Transformations in Discourse, Figure

Abstract

This review essay critically maps the Anglophone reception of Lyotard's Discourse, Figure onto the text's own two-part organization. Earlier deconstructive readings tended to focus on the critique of structuralism presented in Discourse, Figure’s first half, under-emphasizing (and even criticizing) the post-Freudian philosophy of desire developed by Lyotard in the text's latter stages. This essay instead presents Lyotard's first major work not as two separable or opposed parts, but as a coherent trajectory responding to a specific philosophical problem, namely, the Hegelian account of sense-perception and signification as outlined in Hyppolite's Logic and Existence. In so doing, this review essay seeks to isolate key references and clarify the stakes for future readings of Lyotard's text.