Introduction to Philosophy

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) Swiss linguist.

First to apply structuralism to language. Language as a system of negative oppositions, both on the phonetic and the semantic level. The sign = signifier + signified. The arbitrary nature of the sign. "There are only differences, without positive terms." (This seems to me to be an impossibility.) Semiology, or semiotics. This type of analysis goes beyond linguistic phenomena. It went in the direction of what Claude Lévi-Strauss would call structural anthropology, or structuralism.

Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908- )

Rejects functionalism. Looks for universal categories of all societies. These universals exist only "latently," however, not necessarily as manifest fact. Rationalistic. La pensée sauvage, 1962). The logical nature of all human thought. Primitives do not think like children.

Jacques Lacan (1901-1981)

"Poststructuralism," a pretty vague term for what followed. A careful reader of Freud. Psychoanalysis, the talking cure. The unconscious is "structured like a language." From prelinguistic "lack" to desire. Lack (of being) is cast into the unconscious. Metonymy, plays on words, puns, semantic displacements of various sorts (the Freudian slip). The unconscious as a chain of signifiers. Language uses conventions, suppressing but not eliminating the private or personal, solipsistic language. Poetry as the bridge between the consicous and unconscious. To exit the private world of the imaginary is to enter into the Symbolic. Naming distances, controls, objectifies, exorcises. Langauage and the social make individuality (differentiation) possible. The symbolic (cultural) replaces the private lived experience.

# posted by Michael @ 6:18 PM