Derrida's On Grammatology between structuralism and post-structuralism

Jacques Derrida's work on deconstruction and his book On Grammatology are situated within the broader philosophical context of structuralism and post-structuralism. Structuralism is a theoretical approach that emphasizes the underlying structures that shape and organize knowledge and culture. It suggests that meaning is not inherent in individual words or objects, but rather is derived from the relationships between these elements and the structures in which they are embedded.

Derrida's approach to grammatology, which is the study of writing and its relationship to language, builds on and challenges many of the ideas of structuralism and leads the way to post-structuralism. Derrida argued that the traditional Western focus on speech as the primary medium of communication and the privileging of speech over writing was misguided and overlooked the fundamental role of writing in shaping and constructing meaning. He argued that writing was not simply a secondary or derivative form of language, but was in fact a primary and constitutive element of language and meaning.

In this context, Derrida's work on grammatology sought to deconstruct the traditional Western hierarchy of speech over writing and to explore the ways in which writing shapes and determines our understanding of language, meaning, and knowledge. His work has had a significant influence on a wide range of fields, including philosophy, literary theory, anthropology, and cultural studies.

The influence of Derrida's On Grammatology

Derrida's work on grammatology has helped to shift the focus in many disciplines away from traditional notions of language and meaning and towards a more complex understanding of the ways in which language and writing shape and determine our understanding of the world.

Derrida's work has been widely influential in the development of post-structuralist and deconstructive approaches to literature and criticism. His ideas have also had a significant impact on anthropology, where they have been used to challenge traditional assumptions about the relationship between language, culture, and identity. In addition, Derrida's work has been influential in the fields of philosophy and cultural studies, where it has been used to examine and critique the ways in which meaning is constructed and maintained in different cultural contexts.

See also: Foucault, Structuralism and post-structuralism

Glossary of Key Derrida and Deconstruction Terms

Structural Anthropology - summary

Structural anthropology is a paradigm which branches of structuralism in anthropology, developed in the 1940s by the ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss and constitutes his major work.  Structural Anthropology aims to explain the diversity of social facts by the combination of a limited number of logical possibilities linked to the architecture of the human mind, breaking with the dominant currents of ethno-anthropology: evolutionism, diffusionism , culturalism , functionalism. Structural Anthropology uses the general principles of the so-called fundamental sciences, apprehending a society as a complex system endowed with invariable autonomous properties ("structural") resulting from the relations between the elements (the individuals) which compose it, not deductible from the study of these. only individuals and not consciously perceptible a priori by them.

The terms structural analysis (or method ) in anthropology have often been used interchangeably as synonyms for structural anthropology by Lévi-Strauss himself, who set them as the titles of several of his articles and works. Today, these different terms remain attached to his name and continue to designate his general work and his methodology). To generally designate the use of the structural paradigm in anthropology, among other authors for example, the term usually used is that of structuralism in anthropology.

Structural anthropology, originating from various intellectual filiations of holistic orientation (Durkheimian sociology, Maussian ethnology, Saussurian linguistics, phonology, natural sciences, mathematics), will gradually develop an emerging scientific paradigm very close to the systemic current and the cognitivism which was established at the same time, by its taking into account of the structure (synchrony) / history (diachrony) dialectic, relations within the system and between systems, and its ambition to describe the human “mental enclosures” within of a vast science of man.

Although Lévi-Strauss initially used the term structuralism and referred to structural linguistics, he firmly and early, in the 1950s, dissociated himself from the recovery of his methods of analysis by a vast intellectual movement. transdisciplinary of formalist and semiological inspiration , which will capture the generic name of structuralism and experience in the 1960s an immense media, intellectual and political success. Lévi-Strauss will also in the 1970s abandon any reference to the notion of structure, to mark the major paradigm difference that separates him from the politicized and ultra-formalist evolution of so -called generalized structuralism .

See also: Claude Levi-Strauss – The Structural Study of Myth

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Foucault, Structuralism and post-structuralism

Michel Foucault famously denied any attempt to identify him and his thought with any "-ism" like Marxism, Structuralism or Post-Structuralism. However, his thought certainly has some of the characteristics of these traditions of thought and Foucault definitely corresponded with many thinkers who are labeled by these isms. This short post will focus on Foucault's relationship with Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, for his relation to Marxism see our separate discussion on Foucault and Marxism.

Foucault's approach to language was deeply inspired by Structuralism and the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and his followers like Roland Barthes. What is especially important for Foucault in Structuralism is the view that language is controlled by sets of rules which govern the range of possible utterances. Another important notion for Foucault found in Structuralism is the notion that we have no excess to any reality which precedes its representation in language or discourse. Languages refers to meaning, not to material reality, and this means for both Foucault and de Saussure that we actually can't talk about reality.  

However, some of Foucault's reservations from Structuralism shift his thought in the direction of Post-Structuralism. For starters, Foucault rejects the idea of absolute and permanent structures at the base of language and culture. His view is of much more indeterminate and open. Another thing is that Foucault rejects the idea that language or discourse can be objectively described. Foucault strongly insists that we cannot think outside of discourse and held that this precludes any "scientific" approach to it. Unlike traditional Marxist thought (and more in line with later Marxists like Althusser), Foucault thought that language and discourse (or ideology for Marx) do not "mask" or obscure reality but rather take part in the dynamics by which reality is constituted.  His open and non-essentialist take on society and history places Foucault closer to Post-Structuralism.   

Structuralism and Poststructuralism in literary theory

Structuralism was a broad movement which attempted to locate the operative principles which ground activities and behaviours; its importance to Literary Theory is substantial, although Literary Theory has rejected a number of its premises. Two central structural theories were Freud's psychoanalytic theory and Marx's economic/political theories. What marks these theories as structuralist is their locating of generative forces below or behind phenomenal reality, forces which act according to general laws through transformative processes. In structural theories, motive, or generative force, is found not in a pre-text but in a sub-text; the surface is a transformation, a re-coded articulation of motive forces and conditions, and so the surface must be translated rather then simply read. From the rise of the whole rich field of semiotics to the theorizing of the history of science to the revolutionizing of anthropology to the creation of family therapy, structuralism has been a central, pervasive force in the century. The idea of decoding the depth from the manifestations of the surface, that what appears is often masking or is a transformation of what is, is a key tenant of Literary Theory.

Poststructuralism carries on with the idea of the surface as a transformation of hidden forces, but rejects structuralism's sense that there are timeless rules which govern transformations and which point to some stable reality below and governing the flux — what poststructuralism refers to as an essentialist or totalizing view. Poststructuralism sees 'reality' as being much more fragmented, diverse, tenuous and culture-specific than does structuralism. Some consequences have been, first, poststructuralism's greater attention to specific histories, to the details and local contextualizations of concrete instances; second, a greater emphasis on the body, the actual insertion of the human into the texture of time and history; third, a greater attention to the specifies of cultural working, to the arenas of discourse and cultural practice; lastly, a greater attention to the role of language and textuality in our construction of reality and identity. Literary Theory is a poststructural practice.  

Structuralism - Summary and short Explanation

Structuralism as a form of thought and theoretical approach emerged from a reaction against the humanism of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism. Sartre assailed the idea of structures that overly determine the behavior of individuals, of having actors without agency. Structuralism emerged in the 1960s, and was based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure. Saussure’s work in linguistics was oriented to understanding the structures underlying languages and all form of human sign systems (semiology or semiotics). Thus, structuralism is associated with the linguistic turn.  Saussure focused on the relationship between the formal, grammatical system of language (langue) and the everyday usage of language (parole) (see extended summary on de Saussure's langue and parole). Parole was of little interest to linguists, who should be concerned with understanding the determinant laws that govern langue. Langue is conceptualized by de Saussure as a system of signs whereby each sign may be understood by its relationships to other signs within the system. This system of signs is a structure, a structure that affects society by shaping relationships of signs within the system and our understanding of the world.  Saussure focused on the creation of difference, particularly through binary oppositions (e.g., hot/cold) , which have meaning only in relation to one another. The idea of semiotics extended the analysis of sign systems to various dimensions of the social world.

When first published de Saussure's work remained within the confines of linguistics but in the 60's structuralism also influenced anthropology and Marxism.  In the former case, the work of Claude Levi-Strauss exhibits this influence. Levi-Strauss attempted to extend structuralism to anthropology, focusing on communication. He reinterpreted social phenomena for their effects on communication. Structural Marxism took from structuralism an interest in the historical origins of structures, but continued to focus on social and economic structures. An example of structuralism in Marxist thought can be found in the works of Louis Althusser and Michel Foucault. Roland Barthes is considered on of the key figures in developing structuralism in semiotics and also taking it to the next phase of poststructuralism. Structuralism also made its way into psychoanalysis in the works of Jacques Lacan.   

Read more on:

structural anthropology

Claude Levi-Strauss – The Structural Study of Myth

Louis Althusser: On ideology: Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

Roland Barthes / Rhetoric of the Image 
Roland Barthes - Myth Today
Roland Barthes - The Death of the Author
Michel Foucault – Of Other Spaces (Heterotopia)
Michel Foucault  - "The Subject and Power"
Lacanian Terminology – Central Concepts in Lacan's Theory

Some books on structuralism to consider:

De Saussure - The Arbitrary Nature of the Sign - summary

An important part of Ferdinand de Saussure's linguist theory in "Course in General Linguistics" is what he terms "The arbitrary nature of the Sign". Following his discussion about the nature of the linguistic sign de Saussure argues that the relations between the absolute majority of signifies to signified is arbitrary. With the small exception of onomatopoeia (words that sound like what they refer to) There is no imperative connection between words and their meanings. This can be easily proved through the fact that different languages have different words to refer to the same things.

The arbitrary nature of the sign or the arbitrariness of the sign doesn't mean that it is false or that you can just use any word you want to refer to whatever you want. What is does mean is that language is a self contained structure built on inner relations between words as opposed to external relations between words and things. One interesting implication of the arbitrary nature of the sign is that language is not built to meet a preexisting reality, but rather the other way around.

See also: De Saussure's nature of the linguistic sign, Langue and parole, Paradigm and syntagm
Ferdinand de Saussure and structuralism. 

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Ferdinand de Saussure - langue and parole - Explanation and Summary

Central to Ferdinand de Saussure's linguistic theory introduced in "Course in General Linguistics" is the distinction between "langue" and "parole". For de Saussure, langue (language) is the abstract structure or system of conveying meaning while parole (speech) is the particular use of language (somewhat but not completely similar to Noam Chomsky's linguistic competence and performance). De Saussure gives the example of Chess, the game which exists as a set a rules and functions (langue) with endless possibilities to be played out (parole).   

The importance of de Saussure's distinction starts in the fact that langue obviously determines any possible parole. While parole is individual langue exists only as a social entity that no one has any full control over. Since it precedes parole, langue should be in de Saussure's view the focus of linguistic inquiry. But parole is still important since it is only through the idiosyncratic manifestations of speech (parole) that we can access the langue.

The distinction between langue and parole is also important since it is central to de Saussure's structuralist view of language as a self contained system of signification. Chess exists before any actual game and it's not up to the players do decide on the rules. If you try to play checkers with Chess pieces no one will be able or want to play with you, that is you will not be understood. But when we play Chess, or use language, it's not about the pieces by themselves but their perspective relationships within the context of the game's setting and rules. This leads us to how de Saussure thinks of language as a system of inner relations between words that relate to each other and not referential reality (see The arbitrary nature of the Sign) . This means that to anything we say there is an underlying structure which determines its possibility.

See also:

langue and parole
De Saussure's nature of the linguistic sign

Signifier and signified

Langue and parole, 

Arbitrariness of the sign

Paradigm and syntagm 

Ferdinand de Saussure's Linguistic Revolution- summary, analysis and review
Ferdinand de Saussure and structuralism 

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