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But the liberal metanarrative about how science works as a self-correcting process doesn't really equip you to pose the question in more appropriate or perspicacious terms - which is part of what "critical theory" in its various forms is there to enable us to do.
postscript: Here's L & P saying postmodernism construes scientific reasoning as a metanarrative
Here's them attributing that position to Lyotard
Lyotard's actual position on "small knowledge"/minor narratives is not exactly one of wistful mourning - he observes that, as a consequence of "incredulity towards metanarratives", people tend to reach for the minor and the local in compensation -
but also remarks that proverbial wisdom and ancient folkways hardly satisfy the criteria of consistency and pertinacity required of a theory of knowledge: "the people's prose...says one thing and its opposite" - "like father, like son" / "to the miserly father, a prodigal son"
At one moment in Lyotard's thinking he does try to articulate a "paganism" of multiple language games without an overarching metalanguage that can render them ultimately commensurable, but it's important to note that this isn't a straightforward relativism:
i.e. it isn't "Western science and traditional magical practices are both equally valid ways of knowing", but more "science, art, politics etc are distinct pursuits with different internal norms and criteria; there's no obvious way to make science just, or justice scientific"
(I'm slightly conflating what Lyotard says about different phrase regimes with what Badiou says about different truth procedures here, because I think the comparison's illuminating)
