(Posts-) Modernism and Structuralism: Affinities and Theoretical Innovations

This paper argues that “poststructuralism†can be distinguished from “structuralism†in terms of an important set of theoretical and historical differences that can be most easily understood by recognizing the difference between their theoretical objects of study: poststructuralism takes as it theoretical object “structuralism†, whereas postmodernism takes as its theoretical object “modernism†. Each movement is an attempt to supersede in various ways that which went before. The two movements can be distinguished by a peculiar set of theoretical concerns most clearly seen in their respective historical genealogies. Poststructuralism ought to be seen as a specific philosophical response - strongly motivated by the work of Friedrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger - against the social scientific pretensions of structuralism.