Lyotard

Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher known for his ideas on postmodernism. He argued that in contemporary society, grand narratives or overarching stories (like progress through science or absolute truth) have lost their power. Instead, he proposed that knowledge is fragmented and constructed from various "language games" or localized stories, reflecting diverse perspectives. This suggests that truth is not universal but shaped by context. Lyotard's famous phrase, "the end of grand narratives," emphasizes skepticism towards totalizing explanations, encouraging an openness to pluralism and difference in how we understand the world and knowledge itself.