Jacques Derrida, Structuralist?

Reading Given, Post #8

Is Jacques Derrida a structuralist, and is Given Time a work of structuralism? An indication of how these questions might be answered is given by Gilles Deleuze in his essay “How do we Recognise Structuralism.” (1972)

Structuralism emerges from the study of language, i.e. linguistics, as Deleuze says, “language is the only thing that can properly be said to have structure.” Following its emergence, structuralism extends into the work of diverse writers and domains: Levi-Strauss and anthropology, Lacan and psychoanalysis, Foucault and epistemology, Althusser and Marxism, etc.

Deleuze relates that we, others, and things are structured according to language. When we speak, it is our unconscious speaking; bodies speak through their symptoms, the outer show of their inner impulses; things speak through the silent discourse of signs, their discernible qualities.

Deleuze’s essay seeks to discern “formal criteria of recognition,” fundamental properties of structuralism applicable in many domains, by which the cited authors recognise the language proper to their domain, and, by which, we recognise them as structuralists. He does this by setting out seven criteria by which structures can be recognised.

• First Criterion: The Symbolic
• Second Criterion: Local or Positional
• Third Criterion: The Differential and the Singular
• Fourth Criterion: The Differentiator, Differenciation
• Fifth Criterion: Serial
• Sixth Criterion: The Empty Square
• Seventh Criterion: From Subject to Practice

Derek Hampson