Lyotard and the Inhuman Condition ─ Reflections on Nihilism, Information and Art

Ashley Woodward presents a series of studies to explain Lyotard's specific interventions in information theory, new media arts and the changing nature of the human. He assesses their relevance and impact in relation to a number of important contemporary thinkers including Bernard Stiegler, Luciano Floridi, Quentin Meillassoux and Paul Virilio.

Jean-Francois Lyotard was one of the leading French philosophers of his generation, whose wide-ranging and highly original contributions to thought were overshadowed by his brief, unfortunate association with 'postmodernism.' Woodward demonstrates what a new generation of scholars are just discovering: that Lyotard's incisive work is essential for current debates in the humanities. Lyotard's ideas about the arts and the confrontations between humanist traditions and cutting-edge sciences and technologies are today known as 'posthumanism'.

Ashley Woodward is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Dundee and is a founding member of the Melbourne School of Continental Philosophy.