Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition

Argues for the pivotal importance of Lyotard in light of the emerging discipline of posthumanism. Ashley Woodward presents a series of studies to explain Lyotard's specific interventions in information theory, new media arts and the changing nature of the human. He assesses their relevance and impact in relation to a number of important contemporary thinkers including Bernard Stiegler, Luciano Floridi, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Virilio. Jean-FranÃʹois Lyotard was one of the leading French philosophers of his generation, whose wide-ranging and highly original contributions to thought were overshadowed by his brief, unfortunate association with 'postmodernism.' Woodward demonstrates what a new generation of scholars are just discovering: that Lyotard's incisive work is essential for current debates in the humanities. Lyotard's ideas about the arts and the confrontations between humanist traditions and cutting-edge sciences and technologies are today known as 'posthumanism'.