Whilst Saussure’s system of
language and structuralism has been regarded as a positive movement it has been
criticized on a number of levels. Thinking is expressed through language and
for Saussure language functioned as a system but his concept overlooked the historical
origins of words. In examining the origins of words such as nature and culture
we can ascertain that a fundamental change has occurred in their meaning thus
changing the meaning in terms of their binary opposition.
Structuralism also disregards
psychology. Rather than consider an unconscious meaning structuralist analysis
does not go beyond the surface to think in terms of symptoms; origins, causes
or cures as a Freudian or Marxist reading would do. For this structuralism has
been deemed to be a modernist form of abstract thought and whilst it maintains
that language allows meaningful thinking it does not question the reasons for
using it.
In the mid 1960s French
literary theorist, philosopher, critic and semiotician Roland Barthes (1915-80)
questioned the theory regarding semiology positing the idea that it was part of
linguistics and not as Saussure postulated that structural linguistics was part
of semiology.
For Barthes there were no extensive
system of signs outside of human language and so semiology as a system could
not work autonomously. The system of signs whether images or objects, gestures
or musical sounds required the system of language to attain meaning and because
it could not function outside of language semiology was thus deemed part of
linguistics.
In regards to nature and
culture as expressions of signification their existence can not exist without
the system of language and the function of language as a system can not exist
outside of a words definition, the signified. Further to this a word exists in
a historical timeframe, it has origins.
For structuralists reality is
a structure with a centre. Structuralism put forward the idea that texts,
societies and nature are made up of and represented by fixed relationships
between signs. What are these relationships? The signs by which we form reality
are given meanings by their relationships to other signs within an overall
structure. This system of relationships which represents reality follows a coherent
and logical set of rules which at its centre for French philosopher and founder
of deconstruction Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) a single concept that guarantees
the logical coherence of the rules. What are these rules and the centre to
which Derrida suggests?
The word structure has had
many interpretations from Aristotle and Descartes through to the Romantics,
philosophy, Catholicism and Japanese poetry. All these structures including
structuralism are governed by a coherent set of rules with a centre. For
Aristotle it was the law of non-contradiction and the Prime Mover (God), for
Descartes the logical structure of science and nature had God-given reason at
its centre, for some Romantics, the structure of nature has the artist’s unique
self or emotion, for philosophy it’s logic, the rituals of Catholicism has
Jesus Christ and Japanese Tanka poetry as interpreted by Tsurayuki (872-945) has
genuine emotion whilst Haiku as interpreted by Basho (1644-94) regarded its
centre as impersonality.
For structuralists, all
reality (physical, social or verbal) like a written text is made up from the
equation that sign = signifiers + signified. This text is structured by a
coherent set of relationships between the signifiers. Their signified, their
meanings are determined by the totality of the relationships between a
structure’s signifiers and so all meanings, the signified are mediated by an
overall structure. Signifieds are representations that can change but the
centre of the structure which determines all these meanings cannot, it is deemed
unchangeable.
To highlight this notion of
the unchangeable centre Basho characterizes haiku as a coherent structure that
is made up of two different signs, the “inside world” (the soul) and the
“outside world” (nature or society). The centre of this structure is
represented by impersonality. It is impersonality which links these signs
together. The “inside world” can be represented by different people and the “outside
world” can be represented by different signs (a cherry blossom, or a solitary
tree etc) but for haiku to be haiku impersonality must not change.
At the end of his life, Basho
realised that the structure he defined as haiku could not be completely
impersonal and could actually produce emotion rather than eliminate it. This
realization put into question Basho’s notion of haiku because its central
element, impersonality could be deemed deceptive. The structure that Basho used
to describe his haiku partly misrepresented his actual haikus.
It has been said that
structuralism’s presupposition that reality is a structure with a centre
reduces signs (people, things, words) to mechanical functions and so actions
and meanings are defined by fixed religious, psychological or social rules and structures
and through these rules and structures people’s thoughts and actions are
determined.
The presupposition of reality
as a structure was unacceptable to philosophers such as Pascal (1623-62) and
Nietzsche (1844-1900) who believed that reason cannot form a logical, centred
representation of the world. For Pascal, "Nature is an infinite sphere
whose centre is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere." (http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jhreid/Derrida.htm)
For Pascal and Nietzsche all representations of reality that consist of a
centred structure are, like Basho’s re-definition of haiku, deceptive.
Influenced by Nietzsche and
Freud post-structuralism in the 1960s began to question whether the meanings
and actions of people, things or words (signs) could be determined by a single
coherent structure. They did this by questioning the centres that constitute
structures, for instance Descartes’ reason or Romanticism’s emotion. In
questioning the structure’s centres, poststructuralists questioned the power of
religious, psychological and social structures in determining the meanings of a
sign or an individual’s actions. This analysis reopened the question of human
freedom.
It has been acknowledged that
we are all part of and influenced by a number of structures that affect us
through our own individual communities and cultures and by being part of
something bigger more worldly.
Derrida argued that language
constructs centred structures that represent relations between signs and it also
deconstructs these centred structures, a process that repeats itself through
history or in the cultural space of a diverse world. Constructed
centres that give people stability to their relations within the world and
meaning to their lives whether this is God, science or the market are, for
Derrida deconstructed over either historical time or when reality is perceived
from the perspective of a different culture from somewhere in the world.
Many philosophers, not
including Pascal and Nietzsche represented reality through centred rational
structures. When these centred structures are compared over historical time the
centre is deconstructed through changes in terms of its nature and function;
from “Plato’s remembered, rational "forms," to Aristotle’s perceived
"forms," to Descartes’ divine "natural light," to
Nietzsche’s ironic artist and herd”. (http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jhreid/Derrida.htm)
Derrida redefined the idea of
structure into what he called, “a system of differences”. Within this system
signs do not have a single meaning because the system has no centre or
structure. In contrast, signs have multiple and incompatible meanings. In
Derrida’s system of differences the origin of any structure is always
uncertain, as is the structures destination, its goal. In interpreting a
literary text in terms of a system of differences there would be no over-arching
structure to identify the author of the text (the text’s origin) or the
author’s intention (the goal of the text).
In Derrida’s system of
differences, the signified is really another signifier which in turn refers to
another signifier and so on, without ever arriving at a fixed meaning. Imagine
looking up the word cat (signifier) in a French dictionary and not
understanding all the words in the definition (the signified). You treat all
the words in the definition as signifiers and look them up. However, their
definitions (the signified) use other words you do not understand and so you
look them up, ad infinitum. This form
of regression highlights Derrida’s concept that signs do not have inherent
meanings and only have meanings in relation to other signs.
For Levi-Strauss the system
that links the world’s cultures has Western culture at its centre,
ethnocentrism. Whilst it is believed that all cultures are ethnocentric in
assuming that their culture is at the centre of the world and all other cultures
are marginal, the most dominant ethnocentric culture has been Western society,
especially Europe and the US.
In reaction to Western ethnocentrism, much contemporary thought has attempted
to de-centralise Western culture and revalue non-Western cultures viewing the
world as a system of differences rather than a centred structure.
For Derrida, we can never
truly escape from the centred structure of ethnocentrism because in questioning
the superiority of Western culture it is replaced by the superiority of
non-Western culture. Or all cultures in the world are defined by their
difference, their diversity thus replacing one deceptively centred structured
with another.
Derrida posits that the
binary oppositions with which we construct reality are misrepresentations; they
are primarily products of social convention and not accurate representations of
reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Appignanesi R et al Introducing
Postmodernism: A Graphic Guide to
Cutting-Edge Thinking Cambridge: UK
De Botton A, 2012 Religion For Atheists Penguin London: UK
Levine
D, 1971 (ed) Simmel: On individuality and
social forms Chicago University Press. p6
Macionis
G, John L, 2010 Sociology 7th Canadian Ed Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Canada Inc. p. 53
McClenon,
p.528-529
ONLINE
http://changingminds.org/explanations/critical_theory/concepts/syntagm_paradigm.htm
http://www-as.phy.ohiou.edu/~rouzie/307j/binary.html
http://www.chacha.com/question/what-is-the-latin-root-of-the-word-culture
http://www.totem-pole.net/rules.html
http://www.creatorix.com.au/philosophy/24/24f04.html
http://www.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=122
http://www.legendsofamerica.com/na-totems2.html
http://punkk-pprincess.blogspot.co.uk/2011/01/levis-strauss-vs-derrida-nature-culture.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/weekinreview/08rohter.html
http://lilt.ilstu.edu/jhreid/Derrida.htm
http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/barthes.htm
Image Copyright Mark King
2012
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