DE/STRUCTURING THE STRUCTURALIST ACTIVITY A CRITIQUE OF SELECTED FEATURES OF THE STRUCTURALIST PROBLEMATIC

Abstract

This essay represents an attempt to critically assess the intellectual orientation often termed 'structuralism.' In particular, the essay is concerned with European, and even.more specifically French, structuralism as displayed in the writings of Louis Althusser, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, and C. LeviStrauss. The analysis indicates that despite a novel language, an often rigorous character, and some interesting, indeed exciting, intellectual constructions, structuralism is very much a child of positivism. The positivism [structuralism relationship is most clearly revealed when structuralism is contrasted with Marxian social inquiry. For comparative and illustrative purposes, then, the essay contrasts structuralism and Marxism.