humanity, the realization of the Idea)—is tied to the abandonment of this belief. It is its absence for which the ideology of the “system,” with its pretensions to totality, tries to compensate and which it expresses in the cynicism of its criterion of performance. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 449

Categorization

• XREF: This is the core of Lyotard’s ‘incredulity toward metanarratives’ that Jameson responds to — the reader’s stated purpose of linking Libyrinth to Jameson’s postmodernism essay. — connects to: Terror operates outside language games and destroys the social bond — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 343; Narrative and scientific knowledge are incommensurable language games with no common criterion — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 232; Conversation shifts freely among language games while institutions filter them — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on…, 178 (+3 more)
• DEFINE: Defines ‘heteromorphous language games’ and ties the decline of legitimation narratives to the abandonment of a belief in common metaprescriptions.

Broader Connections

• Narrative and scientific knowledge are incommensurable language games with no common criterion #expands (0.92) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 232
• Heterogeneous language games yield only patchy, local institutional determinism. #complicates (0.80) — David Harvey, The Condition of Postmodernity, 331
• Conversation shifts freely among language games while institutions filter them #exemplifies (0.75) — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 178