Lyotard, Nationalism, and Legitimacy: Questions

In discussing the problem of legitimacy, Lyotard relies on Humboldt, who denotes "a...threefold aspiration" necessary to the "training of a fully legitimated subject": "deriving everything from an original principle,...relating everything to an ideal,... and...unifying this principle and this ideal in a single Idea," (33). This aspiration, as anything, is subjective, so how can any system, state, or nation, be effectively defined as legitimate without adhering to this threefold congruence? Is Lyotard's delineation of the Occident (versus, as he leaves to be implied, the Orient, or any non-Western culture of thought) meant to establish a binary opposition, or does it go further with the aid of irony and speak against such oppositions? More simply, is the way Lyotard frames his arguments part of his critique?

In stating that "the language game of legitimation is not state-political, but philosophical," (33), what is at stake in his construction of another opposition? Is this disingenuous? Is there really a separation between the political and the philosophical?