The Method: Language Games Summary and Analysis

Lyotard talks about language games. As a model of communication, Lyotard talks about the relationship between the sender, the addressee, and the thing talked about. When making a claim as a knower, one refers to a denotative object. Another type of report that occurs between the sender and recipient and addressee is a performativity statement. These involve some moral prescription.

The statement made draws a distinction between what is traditionally is known as historical knowledge and subsequently is classified as science. When someone addresses the addressee, it is an enunciation, which is not open to discussion, simply as a former prescription. Included in prescriptions are orders, commands, instructions, recommendations, requests, prayers, pleas.

So rather than depending on some sort of knowledge, science depends on language games. These games are well defined, and when the rules...