Poststucturalism

Post-structuralism is associated with the works of a series of mid-20th-century French and continental philosophers and critical theorists who came to international prominence in the 1960s and 1970s. The term is defined by its relationship to its predecessor, Structuralism, an intellectual movement developed in Europe from the early to mid-20th century which argues that human culture may be understood by means of a structure—modeled on language (i.e., Structural Linguistics)—that differs from concrete reality and from abstract ideas—a "third order" that mediates between the two.

Post-structuralist authors all present different critiques of structuralism, but common themes include the rejection of the self-sufficiency of the structures that Structuralism posits and an interrogation of the binary oppositions that constitute those structures. Writers whose work is often characterised as post-structuralist include Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Judith Butler, Jean Baudrillard and Julia Kristeva, although many theorists who have been called "post-structuralist" have rejected the label.

Existential phenomenology is a significant influence; Colin Davis has argued that Post-structuralists might just as accurately be called "post-phenomenologists".

Post-structuralist philosophers like Derrida and Foucault did not form a self-conscious group, but each responded to the traditions of phenomenology and Structuralism. The phenomenological idea that knowledge could be centred on the human knower is rejected by Structuralism, which seeks what it asserts to be a more secure foundation for knowledge. In phenomenology, this foundation is experience itself; in Structuralism, knowledge is founded on the "structures" that make experience possible: concepts, and language or signs. By contrast, Post-structuralism argues that founding knowledge either on pure experience (phenomenology) or systematic structures (Structuralism) is impossible. This impossibility was not meant as a failure or loss, but rather as a cause for "celebration and liberation."

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