Name: Payoshini Pandey

PRN: 16060321066

Course: Critical Ideas of the 20th Century

Assignment: Structuralism of Saussure, Strauss & Althusser

A term that came to define an intellectual revolution in the human sciences in the 20th century
was ‘Structuralism’. Structuralism was based on a conceptualization of ‘structures’ that underlie
all relations and process of the social world and constitute ‘meaning’.

For this paper, I will refer to three essays penned by three figures of Structuralism: ‘Course in
General Linguistics’ by Ferdinand de Saussere; ‘Myth and Meaning’ by Claude Levi-Strauss;
‘Ideology and Ideological State Apparatus’ by Louis Althusser. Through a brief explication of
their thought, I will attempt to highlight commonalities that lie in their philosophies,
respectively.

To begin with, all three thinkers are espousing an anti-Humanism as relief from the profoundly
‘Humanist’ ventures of Social Sciences and Humanities. By the 20th century, the lacunas of the
“rational individual” birthed by the Enlightenment, as the center of all theoretical
conceptualizations are palpable to the intellect. The arrival of “structures” is a promising turn in
the road for the ones painfully aware of the contradictions of modernity, global Capitalism and
the nearing technological revolution. The advancements of Science and the scientific method can
no more be overlooked by this time. Sigmund Freud’s theory of the unconscious has
revolutionized the model of the human mind, and been regressively reduced to “Psychologism”.
Karl Marx’s dream of a classless society is adopted into various disciplines as mode of “cultural
criticism”. The rampant fascism in Europe has evoked from such critics only words of
condemnation; words that do not compensate for the fall of the Soviet Union. In the light of this,
Structuralists emerge to theorize ambitiously the “forms” of societal process and the subjects of
such societies.

Ferdinand de Saussere, a Swiss linguist and semiotician, is historically credited for the
foundation of the school of ‘Structuralism’. In 1916, ‘Course on General Linguistics’ was
published posthumously which contained a new theory of linguistics that revolutionized the way
the language (and the sign) was believed to work.

According to him, a linguistic sign is “a two-sided psychological entity” comprised of (a) a

sound-image (any referent, e.g. a word) and (b) the concept1 that is referred to. The sound-image
is called the ‘signifier’ and the concept, the ‘signified’. Saussere claims that the bond between
signifier and signified is not fixed at all. Hence, meaning associated with any given object/entity
can shift, and in fact, the shift is arbitrary.

1
A concept of an object/phenomenon is not the same as the object itself.
Before Saussure’s theory, the meaning of an object was believed to be residing ‘within’ the
object. Saussure now claimed that the structure of language demonstrates that meaning exists not
intrinsically but extrinsically to signs, objects and entities – meaning lies in the relations between
these entities. As Charles Sanders Pierce has stated, Saussere invented the “science of
semiology” to investigate everything as part of a “signifying order”. In other words, we were
now compelled to acknowledge the existence of all entities as part of, what psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan called the “symbolic order”2 decades later. This new breakthrough in the
understanding of language effectively displaces the location of ‘meaning’ of a given sign.
Hereafter, signs are only extrinsically charged with meaning and “identities” are, but only
relational; the ‘essential’ is replaced by the ‘constructed’.

Although Saussure’s work was challenged by later linguists, it is clear how he lay the foundation
of 20th century Structuralism. The prioritization of ‘differential relations’ over the ‘innateness’ of
a sign was a welcome development for thinkers and theorists looking to challenge the ‘liberal
humanism’ that had pervaded disciplines and hampered much intellectual and political progress.
One such thinker emerges from the field of Anthropology.

According to Claude Levi-Strauss, Structuralism is the search for “unsuspected harmonies”

across structures.3

Levi-Strass was a French structural anthropologist whose work was instrumental in developing
the field of structural anthropology. In the text, Myth and Meaning, Strauss attempts to illustrate
the logic of mythical thought, otherwise believed to be ‘primitive’ and ‘pre-modern’.

Until the turn of the structuralist turn of the 20th century, anthropological investigation were
understood on the basis of ‘functionalism’ i.e the particular function of a culture and its myths. A
central assumption underlying these investigations was the progress of civilization from the
‘primitive’ to ‘modern’. Inevitably, cultures that did not qualify for ‘modern’ were still viewed as
backward, primitive and “pre-modern”. The opening provided by structuralism was an invitation
to examine modes of thinking and living as not inherently “different” and “outdated”, but as
developments of the same structure. In pursuit of such inspections, Strauss sought to find
similarities in myths and beliefs from cultures all over the world. Subsequently, he released the
seminal texts of structural anthropology such as Tristes Tropqies, The Savage Mind, Structural
Anthropology etc.

Inheriting Saussure’s exposition of the structural nature of language and the sign, Strauss argued:
“Both language and culture are built of oppositions, correlations and logical relations. Language

2
The Symbolic Order is the all-encompassing field the human identity, as part of a signifying
order.
3
Rohter, Larry. "Claude Lévi-Strauss's Two-Part Harmonies." The New York Times. November
08, 2009. Accessed March 19, 2018.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/weekinreview/08rohter.html.
can, therefore, be treated as a conceptual model for other aspects of culture…”4 Hence, Strauss
developed a method of ‘structuralist analysis’. He strongly emphasized a close working of theory
and field work. His own expeditions in various parts of the world vindicated his assertion of
developing mathematic tools for studying cultures.

For Strauss, Science is a necessary companion of any structuralist ventures. He says: “Science
has only two ways of proceeding: it is either reductionist or structuralist”. To facilitate the
mapping of a complex phenomenon, Science can understand it through its interconnectedness, as
part of system of many ‘differential relations’. The achievement of science lies not only in the
accounting of phenomenon in empirical, quantitative terms, but in the demonstration of the logic
of, or the order behind the disorder of ‘mythical thought’. His famous structuralist verdict was
that ‘Myth’ is as much of an attempt to comprehend the world around oneself, as science is. The
difference lies in the method – Science empirically discerns the world in ‘general’ packets of
information; Myth understands the world in totality by ridding phenomena of their
contradictions. This approach led him to compare myths from different parts of world, which
was not a prevalent practice previously, as myths were essentialized to the cultures they emerged
from. In this way, myth was able to reclaim a meaning or a basis to itself. Another advantage of
the structuralist approach, as is in the case of language, was the opportunity to study cultures and
myths, even in the absence of information of historical origins.

Strauss was aware of the obstruction faced by the Social Sciences, and Anthropology, due to
their dated methods. Strauss himself, being a Philosophy student, had departed from the
discipline to found a structuralist method for Anthropology, with a recourse taken to science.
Additionally, he emphasized a necessary departure from the age-long philosophical dualism of
phenomenon in the ‘mind’ and in ‘life’. Life should be understood not different from the order of
the mind.

“The philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point, however, is to change it.”5

Louis Althusser, the famous structural Marxist says: “Before Marx, two… continents had been
opened up to scientific knowledge: the continent of Mathematic and the continent of Physics…
Marx opened up a third continent to scientific knowledge: the continent of History.”

The work of 19th century Philosopher and Economist Karl Marx’s work is divided into two
historical segments: Early Marx (1833-34) and Later Marx (1845-46). Early Marx is
philosophical and abstract in his account of ‘human nature’, ‘alienation’ and ‘democracy’. He is
majorly influenced by Hegel. According to Althusser, the later writings demonstrate an anti-

4
Levi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology (New York, 1963)

5
Eleven Theses on Feuerbach, Karl Marx (1888)
Hegelian, structural understanding of society, history and politics through concepts like social
formation, productive forces, superstructure etc. He even came to define ‘humanism’ as an
ideology. This “epistemological break” from anthropological humanism is what Althusser calls
‘Marx’s scientific discovery’.6

For Althusser, scientific Marxism must be defended against all attacks by bourgeois and petty-
bourgeois interpretations or impulses of ‘Humanism’, which fail to acknowledge their own
bourgeois, hegemonic character. Even the Marxist-Leninist theory finds the distinction of theory
into ‘science’ and ‘philosophy’ in Marxism indispensible. Hence, the systematic elimination of
science from Marxism, for an overemphasis on its ‘ideological elements’ is symptomatic of an
intellectual persistence of Marxism that is driven by a bourgeois ideology.

Says Althusser: “In the union of Marxist theory and the Worker’s Movement (the ultimate reality
of the union of theory and practice), philosophy ceases, as Marx said, to ‘interpret the world’. It
becomes a weapon with which ‘to change it’: revolution.”

The realization of this revolution is hindered by this departure from Marx’s science. In fact,
Althusser notes that Later Marx was anti-Humanist, in the sense that he did not befall any
idealist traps of thought but developed thoroughly practical and structural notions of ideology.
What does the mere label of ‘Humanism’ achieve for a revolution? Unless the structures
hindering revolution are acknowledge systematically, Marxism falls prey to cocooned
ideological musings of bourgeois intellectuals. Althusser develops a theory to not just challenge
such developments but demonstrate the ‘ideological’ origins of it.

Althusser then, in the hopes to revive scientific Marxism, draws from the models of the
‘unconscious’ from Freud and Lacan. In 1950s, Jacques Lacan, a French Psychoanalyst
undertakes a re-reading of Freud. Influenced by Saussure, he elaborates the process of the
unconscious as structural mechanisms. “The unconscious is structured like language”, is his
famous claim7. Althusser lauds these theorists for having laid out the grammar of the institution
of the psyche that shapes and is shaped by various social interactions – the unconscious.

‘Ideology’ is that which ensures the continuation of a given structure of society. The model of
superstructure and infrastructure is inherited from Marx: the infrastructure is an economic base
(productive forces and means of production); the superstructure is constituted by the two levels
of politico-legal (the State and the Law) on the top and Ideology below. Before we understand
what the structural nature of Ideology is, we must acknowledge the simple fact this model
presents us with: Everything is determined in its last instance by the economic base.

6
On Marx, Loius Althusser; (Pg 227)
7
The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious, or Reason Since Freud, 1957
Ideology, then, is the “mode” (like a network), produced as result of an economic base that
sustains the current organization of the society. This has far-reaching consequences for the
organization of the State, the power it exercised and the conditions of the subjects of a State. For
instance, all apparatuses of a Capitalist state embody ideology that effectively produces the
exploiters and the exploited, producers and consumers of commodities etc. systemically, to
preserve Capitalism and its continuity. Additionally, it efficiently conceals the role of such a
system in producing ideology, ideological apparatuses and its subjects.

CONCLUSION

The contributions of Saussure, Levi-Strauss and Althusser are key in defining the crucial
elements of 20th century Structuralism. All three are heavily criticized later. Regardless, their
work was significant in propounding the ‘theoretical anti-Humanism’. Since then, the sign and
its centrality have come under attack by post-structuralists. Moreover, there is criticism to the
methods of all three of being rigid in their own theories of the sign, culture and Marxism. In my
view, however, they were far-sighted and make for crucial commentators on comtemporary
Philosophy. The constant re-working of disciplines and their paradigm shifts are necessary
modifications that theory from the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Sciences must undergo.
In fact, this schism that the Structuralists were aware of has consequences today in the 21st
century, in academia and in politics. Scholarship, hence, will have to fall back on the work of
Structuralists to view contemporary society in the light of these texts, and these texts in the light
of the current times.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

Saussure, Ferdinand De, Charles Bally, Albert Sechehaye, and Albert Riedlinger, Course In
General Linguistics. (London: Fontana, 1977.)

Culler, Jonathan, Structural Poetics (Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004)

Levi-Strauss, Claude, Myth and Meaning (London, 1978)

Levi-Strauss, Claude, Structural Anthropology (New York, 1963)

Althusser, Louis, Lenin and Philosophy (Delhi, 2006)

Althusser, Louis, For Marx (Allen Lane, 1969)

Althusser, Louis, Essays in Self-Criticism (NLB, 1976)