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[[Structuralism]], a major current of [[thought ]] in the second half of the twentieth century, developed in France from the 1960s onward in reaction to [[existentialism ]] and [[humanism]]. From a methodological point of view, in the [[analysis ]] and [[understanding ]] of "[[objects]]" (especially those in the [[social ]] [[sciences]]), it tended to see "[[structures]]" as pre-eminent and to see the given and its directly observable features as mere "effects." [Ed: [[Quotes ]] indicate [[jargon ]] [[terms ]] in structuralism.]

Arising from the [[linguistics ]] of Ferdinand de [[Saussure ]] and in [[particular ]] from the Prague and Moscow [[schools]], structuralism counts many representatives in various fields. There are the [[linguist ]] Roman [[Jakobson]], the socioethnologist Claude Lévi-[[Strauss]], the [[philosopher ]] and archeologist of [[knowledge ]] Michel [[Foucault]], the reinterpreter of [[Marxism ]] Louis [[Althusser]], the writers for the periodical Tel Quel, the [[literary ]] critic Roland [[Barthes]], and the [[psychoanalyst ]] Jacques [[Lacan]].

Gilles [[Deleuze]], in his article "Á quoi reconnaît-on le structuralisme?" (How to recognize structuralism; 1973), tried to enumerate "[[formal ]] criteria" for recognizing what is [[structuralist]], in particular, as they apply to the field of [[psychoanalysis]]. The criteria are the following:

# The [[symbolic]], which proceeds from a [[rejection ]] of the mere interplay of opposition and complementarity between the [[real ]] and the [[imaginary ]] (Lacan, 1974-1975). In Deleuze's view, [[Freud ]] can be [[interpreted ]] on the basis of two principles: "the [[reality ]] [[principle]], with its force of disappointment, and the [[pleasure ]] principle, with its [[power ]] of [[hallucinatory ]] [[satisfaction]]," he writes. Carl Gustav [[Jung ]] and Gaston Bachelard take the perspective of the "transcendent [[unity ]] and borderline tension" of the two principles. [[The symbolic]], a [[structure ]] that has [[nothing ]] to do with perceptible forms ([[gestalts ]] and [[figures ]] of the [[imagination]]) or with any intelligible [[essence]], must be [[understood ]] in [[Louis Althusser]]'s fashion, "as the production of an original and specific [[theoretical ]] [[object]]."# Localization and positioning. Any element of a structure has neither extrinsic designation nor intrinsic [[meaning]], and thus has only one sort of meaning, positional meaning (with no real extent nor imaginary extension). Thus, in genetic [[biology]], "genes are part of a structure insofar as they are inseparable from 'loci, ' places capable of changing their relations within the chromosome." The real [[subjects ]] or objects are thus not what "occupy the places," since they are determined in a [[topological ]] and relational way. In hisÉcrits (1966), [[Jacques Lacan ]] defines inter-[[subjectivity ]] as a symbolic [[structural ]] [[space]], that of the signifier.# The differential and the [[singular]], which bring into play the positional units that are the symbolic elements of a structure. The [[phoneme ]] shows this in an exemplary fashion, since it is a [[relationship ]] that is neither a [[thing ]] nor an imaginary, but a component of an elementary differentiation of two [[words ]] with different [[meanings ]] ("robbing" and "bobbing" differ by the phonemic relation of "r" and "b"). Singularities are assigned by the differential and produce structural particularities (as do names and attitudes for [[Lévi-Strauss]]). Lévi-Strauss uncovered "parentemes," positional units that do not [[exist ]] [[outside ]] differential relations (brother/sister, husband/wife, [[father]]/mother, [[maternal ]] uncle/sister's son). Serge Leclaire showed in "Counting with Psychoanalysis" that the "[[libidinal ]] movements" of the [[body ]] are linked to symbolic elements of the [[unconscious]], "incarnating the singularities of structure in this [[place ]] or that."# The differentiating element, the act of differentiation. "The structure is not actualized unless it differentiates itself in [[time ]] and space," and it does so by its actualization. "The two notions of multiple [[internal ]] [[temporality ]] and static ordinal genesis are, in this [[sense]], inseparable from the interplay of structures," Deleuze wrote.# The serial, in [[other ]] words, the necessary organization of symbolic elements in their differential relations by means of which a structure arranges itself into different developments that play on and through one [[another]]. For [[instance]], a social structure is organized into series: [[economic]], [[political]], juridical, etc. An operative structure has at least two series; for instance, phonemes require the second series of morphemes. In Lacan (1966), the unconscious "implies a [[development ]] in two [variable] series," as his commentaries on [[Edgar Allan Poe]]'s "The Purloined [[Letter]]" or Freud's [[case ]] of the [[Rat Man ]] (1955a [1907-1908]) show.# Finally, the empty square, which is the paradoxical element of structure. It can never be filled without [[being ]] disabled. This singular object x "is the point of convergence of the divergent series as such." It is the "handkerchief" referred to by André Green (an associate of Lacan) in his essay "Othello" (1969), which runs through all the series in the play. The empty square is the [[guarantor ]] and [[representative ]] of the [[third ]] party, "which intervenes essentially in the symbolic [[system]]." The object is always [[displaced ]] in relation to itself, "[[missing ]] from its own place" according to Lacan, without being distinguished from that place, adds Deleuze.

From Deleuze's article, it is thus clear that structuralism claims that the determinants of reality and those of [[the imaginary ]] are essentially unconscious structures, because they are in every place and at every time "covered over by their products and their effects." From this viewpoint, one can [[regard ]] the second [[Freudian ]] [[topography ]] of the [[psychic ]] [[apparatus ]] as already a structuralist [[representation ]] of the [[psyche]], since even [[consciousness]], on the plane of the ego, is an effect of the interplay of different [[agencies]]: the id, the ego itself in its different characters, and the [[superego]]. By way of contrast, Jean Piaget, in his article "La [[psychologie]]" ([[Psychology]]; 1972), characterizes psychoanalysis as a "[[complete ]] reductionism" insofar as it seeks, in his view, to reach [[mental ]] [[processes ]] by means of "the direct study of the [[contents ]] of representations and affects" and does not recognize any [[autonomy ]] of the ego (Heinz [[Hartmann]]) "free of [[sexual ]] conflicts."

It was Jacques Lacan who radically located psychoanalysis within the [[domain ]] of structuralism. At the beginning of the twenty-first century we are witnessing a [[return ]] of the [[subject]], which existentialism, for one, refused to abandon. But because it is difficult to see how an [[autonomous ]] subject, independent of structure, can again be affirmed without returning to [[ego psychology ]] or [[existential psychoanalysis ]] (the most traditional [[rationalism]]), there does not seem as yet to be any alternative to structuralism.

# Deleuze, Gilles. (1973).Á quoi reconnaît-on le structuralisme? In François Châtelet (Ed.), Histoire de la [[philosophie]], idées, doctrines, le XXe siècle. (pp. 299-335) [[Paris]]: Hachette.# Foucault, Michel. (1973). The [[order ]] of things: An archaeology of the [[human ]] sciences. New York: Vintage Books. (Original [[work ]] published 1966)# Green, André. (1969). Othello, une tragédie de la conversion: Magie noire et magie blanche. In his Un oeil en trop: le [[complexe ]] d'Oedipe dans la tragédie. (pp. 109-164) Paris: Éditions de Minuit.# Jakobson, Roman. (1963). Essais de [[linguistique ]] générale. Paris: Minuit.# [[Lacan, Jacques]]. (1966).Écrits. Paris: Seuil.# ——. (1974-1975). Le séminaire: Livre XXII, R.S.I. [[Ornicar]]?, 2-5.# Lévi-Strauss, Claude. (1963). Structural [[anthropology ]] (Claire Jacobson and Brooke Grundfest Schoepf, Trans.). New York: Basic Books. (Original work published 1949)# Piaget, Jean. (1972). La psychologie. In hisÉpistémologie des sciences de l'[[homme ]] (pp. 133-250). Paris: Gallimard.