The direction in the humanities, which in a later classification received the designation of structuralism, appeared at the beginning of the 20th century and was associated primarily with the concept of structural linguistics of the Swiss linguist and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913). This concept significantly influenced the anthropological research of Claude Levi- Strauss (1908-), the only one who called himself a structuralist, the psychoanalytic theory of J. Lacan (see the chapter “Psychoanalysis”), the epistemological concept of knowledge of Michel Foucault (1926-1984), the literary criticism of Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and many others.
The problem of structure. The basis for attributing it to structuralism was the attention to the concept of “structure” and the problem with which the definition of “structure” was associated. The term was first recorded as philosophical in Lalande’s work “Philosophical Dictionary of Technical and Critical Terms” (1926, reprinted 1986, 2004): structure is the whole that consists of the connection between its individual parts and the relationships between them. It is a kind of summary of definitions that existed in architecture, where structure was considered as the relationship between parts and the whole, and in biology, where it was defined as an organic unity between parts. True in essence, i.e. applicable to any type of organization, this definition did not record the difference of a research – methodological – order: what in the study of organization is given at the empirical level, and what is introduced in the course of theoretical reconstruction.
The discussion unfolded in the second half of the 20th century and within the framework of the definition of structure in anthropology: Alfred Radcliffe-Brown in his article “On Social Structure” (1940) concluded that social structure is a set of social relations organized as a system, which means that it can be discovered as a result of empirical studies of the so-called social organization. Claude Levi-Strauss, relying on the definitions that were given by structural linguistics, formulated his own, opposite position: social structure is a model that is built on the basis of a study of empirical reality represented by a set of social relations. Levi-Strauss relied on one of the aspects of the definitions introduced into scientific circulation in 1928 by R. Jakobson together with N. Trubetskoy and S. Karzhevsky on the basis of de Saussure’s idea of systemicity: an asynchronous integrity with invariant relationships of elements. This echoed the concept of structure developed by the mathematicians of the Bourbaki circle: structure is the form of constant relations of terms in an axiomatically defined set. Levi-Strauss emphasized that the goal of social-structural research is to understand social relations through models.
However, understanding the structure as a model of theoretical construction led to further discussions – already in the 1970s. The main question of these discussions was whether it is possible to understand the structure as a form and draw appropriate conclusions about its relationship with the content. Levi-Strauss believed that the form itself is determined by a kind of opposition to the material, and the structure has no other content than the logical organization of the real. On this basis, he criticized V. Propp for formalism. Propp, proposing the concept of his “Morphology of the Fairy Tale”, and A.J. Greimas, expounding the concept of the semiotic field, proceeded from the fact that the structure is a kind of universal form that can be applied to any content. Other researchers, for example Michel Serres, believing that any cultural content can be studied only as a structure, agreed with Levi-Strauss that mathematical indifferentism is not applicable to social content.
Structural linguistics of F. de Saussure. The philosophical significance of F. de Saussure’s concept of language is that it was in linguistics and in relation to language that the main ideas of the opposition of the empirical analysis of the individual as part of a system and the structural analysis of a system as a whole and its internal self-determination were formulated. It was Saussure who introduced the definition of language as a system of signs. The meaning of individual signs is determined by their position in the system. A linguistic sign is understood as a physical object representing the unity of the signified (that to which the sign refers, the object of thought) and the signifier (designation of the object of thought), as Saussure explained – like two sides of a single sheet of paper. The meaning of a word (sign), therefore, is determined not by the object to which this word refers, and not by the individual who uses this word, but by the meaning that is the result of the interaction of words in the language, i.e., by the structure of the language. It is significant that Saussure distinguished individual speaking – speech – from language as an integral system that exists independently of individual acts of utterance. Without language there can be no speech. It turned out that language speaks through individual speaking, but the individual unconsciously uses the impersonal structure of language. This idea, contextually contained in Saussure’s concept, was later developed in the so-called post-structuralist concepts, where the will of an individual is opposed to the impersonal power of language.
For Saussure’s followers, this meant that linguistics should study not individual signs, but their relationships within a system. As an illustration, Saussure gives the example of the value of a chess piece in a game of chess: it is determined by its position relative to other pieces on the field and their mutual movement. But then we should distinguish between different approaches to the study of language. Saussure introduces the concepts of diachrony and synchrony in relation to language. Synchronic linguistics studies the coexistence of phenomena within a single system outside of temporal changes as a single whole. Diachrony presents phenomena as a sequential chain of changes, the subject of interest being the connection between individual elements following one another in time. These ideas were set out in Saussure’s main work, Course in General Linguistics (1916), which was prepared by his students based on the materials of his 1908 lectures. Thus, from Saussure’s point of view, the study of the formation of meaning should be considered not historically, but functionally – from the point of view of relations in the system, including the negative relationship with other elements of the system (a textbook example, containing a new problem associated with structural definitions of meanings, is the meaning of the word “boy”, which makes sense only in relation to those words that designate objects that are not boys). This work was developed by members of the Prague Linguistic Circle (1929-1939) – N. Trubetskoy, R. Jakobson, V. Mathesius. From their concepts, the direction of the so-called functional linguistics grows, which increasingly contrasts the planes of content and expression and studies how language exists in its literary expression, as a socio-historical unity. Under the influence of these ideas, among others, the so-called Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity appears, according to which the determining factor for the type of language is the type of social organization, the type of collective behavior, which determines the type of thinking. The development of modern linguistics as semiology, based on the principle of synchronic research of an objectively existing language as a system of signs, assumed a movement from the description of language to theoretical models of language, which would describe the general properties of language: descriptive linguistics includes both the theory of language levels (Bloomfield, Hockett) and the study of non-linguistic factors (Ann Arbor Group), based, among other things, on Sapir’s concept, up to the exclusion of the factor of meaning from linguistic research (Yale School). The problem of separating “substance” and form in linguistic research comes to the forefront – here functional linguistics is closely linked with various variants of what has received the conventional designation of glossematics (this direction includes the Copenhagen School of Linguistics and, above all, L. Hjelmslev (1899-1965), who continued the research in the field of scientific language of B. Russell, A. Whitehead, R. Carnap).
But the most obvious influence for the humanities as a whole was the influence of Saussure’s ideas of structural linguistics in the field of anthropology.
Structural anthropology of C. Levi-Strauss. Levi-Strauss made a real revolution in the study of the culture of primitive peoples, which before him was defined mainly by its negative characteristics – illiterate, non-industrial, uncivilized, etc. For example, from the point of view of L. Levy-Bruhl, the author of the book “Primitive Thought” (1910), between our culture and the archaic culture there is an abyss of different mentalities – logical and pre-logical. The structural approach made it possible to consider culture as a single system of meanings. In the famous books “The Tropics of Sorrow” (1955) and “Structural Anthropology” (1957), and later in his work “Primitive Thought” (1962), Levi-Strauss proposed objective research methods, taking semiotic methods as a basis – language was considered as a system of unconsciously functioning signifiers of culture. In myths, rituals, marriage rules, kinship terms – everywhere we can identify binary oppositions on which “bundles of differentiated features” are built. Levi-Strauss focused on specific material that proved the connection of language with the social customs of tribes – he discovered that the kinship system is organized in the same way as the phoneme system. That is, the way phonemes – histemmes – are understood corresponds to the phoneme system. Thus, in Mythologics (1964, 1966, 1968, 1971) the dichotomy raw – cooked, fixed in the languages and, accordingly, rituals and primary myths of South American tribes, is examined step by step, which in practice builds a chain of signifiers that endows various activities with a deeper ritual meaning: inedible – edible, inaccessible – accessible for copulation, animal – vegetable, natural – cultural, lost – acquired, etc. The original opposition “acquires” new meanings – half-cooked, burnt, fresh, rotten. The combination of histemes determines even more mobile meanings – mythemes, the meaning of which is the relationship of the meanings used in them. The meaning, thus, turns out to be part of a system that should be understood as a whole, from the relationships within the system.
This allows us to speak of an anthropology that is based on field ethnographic research. The synthesis of the somatic characteristics of ethnology leads to a holistic cultural and social anthropology. Social anthropology, with the help of sociology and psychology, examines objects of material culture as specific social phenomena, as E. Durkheim wrote, i.e. from the point of view of the social function performed, as a social factor. The personal is thus understood as generalized and mediated by things, as a signifier that must be studied independently. Cultural anthropology, using archeological data and linguistic concepts, presents a system of relationships that connects all aspects of social life – this system, from the point of view of Levi-Strauss, plays a more important role in the transmission of culture than each of its individual aspects.
The idea of the integrity of this system, as M. Merleau-Ponty wrote later, was largely inspired by the ideas of Marcel Mauss (1872-1950). Another predecessor of structural anthropology, C. Levi-Strauss himself considered J. Dumézil, the author of a number of works on comparative mythology (for example, “The Indo-European Heritage of Rome” (1949)). Mauss, whose influence extends to post-structuralist ideas, in his works “Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice” (1899), “On Some Primitive Forms of Classification” (co-authored with E. Durkheim – 1901-1902), “Essay on the Gift” (1825) emphasizes the cultural determinacy of natural human functions and habits, the symbolic nature of exchange practices, primarily the practice of giving. Mauss found that in the Tana tribe there were no specific meanings for the exchange of gifts – each time the gift was determined by the parties involved, the specific situation of communication, the speeches made, the demonstration of the attitude towards the other party, etc. The mystical essence of the gift, the sacrifice, shows that the essence of human relations is the designation of a field of possible meanings, what will later be designated by J. Bataille as transgressivity – the possibility of overcoming fixed meanings. In R. Gerard’s “Fundamental Anthropology” this idea develops into a detailed theory of socialization as a double substitution of omnipresent violence, a kind of mimesis of the representation of desire.
Structuralism in literary studies and post-structuralism. The influence of structuralist ideas in literary studies and philosophy of literature, which is increasingly converging with psychoanalysis and philosophical issues proper, is indicative.
Roland Barthes(1915-1980), one of the founders of the Center for the Study of Mass Communications (1960) and head of the department of literary semiology, in his first philosophical work, The Initial / Zero / Level of Writing (1953), stated the main theme of this philosophy: “the difficulty of literature lies in the fact that it is forced to express itself through unfree writing.” The literary studies of a number of philosophers associated with the ideas of structuralism are indicative – this is the history of the magazine “Tel-Kel”, published from 1960 to 1983, which united among its employees R. Barthes, F. Sollers, J. Kristeva and others and, in fact, formed the mentality of the French intelligentsia as structuralist. Since 1963, such writers as J. Ricardo, J. Thibaud, J.-P. have united around the new editor F. Sollers. Faye, poets D. Roche, M. Plenet, and philosophers R. Barthes, J. Derrida, P. Boulez, J. Kristeva (since 1970, a member of the editorial board). The task, declared in 1964, is associated with an attempt to present a system of symbolic images of modern literature. The staff of the magazine rely on the ideas of structuralism and psychoanalysis. The work of the critic turns out to be identical to the work of the writer – both create meanings. The magazine opens a theoretical polemic on such topics as the new novel, surrealism, Marxism. Several issues on regional studies are published – about China, Algeria, etc. The following works by R. Barthes, dedicated to Michelet (1954), Racine (1963), illustrate the method of the so-called “new criticism”, actively using psychoanalytic theory and based on an understanding of the symbolic nature of the work. The “new criticism” set the task of examining the integrity of a literary work, and therefore the central issue becomes the specificity of the object of literary criticism – the means of expression, language, i.e., what criticism itself uses. In this sense, the new critic turns out to be a writer. From Barthes’s point of view, this is a natural process of “consolidation within the dual – poetic and critical – function of writing”, but it is also a revolution in culture – a shift in the very principle of “hierarchical organization … types of writing”. The source of the “objectivity” of the new science of literature should be “intelligibility” contained in the objectivity of symbols – “the linguistics of discourse” will have to correspond to the verbal nature of literature. This means that such a science will “describe the logic of the generation of any meanings in a way that is acceptable to the symbolic logic of man.” In this regard, Barthes develops an innovative concept of the informative image, in which he analyzes various types of messages and concludes about the special role of the symbolic message, the analysis of which is called upon to engage the rhetoric of the image, closely related to ideology. A number of Barthes’ articles became “programmatic”: “The Imagination of the Sign” (1962), “Structuralism as Activity” (1963), “Fundamentals of Semiology” (1965).Language is considered as an instrument for constituting cultural meanings and in this sense can never be considered as depoliticized, free. The materials become more politicized, the magazine of the second half of the 60s is characterized by sympathy for the communist movement, after the break in relations with the French Communist Party in 1971 – rapprochement with Maoism (representatives of the magazine were even invited to China in 1974). The popularity of the magazine among students grows, and with it the circulation (enormous for this kind of publication – 4 thousand copies, individual issues, for example, dedicated to Barthes, and the regional studies issue about China – 10 thousand). Barthes examines the functioning of various myths in society, the system of meanings imposed in various forms of human activity: “Mythologies” (1957), “Elements of Semiology” (1964), “The Fashion System” (1967). Barthes made a great contribution to the so-called meta-rhetoric both by his fundamental formulation of the problem of the place of rhetoric in the semiotic project and by his specific studies of rhetorical secondary codes.
Researchers consider the period from 1967 to be poststructuralist, linking it with the change in the philosophical position of R. Barthes, with the active speeches of J. Derrida. However, already in 1968 a collection of essays was published, which became a kind of political manifesto – its name is “Theory of Unity”, and after the May events the editors of the magazine organized a theoretical seminar. The last issues of “Tel-Kel”, dedicated to Joyce and the regional studies – the USA, were published in 1982.
A new stage in Barthes’s philosophy is marked by the work “C\3” (1970) – the study of Balzac’s text leads Barthes to consider the problem of sexuality and castration and to the conclusion about the multiplicity of possible codes contained in the text. Essays dedicated to de Sade, Fourier, Loyola put Barthes above the new criticism: he comes to the conclusion about the end of the historical myth about the author and the work, as well as about the work and criticism. The task of semiology becomes the removal of the fixed hierarchy of genres and the narrative underlying them – the metatext that prescribes the construction of texts. In the works “The Pleasure of the Text” (1973) and “Roland Barthes on Himself” (1975), Barthes comes to the idea of coexistence, interpenetration of the reader and the text, which gives much more than simple knowledge – the spirit of humanity.
Literature
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4. Levi-Strauss K. Mythologics: In 4 volumes. Volume 1. Raw and cooked. Moscow; St. Petersburg, 1999.
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6. Barthes R. Selected works: Semiotics, Poetics. Moscow, 1989; 2nd ed. 1994
7. Structuralism: pros and cons. M., 1975.
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