Although he is most widely known as the founder of postmodern theory, Jean-François Lyotard was an eclectic thinker who possessed a formidable knowledge of Kantian aesthetics, Surrealism, Judaism, paganism, Marxism, Freudianism, science, and political philosophy. He was involved in the debates generated by the 1954- 1962 war in Algeria and, as a professor, supported the student protests in Paris in 1968. His most popular and probably most often cited book, La Condition postmoderne: Rapport sur le savoir (1979; translated as The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, 1984), helped to begin an extended debate in aesthetic theory and cultural theory.

Lyotard was born in Versailles on 10 August 1924 to Jean-Pierre and Madeleine Cavalli Lyotard. His formative years were--according to his own account in the three 1986 lectures that were published as Peregrinations: Law, Event, Form (1988)--marked by ambitions that were wavering and ultimately frustrating. He wanted, at various times, to be a...