• A black-and-white photo of a large neoclassical stone building with tall fluted columns, a triangular pediment, and ornate detailing along the roofline. The structure has a monumental, temple-like appearance, with dark shadows emphasizing the architectural features. Bushes and smaller adjoining sections of the building are visible in the foreground and left side.

Jean-François Lyotard: A Sceptic for Our Times

I first encountered Jean-François Lyotard's work in the mid-1980s, after the publication of the English translation of his book The Postmodern Condition. It was a text that created quite a stir in the English-speaking academic world, drawing a lot of both praise and criticism. I was one of those to be critical, as in the first thing I ever wrote about Lyotard, a journal article for Radical Philosophy, where I argued there was a nihilistic quality to his thought.