Knowledge is not something one accumulates but is instead something one uses to create new ideas [1574]
"inquiry informed by postmodern critique places emphasis on allowing intellect very broad prerogative to determine the directions that inquiry may go, rather than on maintaining a line of inquiry that is consistent with ends or objectives that are determined in advance of the activity. From the standpoint of the individual who seeks knowledge, the emphasis is on the idea that one is an inquirer before one is a knower. Knowledge is not something one accumulates but is instead something one uses to create new ideas. Lyotard's idea of knowledge as 'pragmatic,' diverse competencies also supports this idea of inquiry, since it emphasizes intellectual agility, or skill at adapting to new contexts. It also suggests that a good inquirer cultivates the ability to recognize when opportunities for new paths become possible and to alter the course of inquiry in ways that create such opportunities.
This kind of inquiry would be experimental rather than innovative; the latter is 'but a way of repeating, without great difference, something that already has been done and that has worked' (Lyotard, p.14, p.61) . For Lyotard, an experiment is an imaginative revision of received knowledge, a new move in a language game in which one is always an addressee before one is a sender. Further, the inquirer seeks to come 'to grips with the new effects produced by the new situation of a joint discussion' (Ibid., p.60, p.6). The inquirer participates in dialogue with the understand that the obligation to be a good listener precedes the freedom to experiment (Ibid., p.66.). Inquiry is, the, both an experimental and participatory act."
(Roger Philip Mourad, 1997, p.34)
Roger Philip Mourad (1997). 'Postmodern Philosophical Critique and the Pursuit of Knowledge in Higher Education'. Westport, Bergin and Garvey.
Jean–François Lyotard and Jean–Loup Thébaud (1985). 'Just Gaming', University of Minnesota Press.