As Jean-Francois Lyotard describes it, the validity of narrative knowledge has been denied in the modern period and replaced by ‘science’, based on ‘facts’ and producing ‘truth’. However, science cannot point to a unitive function and so requires an external source of legitimation. And so, almost sneakily, science turns to ‘meta-narratives’ to legitimate itself. Despite the insistence of the scientist that narratives are childish and primitive and not subject to argumentation or proof, scientific knowledge itself appeals to narratives for its legitimation: for example, that humanity is a hero of liberty and has a right to science; and that progressive measures to liberate it from the oppressive hand of churches and tyrants will lead humanity to fulfilment; or that humanity is the hero of absolute knowledge, and will more and more depict accurately and efficiently master the world according to its actual nature. Scientific knowledge thus delegitimates itself by referring itself to what it already excludes as invalid: narrative.This self-refutation has led to a crisis enough; but in addition, the new technology of knowledge has shifted the character of knowledge further. Computerisation has meant acknowledging that human observation is limited; and a new, pragmatic emphasis not on the criterion of truth but on efficiency. The construal of science as a ‘true/false’ game has become an ‘efficient/inefficient’ game instead. This new postmodern discourse, however, does not require external legitimation in the same way that the modern scientific discourse did/does.
Lyotard labels this new basis for knowledge as ‘performativity’ (sounds like management jargon, no?) The goal of knowledge is no longer Truth, which necessitated reference to grand narratives, but now rather efficiency, which is self-legitimating.
