Lyotard's Immiscible Modes of Meaning: the plasticity of sensation and cognition and its significance for understanding Lyotard's relation to Hegel

Abstract

The thesis defends the position that there are significant points of agreement shared by Lyotard and Hegel regarding the relation of sensation and cognition. It argues that Hegel and Lyotard recognise a fundamental temporal difference between sensory, unconscious, ‘thought’ and subjective cognition/thinking. However, for Lyotard, Hegel’s sense-certainty dialectic erases this difference. To protect a free domain of sensory meaning from Hegelian idealism, Lyotard conceptualises an anti-dialectical sense – concept relation. I argue that Lyotard’s formula retains elements of a mind-body dualism which causes the problem of ineffability to arise. I address this problem by uncovering specific post-Kantian intersections between Hegel and Lyotard.