Structuralism
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| Structuralism enjoyed much popularity, and its general stance of [[antihumanism]] was in sheer opposition to the Sartrean existentialism that preceded it. But in the 1970s, it came under internal fire from critics who accused it of being too rigid and ahistorical. However, many of structuralism’s theorists, from [[Michel Foucault]] to [[Jacques Lacan]], continue to assert an influence on [[continental philosophy]], and many of the fundamental assumptions of its critics, that is, of adherents of [[poststructuralism]], are but a continuation of structuralism. | Structuralism enjoyed much popularity, and its general stance of [[antihumanism]] was in sheer opposition to the Sartrean existentialism that preceded it. But in the 1970s, it came under internal fire from critics who accused it of being too rigid and ahistorical. However, many of structuralism’s theorists, from [[Michel Foucault]] to [[Jacques Lacan]], continue to assert an influence on [[continental philosophy]], and many of the fundamental assumptions of its critics, that is, of adherents of [[poststructuralism]], are but a continuation of structuralism. | ||
| + | == Prominent Structuralists == | ||
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| + | * [[Ferdinand de Saussure]] | ||
| + | * [[Roman Jakobson]] | ||
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| + | * [[Claude Lévi-Strauss]] | ||
| + | * [[Louis Althusser]] | ||
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| + | * [[Roland Barthes]] | ||
| + | * [[Michel Foucault]] | ||
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| + | * [[Jacques Lacan]] | ||
| + | * [[Julia Kristeva]] | ||
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Revision as of 14:21, 23 April 2008
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Structuralism as a term refers to various theories across the humanities, social sciences and economics many of which share the assumption that structural relationships between concepts vary between different cultures/languages and that these relationships can be usefully exposed and explored. Structuralism is closely related to semiotics.
More accurately it could be described as an approach in academic disciplines in general that explores the relationships between fundamental principal elements in language, literature, and other fields upon which some higher mental, linguistic, social, or cultural "structures" and "structural networks" are built. Through these networks meaning is produced within a particular person, system, or culture. This meaning then frames and motivates the actions of individuals and groups. In its most recent manifestation, structuralism as a field of academic interest began around 1958 and peaked in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Structuralism began in linguistics with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. But many French intellectuals perceived it to have a wider application, and the model was soon modified and applied to other fields, such as anthropology, psychoanalysis and literary theory. This ushered in the dawn of structuralism as not just a method, but also an intellectual movement that came to take existentialism’s pedestal in 1960s France.
As a method, the basics of structuralism consist of analyzing social events (speech, familial identity, and recounts of history, for example) to discover the synchronic structures that both underlie them and make them possible (language, kinship and narrative structure, respectively), which are then typically broken down into units, codes, rules of combination, etc. The essential theory underlying this method is that these structures are autonomous, and that their units are interdependent, because they are constituted through contrast with one another. So how we discursively conceive of ourselves, or anything, for that matter, is dependent on contexts found within historically contingent systems.
Structuralism enjoyed much popularity, and its general stance of antihumanism was in sheer opposition to the Sartrean existentialism that preceded it. But in the 1970s, it came under internal fire from critics who accused it of being too rigid and ahistorical. However, many of structuralism’s theorists, from Michel Foucault to Jacques Lacan, continue to assert an influence on continental philosophy, and many of the fundamental assumptions of its critics, that is, of adherents of poststructuralism, are but a continuation of structuralism.
Prominent Structuralists
