A Genre Of Western Marxism On The Way To Postmodern: Study On Lyotard’s Thoughts In His Early Stage

This dissertation is mainly about Jean-Francois Lyotard (1924-1998), the french philosopher in the 20th century who changed his critical thoughts of Marxist in his early stage, from postwar period to 1970s, his thoughts changed from Western Marxism toward postmodern thought. At first, at the beginning of the phenomenological interpretation of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, Lyotard went into the logic of Western Marxism, which was to find a way to criticize capitalism outside Soviet Marxism, at this time, phenomenology, existentialism and Marxism combined delicately together in the thoughts of young Lyotard. Afterwards, Lyotard joined the Trotskyist group named "Socialism or Barbarism" and used the Marxist analysis on The anti-colonial struggle of Algeria and the condition of french proletariat at that time, the critique of bureaucratism was one of his core thoughts. After the breakdown of the group "Socialism or Barbarism", May 68 happened, the movement of students and workers showed the weakness of national bureaucratism when France was faced with the crises at home and abroad. With regard to the phenomena of alienation and repression in the cultural and educational system, Lyotard turned to another main stream of thought besides Marxism, that is Freudianism. In the process that Lyotard critiqued the theory of Lacan and built up Lyotard’s own method of psychoanalysis, the Freudian concepts became the basis of Lyotard’s critique of capitalism. At the same time, Lyotard built a special world of discourse and figure in his doctoral dissertation, by discovering the visual element shielded by the theory of Hegel and Lacan, Lyotard exposed how the ideology of totality disturbed and cheated in the primary process. Lyotard also criticized the two main modes of reading Marx, which were the Marxology of Rubel and the theory of rupture from Althusser, while in this critique, the concepts of Marx were generalized into the concepts of Freud and Nietzsche, Lyotard even made up a figure of Marx to escape political economy, it meant that in Lyotard’s thoughts the critical logical of Western Marxism came to an end, and his interpretation of postmodern became the core of his thoughts in the later stage.The basic mission of this dissertation is, based on the study of the situation of french history and intellectual history, to explain how Lyotard moved step by step towards postmodern thoughts, at the same time, how he moved step by step away from the critical logic of Marxism he insisted. Constantly deriving from the mainstream historical narratives is a main characteristic in Lyotard’s thoughts. In the first chapter of this dissertation, we discuss the situation of West Marxism that Lyotard was faced with, in which the existentialist Marxism of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty had a significant influence. The second and the third chapters are combined with the critical logic of reality, introduce his experience in the group "Socialism or Barbarism", and how he used the Marxist method of analysis on the anti-colonial struggle of Algeria and the condition of french proletariat, and analyse the condition of french intellectuals in the 1960s, explain his initial motivation to turn to Freudianism. The fourth chapter interprets precisely why Lyotard tried to departure the two main streams of Marx and Freud, and the internal logic of his turn toward Freudianism. the fifth chapter concentrates on the internal logic of the book Discourse, figure, and how Lyotard criticized the ideological character of the theory of Hegel and Lacan. The sixth chapter explains how Lyotard critiqued the two main modes of reading Marx, which also shows Lyotard’s turn and his cost for this turn. The seventh chapter introduce that by the re-figuration of Marx, Lyotard derived the "Libidinal Economy" in an irony sense, and tried to escape the critical logic of Marx’s political economy. In the conclusion interprets the essential connotation of his turn to postmodern in the late 1970s, in order to understand his postmodern thoughts more accurately and understand his experience and lessons. For the first time in the domestic research, this dissertation interprets deeply into Lyotard’s thoughts and texts in his early stage from the perspective of Marxist philosophy, by studying and drawing lessons from the foreign research, with the innovations in the selection and interpretation of research contents. From rethinking the experience and lessons of Western Marxism and postmodern thoughts, it provides valuable reference for improving the discussion of Marxist philosophy and its contemporary significance in our country.