Structuralism: What it is and What Are Its Key Ideas

Structuralism is a theoretical movement that began in France in the mid-60s, especially in the area of ​​human and social sciences. The works that are grouped under the name “Structuralism” are characterized by considering that language has a key function in the development of human activity and its functions.

This movement has had important repercussions at a theoretical and practical level in disciplines such as linguistics, sociology, anthropology and philosophy. Next we will review the main ideas of Structuralism and how it has impacted the social sciences.

What is Structuralism?

Structuralism is a theoretical and methodological approach that states that in every sociocultural system there is a series of structures (forms of organization) that condition or determine everything that happens within said system.

Thus, what Structuralism specifically studies are these structures, however, from this it becomes inevitable to analyze the connection between them, that is, the how they shape different sociocultural systems and human activity

Language as structure

Although Structuralism is a movement that has a more or less specific history, the term “structuralist” can be applied to any analysis that emphasizes the structures underlying a phenomenon, and their relationships. That is, it can be considered as structuralist any school of social sciences that prioritizes order rather than action (Theodore 2018).

Although many of its contributions are quite complex, we can summarize three ideas that help us understand some key approaches to Structuralism applied in the social sciences.

1. Every system is made up of structures

A structure is a way of organizing the parts of a whole, including all of its relationships. For Structuralism, these ways of organizing (structures) They are what produces meaning in human, social and cultural activity; Therefore, its properties are fundamentally linguistic.

In other words, structures are the set of symbols through which we create meaning. They are the set of signifiers with which we interpret the world and relate to it.

Hence, for Structuralism, all reality has a symbolic nature, that is, It is determined by language understood as an “order of the symbolic.” It defends that different cultures, behaviors, myths and linguistic schemes that characterize them, reveal patterns common to human life.

2. This structure determines the position occupied by each element

From the previous point we derive the idea that all human activity, as well as its functions (including cognition, behavior and culture itself), are constructions, since are mediated by symbols That is, they are not natural elements, and what is more: they do not have meanings by themselves, but only make sense within the language system where they are found.

That is to say, instead of us speaking a language, it is the language that speaks to us (determines how we will understand and act in the world). For this reason, Structuralism is importantly related to semiotics (the study of signs, symbols, communication and the creation of meaning).

3. Structures are what is found beneath the apparent

If through social science research we understand structures, then we will also understand why or how a given human and sociocultural activity occurs.

That is to say, Structuralism As an interpretive method, it tries to pay attention to the internal structures of cultural elements or rather, tries to understand the structures that delimit or enable the existence of said elements.

Society and culture are not simply a set of physical elements, nor are they events with their own meaning, but rather they are elements that acquire significance.

So, it is the process of acquiring significance that we must understand when doing social science research. Thus, Structuralism marks an important methodological distinction between the natural sciences and the human and social sciences

The latter even moved towards understanding individual experience. For this reason, structuralism was also positioned as a reaction to phenomenology, since it considers that deep experiences are nothing more than an effect of structures that are not experiential in themselves.

Some key authors

One of the most important antecedents for the development of Structuralism is Ferdinand de Saussure, father of semiotics since as we have seen, Structuralism takes up a large part of its postulates to understand human activity.

However, the works of the French anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the psychologist Jean Piaget, the linguistic philosopher Noam Chomsky, the linguist Roman Jakobson, the Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser, the literary Roland Barthes among others are considered recent pioneers of Structuralism.

More recently, and in a thin line between structuralism and post-structuralism, and even after having denied his affiliation to said movements, the philosophers Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida stand out as well as the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan.

Reductionist bias and other criticisms

Structuralism has been criticized because by considering that structures are what determine human life, it frequently leaves aside autonomy and the possibility of individual agency. That is to say, it can fall into reductionist and deterministic positions regarding human activity or experience.

Related to the above, the Argentine epistemologist Mario Bunge says that structures are themselves sets of relationships do not exist without this, therefore, they cannot be studied as elements in themselves.

Being properties of objects, structures always belong to a system and cannot be studied separately from that system or the individual, as an entity with its own existence.