Reviews for Superstructuralism: The Philosophy of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

The average rating for Superstructuralism: The Philosophy of Structuralism and Post-Structuralism based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-08-30 00:00:00 Nichole Serna A. Synopsis: 1. Superstructuralism has two meanings. a) It covers the whole field of Structuralists, Semioticians, Althusserian Marxists, Foucaultians, Post-Structuralists, Etc. It is super-structuralism or a larger intellectual phenomena over and above Structuralism. b) More importantly it can be read as superstructure-alism. One thing that all of these fields have in common is a way of thinking about superstructures. They invert ordinary base-superstructure models so that the superstructure takes precidence over the base. 2. The most obvious distinction within superstructuralism is between the structuralists and post-structutalists. a) The structuralists are: Saussure and Jakobson (structural linguist), Lévi-Strauss (structural anthropologist), Barthes and Greimas (structural semioticians). The structuralists want to know the human world--to uncover it through a detailed observational analysis. Their stance is the traditional scientific stance of Objectivity, and their goal is the traditional scientific goal of Truth. b) The post-structuralists fall into three groups: the Tel Qel group of Derrida, Kristeva, and the later Barthes; Deleuze and Guattari and the later Foucault; Baudrillard. Their shared philosophical characteristic is that they believe that Objectivity and Truth can never be attained, scientific knowledge is less valuable than literary or political activity, and detailed observational analysis is discarded in favor of lightening-flashes of paradoxical illumination. c) Althussar, Lacan, and the earlier Foucault stand between these two main movements in Superstructuralism. They must be considered as a special catagory and not merely a transitory stage. B. New vocabulary 1. Saussure (structural linguist): langue, parole, signifier, signified, value, differentiation 2. Durkheim (structural social anthropologist): collective representation, man-in-association 3. Lévi-Strauss (structural social anthropologist): communication, language C. The Superstructuralist Way of Thinking 1. Preliminaries a) This section looks at the superstructuralist insights into the human sciences: linguistics, anthropology, psychoanalytic theory, political economy, and Semiotics. b) All these insights share one characteristic--an inversion of base-superstructure models by giving the superstructure priority over the base. c) There are 2 types of this inversion: (1) Priority of culture over nature. Nature is only a recent cultural construct derriving from the natural sciences in the 17th century. (2) Priority of society over the individual. The individual is only a recent cultureal construct supported by the rise of the 17th bourgeoise and the eethic of individualism. 2. Saussure and the concept of “langue” a) The Superstructuralist notion of linguistics is founded on the notion of langue (the system of language). Langue has priority over parole (the sum total of all words ever uttered). Ex. To understand chess you must not just study individual moves (parole), you must understand the game or the system of principles for making moves (langue). The langue must be shared by the entire society, and no individual can modify it by himself. The signifier (word-red) and the signified (concept--the color redness) share no relationship. b) The concept of langue leads to what Saussure called value or differentiation. The value of a signifier is proportional to the range of possible signs not selected. Thus, the value of a language is determined by what is not uttered, instead of what is uttered. And it does not matter how the signifier was uttered. There is the same value in a sentence spoken loudly or written sloppily. For example, It does not matter how the chess pieces are shaped just that they can be differentiated from each other. A piece can only be on one square at a time, regardless of if the piece is slopilly placed on the board. The principle of differentiation for signifiers: The same is true with language, everyone has a different voice, yet we can differentiate by distinguishing the uttered word from all others. The principle of differentiation for signifieds: We understand concepts not by positive content, but by negative content--what they are not. We cannot say what red is except that it is not blue. The concept red is differentiated negatively. 3. From Durkheim to Lévi-Strauss a) Durkheim is an unrecognized co-founder of Structuralism. He attacked the individual self claiming that the individual was more a product of common life than a determinant. Society is more than the sum of its individual members. He argues for a collective representation which are generated by man-in-association. Durkheim’s best known example of collective representation is the phenomena of religious belief. Religion cannot be traced back to a songle person with a belief...rather a society collectively separating the sacred from the profane. This leads to Totemism as the basic religious belief. This also explains certain fads like where to hang out (some places or words are considered “in” and others “out”). b) Lévi-Strauss explains social unity by communication. This replaces Durkheim’s mysterios supermind that is behind the collective representations. Lévi-Strauss views kinship relations as a system of communication. He attempted to explain why the maternal uncle is so important in primative societies. He dismissed the biological unit in favor of the exchange unit, which includes the maternal uncle. The exchange is not between man and wife but between families. This helps to create a society and bind differeing families together. Thus culture (the societal bonding of families) superceeds nature (biological reproduction). c) It is communication through language that gives man his special powers and advantages. Lévi-Strauss draws on the Structural Linguistics of Saussure and the principle of langue as differentiation and totemic classification. For example, the clan might identify with the emu. The emu is a signifier of the clan. Even though there is no physical relationship between the signifier (emu) and signified (clan) the clan directly identifies itself through the emu. 4. Lacan’s Freud a) The abstract-mindedness that Lévi-Strauss claimed for primitive man, Lacan claims for the Unconscious for all men. “The unconscious is structured like language.” For example, the unconscious that hypnosis reveals is an unconscious that responds to language. When the hypnotist tells the subject to eat this apple, which is actually a lemon, the patient interprets that he is eating a sweet apple, not a sour lemon. Sensory perception is no longer a base as the mere word apple dominates over the thing perceived. Thus, Lacan views the Unconscious as the “discourse of the other.” b) In Freud the Super-Ego represents the morality of society. This is internalized within the individual and restrains and represesses the self-centered Id. The traditional Anglo-Saxon interpretation is that the Ego, the individual, strikes a balance between society (Super-Ego) and the Id. For Lacan the ego, the individual self, is unnecessary. He views the false construction of the self in 2 stages. (1) After the age of 6 months when a child learns to recognize itself in a mirror. This is the image that they aspire to be, separated from the rest of the world. (2) After 18 months when the child enters society and societies language enters the child. Language belongs to society and to acquire it, the child must give up something of himself, must learn to speak from the position of the other. c) The confirmation of induvidual self-hood is the ultimate ideal. 5. Althusser’s Marx a) Lacan deepens the anti-individualistic implications of Freudian psychoanalysis. Althusser deepens the anti-individualistic implications of Marxist economics. The separate human individual cannot be the unit of wealth or labor. b) Althusser claims that man and his economic exchange is not an individual but a social function today. Marcel Mauss argued that the earliest form of economic exchange was the individual and the gift--the giving and the social obligations in return for that gift (gift-and-obligation system). In our present system we do not bond to individuals but to society as a whole. It was the Bourgeoise who created the notion onf the individual--natural consequences of wealth and talent allow some individuals to rise above others c) Ideology for Marx (the Bourgeoise ideology of individualism) was like a parole. For Althusser ideology functions more like a langue. Individualism becomes “natural,” part of the system that the workers cannot revolt against. Overt repression becomes unnecessary. Working classes are not kept in place by the army or police. Instead they keep themselves in place working by themselves. The workers children can migrate to the ruling class but only if they learn the language of power. 6. Barthes and Semiotics a) While Althusser reveals the importance of ideologies behind his arguments, Barthes identifies “mythologies” behind the ordinary things of the world. b) Mythology of wine: What we enjoy is not just the material wine, but the udea of wine. Wine is not just a taste but a visual image (sparkling glass, liquid color), an imaginary ambience (candlelight), and an implied way of life (leisure, style). Thus, the drinking of wine is a ritual and the purpose of the ritual is to make each glass of wine stand for a general meaning. c) Mythological meanings have a socially unifying effect. A counter-community usually defines itself by rejecting the dominant totems. In our present century these meanings are more than unconscious--they are directly communicated by advertizers to consumers. In some cases advertisers reinforce an existing “glamour.” (Example of advertising wine in a candlelight setting). But often a total reorientation is called for such as margarine. In this case an alternate glamour is reinforced such as the softness or smoothness of margarine. d) Barthes wants to examine these mythologies not as they affect the individual but as the affect society. This is the vision to which Semioticians aspire--a scientific understanding of society. Like Copernicus displacing man from the natural world, Semioticians hope to displace man from the cultural world. This scientific aspiration now appears to be at a dead end.

Review # 2 was written on 2019-12-31 00:00:00 Thomas Ryan Richard Harland provides one of the clearest and most accessible overviews of the theories and philosophies related to structuralism, post-structuralism, and postmodernism. A must read for anyone who needs clarification or context to Derrida, Foucault, and the other French thinkers of the 20th century.