SOCIOL 3488 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Jacques Derrida, Maurice Godelier, Logocentrism
9 Sep 2016
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Intellectual movement in latter half of 20th century, peaked 1980s 1990s. Individuals completely free and responsible for everything they do. No meaning in universe, people assign things meaning. This no excuses responsibility can produce both terror and optimism. Sartre critical of structuralists who claim objective structures are completely deterministic of behavior . Structuralism: different from structural functionalism, linguistic turn = intellectual movement that focuses on language. Tended to focus on structures of language (rather than social structures) Believed language had structure: ferdinand de saussure (1857 1913) Distinguished between langue (formal, grammatical language) and parole (actual, everyday speech) Langue = system of signs governed by laws and therefore a structure. Meaning is derived through differences (esp. binary oppositions) = hot/cold, man/woman, sun/moon, yes/no, etc. Linguists = understand structure of language (which is separate from everyday usage: roland barthes (1915 1980) French intellectual founded discipline of semiotics (study of sign systems) Extends saussure on language to all sign systems.
