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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism
The difference between poststructuralism and postmodernism

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Poststructuralism and Postmodernism

JacquesDLR
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Posted 08/01/08 - 08:05 AM: Subject: Poststructuralism and Postmodernism	#1
Can someone please explain the difference between poststructuralism and postmodernism?

Caldwell
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Posted 08/06/08 - 12:39 AM:	#2
Isn't post-structuralism the domain of political science, not philosophy?

Mr. Chris
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Posted 08/06/08 - 03:35 AM:	#3
Caldwell wrote: Isn't post-structuralism the domain of political science, not philosophy? Pretty much. As a Derridean, the philosophy I study is post-structuralist, especially with regards to law. I've always understood post-modernism more in terms of aesthetics and philosophies of art.
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Posted 08/06/08 - 11:56 AM:	#4
It is hard to define where philosophy ends and the social sciences begin. I think there is certainly a philosophy behind post structuralism. I think post modernsim is simply a broader category. It defines a kind of society an era, 'the spirit of the time'. Post structuralism is a current of thought popular withing post modernism.
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Posted 08/06/08 - 01:41 PM:	#5
According to wikipedia, post-structualism is just a name given to the critical responses of structualism, and post-modernism is a lot more broad, consisting of its own doctrine and such. Didn't say too much about a political movement on there.
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quickly
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Posted 08/06/08 - 11:16 PM:	#6
Poststructuralism, as far as I can tell, defines a set of reactions to a specific literary, social, and cultural analytical method, structuralism, which rejects several assumptions made in that theoretical paradigm, namely, the ability of a central hierarchy of terms to encompass or center the structure, the ability of the structure to encompass both itself and the terms or items it sets to define, and the ability of the things analyzed to fit within a homogeneous set of rules or relations defined by the structure. I think yes, that poststructuralism, broadly defined, has more or a relationship to fields of study such as politics or law, because the theoretical methods it evolved from is specifically applicable to any phenomenon of culture or society. Postmodernism, though, seems to be a cultural narrative, or a set of social changes, industrial shifts, and political ideologies and practices, which encompass the poststructuralist movement – mostly because they occurred within the same time period, partly because poststructuralist method and philosophy shares certain assumptions with the postmodern era, naturally, because it emerged within it. But I think it’s dangerous to homogenize both into the same category, because they address different aspects of culture and philosophy – namely , one analyzes culture with a philosophy; the other describe the culture’s philosophy. Whether those two uses of the word “philosophy” align is up for debate.
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at
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Posted 08/14/08 - 09:45 PM:	#7
Hi quickly wrote: the ability of a central hierarchy of terms to encompass or center the structure, the ability of the structure to encompass both itself and the terms or items it sets to define, and the ability of the things analyzed to fit within a homogeneous set of rules or relations defined by the structure. So where do the post-structuralists sit now? Agreed on the truth, or at least usefulness, of collectively understood subjective fact? Do they write language off or what? Can they do more than just critique? I've been reading a fair bit of eastern stuff and it almost seems like the next step after post-structuralism ie when we see the limitations of language (and other stuff) we cease trying to experience through them and then have an experience of them instead.

quickly
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Posted 08/15/08 - 11:57 AM:	#8
at wrote: So where do the post-structuralists sit now? Agreed on the truth, or at least usefulness, of collectively understood subjective fact? Do they write language off or what? Can they do more than just critique? In my opinion, and you could have better opinions, poststructuralism is an analytical method along the lines of structuralism; yet it opens up a wide critique of the methods used in the fields it analyzes. So it is a critique in the positive sense of the word: most poststructuralist writings which I have read largely deal with the critique of ontology, the transcendental subject, or language (and thus semiotics), while attempting to elucidate new directions in the analysis of these subjects. I don't think you'll find many pure poststructuralists writing if you exclude the straggling Derrideans, reader-response theorists, and semioticians directly descended from Barthes. But writers like Deleuze, Guattari, DeLanda, Nancy, and the Foucauldians, who wrote during the same period but came into their own after Derrida became less fashionable, serve as the figureheads (fathers) of the tradition now - at least as far as I can tell. I couldn't tell you any prominent writers who have decended from them (except DeLanda) who work in this tradition as contemporaries. Perhaps schizonalysis (Deleuze, Guattari), the ontology of power (Foucault) , the critique of identity and form (DeLanda, Deleuze), and a new phenomenology of art, love, and friendship (Nancy) are where you would want to start. Foucault’s The Order of Things might serve as a good indicator of how the entire movement (which it is not) deals with objectivity and subjectivity in relationship to science and fact. I've never found the more levelheaded writers to deserve the apocolyptic fanfare associated with postmodernism - it's fairly neutral material directly inherited from writers like Vico and Nietzsche. As for your question about language, I notice a shift away from language and into an exploration of semiotics’ capabilities to describe language, the media, sexuality, social interaction, and the link, under the collective heading of variant affects.
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

quickly
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Posted 08/15/08 - 12:56 PM:	#9
AND: If you take Derrida as typical of the poststructuralist movement, the notion of truth (which you asked about) is typically relegated as an artifact or product of a system in which it participates with other elements to produce concepts and sort notions, including itself; that is, the notion of truth (embodied in empirical data, God, metaphysical axioms) is a notion which is, through the force of a desire for it, used to center and explain other elements of a system (structure). So if x is true, then the traditional poststructuralist would look for how it is that x is true, and how it came to be that this thing could be true. Deconstruction (a poststructuralist analytical method), in my experience, looks at any structure (a book, a United Nations summit, a town square, a film) as an evolving, uncontained, structure (set of elements defined by their relationships to one another) and attempts to uncover how certain elements occupy the place they do, while being simultaneously unable to occupy this place with any determinateness. So it would be rash to dismiss their arguments for and against the notion of truth as pragmatic or dismissive - since most aren't dealing with the historical fact of whether or not some thing is true (Foucault excepted), but with why it is that this thing is true - and in general, most agree that these true facts, or true things, are products of structure. But without negating the factuality of the thing in the process. It's a tenuous line to walk.
"Monsters cannot be announced. One cannot say: 'here are our monsters', without immediately turning the monsters into pets." -Jacques Derrida

iamtheother
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Posted 08/15/08 - 11:11 PM:	#10
parameter wrote: I've been reading a fair bit of eastern stuff and it almost seems like the next step after post-structuralism ie when we see the limitations of language (and other stuff) we cease trying to experience through them and then have an experience of them instead. It's probably not the best to frame post-structuralism as a linear development, especially if you're talking about it as method, instead of as a cultural event. It's not at all really, as the practice of delimiting intrepretations occurs at all points from the subject. Language doesn't really possess limits, in-of-itself. If you get a chance to read about Barthe's distinction between readerly and writerly texts, it's worth it. I'll look around to see exactly where it is, and then return to this topic.

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