"Structuralism is an intellectual current and methodological approach, primarily in the social sciences, that interprets elements of human culture by way of their relationship to a broader system."
A theoretical framework that focuses on the underlying structures and systems that shape human behavior, culture, and language, rather than on individual actors or personal agency.
Ferdinand de Saussure: His theories on language and semiotics, including the distinction between the signifier and the signified and the idea of the arbitrary nature of language.
Claude Lévi-Strauss: His work on anthropology and structuralism, including the concept of binary oppositions and the idea that cultures are based on underlying structures that shape human behavior and thinking.
Roland Barthes: His theories on semiotics and structuralism, including the idea of the "myth" and how meaning is constructed through cultural codes and rituals.
Jacques Derrida: His deconstructionist approach to structuralism, including the critique of binary oppositions and the idea that meaning is always deferred and provisional.
Michel Foucault: His work on power and knowledge, including the idea that social institutions and practices are based on underlying power relations that shape our understanding of the world.
Jacques Lacan: His psychoanalytic theories on the unconscious and the way in which language structures our experience of the world.
Jean Piaget: His theories on cognitive development and the way in which children construct knowledge through the organization of mental structures.
Erving Goffman: His work on social interaction and the way people present themselves in different contexts, including the idea of "frames" and "facework".
Niklas Luhmann: His sociological theories on the different systems in society, including the economy, law, and politics, and how they are interrelated.
Mary Douglas: Her work on cultural anthropology and the way in which people classify the world into different categories and hierarchies.
Linguistic Structuralism: Focused on the analysis of language and the structure of signs and symbols within it. According to this approach, meaning is derived from the relationships between signs, rather than from the signs themselves.
Anthropological Structuralism: This approach seeks to understand the structure of society, culture, and myth, by analyzing the underlying patterns and structures that shape social behavior, communication, and symbolic systems.
Literary Structuralism: This type of Structuralism examines literary texts as complex systems of language, signs, and symbols, working to uncover the underlying structures that shape meaning and interpretation.
Psychoanalytic Structuralism: This approach seeks to understand the unconscious structures and processes that shape human experience and behavior, examining how the structure of the psyche shapes individual and collective identity.
Structural Marxism: This type of Structuralism relies on Marxist principles to analyze the social and economic structures of society, focusing on the relationships between economic forces and social structures.
Formalist Structuralism: This approach examines the structures of various forms of art, such as painting, music, and sculpture, looking for the underlying patterns and structures that shape aesthetic meaning.
Post-structuralism: This approach emerged as a response to the limitations of Structuralism, emphasizing the instability and contingency of language, meaning, and culture.
Structural Hermeneutics: This approach seeks to understand the structures of interpretation and meaning-making, exploring how interpretation is shaped by pre-existing cultural and linguistic structures.
Biological Structuralism: This approach attempts to explore complex biological systems, such as the brain, the genome, or the ecology, as structural systems with underlying patterns and relationships.
Feminist Structuralism: This approach works to uncover the underlying patriarchal structures and power dynamics that shape women's lives, relationships, and social roles.
"It works to uncover the structural patterns that underlie all the things that humans do, think, perceive, and feel."
"Alternatively, as summarized by philosopher Simon Blackburn, structuralism is: 'The belief that phenomena of human life are not intelligible except through their interrelations.'"
"Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly in France and the Russian Empire."
"Along with Lévi-Strauss, the most prominent thinkers associated with structuralism include linguist Roman Jakobson and psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan."
"French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism."
"The structuralist mode of reasoning has since been applied in a range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics, and architecture."
"By the late 1960s, many of structuralism's basic tenets came under attack from a new wave of predominantly French intellectuals/philosophers such as historian Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and literary critic Roland Barthes."
"These theorists eventually came to be referred to as post-structuralists."
"Many proponents of structuralism, such as Lacan, continue to influence continental philosophy."
"As an intellectual movement, structuralism became the heir to existentialism."
"Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly in France and the Russian Empire, in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague, Moscow, and Copenhagen schools of linguistics."
"After World War II, an array of scholars in the humanities borrowed Saussure's concepts for use in their respective fields."
"French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss was arguably the first such scholar, sparking a widespread interest in structuralism."
"Behind local variations in the surface phenomena there are constant laws of abstract structure."
"Structuralism in Europe developed in the early 20th century, mainly in France and the Russian Empire."
"The structuralist mode of reasoning has since been applied in a range of fields, including anthropology, sociology, psychology, literary criticism, economics, and architecture."
"The structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague, Moscow, and Copenhagen schools of linguistics."
"By the late 1960s, many of structuralism's basic tenets came under attack from a new wave of predominantly French intellectuals/philosophers such as historian Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, and literary critic Roland Barthes."
"Many of the fundamental assumptions of some of structuralism's post-structuralist critics are a continuation of structuralist thinking."