ABSTRACT
Jean-Frangois Lyotard’s multiple publications and wide-ranging interventions are all contributions to what can be defined as a critical philosophy of the postmodern. Lyotard offers a philosophy of the postmodern-which is not exactly to say of postmodernity, of a postmodemity simply understood as the historical period which comes after modernity. Lyotard is not a philosopher of postmodemity insofar as he does not (at least not exclusively) represent his times, the times in which we live. As determined by our history and culture, we certainly are all philosophers and witnesses of postmodemity, supposing this to be a suitable qualification for our age. But the philosopher of the unpresentable-and Lyotard is indeed a philosopher of the unpresentable-cannot just represent his age: he has to be “untimely” in the Nietzschean sense, and untimeliness is essential to the postmodern. For “post,” in postmodern, does not mean only “after” but also “before,” and even “within.”
