Download - Shreya Maitra Paper 3 Th 20 December 2009 the Context

8/14/2019 Shreya Maitra Paper 3 Th 20 December 2009 the Context

1/6

Shreya Maitra

Paper 320th December 2009

The Context of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

The structuralist movement began with Ferdinand de Saussure around the turn of

the century. Its first hallmark was de Saussures publication named Cours de Linguistique

Generale, a compilation of various lectures, in 1915. Another significant contributor to the

movement was Claude Levi-Strauss. The environment in which this movement arose

significantly impacted its development. In the post-Christian world where the notion of

God and history of creation had but disappeared from intellectual thought there grew a need

to explain the world in different terms. These terms were influenced by the development of

the sciences. The methodology of scientific investigation and evaluation was thus an

important influence on structuralism.

Post structuralism developed soon after, around the middle-late part of the century.

The primary motivation behind was critiquing European society; it did so utilizing the

structuralist mode of analysis. The reflection of and desire for change is evident in both

structuralist and post-structuralist systems. While the structuralist movement highlighted a

different mode of thinking that came out of a desire to explain contemporary life in new

terms, the post-structuralist movement critiqued the state of affairs using this new mode of

thinking.

Before de Saussures time, the existent theory of language claimed that language

was an activity of speech. Philosophers like Frege suggested that words only have meaning

within a context and are not referents by themselves, but simply attempt to grasp referents.


2/6

The structuralists suggested otherwise. Instead of language being the activity, structuralism

claims that language is the agent. People, as users of language, are merely mediums

through which language operates.

The structuralist theory of meaning was expounded based on these new linguistic

ideas. Language was now defined as a system of difference, and these were highlighted in

four basic differences. Conceptual difference implied that concepts only had meaning in

opposition to other concepts. In order for a concept to exist, Saussure says there has to be:

(1) something dissimilar which can be exchanged for the item whose value is

under consideration, and

(2) similar things which can be compared with the item whose value is under

consideration. (113)

Thus in this sense, the value attached to a particular idea (i.e. its conceptual value) is

dependent on contrasting the value with what it is not, and comparing it with what it is like.

Syntactical signification described the different usage of parts of speech. Saussure

states that once a language has selected the signal, it cannot be freely replaced by

anotherWhat can be chosen is already determined in advance, (71). This meant the

linguistic system has predetermined words (what Saussure calls signals); these cannot be

changed by human agency. Graphic difference was the difference in graphemes in written

language. Phonetic signification had to do with the different phonemes of words, and how

each phoneme had a unique meaning because of its difference from other phonemes.

Sounds, like written words are arbitrarily assigned by the system of language: the process

which selects one particular sound-signal to correspond to one particular idea is entirely

arbitrary, (111).


3/6

Claude Levi-Strauss in his bookThe Savage Mindclaimed that language was a way

to analyze different human cultures and social structures. The way that we signified

referents (i.e. used language) was dependent on unique traditions, societal structures, and

histories. He claimed that through different cultural practices, one could understand the

universal rules of the mind. The use of systems is not something ordered and deliberate,

Levi-Strauss claims, but a random process in which an order gradually becomes apparent.

This was similar to Saussures claim that systems that exist within language are not

purposely chosen (i.e. a designation of a sound to a concept) but arbitrary and later come to

be seen as ordered systems.

The structuralist movement demonstrated an important shift in European thought

-one that decentralized the human being. Instead of the human as the controlling agent, it

was systems and structures, outside of individual control, that ordered and dominated

society. Levi-Strauss, in his example of the bricoleur, claimed that there was no process of

reflection and deliberation through which one accepts and uses language. Instead, it is a

system that functions at random, and is the agent which acts upon the human. People, thus,

become the objects and not the subjects. The actors were the systems that controlled the

people-objects.

This signified a move away from the humanist philosophy that had pervaded most

European thought since the Renaissance. The development of the sciences, especially

biology, led to a classification of the natural world in strictly technical terms. It seems that

the classification of species based on similar traits influenced the systemic worldview that

the structuralists advanced.


4/6

The post-structuralist movement arose as a criticism of European society and

worldview. In order to do this, they used the structuralist analysis of systems. During this

time, writing and critics from peripheral perspectives were coming to the fore of

European society. Around the middle of the century, Simone de Beauvoir published her

bookThe Second Sex, one of the first objections to the gender-biased systems of Europe. At

the same time, the Jewish, pied-noir Frenchman Jacques Derrida published his workOf

Grammatology. Before him came Michel Foucaults workThe History of Sexuality he

was a homosexual. These writers from the periphery objected to the existent European

systems, which favored white, heterosexual, Christian males. However they did not claim

to want a system in which they would be favoured. Instead, the post-structuralist project

was to critique the entire system of European existence in and of itself.

Post-structuralists claimed that the very notion of objectivity needed to be rethought

within the context of systems. Foucault, in the first phase of his work, claimed that the

existent systems of language were closely tied to power structures. The authoritys

manipulation of society was based on its definition of normalcy; in defining normalcy

through its specific use of language, authority could control the populace. Thus, Foucault

uses the language of discourse around sex and sexuality. In increasing the discourse about

sex, first through confession in order to surround it with an aura of guilt, authority could

use discourse in order to control the actual sexual behaviour of its citizens. Sex was not

something one simply judged; it was a thing one administered. It was in the nature of public

potential; it called for management procedures; it had to be taken charge of by analytical

discourses, (25) Thus, the importance of controlling sexual behviour in increasing the

influence of authority meant a proliferation on the discourse of sex. It was the discourse

that the authority could have control over, which meant the values attached to it could be


5/6

controlled, and therein the sexual behaviour of people: It was essential that the state know

what was happening with its citizens sex, and the use they made of it, but also that each

individual be capable of controlling the use he made of it, (26).

In order to criticize and move beyond the system, Foucault advocated a destruction

of language. This would enable individuals to be self-governed, instead of being governed

by an outside authority that used language to retain their system of control. He advocated,

instead of the contemporaneous system, the existence of heterotopias. This essentially

presented the opposite concept to a utopia. It was a context in which incongruities existed

in multiple worlds. This multiplicity did not allow for a single system through which power

could manifest itself. Thus no system meant no dominating power structure.

The post-structuralist movement too marks an important shift from the previous

subjectivist, humanist trend in Europe. In saying that systems and their power relations

dictated the ordering of society, the post-structuralists, like the structuralists, took away

human agency. The human was acted upon by various equations of authority and linguistic

systems, to the extent that one could not define oneself. The human being was defined by

the authority tied to the linguistic system because the very language one used to define

oneself was related to a power structure.

From Foucaults claims about power relations inherent in linguistic systems, I

assumed he thought there was no manipulation of the power system with each successive

generation. In furthering his and the structuralists thoughts about the lack of human agency

in society, I saw a lack of human agency in the power-linguistic system relationship. This

would imply that while an authority could manipulate the linguistic system in order to

perpetuate its authority, it could not change the nature of the system itself i.e. it could not


6/6

use the system in order to change or destroy it. This implies an inherent dominance of

systems over human agency and human authorities.

The absence of human agency was the principle idea that pervaded structuralism

and post-structuralism. Instead of people as active participants in their society, they became

the passive tools through which systems, like linguistics, manifested themselves. This loss

of agency and power came during a time when the sciences were becoming more important

in Europe. The use of systems and structures in the sciences thus presumably had an

influence on the philosophy at the time. With the decreasing relevance of religion in

society, European thought came to be more grounded, and reflected non-spiritual realities.

This was also reflected in the move away from metaphysics. Philosophers, beginning with

Heidegger, became more interested in the material world and how to analyze it

methodologically instead of spiritually. The lack of religion and growth of the sciences

manifested itself in the interest in structures. The sciences, especially biology, were based

on systems of strict classification. This, I believe, influenced the structuralist and post-

structuralist view that the world is in fact made of these systems, which humans are simply

a part of and have no hand in controlling.