Lyotard's belief of knowledge being an exchange of value is best shown with his description of the pragmatics of scientific knowledge. The overall goal of all science is to improve and strengthen the world, and scientific knowledge cannot be "knowledge in itself" because it requires other people to exist.

In other words, "the scientists needs an addresee who can in turn become the sender; he needs a partner. Otherwise, the verification of his statements would be impossible, since the nonrenewal of the requisite skills would eventually bring an end to the necessary, contradictory debate" (24). Without others, preferably equals, knowledge would be stagnant and useless.

Also, his distinctions between the pragmatics of scientific knowledge and narrative knowledge are interesting to me since he seems to simultaneously present the similarities and the differences between the two concepts. He ties them together by the fact that they are both subject to unspoken rules and are "interrelated", yet they are unequal and, therefore, unable to be judged on the basis of the other since "the relevant critera are different" (26). Did anyone else find this somewhat confusing?