Week 2 Notes:

The following notes are highlights from the above chapter. They are neither intended to replace the lectures and text, nor to substitute for a reading of the text. Lectures will add to and supplement material given here. In order to do well in this class, it is recommended that you review these notes to identify main ideas after having attended class.

Reading philosophical essays is more challenging in that you often have to scan once, read once, and review once before you can adequately explain the author's position. In order to be sure that you are receiving maximum benefit from your time spent studying, try to answer the guide questions posed below. If you cannot answer them, it is time to read or review to be sure you understand the main arguments presented.

What is poststructuralism?

Poststructuralism is a way of understanding the world by studying the relationship between language and being. If poststructuralists are correct in their theoretical assumptions, then concepts (signifieds) and the words (signifiers) that we use to represent them are constantly shifting in meaning. Thus, language and our experience of the world is also dynamically moving in reaction to these meaning shifts. For example, just 10 years ago "webs" were associated with spiders; today almost everyone who hears the word thinks of the Internet and the web sites available for viewing.

A key tenet of poststructuralist thought concerns the idea of perspective. In brief, each individual occupies a unique position with respect to his/her environment. Our identity and worldview is generated by an interplay of forces that encourages us to interpret experiences based on our relationship to specific situations. Hence, if I am a working mother, one issue of concern might be affordable daycare or wage equity across gender lines.

Latest Links ò

Resources for Poststructural and Postmodern theory

Please spend some time viewing the sites below. I highly recommend Professor John Lye's essay below and will refer to it in our lecture.

Voice of the Shuttle: Postmodern and Poststructuralist resources
Professor John Lye of Brock University shares his views on the essential components of poststructuralism in an essay entitled "Some Post-Structuralist Assumptions."
Everything Postmodern: the most comprehensive source of postmodern links on the web
ErracticImpact's 20th century philosophers web site: this site has links for many of the thinkers covered this semester.
Postmodern Culture: a magazine devoted to publishing original essays
PMC2 Archives: Postmodern Culture's text-based virtual reality facility, a combination conference center and theme park. It offers the opportunity to converse in real time with others interested in postmodernism, and it hosts its own (internally distributed) e-mail discussion groups, archives for some of which are provided. This site is not updated often and I recommend it as a window into the strange world of postmodern literary experimentation.

Guide Questions:

The following questions are designed to fine tune your understanding of the reading. Although I will not collect or check to see if you've completed them, the subject matter and answers to these questions form the basis of what you will be required to know for exams.

Poststructuralist theory focuses on the shifts in meaning that change the relationship between signifieds (concepts) and signifiers (words).(126-127) Give one example of a word that has multiple meanings depending on context. Why are these various meanings significant?
What is the meaning of discourse in poststructuralist theory?(127)
The difference between structuralists and poststructuralists lies in their understanding of essence. The former believe that there is an essential essence attached to each signified that corresponds to the signifier that represents it. Conversely, the latter see the situation as rooted in perspective and mediated by language.(127) Is there, as Bienveniste suggests, "a non-subjectivised region of language?"
Describe the poststructuralist theory concerning the acquisition of knowledge.(129)
How does discourse influence the acquisition of knowledge?(129)
Summarize Althusser's views on the nature of the subject.(129-130)

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