Main differences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism PDF

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Main differences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
Theoretical differences:...

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Main differences between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism Theoretical differences: Structuralism was a literary movement primarily concerned with understanding how language works as a system of meaning production. That is to say, structuralism asked the following question: How does language function as a kind of meaning machine? To answer this question, structuralism turned its attention to form. Focusing on the form or structure of the literary work, and the particular use of language in the work, would allow structuralists to think of language as a kind of science. The primary theorist framing the ideas associated with structuralism was Ferdinand de Saussure, who developed the idea that language was composed of arbitrary units that were void of concept or meaning until they acquired meaning through a language system that relied on differences between terms within their larger linguistic and social contexts. One of structuralism's characteristic views is the notion that language doesn't just reflect or record the world: rather it shapes it, so that how we see is what we see. Post-structuralism, on the other hand, is less singularly defined as a movement than structuralism. Is post-structuralism a continuation and development of structuralism or a form of rebellion against it? Post-structuralists accuse structuralists of not following through the implications of the views about the language on which their intellectual system is based. Post-structuralism offers a way of studying how knowledge is produced and critiques structuralist premises. It argues that because history and culture condition the study of underlying structures, both are subject to biases and misinterpretations. A post-structuralist approach argues that to understand an object (e.g., a text), it is necessary to study both the object itself and the systems of knowledge that produced the object A number of literary theories fall under the larger umbrella of "post-structuralism," including "gender theory" and "reader-response" theories. These theories recognize the overarching notion that meaning

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does not exist outside of the text and that meaning is not fixed but rather contingent and unstable. Post-structuralism evolved alongside Jacques Derrida's theory of "deconstruction," which emphasized this concept of unstable, unfixed meaning as it functioned in language. According to Derrida, language is made up of units that do not contain inherent meaning and relate to other units (or signifiers) through their difference. Meaning, in deconstructionist theory, is therefore constantly deferred, never landing in one place or becoming stable. Post-structuralism emerges in this context, recognizing this lack of fixed or inherent meaning and yet also acknowledging the need for language to acquire meaning. Some main differences can be listed as follows: 1. Origins: Structuralism derives ultimately from linguistics. It believes that if we observe accurately, collect data systematically and make logical deductions then we can reach reliable conclusions about language and the world. Structuralism believes in this and also in the method, system and reason as being able to establish reliable truths. By contrast, post-structuralism derives ultimately from philosophy which has always tended to emphasize the difficulty of achieving secure knowledge about things. They inherit the habit of scepticism and intensify it. 2. Attitude to language: Structuralists accept that the world is constructed through language in the sense that we do not have access to reality other than through the linguistic system. By contrast, post-structuralism is much more fundamental in insisting upon the consequences of the view that, in effect, reality itself is textual. Practical differences: An initial problem here is that post-structuralism often claims that it is more an attitude of mind than a practical method of criticism. After all, in what sense could, say, Marxist or feminist or even liberal humanist criticism be called a method? Only in the loosest way, since none of these provide anything like a step-by-step

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procedure for analyzing literary works. All they offer is an orientation towards a characteristic central issue and a body of work. The post-structuralist literary critic is engaged in the task of 'deconstructing' the text. This process can be roughly defined as 'applied post-structuralism'. It is often referred to as 'reading against the grain' or 'reading the text against itself', with the purpose of 'knowing the text as it cannot know itself'. (Terry Eagleton's definitions) At the same time structuralists look for features like parallels, echoes and reflections. The deconstructionist looks for evidence of gaps, breaks and discontinuities of all kinds. Basic Differences Between Structuralism and Post-Structuralism ESSAY ON STRUCTURALISM AND POST-STRUCTURALISM

Both structuralism and post-structuralism place language at the center of their respective world view, as they both derive from Saussure’s linguistic breakthrough. In that sense, they are very similar. They both reject the empiricist view of language as a transparent medium between our mind and the world, and they both claim that language is rather to be seen as a system of signs existing independently from both the mind and physical reality. In fact, they go as far as to argue that language precedes the world in that it makes it intelligible though differentiation. Similarly, both structuralist and post-structuralist thinkers (who often are the same ones, shifting their view) will agree with Jacques Lacan that the subject is only possible through language. From there, it follows that language

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supersedes the human being as the source of meaning, action and history. In other words, our mind can no longer be regarded as an independent agent interpreting the world through language and acquiring knowledge through experience, for it is a construction of discourse itself. Simply put, we do not create language, but are created by it. In that sense, these two related world views can be said to be anti-humanistic. There exists nevertheless a major difference between the two. On the one hand, even though it discards the empiricist approach, and contends that reality is to be found in discourse, structuralism still aims at discovering an objective reality, and thus searches for truth. In this respect, its main purpose shares an obvious similarity with that of science. Very roughly, we could say that structuralism is the extension of the scientific method to the realm of social sciences. However, while the natural sciences are primarily concerned with isolated physical facts, structuralism deems these facts insufficient to account for signifying systems. Since reality lies in language, which is, according to Saussure, “a system of differences with no positive terms” (120), structuralism does not focus on these independent elements, but rather on the relationships between them. Accordingly, structuralism ultimately seeks to explain the totality of our

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social and cultural behavior through such systems and structures. Post-structuralism, on the other hand, cannot help viewing this pseudoscientific endeavor as futile and even ridiculous. The poststructuralists argue that truth and objective reality are not only inaccessible, but also altogether inexistent within language. Since physical reality can only be apprehended through language, and since our conscious self itself is a product of language, the quest for objective meanings and universal structures becomes therefore completely illusory. In the same way, the concept of nature, which was already very problematic within structuralism, becomes totally impossible with its counterpart. As Jacques Derrida demonstrates, this search for certainty, for a solid ground behind language, which he calls the metaphysics of presence, has been the ultimate quest of Western philosophy from Plato onwards, and can thus be perceived, under one form or another, throughout our philosophy. According to Derrida, structuralism falls prey to the same fallacy in its pursuit of universal and objective patterns. In that sense, as we will see, the French philosopher speaks of a perpetual absence, which can never be fulfilled. In the same way, he argues that meanings, which we are so certain of finding behind words, are actually never there, but continuously postponed, and accordingly always absent. Put very simply, we can say

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that, while structuralism separates the sign from physical reality in asserting that language can never grasp this reality, post-structuralism takes it a step further and disconnects the signifier from the signified within the sign itself. For post-structuralism, signifieds, or meanings can never be grasped behind the words in the same way as raw physical reality cannot be apprehended through language. Since I cannot cover the whole structuralist/post-structuralist thought, I will focus on this essential difference in this presentation. After a short historical account of these two views, I will examine briefly Saussure’s isolation of the sign and its capital influence on structuralism. Then, I will show how this, in turn, gave birth to post-structuralism. In other words, I will show how the post-structuralist seed was already planted in its predecessor and what its main fruit, that is the splitting apart of the sign, implies. In fact, we will see that post-structuralism is only the logical result of structuralism, and that, as the critic Raman Selden puts it, “poststructuralists are structuralists who suddenly see the error of their ways” (125). Structuralism, which can be seen either as a method or a world view was born from linguistics, as Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics

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constitutes its real foundation. Later on, the American linguistic Roman Jakobson developed some of its aspects, such as phonology. After the Second War, structuralism expanded toward anthropology with Claude Lévi-Strauss, and literary criticism with, among others, Roland Barthes (the early Barthes), Tzvetan Todorov and Jonathan Culler. Eventually, this powerful intellectual current reached philosophy and all the spheres of social sciences. By the end of the sixties, structuralism reigned supreme as it had overthrown the so far prevalent world views of phenomenology, Marxism and existentialism. However, even as it achieved the peak of its popularity, it received a deadly blow from post-structuralism, and then quickly lost its appeal. Some critics (Murfin 363) have argued that modernist angst and alienation accounted for structuralism’s extraordinary success; similarly, its unifying impulse can be seen as a logical reaction against the increasing fragmentation of knowledge. However, such an effort failed in the end, and post-structuralism has only given us more reasons to feel alienated, and for knowledge to be fragmented. The opening statement of the post-structuralist movement appears in Derrida’s essay, “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” given at a symposium at John Hopkins University in 1966, and which rendered its author instantly famous in American universities. The

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following year, Derrida published three very influential books that seriously

undermined

structuralism,

and

that

also

introduced

deconstruction, which was first regarded as a critical method or a philosophical strategy, but quickly came to designate a powerful intellectual movement both in France and in America. Deconstruction can therefore be seen as the engine behind post-structuralism, for it is what made it possible. Subsequently, the post-structuralist movement expanded and reached different spheres under thinkers such as Foucault, Barthes and Lacan. Yet, all these thinkers felt under the influence of Derrida in one way or another. Before trying to understand deconstruction, we must find its root in Saussure’s thought. Two main aspects of Saussure’s theory need to concern us here. First, the idea of language as a closed and self-standing system, with which post-structuralism agrees, and second, the notion of langue underlying and explaining the signifying system, which post-structuralism rejects. Let us examine briefly these two points. Saussure’s main discovery lies in his view of language as a totality at any given moment, and the central point of his theory is that signs do not correspond to exterior entities, but become meaningful only within this totality: “Language is a system of interdependent terms in which the value of each term results solely from

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the simultaneous presence of the others” (114). In other words, Saussure contends that meaning in language is possible, not because words connect naturally to things, but rather because they define themselves through their mutual relations within the system. As we have seen (in preceding presentations), his principal arguments rest on the arbitrary status of the sign, and on the fact that the chain of meanings differs from one language to another: “If words stood for pre-existing concepts, they would have exact equivalents in meaning from one language to the next; but this is not true” (116). This exclusion of exterior reality will have a huge impact on structuralism, with the major consequence of transferring the center of meaning from the human being to language. This new perspective also implies that, without language, the world can only be experienced as a featureless continuum, and that the differences between physical entities are only possible through the signifying system. This does not mean that differences are inexistent outside language, but rather that language insists on sharp distinctions between things. For instance, in the spectrum, there are an infinity of different colors, but language insists on a clear distinction between blue and green, or orange and red. From there, we see that our view of exterior reality, which appear natural to us, is in fact constructed through language. It is in this sense that structuralists can affirm that there

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is no reality outside language. This position is in direct contradiction with common sense, and accordingly, some thinkers find it a hard claim to swallow. However, as the critic Catherine Belsey explains, “language is experienced as a nomenclature because its existence precedes our “understanding” of the world. Words seem to be symbols for things because things are inconceivable outside the system of differences which constitutes the language” (46). In order words, language appears as transparent primarily because of its proximity to thought. This realization of the crucial role played by language in constructing our everyday reality and in naturalizing this construction is Saussure’s major legacy to structuralism. Incidentally, some thinkers, such as Louis Althusser, have also pointed out that language cannot but reflect social conventions, and in this way, language always participates in ideology, which is understood here as the way people live and see the world. Although it takes this further in denying any center of meaning, post-structuralism appears to be in total agreement with this world view. What post-structuralists reject in structuralism is also a direct offspring of Saussure’s thought. In order to study language scientifically, Saussure divides it into two parts. Behind our everyday usage of speech (parole), he postulates the existence of a superstructure that regulates

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language and which he calls langue: “[Langue] is a self-contained whole and a principle of classification. As soon as we give language [ langue] first place among the facts of speech, we introduce a natural order into a mass that lends itself to no other classification” (9). In order to help us understand this system, he compares it to chess. As the critic Richard Harland puts it, “at first glance, it seems obvious that one should study chess in terms of the sum total of all the moves in all the games that have ever actually been played. But one will fail to account for chess as a game unless one also understands that every actual move is selected from a much larger range of possible moves” (12). Following from this model, structuralists attempted to explain every signifying system, such as myths, images, advertising and clothes, according to supposed implicit and inherent laws. For example, in literature, critics tried to draw general principles and narrative rules according to which all story lines would conform. However, as Todorov admits, while narrative structures are easily applicable to stories of popular genres, such as fairy tales, myths and detective stories, they do not conform as readily to “great literature,” such as King Lear or Ulysses (Selden 113). In the end, the structuralist effort cannot help being very rigid and even stifling. On a philosophical level, structuralism shares surprising affinities

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with Metaphysical philosophy. For Harland, there exist three main philosophical stances, according to where one locates one’s center of meaning (74). While the empiricists, such as Locke and Hobbes, place truth in the objective exterior world, what Harland calls the “I”philosophers, such as Descartes, Kant and Husserl, put emphasis on the subjective mind. For the third category, the Metaphysical philosophers, which comprises Plato, Spinoza and Hegel, the ultimate reality is to be found outside the sensible realm. Not only does structuralism disagree with the first two views, since it considers the objective world and the subjective mind as a creation of language, but it also agrees with Metaphysical philosophy in situating its system of ideas outside both the mind and the world. From this perspective, it is ironic that Metaphysical philosophy, which has been despised as nonrealistic, makes such reappearance, but this time devoid of religious content. This brief philosophical outlook will help us understand the poststructuralist reaction. Unlike structuralism, which primarily focused on social sciences, the post-structuralist discourse is clearly philosophical, in spite of its rhetoric concerning the “end of philosophy.” Put very simply, Derrida condemns structuralism as well as most of the philosophers of the Western tradition for trying to find a center of meaning in their world

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view. In fact, Derrida refutes this concept of “center” as illusory, and attempts to show that by pointing to contradictions occurring both within and outside the structure. In his essay, “Structure, Sign, and Play,” in which he sees post-structuralism (without naming it of course; he speaks of an “event”) as a definite rupture, Derrida underlines the paradox of the center: “The center is at the center of the totality, and yet, since the center does not belong to the totality (is not part of the totality), the totality has its center elsewhere” (495). In that sense, deconstruction can de defined as the unmasking of this construct of centeredness. Derrida often refers to this false notion as the metaphysics of presence, or logocentrism, which means “Centered as the Word as Truth.” This pure presence is often related to speech as opposed to writing, which is seen as a merely surrogate Accordingly, in his first book, Of Grammatology, Derrida starts by deflating this dream of perfect communication through a transparent language, and at the same time rehabilitates writing. He sees this fault as inherent to Western philosophy. For instance, Plato’s Forms, Descartes’ rational certitude, and Rousseau’s idea of Nature all partake in this dream of solid starting point and absolute knowledge. As we have seen, structuralism, with its pursuit of general principles and structures, is no exception to this. For example, in the article already mentioned, Derrida

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remarks that, although Levi-Strauss is aware, more than anyone else, of the impossibility of a center in his explicative grid of myths, that is a solid natural and universal ...