Jean-François Lyotard (; 10 August 1924 – 21 April 1998) was a French
philosopher,
sociologist, and
literary theorist. His interdisciplinary discourse spans such topics as knowledge and communication, the human body, modernist and postmodern art, literature and critical theory, music, film, time and memory, space, the city and landscape, the
sublime, and the relation between
aesthetics and
politics. He is best known for his articulation of
postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of
postmodernity on the
human condition. He was co-founder of the
International College of Philosophy with
Jacques Derrida,
François Châtelet, and
Gilles Deleuze.