![]() The origins of structuralism are connected with the work of Ferdinand de Saussure on linguistics along with the linguistics of the Prague and Moscow schools. Īccordingly, the so-called "Gang of Four" of structuralism is considered to be Lévi-Strauss, Lacan, Barthes, and Michel Foucault. Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida focused on how structuralism could be applied to literature. This included such writers as Louis Althusser and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, as well as the structural Marxism of Nicos Poulantzas. Lévi-Strauss' work in turn gave rise to the structuralist movement in France, also called French structuralism, influencing the thinking of other writers, most of whom disavowed themselves as being a part of this movement. Jakobson was a decisive influence on anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, by whose work the term structuralism first appeared in reference to social sciences. Russian functional linguist Roman Jakobson was a pivotal figure in the adaptation of structural analysis to disciplines beyond linguistics, including philosophy, anthropology, and literary theory. By the early 1960s, structuralism as a movement was coming into its own and some believed that it offered a single unified approach to human life that would embrace all disciplines. The initial popularity of structuralism in France led to its spread across the globe. ![]() Structuralism rose to prominence in France in the wake of existentialism, particularly in the 1960s. Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, existentialism, such as that propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre, was the dominant European intellectual movement. His linguistic approach was also a refutation of evolutionary linguistics. Saussure conceived language and society as a system of relations. Īpart from Durkheim's use of the term structure, the semiological concept of Ferdinand de Saussure became fundamental for structuralism. Emile Durkheim based his sociological concept on 'structure' and 'function', and from his work emerged the sociological approach of structural functionalism. As such, the movement in humanities and social sciences called structuralism relates to sociology. The term structuralism is ambiguous, referring to different schools of thought in different contexts. Many proponents of structuralism, such as Lacan, continue to influence continental philosophy and many of the fundamental assumptions of some of structuralism's post-structuralist critics are a continuation of structuralist thinking. Though elements of their work necessarily relate to structuralism and are informed by it, these theorists eventually came to be referred to as post-structuralists. Along with Lévi-Strauss, the most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism include linguist Roman Jakobson and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.īy the late 1960s, many of structuralism's basic tenets came under attack from a new wave of predominantly French intellectuals/philosophers such as historian Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and literary critic Roland Barthes. The structuralist mode of reasoning has since been applied in a range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics, and architecture. French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism. After World War II, an array of scholars in the humanities borrowed Saussure's concepts for use in their respective fields. As an intellectual movement, structuralism became the heir to existentialism. Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly in France and the Russian Empire, in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague, Moscow, and Copenhagen schools of linguistics. These relations constitute a structure, and behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure." "The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations. It works to uncover the structural patterns that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel.Īlternatively, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, structuralism is: Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system.
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