Source: An interview in Diacritics, Vol. 14, No. 3, Fall, 1984, pp. 16-20.

In the following interview, Abbeele and Lyotard discuss Lyotard's attitude toward texts, contexts, language, names, and the use of philosophy as understood inside a postmodern framework.

[Georges Van Den Abbeele]: In reading your work, one cannot help but be struck by its heterogeneity, its diversity, its relentless questioning of previously advanced categories. What one could call the protean or nomadic quality of your thought inevitably places its critic in the position of feeling already passed by, of being dépassé by your work, such that a potential point of disagreement may turn out no longer to be current in your thinking. The question raised then is that of the “responsibility” of your writing. More pointedly, your long-held allegiance to avant-garde esthetics (evidenced by numerous books and articles on contemporary art from Duchamp to Monory) makes your work open...