Collection of Notes on Structuralism and Poststructuralism
Just a collection of notes for my class on Structuralism and Poststructuralism, taken in the Fall semester of 2023. A review guide for myself.
Ferdinand de Saussure
In the Cratylus, Plato presents in a dialogical form the conflict between two ways of conceiving language: naturalism and conventionalism. The former asserts that there is a necessary (natural) continuation between - in Saussure´s terms - the signifier and the signified, while the later affirms the arbitrary character of this relation.
Saussure assumes the conventionalist position, i.e., that the relation between the components of a sign, the signifier (word-image/representation) and the signified (concept), are not natural but arbitrary. Exempli gratia, the phonetic image (phonic sequence) “apple” holds no necessary connection with the concept of an apple. To assert this discontinuity, Saussure mentions the existence of multiple languages: the Spanish árbol holds no phonetic connection with the English tree.
This conventionalist approach follows Saussure´s general program of scientific delimitation regarding the field of linguistics. Saussure wants to present linguistics as a self-referential field that operates independently from other sciences, and naturalism presents an external subordination of linguistics to foreign forces such as the assumed continuation between phonetic constructions and objects. In this sense, Saussure affirms a discontinuous epistemology, which explains his objections to the identification between “proper linguistics” and “external linguistics,” such as ethnological linguistics, social psychology, or historical linguistics: these disciplines only explain the indirect changes in language but not the internal mechanisms of language.
In order to effectively offer a precise and unitary demarcation of linguistics, Saussere presents language as a semiological relation: the sign is then the mechanism that formally encloses the circular relations of language. Consequently, Saussure defines language as a sum of signs (unity between word-image and concept) stored in the minds of a linguistic community. This social aspect of language explains its internal changes: it is in the combinatory forces of time and sociality where linguistic mutability takes place. In this sense, Saussure explains linguistic change through linguistic social mechanisms, maintaining then the irreducible character of language.
Simultaneously, Saussure argued that language is both mutable and immutable, which corresponds to the two disciplines related to linguistics: evolutive linguistics and static linguistics. Saussure, as a thinker of discontinuities, asserts two scientific irreducible methodologies related to each realm: diachrony is subject to mutability while synchrony is subject to immutability. Diachronic perspectives emphasize the evolution of a sign in time while synchronic ones make a temporal cut, its orientation is towards the object as it is.
Saussure asserts that this methodological distinction is necessary because language, just like economics, is a realm of pure values, i.e., of negative relations rather than substances. Again, the conventional (arbitrary) nature of the sign plays a huge role in the delimitation of linguistics as a field. Because the process of signification is not merely a nominative (name-giving) operation, but a relation between the signified and the signifier, value is then introduced as the third term that relates the two through difference (negativity). For instance, the relation between the physical phenomena of fire and the subsequent phenomena of smoke is not “systematic”: it requires no difference in order to assert it and it involves empirical positivity. In contrast, linguistic signs are defined through not-being: a dog is a not-cat, and the word dog implies a different phoneme than cat: d is a not-c.
Nonetheless, Saussure argues that there is an effective linguistic identity (positivity): the totality of a sign is a substance (regardless if language is in a state of pure formal negativity), it exists by itself, with the potential of isolating it individually for theoretical purposes. Again, the conventionality of language does not imply a total subjective liberality in terms of changes: languages are already given to us in media res and are an independent system that precedes us.
Émile Benveniste
In Problems of General Linguistics, Émile Benveniste takes up the baton of Ferdinand de Saussure in order to further delimitate the discipline of linguistics. The general program of Benveniste here is to anchor the theoretical gear of Saussure's “structural/systemic linguistics,” which entails additional demarcations, categorizations, and theoretical critiques or assertions of the initial theses of the Saussurean thought.
The most radical critique of Benveniste towards Saussure pertains to the nature of the sign, i.e., whether the relationships between the signifier and the signified is natural (continuous) or arbitrary (discontinuous). In this case, Benveniste makes an eloquent critique of epistemological dimensions to Saussure's structural programmatic principle: to assert that the word-image and the concept is arbitrary implies taking the perspective of a supra-categorical being, i.e., an eye of God perspective. Language and signs are given in media res to the linguistic community, which (apparently) nullifies Saussure´s claims. Simultaneously, there must be a logical continuity between the signifier and the signified, otherwise the identity between language and thought would be abolished. The signifier and the signified, language and thought, are co-substantial, one needs the other to be operative and vise-versa, and they can´t be hypostasized. This natural continuity is necessary as it maintains the unity (identity) of the sign, while concomitantly holding the negative necessary connections among them. In this sense, while Saussure holds the arbitrariness of the sign as the structuring principle of his linguistic system, Benveniste asserts that systems require identities and necessities in order to have some consistency. Notice that Benveniste is not attacking Saussure´s conventionalism: he is simply adding another layer by affirming the internal identity of the sign. Therefore, the unity is not between the sign and the external “thing”; language is not a nominative process, the necessity appears then between the signified and signifier.
The assertion that language and thought are intertwined allows Benveniste to critique Western´s traditional metaphysics, while simultaneously establishing the demarcation between sciences and linguistic structures. Benveniste takes the ten Aristotelian categories and predicates of being and reduces them succinctly to grammatical relations: each condition is simply “a conceptual projection of a given linguistic state.” For instance, “being” corresponds to the Greek verb “to be,” which participates in a plurality of grammatical, nominal, and logical functions, i.e., it is just as extensive and substantive as Aristotle´s ousía. In this sense Benveniste states that “the framework of thought [...] are only categories of language,” echoing Wittgenstein's assertion that philosophical problems are pseudo-problems, mere linguistic misunderstandings. Simultaneously, Benveniste avoids indulging in some kind of relativism when comparing the structures of language with the scientific method: language is structural, relational, and categorical, in contrast science is “dynamic” and “virtual.” Positive sciences are not structures, and their facts are independent from linguistic structures.
Then, Benveniste proceeds to tackle the question of psychoanalysis from a structuralist perspective. In this case, Benveniste both includes and delimitates the field of linguistics vis a vis that of psychoanalysis. For the purposes of this essay, discussing the delimitations is more appropriate: Benveniste here establishes a strong categorical distinction between the realm of dreams and the realm of language: against Freud´s suggestion that dreams might explain the nature of the so-called “primitive languages,” Benveniste affirms that language is a structure that obeys logical rules, returning then to Aristotle: contradiction is not permissible in language, as opposed to dreams that allow images to appear simultaneously in the same space. These demarcations are sustained under binarism: rational/irrational, universal/individual, linguistic/supra-infra(linguistic), negation/repression, etc, and dealing with them would imply perhaps an unnecessary extension of this essay.
Then, Benveniste delimitates both the idea of structuralism and the discipline of linguistics. First, Benveniste talks diachronically about the history of the term, and ends up establishing a distinction between structures and systems. Systems, i.e., negative relations, are contained in structures, which are the arrangement of those systematic negative relations. In this sense, structures operate as networks of dependences, of parts which affect one another reciprocally and relate to each other negatively. Consequently, structures are first-order webs while systems are second-order webs. Lastly, Benveniste sets up the two realms of linguistics: semiotics and semantics, again, this distinction is sustained under binarism: meaning/identity, recognition/understanding, language/parole, internal/external, and so on.
Claude Lévi-Strauss
In Structural Anthropology (1958), Claude Lévi-Strauss tries to scientifically delimit the field of anthropology, while simultaneously offering methodological clues regarding the anthropological practice. In order to establish this disciplinary operation, Lévi-Strauss translates the findings of structural linguistics into anthropology, particularly the epistemological substratum that lies under Saussure's Course of General Linguistics.
Lévi-Strauss then argues that linguistics holds the first prize in terms of methodology: it lacks the subjective burden that many of the other social sciences have. In linguistics there is no coupling between “the observer with the observed phenomenon”: it permits then a sense of universality. The object of linguistics, language, operates unconsciously: it is a social creation that nonetheless exists independently from the subject. The linguist´s knowledge of language does not affect the internal constitution of the linguistic phenomenon: the operations of the linguist have an independent nature because the object of his inquiry is independent, not besmirched by the senses or existence of the investigator.
The Saussurian idea of language as an independent object of the mind allows Lévi-Strauss to assert the formal principle of structure, which in turn has major methodological consequences. Structures are not empirical realities but formal ones. The confusion between the two is methodologically problematic: it invites reductionist approaches such as the naturalism of Radcliffe-Brown for explaining kinship, and the psychologist explanations of Durkheim regardings myths. Consequently, blurring the lines between the formal and the empirical implies the abolition of the internal elements of structure, which operate as an internally negative self-referential system.
Simultaneously, Lévi-Strauss' orientation towards the formal explains his representational view of science. Because structures are not empirical but formal, models are then elevated as one of the main methodological tools to explain the nebulous nature of empirical data. There is then a discontinuity between the map and the territory, yet the map must have a sense of referentiality regarding the analyzed reality, i.e., “the best model will always be that which is true.” These models are themselves structural, which goes back to one of the qualities that allows linguistics to be a proper science: its systemic character. Systems are negative relations between elements: they lack substantiality, and they function as a swarm, to use Saussure´s terms, of pure values and forms.
Lastly, this formality permits the recognition of certain patterns, of laws with universal value, consolidating linguistics as the first prize in terms of methodology among social sciences. Yet, although Lévi-Strauss wants to transpose the methods of structural linguistics to anthropology, he still warns the readers and investigators to not have a “literal adherence” to the linguistic method. Anthropological systems are not merely relations of terminology (vocabulary), but also relations of attitudes (social) .
The connection between the two is dynamic, one of interdependence where continuities and discontinuities occur, as opposed to Radcliffe-Brown views that asserted the linear continuation between the two. Confusing both dimensions leaves the door open to theories that lack explanatory power, mainly because it is not possible to derive functions from terminological systems alone, or to derive relational mechanisms from just systems of attitudes. Thus “there is a profound difference between the system of terminology and the system of attitudes.” Lévi-Strauss shows this interconnection in his analysis of avuncular relationships, affirming in the process that kinship relations are in themselves representations, not actual objective connections of consanguinity.
Ultimately, just like Saussure and Benveniste, Leví-Strauss tries to delimitate a certain scientific field, i.e., to give a rational robustness to a discipline. In the case of Lévi-Strauss, this discipline was that of anthropology, and his general program is the application of the methodological and epistemological findings of structural linguistics to anthropology. Kinship systems and myths are now structures: negative relations between terms, abolishing in the process any sense of substance/essence from anthropological inquiries. These structures are modelic, not empiric, and therefore pure formal relations that are, more or less, independent and unconscious mental representations of a community: representations that operate in a certain sense as universal variables with general laws embedded into the structural logic of their systems.
Roland Barthes
Epistemological Remarks: History and Structure
One of Roland Barthes´ first theoretical operations in Myth Today is to analytically delimitate the field of the myth. In this case, Barthes´ tackles the common polemic between structure and history, which bifurcates into a series of binarisms such as form/content, map/territory or system/origin, that defined the epistemological debate regarding the social sciences after the advent of structuralism during the second half of the 20th-century.
Here Barthes argues against Zhadanov´s criticisms of “formalism” by asserting the necessity of analysis, i.e., to make methodological cuts when scientifically investigating a subject. Simultaneously, Barthes asserts that historical criticism should not be opposed to structuralism, but that both methodologies, citing Engels, should be intertwined in order to achieve a dialectical sense of interpretative completeness. In fact, the mythical phenomena affirms this correspondence between history and form as it pertains both from structure as a semiological structure and ideology, as a historically inscribed occurrence.
Myth as a Second-Order Semiological System
Barthes defines myth as a second-order semiological system. In this sense, myth emerges from first-order semiological systems, which Barthes refers to as the “language object,” creating in the process new associations and relations. The language object consists of the mere Saussurean definition of the linguistic sign, i.e., the unity between the signified and the signifier. Simultaneously, the myth also consists of a signifier, a signified, and a sign. Yet, Barthes refers to them differently for purposes of clarity: the mythical signifier is the form, the signified the concept, and then he refers to the mythical sign in toto as signification.
The exemplary semiological relation that Barthes posits in order to illustrate the distinct function of each element in the mythical sign is that of the Black soldier saluting the French flag in the cover of the Paris-Match. (see image 1.1) In this case, the mythical signifier consists of the visual fact, i.e., the Black soldier saluting the tricolour. For Barthes this signifier has a dual component: meaning and form. Its meaning derives from the initial language object, and the function of the form is to empty out the historicity/meaning (the individual story of the Black soldier) of that first-order sign. Consequently, the form appears as virginal, ready to get filled in by the concept, the signified. Then the concept introduces an intention, a new artificial meaning, the direction that the myth-consumer follows, which in the case of the saluting Black is the idea of French coloniality. The myth then cannibalizes the linguistic sign, it devoids language from its meaning to violently re-introduce an artificial sense into this mythical meta-language.
Lastly, the next operation pertains to signification, which consolidates the correspondence between structure and history in the figure of the myth. In this case, the myth naturalizes its own historicity, conceptually factualizing and reifying its intention. The historically contingent becomes an essence: French imperialism is now eternal. This is the ideological shift inherent to any mythification process: the transition from antiphysis to pseudophysis, from the denial of History to the eternalization of a historically punctual constellation of powers.
Social Critique: The Bourgeoisie and the depolitized Myth
This mixture in myth of both structure and ideology compels Barthes to make a social analysis/critique of 20th-century bourgeois ideology. In fact, Barthes sees in myth the main functioning mechanism of the bourgeois hegemonic power. It is through myth that the cultural norms of the bourgeoisie eternalize themselves, making their socio-historical circumstances sempiternal, one that absorbs everything while politically neutralizing it. In Barthes, ideology, i.e., naturalization, opposes contingency: it posits itself against history in order to reify its social order. Furthermore, naturalization entails political neutralization, a hypostatization of the present, which cancels the possibility of making the world, of the Prometheic nature of humanity. Ideology serves a sedative function, one that eliminates the possibility of action inherent to the nature of humans as historical animals, as subjects who make and transform their world.
Louis Althusser
Althusser's oeuvre has been characterized as "structuralist." Yet, this classification is controversial, or at the very least, remains a subject of debate. For example, British feminist philosopher Alison Assist contends in her work titled "Althusser and Structuralism" that Althusser's synthesis of Marxism and Structuralism is, in fact, chimerical in nature. According to her analysis, when Althusser aligns himself with the Marxist perspective, he is essentially engaged in structuralism, while conversely, when he adopts a structuralist stance, he is no longer adhering to the principles of Marxism.
While lacking the epistemological background in Marxism and structuralism to definitively validate or refute A. Assist's views, I do, however, see a distinct tension existing between these two theoretical frameworks. This tension is one that Althusser tries to mitigate by delineating a clear demarcation between the "young" and "old" Marx. Indeed, Althusser's aspirations for scientificity are, to a certain extent, intertwined with his inclination to demarcate Marx into distinct generational phases. On the one hand, he introduces the notion of a historical-idealist "young Marx" in contrast to the scientific-materialist "old Marx," as represented in Marx's magnum opus, “The Capital.”
An illustration of this tension is discernible in Althusser's examination of ideology. In this context, Althusser introduces a bifurcation in the conceptual analysis of ideology by positing that it possesses both historical and non-historical dimensions. It is historical, as he contends, due to the fact that "ideologies have a history of their own", signifying their evolution and development over time. Simultaneously, it is a-historical, as the operational mechanisms and structural attributes of ideology transcend considerations of historical context, therefore emphasizing their enduring and timeless nature.
Nonetheless, diverging from the viewpoint of the "young Marx" elucidated in the "German Ideology," Althusser's assertion that ideology also lacks a history does not exclusively imply a negative thesis. That is, it does not imply that ideology is merely an illusory construct deriving from mere power relations. Rather, ideology is a structure with its own autonomous functioning. This generational bifurcation is certainly an expression of Althusser's structuralist impetus: if ideology is a structure i.e,. a system of enclosed relations, this means it is subject of synchronic and not exclusively diachronic analysis.
The "Marxist non-Marxism" of the young Marx thus remains in the realm of historicism, of diachrony. It primarily stays in the descriptive phase of theory that interprets ideology as a product of class struggle (mere history) rather than a self-contained structural entity. In contrast, Marxism proper, that is, the theories and practices of old Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao according to Althusser, are already structuralist. Althusser's generational rupture of Marx hinges on this foundation: the Marx expounded in Capital attains scientific status by virtue of his alignment with structuralism. This is how Althusser addressed the epistemological conflict between history and structure, a conflict that significantly shaped the debates within the social sciences during the latter half of the 20th century.
Furthermore, this conflict between historicism and structuralism relates to Althusser's epistemological distinction between theory and description. Althusser delineates this distinction through his examination of Marx's topographical depiction of the base and the superstructure. Althusser contends that Marx's initial representational model remains within the realm of description, focused on recalling content, while it falls short in showing the underlying mechanisms behind this operation, that is, the structures. Descriptions, even when they take on a representational form, are situated within the domain of empiricism and history, whereas theory is inherently structural in nature.
In this differentiation, one can see echoes of Claude Levi-Strauss's project to scientifically delineate the extension of structuralism into the realm of anthropology. Both Althusser and Levi-Strauss reject the reduction of models to mere empirical descriptors, while simultaneously adhering to a representationalist conception of science that incorporates a division between the modelic (formal) and the empirical.
Finally, it is important to highlight how both authors incorporate the notion of the unconscious into their respective projects. For Lévi-Strauss, the unconscious connects to Saussurian's principle of the immutability of linguistic structures, positing that individual agents cannot alter the system, thus enabling the scientific analysis of semiological systems. In Althusser's framework, the unconscious aligns with Freud's. Ideology, akin to Freud's unconscious, is portrayed as being atemporal and ahistorical precisely because it is a structure.
Deleuze: How Do We Recognize Structuralism?
Plato's Parmenides represents a rare and notable instance of self-criticism in the history of Philosophy. Within this dialogue, a youthful Socrates grapples with Parmenides, who systematically challenges the Socratic postulation of Forms. Parmenides articulates two counter-arguments pertaining to the participation of Forms in the empirical realm, evoking resonances with Deleuze's concept of "actualization" as delineated in “How Do We Recognize Structuralism?" In this context, Parmenides posits a bifurcated schema of participation: firstly, the conceptual assimilation of ideas with entities as integral wholes, and secondly, the involvement of ideas in entities as constituent parts. In each scenario, the Form undergoes a process of divisibility, thus effectuating a dialectical subversion of the Socratic-Platonic paradigm that posits the indivisibility of ideas.
In “How Do We Recognize Structuralism,” Deleuze delineates an analogous question while examining the fourth criterion of structuralism, i.e., the Differentiator [and] Differentiation. Analogous since structures, despite their formal nature, lack indivisibility and essentiality. The ontic status of structures diverges significantly from Platonic forms: the existence of structures resides within a realm of virtuality devoid of actuality, and in an ideality that is not abstract. Conversely, Plato adheres to a metaphysical dualism in which the formal realm represents the ultimate reality, while the sensible domain is relegated to the status of a mere mimetic simulacrum, reflecting the eidetic.
This process of actualization, as elucidated by Deleuze, follows a distinct paradigm: structural incarnation or materialization does not unfold in its entirety. Structures undergo a partial actualization rather than manifesting in their entirety. For instance, “langue” is discernible from a specific language, with the former representing the total structure and the latter operating as a sub-structure. Deleuze characterizes this transition from structure to sub-structure as a process of differentiation, signifying that the entire structure, despite inherently comprising differences, remains undifferentiated until it undergoes actualization into sub-structures.
The differentiation-actualization of structures unfolds through two distinct facets: differential relations actualize themselves as species, and singularities incarnate as parts. Differential relations constitute a component of structure, delineating patterns and interrelations among the singularities or constituent parts within those structures. For instance, in kinship structures, the kinship phoneme “father” (singularity) does not exist independently from other singularities such as mother, son, daughter, or uncle. Deleuze uniformly employs the terms "actualization" and "materialization" to denote this process, underscoring the concept of the materiality of structures.
Moreover, within the process of actualization, a distinction emerges between the structuralism elucidated by Deleuze and other variants, such as that articulated by Claude Lévi-Strauss. In Lévi-Strauss's structuralism, structures function as representational models of empirical circumstances, akin to maps corresponding to territories. In contrast (and I stand open to correction), Deleuze's structuralism posits that structures materialize within empirical realities or even within sub-formal actualities. Thus, it becomes evident why Deleuze characterizes Levi-Strauss as a positivist, given his representationalist perspective on structures, resembling Aristotelian realism that delineates a separation between matter and form.
Now, if Lévi-Strauss aligns with an Aristotelian perspective, Deleuze, by contrast, can be characterized as a Platonist. In Deleuze's framework, structures incarnate in the domain of the actual. Let's recall the symbolism found in Raphael's painting 'The School of Athens,' where Plato is depicted pointing upward, signifying the transcendental realm, while Aristotle's gesture directs attention to the tangible 'here.' Deleuze's philosophical stance resonates more closely with the Platonic emphasis on incarnation than the realist views of Aristotle.
Giorgio Agamben
In What is an Apparatus?, Giorgio Agamben offers an analysis of contemporary modes of governance, i.e., processes of subject construction and negation during the stage of late capitalism. He approaches this inquiry through the lens of the Foucauldian operational concept of the apparatus. In this instance, Agamben initiates his investigation by adhering to Epictetus's principle of initium doctrinae sit consideratio nominis, considering then the term "apparatus."
Agamben commences this terminological investigation by establishing connections between the concept of the apparatus and Hegel's conceptualization of positivity, association facilitated through the intermediary role of Foucault's professor, Jean Hypollite. Hegelian positivity, exemplified in the dichotomy between positive religion and natural religion, entails a system of regulations and rituals—essentially, an external framework delineating relations of command and obedience. This configuration bears a distinct conceptual resonance with Foucault's notion of the apparatus, construed as a mechanism of control and governance.
Then, Agamben undertakes a genealogical exploration of the term "apparatus," an exploration that warrants extensive presentation due to its etymological precision and theoretical elegance. In this instance, Agamben posits a direct and conceptual continuity between the apparatus and the theologization of the Ancient Greek idea of oikonomia, established by the Church Fathers. Originally employed to describe the administration of the household, oikonomia underwent a process of theologization as the Church Fathers utilized it to counter anti-Trinitarian notions of God.
The argument put forth by the Church Fathers unfolded as follows: God is singular concerning His substance (being), yet His administration of creation renders Him tripartite. This delineates a dichotomy between being and action, signifying that both politics and religion serve administrative functions devoid of inherent being. Later, Clement of Alexandria translated the word oikonomia into Latin as dispositio (dispositif in French, apparatus in English). Thus, the term apparatus is intricately linked to pure governance, to the administration of beings.
This administration of beings involves subjectification. In this sense, Agamben makes a tripartite distinction between two modes of beings: human beings (individual substantialities) and apparatuses (mechanisms of control). From the tension between both, a third genre emerges—that of the subject. In the logic of the apparatuses there is thus a capturing the individual beings precisely through an operation of subjectification: for each apparatus, there is, therefore, a process of human capturing, of subject-creation.
Simultaneously, processes of subjectification, in certain historical epochs, are dialectically intertwined with desubjectification. Agamben highlights the case of Confession (affirmative constructive building of subjectivity), which involves an act of penance (negation of the previous subject).
However, Agamben's analysis of apparatuses is not merely descriptive. His essay is guided by a political telos, ultimately leading him to inquire about how one can resist them. In this sense, Agamben positions the idea of profanation against the theologically oriented oikonomia, which transforms the profane into the sacred through its bifurcation between being and action. Profanation, according to Agamben, involves then the desacralizing of the sacred.
However, the outlook appears grim, as within our current capitalist system, apparatuses do not aim to subjectivize; rather, their objective is to execute a contrary operation—desubjectivization. For example, the Youtube apparatus reduces the human being to a mere number within an algorithmic sea following the logic of technical rationality, it neutralizes them. This process of desubjectivization consequently entails a de-politicization. The contemporary non-subject thus becomes a sterile and impolitical entity—a passive individual sacrificing resistance for a comfortable existence that apparatuses readily provide.
Deleuze and Guattari
The majority of members within the so-called "poststructuralist school," including Deleuze and Guattari, held reservations regarding this classification. Such skepticism is, on the other hand, quite natural, given that this exercise of academic disciplining finds its origins in the Anglo-American reception of these theories rather than in the French (and not-so-French) intellectual traditions themselves. Therefore, it would be more appropriate to describe these authors in terms of general orientations or gestures rather than to schematize them into generic terms.
In the case of Deleuze and Guattari, one can see the unfolding of an anti-structuralist gesture in the idea of the desiring-machine. This opposition pertains to the characterization of desiring-machine as a productive non-representational force. Desiring-machines do not represent desire, as in the Oedipal apparatus, nor does it serve as a model that corresponds to a (real) “thing”. Instead, it operates as a force that produces and circulates desire, associated with continual processes of becoming and the breaking down of territorial boundaries. Thus, given that the desire-machine is productive rather than modelic, it stands in contrast to the structuralist understanding of the bifurcation between form and content. A paradigmatic example -in its more positivist expression- illustrating this methodological distinction is Claude Lévi-Strauss, who asserts that structures (form) function as models representing an empirical reality (content). Lévi-Strauss argues that the confusion between these two realms entails the implosion of the scientificity of structures as independent mental objects capable of being analyzed without any subjective contamination.
Moreover, the condition of the desire-machine as a productive force suggests a strong element of vitality. This sense of vitalism is intricately linked to the heterogeneous nature of the desire-machine, expressing an intensity of affective forces that constantly create new connections and flows within the sphere of desire. In contrast, structuralism has been characterized by a lack of mobility since the inception of the discipline. The structuralist project, as exemplified by F. Saussure, hinged on the notion of the immutability of structures, establishing a demarcation between external linguistics (dealing with change, i.e., movement) and structural linguistics. For instance, all the images and metaphors employed by Saussure to rationalize the existence of synchronic methodologies (chess board, plant, etc) necessitated a suspension of time to scientifically nullify movement. Synchronic analysis, which is the same as a structural analysis, is therefore inherently in a state of paralysis, while simultaneously being the condition of possibility behind structuralism as a scientific methodology.
At their core, structures bear a resemblance to columbariums, serving as a metaphor for the conceptual and hierarchical engagement with the world. This imagery seamlessly aligns with Nietzsche's terminology, where columbariums symbolize the structured, hierarchical, and filtered non-interaction with the world, contrasting the direct experiential engagement through sensual images. Thus, the use of mortuary metaphors proves fitting, as they capture the lifeless essence of the structural compositions. On a similar vein, Derrida succinctly posits in Force and Signification that "structures appear more clearly when content, the living energy of meaning, is neutralized," likening them to an "architecture of an uninhabited desert city." In contrast to these lifeless structures, Deleuze and Guattari derive inspiration from Nietzsche and Bergson, infusing their life-affirming philosophies into a conceptual exploration of desiring-machines in relation to structures. This life-affirming quality defines Deleuze and Guattari's anti-structuralist gesture.
Luce Irigaray
L. Irigaray, in her work Speculum of the Other Woman, mentions the term ocularcentrism to describe Freud's positions regarding female sexual development. Here, Irigaray argues that Freud's phallocentric impetus is justified through the elevation of seeing. For instance, the Girl's castration complex and the subsequent penis envy are defined by the invisibility of the clitorial, vaginal, and vulvaic aspects. In contrast, male sexuality remains within the realm of the visible, of the phallic. Thus, women have nothing, a nothing-penis, as there is nothing to be seen. In this sense, Irigaray argues that Freud sees female sexuality through a flat mirror, which simply reflects the image of masculine sexuality.
The subversion of this Freudian flat mirror serves as the basis of Irigaray's interpretative project. In this sense, Irigaray introduces the figure of the speculum, a medical instrument used to see (and therefore, remaining in the logic of visibility) the interiority of females' sexual organs. The speculum thus becomes the basis for Irigaray's subversion of the western philosophical canon from within.
Irigaray then uses the speculum to open Plato's text (wide open!), particularly the myth of the cavern in Book Seven of the Republic. Here, Irigaray shows the feminine quality of Plato's cave, one that gets ignored, invisibilized, mirroring female sexuality in general. The walls of the cave serve as the mirror to the real eidetic world, i.e., to the masculine according to Irigaray. Therefore, Plato and Freud operate similarly: the feminine (cave) has no-being in its own, but it simply reflects (in the logic of the visible) the real thing, that is, the masculine
Irigaray then establishes a connection between phallocentrism and ocularcentrism, but the theoretical justification behind this elevation of the visible remains unknown. This process, namely, the search for theoretical justification behind ocularcentrism, is found in one of Plato's minor dialogues, the Greater Hippias. In this dialogue, Socrates presses the sophist Hippias to provide a causal definition of the beautiful. Eventually, Hippias establishes a connection between the good, the beautiful, and the sensorially pleasurable, derived specifically from the senses of sight and hearing. Here lies the crux of the matter: the exclusive association between beauty with sight and hearing. Socrates justifies this hierarchy of the senses obliquely, based on the distinction between public and private senses. It is worth quoting Socrates extensively as he states:
'Yes,' he´ll say 'because anyone in the world would laugh at us if we called it not pleasant to eat but fine, or if we called a pleasant smell not pleasant but fine. And as for making love, everybody would fight us; they'd say it is most pleasant, but that one should do it, if he does it at all, where no one will see, because it is the foulest thing to be seen. (Greater Hippias, 299a)
The senses of taste, smell, and touch are relegated to a position of inferiority due to their private, non-universal nature (let us recall the Latin expression "de gustibus non est disputandum"). This aligns well with feminist theorizing about the distinction between the feminized private and the masculinized public. Here, the private represents the realm of the non-visible, the non-phallic, and therefore the feminine, while the public encompasses the visible, the phallic, and thus the masculine.
Now, it's important to note that the so-called "seven arts" (Music, Sculpture, Painting, Literature, Architecture, Performing, and Film) all primarily engage the auditory, visual, or both senses. Meanwhile, practices like perfumery or culinary arts often find themselves relegated to a non-art status. This sheds some light (pardon my ocularcentrism) on the Western delineation between what constitutes art and what does not. Behind the prioritization of the visual and the auditory over other senses lies a gendered distinction between the public and the private spheres.
Byung Chul Han
The nexus between political neutralization, ideology, and liberalism has been a focal point of discussion within radical political movements since the cultural, political, and economic ascent of the bourgeoisie. Carl Schmitt, in his work "The Essence of the Political," stands as a paradigmatic example of the link established between liberalism and the neutralization of the political. In this context, Schmitt contends that classical liberalism discursively sidesteps the question of politics through various mechanisms, namely economization, parliamentarization, and moralization, all interconnected with the friend-enemy distinction that Schmitt deems as essential to the essence of the political. Economic neutralization involves perceiving the enemy as a mere competitor, parliamentary neutralization envisions them as a debating adversary, and moral neutralization encompasses the universalist ideology of human rights. This ideology identifies the political enemy with a moral evil.
Later, Byung Chul Han, in "Psychopolitics," discusses this same process of neutralization but now by analyzing the ideological inheritor of liberalism, neoliberalism. In this case, Chul Han makes use of the Foucauldian conceptual apparatus to describe political neutralization through the neoliberal transition from alloexploitation to autoexploitation
Alloexploitation refers to the classical mode of exploitation – a bifurcation between those who obey and those who command, the exploited and the exploiters, the slaves and the masters. Chul Han argues that both sovereign and disciplinary power adhere to this externalized sense of exploitation. Sovereign power is law-driven; it enforces the law through punishments. Disciplinary power is control-driven; it exercises control over the imposition of a set of norms, thereby distinguishing the normal from the weird/queer. Both forms of power operate within a logic of subjectification, where individuals become subjects to external powers, whether through punishment or discipline.
Now, neoliberalism presents a new form of exploitation, which, in turn, changes how enmity is conceived: autoexploitation. According to Chul Han, in neoliberal regimes, exploitation is internalized, as the neoliberal non-subject becomes his own exploiter, that is, his own enemy. Their subjection is to themselves, as neoliberalism imposes a logic of optimization over the individual—a logic directed not at the body, as seen in disciplinary regimes of bio-power, but at the mind. Thus, behind the transition from alloexploitation to autoexploitation is the shift from disciplinary biopower to optimizing psychopower. From demography to psychography.
For Byung Chul Han, this new mode of domination radically changes how we conceive one of the most (if not the most) fertile grounds for political enmity (and friendship) throughout history: class struggle. In neoliberalism, the socio-ontological unit is that of the individual, not class, which implies a certain sense of community. There is an effective sense of generalized desclasamiento, not because domination has sufficed, but because it is individualized. In this sense, Byung Chul Han's analysis is connected to G. Agamben's theory of the processes of desubjectification tied to contemporary apparatuses, which give rise to identities defined by fluidity rather than concise class-based identification. Thus, we don't have bourgeois or proletariat; instead, we have self-exploitative entrepreneurs.
Then neoliberalism introduces a novel mode of political neutralization: the internalization of enmity, rendering the neoliberal non-subject impolitical. The lack of a clear identitarian delimitation makes concise and effective group identification challenging to establish, suppressing any semblance of organization-based class struggle and, thus, politics, even if relations of domination still persist. The reign of Capital still persists.
Foucault - Deleuze - Byung-Chul Han - Agamben
All fixed, fast frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned. (Marx & Engels, 1848)
In “Postscript on the Societies of Control”, Gilles Deleuze dwells on the transition from discipline to control through analysis of the spatial consequences underlying these motions. This transition refers back to Michel Foucault's lectures at the Collège de France, and his categorization of the main systems of dominance that occur in distinct societies throughout time, which should not be confused with a linear historical division, since each modulation of power often overlaps with each other. Disciplinary societies entail structured hierarchies and centralized mechanisms of administration of bodies/populations, where individuals are subjected to rules which demarcate the normal from the abnormal. In contrast, control societies shift from those hierarchical structures into somewhat decentralized networks: modulation rather than mode is the norm in this case.
Gilles Deleuze encapsulates this movement in terms of spatial relations: disciplinary societies had a tendency towards enclosure, while societies of control imply a certain openness. In the 18th and 19th centuries, factories, schools, hospitals, prisons, etc., all entailed a spatiality of enclosure with well-defined boundaries and chains of command to follow. Control societies entail the implosion of these systems: factories are replaced by corporations, and salaries, once defined by an enclosed rule of high production and low wages, are now subject to a constant state of almost gamified malleability. Furthermore, this impetus towards control over discipline is closely tied to the evolution of machines, with the computer emerging as the defining tool in control societies.
One paradigmatic case exemplifying this transition is dating: once defined by enclosed places such as restaurants, cinemas, and universities during societies of control, it is now increasingly shaped by dating apps—a gamified computerized system driven by algorithms that respond to your choices and desires, creating a reciprocal determination. This is indeed a sign of a general transition towards immateriality, of an existence defined by virtuality. Byung-Chul Han, in “Psychopolitics”, demonstrates that this shift from the enclosed to the open also signifies a change in the power dynamics of technology: from the corporeally oriented biopower of disciplinary societies to the mind-oriented psychopower of control societies.
Thus, labor politics, once defined by disciplinary enclosed spaces and identities (such as the factory and the proletarian), confronts a pressing question: how is it possible to develop class-based syndicates in non-productive economies, especially as the First World transfers its factories to the Third World? Deleuze maintains a tone of uncertainty, tinged with a certain pessimism, as unions seem like relics of a disciplinary past that is no longer in sync with the dynamics of societies of control. How can we organize self-exploitative entrepreneurs, the distinctive labor-based 'identity' of post-disciplinary societies?
Byung-Chul Han provides a response: the proletarian is dead. Societies of control, with their inclination towards internalization and immaterialism, don't rely on the foundation of class struggle. Both sovereign and disciplinary societies involve allothetic exploitation, characterized by domination from an external force. In societies of control, the struggle is within oneself, as individuals grapple with the pressure to achieve optimal performance and success. There are no longer proletariat or bourgeois; those identities have disappeared, emblematic of subjection. As Giorgio Agamben argues in “What is an Apparatus?,” we are no longer subjects but non-subjects.
Conceptual Study Guide: From Structuralism to Deconstruction
Structural Linguistics (Saussure, Benveniste, and Jackobson
The sign is the unity between the signifier and the signified. The first consists of a phonetic mental sequence (ex. æp.əl), while the latter is a conceptual image (ex. “apple”). Moreover, the signifiers are always linear, they occupy a single space in the chain that they form. The study of how signs operate is called semiology, and language, which is a sum of signs stored in the minds of a linguistic community, is a semiological relation. This storing in the mind of the linguistic community is unconscious: individual subjects can´t change it through mere voluntaristic actions, which entails one of the Saussurean principles of language: immutability. Language is then not subjective but intersubjective. Simultaneously, language is mutable: it is indefensible against any shifts regarding the relationship between the signifier and signified.
The scientific delimitation of this semiological relation, of the linguistic sign, was established by Ferdinand de Saussure in his Course of General Linguistics (1916). Here Saussure establishes the distinction of language as parole (the everyday and heterogenous spoken language) and language as langue (internalized set of rules that governed a specific language). Furthermore, Saussure asserts that the linguistic sign partakes from a sphere of pure values, that is, of negative relations rather than substances that are defined through difference: a dog is a not-cat, a tree is a not-car, etc. Yet, the linguistic sign is not defined merely by negativity, but it is also positive. The positivity of the linguistic sign consists of the identity between the signifier and the signified when taking the sign as a whole.
This unity between the sound-image and the concept holds great philosophical importance, as it affirms that language and thought are concomitant to each other: it is not possible to think without language, nor have language without thought. This is why Emile Benveniste took issue with the Saussurean principle of arbitrariness of the linguistic sign. Saussure argued that there is no continuation between the signifier and the signified, trē holds no phonetic connection with the concept “tree.” In contrast, Benveniste asserted that the arbitrariness is not in the sphere of the sign itself, as this would deny the interrelation between language and thought, but in signification, that is, the nominative process of naming an external object.
Now, because the organizational schema of linguistic signs are sustained on negative relations -systems according to Benveniste- language is then a formal connection between insubstantial signs without content that are negatively defined in opposition to other signs. The formal arrangement of these internal systematic negative relations is called a structure.
Moreover, due to the nature of language as a structure of pure formal values of terms that are negatively defined internally without any reference to externalities, it is necessary then to establish a methodological bifurcation when studying the linguistic phenomena. In this sense, Saussure posits the distinction between the synchronic and diachronic. Synchronic perspectives involve a temporal cut in time, and it studies language as it is in its immutable nature. It is completely irrelevant the story of how a position was reached when one is faced with a chess puzzle: the point is now to analyze the chessboard in its positional immanence. In contrast, diachronic methodologies make an emphasis on the evolution of linguistic phenomena, its realm is that of the mutable. For instance, historical, social, i.e., external linguistics in general are associated with diachronic orientations as they do not analyze the language formally as it is but rather in reference to external events.
Structuralism Beyond Linguistics: Anthropology and Mythology (Levi-Strauss, and Barthes)
Later, structuralism expanded to other fields of the social sciences. One of the most significant developments of this expansion was Claude Levi-Strauss in his book Structural Anthropology (1958). In this case, Levi-Strauss applies the findings of structural linguistics to the field of anthropology. This epistemological transference involved the elevation of the formal aspect behind structures as a methodologically oriented principle distinct from the actual or the empirical, akin to the distinction between the map and the territory. For instance, in the realm of social anthropology, Levi-Strauss establishes a bifurcation between social relations, i.e., the heterogeneity of social material, and social structure, which are the formal models that represent such relations. Herein, kinship, which is sustained under a system of communication (exchange of women), operates as a model that explains who can marry whom and who inherits what from whom.
Yet, Levi-Strauss asserted that the social scientist should not apply uncritically the methods of structural linguistics to the analysis of other social phenomena. Consequently, Levi-Strauss differentiated between systems of terminology, i.e., the vocabulary used to express social relations, and the systems of attitudes, which involves the social dynamics related to the preservation of group cohesiveness. Anthropological structures are then no mere linguistic systems, and there are effective discontinuities between the two. For instance, it is not possible to derive functions from terminological systems alone, or to derive relational mechanisms from just systems of attitudes. This rupture between vocabulary and affinities allowed Levi-Strauss to assert that avuncular relationships, which is the special social connection between a man and his sister´s son, and one of the structuring principles of certain kinship systems, are representations and not objectives relations of consanguinity.
Levi-Strauss identified in the figure of the myth this meta-linguistic bifurcation: myths are both parole and langue, both historical as they explain the past, and a-historical, as they present a specific pattern that can be described as timeless, structural. Concomitantly, Roland Barthes, in his Mythologies (1957), asserts a similar thesis: myth is a second-order semiological system, but with some twists. In this case, Barthes redefines myth by asserting that it emerges from a first-order semiological system, that is, the linguistic sign as defined by Saussure, which Barthes calls the language object. Consequently, the mythical sign as an emergent property of the linguistic sign, consists of the same formal elements of the former but with new purposes and functions. For instance, the signifier is now the form, while the signified is described as the concept, and lastly the sign in toto as signification.
To exemplify this tridimensional schema Barthes uses the Paris-Match cover of a Black soldier saluting the French flag. The form here consists of the mere visual image of the saluting Black adolescent, its purpose, Barthes argues, is to empty out the meaning of the language object. In this sense, the mythical signifier has two components: meaning, which invokes the historicity of the previous linguistic sign, and form, that kenotizes it. The mythical signified then gets ready to infuse the form with a new concept, a new artificial meaning, which posits a sense of intentionality (the idea of French coloniality in the case of the Black soldier). In this sense, the mythical sign cannibalizes the meaning of that initial language object, emptying it out and then filling it in with new preoccupations.
Lastly, signification pertains the transition from antiphysis to pseudophysis: the movement from the denial of History/Nature, to the reification of contingency, of the punctual and historical constellation of power that is behind the myth. The mythical sign factualizes the concept through essentialization: French imperiality now becomes an eternal factum of nature. Barthes identifies this naturalizing shift with ideology, particularly with bourgeois ideology, which opens the door of making semiology a science, not merely of signs, but of ideological critique. Furthermore, this naturalization implies, according to Barthes, a depoliticization: myth is therefore depoliticized speech, the substantialization of historical contingencies for the intentional purpose of denying the productive-active capacity of humans to be the makers of the world.
Structural Marxism (Althusser)
One of the most fruitful developments of structuralism in disciplines beyond linguistics was structural Marxism, a theoretical framework advanced by thinkers such as Maurice Godelier, Nicos Poulantzas, and Louis Althusser. The goal, as the term suggests, was to redefine Marxist concepts through the lenses of structuralism—analyzing the phenomena of capitalism through relations rather than essences and employing synchronic methodologies rather than exclusively diachronic approaches. This involved an attempt to scientifically delimit the internal mechanisms of their object of analysis, that is, an encounter with its structures.
For instance, Louis Althusser is a prime example of this movement toward a structuralist reinterpretation of Marxism. Althusser conceptualizes social formation in terms of relationships, describing it as a dynamic amalgam of relationships, practices, institutions, and ideologies that mold a society at a specific historical period. Conversely, social formations are always grounded in a dominant mode of production—an historically inscribed way of exploiting nature through a set of labor processes, representing the productive operations carried out by laboring agents. The unity between these productive agents and the means of production, which includes instruments like tools and machines, as well as raw materials, is termed the forces of production. Now, relations of production relate to the relationship between the agents of production and the non-productive agents (i.e., the proletariat and the bourgeois under the capitalist social formation).
This relationship between productive and non-productive agents enables Althusser to reaffirm the classical Marxist definition of the state as the tool through which one class dominates over another. Here Althusser originally distinguished between two mechanisms that are intrinsic to class dominance in his analysis of the nature of the state: the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA), which includes the armed forces, police, and administrative branches of government, and the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), which includes a range of institutions like the Religious Apparatus, the Family Apparatus, and the Scholastic Apparatus. The main distinction lies in the fact that the RSAs exert dominance through the deployment of violent physical means, whereas the ISAs do not rely on such strategies.
Althusser's analysis of the ISAs enabled him to identify the primary mechanism through which ideology exerts its domination—the process of subject creation known as interpellation—thus anticipating the works of M. Foucault and G. Agamben, who have also delved into the same topic. Interpellation is the ritualistic interplay between the 'you' and the 'I,' both already being ideologically inscribed constructs that subjects the individual. Ideology then serves as a producer of subjectivities, transforming individuals into subjects. Moreover, Althusser's understanding of ideology is based on the conventional structuralist methodological division between history and structure, or external and internal disciplines. According to Althusser, ideology is both historical—having a developmental trajectory of its own—and ahistorical—having an internal mechanism or structure that is independent of historical factors.
Relations of Power and Structuralism (Foucault, Deleuze, Agamben, Byung-Chul Han)
Additionally, structuralist approaches were used to characterize and examine power relations at a microphysical level, looking at how power functions in day-to-day activities, in the smallest details of social interactions, and inside institutional procedures. The microphysical and relational 'nature' of power should be overemphasized, as it underlies Michel Foucault's exploration of power and his subsequent departure from any essentialist perspective of power as a hypostasis (uppercase 'Power'), thus negating its potential for possession—a clear structuralist gesture. No single point has the exclusive right to be the center of power; instead, power is distributed across the relationships between distinct points. Therefore, there is a difference between the simple imposition of one's will over others, or force, and power.
There are then several paradigms of power. Foucault identified two: sovereign societies and disciplinary societies. Sovereign societies align with classical states, emphasizing punishment and manifesting power through territorial control. Disciplinary societies emerged in the 18th and 19th centuries, reaching their zenith in the 20th century. They are distinguished by the demarcation between the normal and the abnormal, imposing power over populations. This marks a shift towards regulating human corporeality, an impetus that Foucault called biopolitics. It is important to stress that Foucault is not creating a rigid historical paradigm in this context. Because disciplinary authority exists in sovereign societies and vice versa, disciplinary and sovereign modes overlap and are intertwined. What determines the prevalence of one over the other is the intensity of the disciplinary or sovereign mechanisms at a given historical moment.
In his Lectures at the Collège de France, Foucault started to discern, without explicitly naming it, a third modulation of governmentality, that is, control, characterized by a focus on self-governance as opposed to the external governance of sovereign or disciplinary societies. Later, Giles Deleuze, in his Postscript on the Societies of Control (1992) defined them as societies of control. Deleuze described the transition from disciplinary to control societies in terms of spatiality. Disciplinary societies are characterized by enclosed spaces (factories, hospitals, schools, etc.) that function as molds with well-defined boundaries. In contrast, societies of control involve an implosion of the once enclosed and clearly delimited spaces of the disciplinary, introducing a more ambiguous configuration.
An ambiguity that necessarily involved a transition from the materiality of the solid to the immateriality of the non-visible. Societies of control, in contrast, shift from the disciplinary focus on the corporeal to a primary emphasis on the mind. Psychopolitics is the term used by South Korean philosopher Byung-Chul Han to characterize this phenomena, which is the drive to manipulate the mind by internalization and thus psychologization of social existence. In this scenario, control societies drive individuals toward continual self-optimization and achievement, thus altering the nature of exploitation from the external domination found in sovereign and disciplinary societies to the internal self-exploitation, which is paradigmatic of neoliberal societies. This shift is not tied to a subjective intent; there is no guiding mind behind the change, and yet they all appear to be directed by a common telos. This is what Foucault referred to as the strategy without a subject.
Another relevant operational concept used by Foucault is that of the apparatus (dispositif). Foucault´s engagement with the definition of this term is rather oblique, asserting in The Confession of the Flesh (1977) that it is a heterogenous amalgamation of institutions, practices, and knowledge. Giorgio Agamben later elucidated the concept of the apparatus in his work What is an Apparatus? (2006) by conducting a philological and genealogical investigation of the term. Through this exploration, Agamben concluded that the origins of dispositif are theological, linked to a specific sense of administration and subjection. The apparatus's purpose is to subjectivize the individual, as Agamben establishes a tripartite distinction of beings: human beings (the biological individual), apparatuses, and a third genre, the subject, emerging from the tension between the other two. However, apparatuses are not solely mechanisms for creating subjects. For example, the Confession apparatus involves both a denial of the previous subject (de-subjectification) and an affirmation of a new subject. Agamben contends that in contemporary society, the dominant tendency of apparatuses is de-subjectivization, as they transform individuals into conformist seas of algorithmic information.
Structural Psychoanalysis (Lacan)
Just as Althusser 'baptized' Marx with the waters of structuralism, Lacan did the same with Freud. In this case, one of Lacan's major contributions to the development of structuralist thought was his theory of the three registers: the Real, the Imaginary, and the Symbolic. Each 'realm' represents different dimensions of human subjectivity, while being intertwined and mutually constitutive of each other. The Real pertains to the unsymbolized, eluding direct representation, language, and images. The imaginary entails the process of ego-formation, setting the stage for the constitution of individual identity. Lastly, the symbolic order relates to the structures that normatively govern human society: language and culture.
The mirror stage, constituting the institutional moment of the imaginary order and subsequent processes of subject and ego formation, implies the intervention of both imaginary and symbolic mechanisms. For instance, the infant's recognition of itself in the mirror constitutes the imaginary act of thinking of itself as a totalized and individualized complete subject—a narcissistic identification that is imaginary. The 'ego' formed through this process is an imaginary other due to its alienating nature; it does not come from the self but from the desires of others, such as the parents, and their symbolically oriented intention of imposing a sense of individualized selfhood upon the infant. This is why, for Lacan, the mirror stage entails an initial moment of misrecognition—an imaginary alienation that results in the splitting of the subject.
This image of a totalized self also functions as a desire for the infant toward the imaginary whole that the ego misrepresents, setting the stage for the idea of desire as lack. Desire operates as a subjective longing for a complete identity, which is ultimately impossible. In this sense, desire should not be confused with needs, which are tied to the organic subsistence of humans (shelter, food, etc.). These needs are learned and filtered through the actions of the big Other, that is, language, which simultaneously defines the desires and orientation of the little others (the ego and the alter-egos).
One instance of lack within the symbolic order is represented by the phallus (not to be understood as the literal biological organ, but rather as a signifier). Instead, it encapsulates the notion of symbolic castration and a desire, shared by both genders, to possess it. However, desire isn't confined solely within the barriers and boundaries of the symbolic order. Lacan, in fact, conceptualizes forms of desire that transcend the symbolic, such as that of the objet petit a. This object functions as an entirely unattainable desire, extending beyond the realms of the symbolic and imaginary orders. It serves as the desire propelling desire itself, imparting a perpetual sense of pursuit. On a parallel note, both exceeding the constraints of the symbolic order, jouissance is a term introduced by Lacan to articulate a surplus pleasure that surpasses the symbolic. This surplus produces both pleasure and torment for the subject, much like the objet petit a.
Critique of Structuralism (Deleuze and Guattari, Irigaray, Derrida)
a) Deleuze and Guattari
The identification of voids in structuralist thought supported the schizo-philosophical endeavor of Deleuze and Guattari in Anti-Oedipus (1972) and A Thousand Plateaus (1980). The immobilism that structuralist approaches entail was the target of this anti-structuralist gesture. It is important to remember that F. Saussure, the father of structuralism, used synchronic methodologies—which require a temporal cut—to support the scientific validity of his language program. This is effectively a state of paralysis. Concurrently, structuralism demonstrated a formalistic impulse that materialized as representationalist epistemologies, dividing the world into two categories: form and matter. Form stood for the structural element, while matter represented history and substance, or, to put it briefly, life.
That representationalist lifelessness permeates structural psychoanalysis as a whole. In this framework, desire is depicted as lack, and the Oedipal elements function precisely as representations of desire. In contrast, Deleuze and Guattari introduce the concept of the desiring-machine: a desire which serves as a productive force of libidinal energy, avoiding any pretension of formal representation. Unlike a concept corresponding to a thing, it is then directly productive rather than modelic, and thus it operates in a plane of immanence in opposition to the stiff formal transcendentality of structures. The desiring-machine is a life force of heterogeneous energy that breaks the territorial boundaries of structures, operating then under the logic of deterritorialization, i.e., an anti-hierarchical impetus of pure immanence. In contrast reterritorialization involves the return to structures, which entails the previously mentioned bifurcation between the formal that is beyond the material.
Desiring-machines are integral to the same anti-Oedipal semantic chain as assemblages. Assemblages, defined as arrangements or configurations of diverse elements and parts, interact in a non-hierarchical and dynamic manner, without any reference to fixed structures. Both desiring-machines and assemblages align with Deleuze and Guattari's rhizomatic thinking (see image 6.1), which is non-hierarchical and heterogeneous. This perspective allows for multiple entry points and a pluralistic network of connections, without privileging one relation over others. In contrast, arborescent thinking entails systematic vertical hierarchies with delimited points of entry and enclosure.
b) Luce Irigaray
The critical program of Luce Irigaray is defined by a virulent attack from a feminist perspective against phallocentrism (the centering of the masculine against the feminine) in structuralism. To achieve this, Irigaray employs a strategic mimicry of the androcentric philosophical tradition and uses its own terms against it through the exercise of écriture féminine. One instance of this critical move is Irigaray's metaphoric use of the speculum, a medical instrument used to see the insides of a woman's reproductive organs, which Irigaray uses to 'open' androcentric discourse.
The speculum serves as a critical metaphor, pointing to the regime of visibility that underlies the phallocentric impetus of thinkers like Freud, and, by extension, Lacan. For instance, in traditional psychoanalysis, the girl's castration complex and her subsequent penis envy are sustained under the assumption that female genitalia are non-visible, in contrast to that of males. Both Freud and Lacan end up interpreting women's sexualities through the lens of men's sexuality, thereby rendering women invisible. Under this ocularcentric framework, women are confined to a supportive role, merely serving as flat mirrors that reflect the phallic and thus visible sexuality of men.
The supportive role assigned to women is deeply ingrained in the apparatuses of Western philosophy. This is precisely what Irigaray identified in Aristotle and his conceptualization of matter as a receptacle (khora), effectively equating it with a woman. Femininity, relegated to a mere supportive role, is stripped of being, standing in stark contrast to the active masculine principle. This hierarchical relationship, defining the patriarchal social order, positions women as supportive alibis for the interactions among men—a fraternal order that Irigaray characterizes as hom(m)osexuality, emphasizing the sameness among men. The exchange of women in systems of exogamy serves as a paradigmatic example of this hom(m)osexual order. Just as commodities can be exchanged based on their commonality in labor power, women become exchangeable due to the effects that man's labor power has on them.
c) Derrida
In his Letter to a Japanese Friend (1983), Jacques Derrida describes deconstruction in an elusive and negative manner, affirming what deconstruction is not. Deconstruction, according to Derrida, is not a critique or an analysis, as both these concepts imply a return to some origin, a notion that deconstruction critiques. Moreover, deconstruction is not an application of a method, as that would reduce it to an act applied to something passive. Instead, Derrida asserts that deconstruction simply happens. Deconstruction is 'something' that unfolds, an occurrence without intentionality or determination. Thus, deconstruction is not a practice 'activated' by subjects; they cannot assign the deconstruction of something to themselves. Any call 'to deconstruct' an object x—like themes, books, genders, ideas, or apparatuses in general—misses the point of deconstruction, which presents a rupture of the traditional philosophemes between activity/passivity, presence/absence, structure/genesis, or form/matter.
Deconstruction then 'operates' as a destabilizing force of the traditional structures of thought. For instance, one of the terms that are part of the same chain of signification of deconstruction is différance, which plays a destabilizing role in terms of structures. According to Derrida, différance is a "neographism", not a neologism because différance does not refer back to logos. In French, 'difference' is written as 'différence.' Thus, différance (with a) is a homophone—a word that has the same pronunciation but is written differently. Derrida then makes of différance both a principle of deferring and a principle of difference: a differentiation that occurs through a deferral. To give an example, the binary between form and matter (essential for structuralist methodologies and epistemologies) is produced by différance, but form is not merely pure form but deferred matter, just like matter is deferred form. Therefore, the traditional binary oppositions are in a state of contamination and instability: the difference is only a difference in time.