The book by the famous philosopher Jean-François Lyotard (b. 1924) has become a classic in the years since its first publication. It covers issues of knowledge, its state and models of legitimation in the post-modern era, as well as various types of language games and their pragmatics. The author explores how social communication can be legitimized in our time, what happens to the idea of a just society, whether effectiveness and efficiency systems to be the goal of knowledge and development of society. For teachers of philosophy, as well as for undergraduate and graduate students specializing in the field of social sciences. Of interest to specialists - philosophers, sociologists, philologists, art historians and a wide range of intellectuals.

The publication was supported by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the French Cultural Center in Moscow, as well as the Central European University Publishing House (CEU Press) and the Open Society Institute.

Jean-François Lyotard. The state of postmodernity. "Institute of Experimental Sociology" Moscow. Publishing house "Aletheia". Saint Petersburg. 1998.

Translation from French by N. A. Shmatko.