Friday, July 30, 2010

The Structuralist Controversy: The Languages of Criticism and the Sciences of Man (Part I)


  1. Macksey: Anniversary Reflections (2007)
    1. Irony of the conference that it was meant to introduce American scholars to Continental Structuralism, but turned out to be a requiem for the movement and the birth of post-structuralism.
    2. Offers two other narratives that the conference has been placed in:
      1. Funded by the Ford Foundation, tool of American imperialism
      2. Struggle between Hegel and Nietzsche, representing structuralism and post-structuralism/deconstruction
  2. Macksey & Donato: The Space Between -1971
    1. The conference was a major event in which leading proponents of structuralism, such as Derrida, Lacan, and Barthes, began to make evident their distancing of themselves from it.
    2. One measure of the stance between then (1966) and now (1971) is the decline of the methodological importance of linguistics and the displacement of Hegel.
    3. Linguistics had been thought to provide a "a theoretical methodological model and universal matrix for understanding all human phenomena" (xvii)
      1. Derrida has underscored the logocentric metaphysical presuppositions implicit in linguistics and thus the privileging of linguistics as a central model
    4. "Today's task for thinkers within this climate thus seems to reside in the possibility of developing a critical discourse without identities to sustain concepts, without privileging origins or without an ordered temporality to guarantee the mimetic probabilities of representation. The fundamental entities of such systems, adrift in radical discontinuity, are Events, which cannot be accounted for by transcendental idealities. For the interpreters of texts or codes as surrogate for the lost presence of a center the reader is forced (or freed) to interrogate the systematic absence of allegory or the distorting mirrors of parody. We are left with the necessity of articulating what Said has called "the vacant spaces between things, words, ideas." (xviii-xix)
  3. Preface to the First Edition
    1. Historical Background for the Conference
      1. "The general title emphasized both the pluralism of existing modes of discourse and the interaction of disciplines not entirely limited to the conventional rubric of the humanities" (xxi)
    2. Basic problems to be investigated:
      1. The statues of the subject
      2. The general theory of signs and language systems
      3. The use and abuse of models
      4. Homologies and transformations as analytic techniques
      5. Synchronic vs Diachronic descriptions
      6. The question of "mediation" between objective and subjective judgments
      7. The possible relationship between microcosmic and macrocosmic social and symbolic dimensions
    3. Volume is dedicated to Jean Hyppolite
  4. Richard Macksey: Lions and Squares: Opening Remarks
    1. Acknowledges the diversity of views that have been brought together in the conference
    2. Background to the conferences is "recent polemics…have raised serious and generalizable questions about the privileged status of our disciplinary languages and, behind the linguistic issue, the status of the subject and the so called "subject matter'" of the Human Sciences.
    3. Highlights the role of the Johns Hopkins University as the first research university in America and its early connections to European scholarship as a legacy for the conference.
      1. C.S. Peirce was among the earliest academics at Johns Hopkins
        1. His interests have many affinities with those at the conference.
          1. Including
            1. His quest for architectonic system
            2. A concern with the study of method
            3. Comprehensive theory of signs
            4. Semiotic status of the person and the interpretant
            5. Use of 'existential graphs
            6. Relationship of chance to purpose
            7. Focus on diachronic instead of synchronic description
            8. But also the idea of synechism, or universal continuity
    4. Compares the Conference to a sort of 'game' and then reflects on the ubiquity of the use of 'games' as theoretical models in contemporary thought, including decision theory and Wittgensteinian language-games.
      1. Focuses on the plurality of games in Wittgenstein's thought as a good analogy for the diversity of approaches held by the various participants.
      2. Also, two different approaches to the game of chess is analogous to a division among participants
        1. Chess can either be thought of as:
          1. A paradigm of convention rule following
          2. A means of expressing hidden personal and social impulses, historical evolution, etc.
        2. So too there are two major division in the approach to language
          1. Semiotic formalism
          2. Hermeneutic geneticism
      3. Also considers linking Wittgensteinian's approach to language-games with Austin's theory of speech acts
        1. This is basically what Brandom does
      4. Closes by considering some words by Wittgenstein about the possibility of breakdown of communication, which he sees as a possibility at the conference.
  5. Rene Girard: Tiresias and the Critic
    1. The idea of the Sciences of Man as uniting the scholars in attendance at the conference despite their wide methodological divergences
      1. The development of the idea of the Sciences of Man have altered the distinction between subject and object that has been inherited from the nineteenth century
    2. Attempts to suggest the change that has occurred using metaphor and myth
      1. Uses the myth of Oedipus to illustrate the contrast between a point of view that claims to be all-knowing and transcendent from that which recognizes the partiality and situatedness of the observer
        1. Oedipus sets himself above his city and claims to occupy a transcendent position
        2. Tiresias suggests to him that he is implicated in the events that unfold in the city
        3. Oedipus would take this suggestion as an invitation to submerge himself into subjectivity, and thus rejects it
        4. In truth, what Tiresias encourages is not a submersion into subjectivity, as contrasted with objectivity, but a doing away of both Self and Other
        5. Oedipus would attempt to reject this encouragement by appeal to 'facts' that he has observed, without recognizing that his 'facts' are predetermined by his 'false assumption of absolute autonomy.'
        6. Tiresias does not respond to Oedipus in his own tenor, saying simply what he is, but engages in a more oblique angle of approach, he rearranges Oedipus's own words into a new structure in order to demythify them.
        7. Tiresias is symbol of the changes that have occurred in the disciplines of the Sciences of Man.
    3. The methodologies that make up the Sciences of Man, such as sociology and psychoanalysis, have wide differences, however, the structure of interpretation shared by them is similar.
      1. It has been identified by Foucault in "The Order of Things."
        1. "The Sciences de l'Homme are the redoubling of interpretation upon itself. The necessarily include in their significant structures and contradict, since they reinterpret it, a first and more spontaneous interpretation more closely related to the original phenomena." (18)
        2. This is apparent in sociology, psychoanalysis, and literary criticism, in which the new methodologies aim to expose hidden meaning that were missed or denied by the participants, analysand, or author.
        3. Contemplates whether this approach courts nihilism, but then dismisses this consideration, somehow.
      2. Returns to the idea of myth. Girard believes that myths present "a real matrix of diachronically ordered structures whose suggestiveness as metaphors of our individual and collective predicament - or should I say structural models? - appears almost unlimited." (20)
      3. "I am personally convinced that truly great works of art, literature and thought stem, like Oedipus's own reinterpretation of the past, arise from a genius's ability to undertake a radical destructive reinterpretation of his former intellectual and spiritual structures." (20)
      4. Ends with a note of caution, this process of reinterpretation is endless, the genius's reinterpretation should not be taken as final, it too can and perhaps must be the object of radical destructive reinterpretation. This it should not be mistaken for the absolute and transcendent view, but should be considered only partial.
  6. Charles Moraze: Literary Invention
    1. Paper
      1. Discusses the relationship of literary invention to invention in general.
      2. Most centrally concerned with the relationship between the social, individual, and unconscious in the process of invention
      3. Begins with a discussion of invention of Mathematics
        1. Points out that in many discussions of the prominent mathematicians there is the notion that invention or discovery often has a large unconscious component to it.
      4. Three General Phases in the Process of Invention
        1. Informe - In this stage the creator familiarizes himself with the use of signs and methods in the area of inquiry that he is interested in. The collective contribution of society is important in this stage. Not just in terms of providing directly relevant information, but for providing models and inspirations for how to think about things.
        2. Cogitare - In this stage, the brain is put into a state of activity, organizing and reorganizing the data that it has. This process occurs both consciously and unconsciously.
        3. Intellegere - In this stage there is a sudden illumination wherein the solution is struck upon. Speculating about neurological aspects, Moraze claims that the suddenness and feeling of relief corresponds to a better organization of cerebral cells. On the other hand, there is an aspect of choice in intellegere, picking from amongst other possible solution. Moreover, there is an aspect of internal dialogue in this process, moving back and forth between possibilities offered and selection from among them.
          1. Moraze stresses that the two previous stages are not entirely separated, rather this is a constant movement back and forth between them.
          2. Moreover, there most be a process of evaluation and control in the process of intellegere. Much of this evaluation and control is structured by the standards of evaluation of the society surrounding the inventor. Thus, society plays an important role in both ends of the process.
      5. Difference between mathematical and literary invention
        1. Mathematics works with signs which mean nothing outside of mathematics, while literature uses signs that already have meaning, or power to effect those that encounter them emotionally.
        2. Literature consists in harnessing and modifying the power that are possessed by linguistic signs
          1. Linguistic signs have power by virtue of bearing images that effect us.
          2. Often it consists in recharging signs that have lost their power.
          3. Literary production consists in setting up relations and connections between signs that convey emotionally charged images
          4. This act is also situated in a social environment: words act by means of images on men who act on things.
        3. Moreover, in all types of creation there is a social relationship.
          1. "Work affords a certain means for men to situate themselves in the midst of society in such a way that society is located in the universe of things that it creates or that is offered it by nature." (32)
        4. He closes by saying, somewhat cryptically that, "the beautiful work is situated at the crossroads where what is accomplished comes forth from the possible and where certitude is offered as a reward for chances taken." (33)
    2. Discussion (highlights only)
      1. In response to a question about whether Mathematical questions only have one answer, Morave responds by discussing the indeterminancy or irrationality that is part of even mathematical inquiry
      2. Additionally, Morave discusses how, despite the indeterminacy in both mathematical and literary invention, there are periods when it exceedingly difficult to come up with answers or genres which differ from what everyone else is doing
      3. Furthermore, Hyppolite suggests that invention is not so much inventions of solution, but the invention of problems. This seems to mean that a truly inventive idea reorients the field, determining what the new issues and problems are.
      4. Goldman brings up the point that a different exists between the natural sciences and literature vis-a-vis invention, in that it is much easier to see what the practical problems are that invention is trying to respond to in the case of natural science. Furthermore, the problems are much more universal in the case of the natural sciences than in literature.
      5. Lacan questions the centrality that Morave assigns to the individual inventor as a person. He couples this question with a consideration of what requires solution in mathematics. What he seems to be driving at is a view that sees the system of signs as more autonomous, working towards solutions, then the individual persons working with them.
      6. Morave pushes back a little bit, saying that certainly the intellectual and social context makes problems as well as solutions salient, but it is not as if these problems and solutions would exist without humanity.
      7. Hyppolite claims that there are three entities involved in an invention, two communities engaged in a dialogue and then an individual that comes along and sees what is being missed in that dialogue.
      8. Another point that is made is the similarity between mathematical hypothesis and literature, in that in both there as an attempt to replace, to tell the story better, then previous hypotheses, stories, poems.
  7. Poulet: Criticism and Experience of Interiority
    1. Paper
      1. Poulet discusses the interiority that characterizes books as opposed to other objects.
        1. However, the interiority of a book is one that opens itself to its reader
        2. In a sense there is a dissolution of the distinction between subject and object. The book, divested of its materiality, exists as a subjectified object within the consciousness of the reader.
        3. In reading a book one thinks the thoughts of another. One says 'I,' but an 'I' that does not refer to himself. In a sense one is 'gripped' by another in reading. One is alienated from oneself.
        4. This other I is the author of the work. Not the author as known in his or her biography, but as he or she imprinted his or her mind into the work. In reading the author reveals himself or herself in us.
        5. The work forms the temporary mental substance the fills the reader.
      2. It is not the case, however, the consciousness of the reader is not present while reading. Instead the reader is there, but as if watching events unfold, passively recording them.
        1. The reader is in a state of astonishment at being witness to an experience that is not his or hers, but that she or he experiences as his or hers
        2. Criticisms consists in an alternation between identity and difference between the author and the critic.
        3. Poulet then discusses a number of French critics from the perspective of how much they identify versus how much they differentiate themselves from the author
          1. Another related factor is how much the critic deals with the language of the author and how much he attempts to penetrate through the language to the pure subjectivity of the author
          2. The basic opposition though is a union without comprehension or a comprehension without a union
          3. The critic that he seems to think the most highly of is Jean Rousset
            1. Rousset's goals is "to establish a connection the objective reality of the work and the organizing power which gives it shape. A work is not explained for him, as for the structuralists, by the exclusive interdependence of the objective elements which compose it….There is not in his eyes any system of the work without a principle of systematization which operates in correlation with that work and which is even included in it." (70)
            2. Rousset uses a method "which leads the seeker from the continuously changing frontiers of form to what is beyond form." (71)
            3. It is a way of moving from subject (reader) to subject (author) through the object (the text)
            4. At the same time, however, the 'author' is not the historical author, but the author that is present in the work and that reveals itself in the work
    2. Discussion (highlights)
      1. Poulet, in response to a question, distinguishes reading from a conversation, in that in a conversation there is a predominance of differentiation, one interlocutor asserting himself on the other
      2. Poulet also reemphasizes that one of his main points in discussing criticism was that there is a predominance of a moment of adhesion before any movement of differentiation
      3. Poulet claims that in his view interpretation should strive to achieve 'absolute subjectivity.'
      4. Girard questions whether the archetypal act of reading is identification with the author, instead he seems to suggest that it is fascination and identification with the characters of the story. Furthermore, he argues that the critical act is never immediate, but rather is a process of mediation.
      5. Poulet, though, reasserts the primacy of fusion in the act of reading.
      6. Goldman tries to bring up the issue the criterion of falsity in Poulet's approach to interpretation, but Poulet responds that a false interpretation is one that he cannot identify with.
      7. Finally, Holland, a psychoanalysist, tries to push back against the passivity of the reader, in that he claims that the reading of the book, the meaning that is put into the work, comes much more from aspects of the readers psyche than anything in the work
  8. Eugenio Donato: The Two Languages of Criticism
    1. Donato defines the Sciences of Man as "expressing a preoccupation for the unity of all disciplines dealing with the human phenomenon, independently of their particular methodologies." (89)
    2. A common feature of structuralism, whether, psychoanalysis or anthropology, in opposition to phenomenology and existentialism, is the denunciation of the notion of the subject, a Cartesian subject rooted in the greater or lesser presence that it affords itself in consciousness. (90)
    3. Structuralism also has scientific ambition, as opposed to phenomenology and existentialism
    4. Sartre and Merleau-Ponty eventual developed towards views that encompassed intersubjectivity, but this was merely multiple Cartesian subjects
    5. A change was made with Levi-Strausses application of Saussure's linguistics to the study of kinship
      1. One of the basic ideas is that parts only make sense in the wholes within which they are encompassed
      2. Furthermore, it is a concern with the basic continuity between the signifier and the signified and an acknowledgement of the importance of the signifier as more than a mere means of conveyance
    6. Derrida goes further and claims that signifiers are interminable, they do not stop at some ultimate signified
      1. Interpretation is never final, but is always violent and overthrowing what came before it
    7. The subject of interpretation is thus, never the subject of the interpretation, but the interpreting subject
  9. Lucien Goldman: Structure the Human Reality and Methodological Concept
    1. Paper
      1. Aim is to define the method of genetic structuralism
        1. Structure originates from real behavior
          1. Solution to practical problems encountered by living beings
          2. Patterns of behavior, or comportments, retained to grapple with similar problems
          3. Although the structure can be modified in particular circumstances
        2. Structure is between the individual in a particular event and the general and universal
        3. At the same time, when the researcher is trying to study a particular phenomena he or she engages in an act of circumscription
          1. This circumscription delineates who the subject is and what particular problems he, she, or they are confronting
          2. This will determine the types of structures that are searched for, whether individual, or social, or world-historic
            1. However, if the circumscription is overly local or overly general all structure disappears
        4. The fundamental thesis of all genetic structuralist sociology is that all human behavior, and more generally the behavior of any living being of some complexity is significant. That is, it is a question of a subject who within a certain situation, will change this situation in way that favorable to his needs and, on the human level, to his affective needs and concepts. In very general terms, there is a disequilibrium and the behavior is significant to the degree that it tends to re-establish an equilibrium. (100)
        5. Structure is essentially defined by the necessity to fulfill a function in a certain situation. History is constituted by the fact that, in the changing situation created by the action of the subject and by exterior interventions, structures, which have been developed as being rational and having a chance to fulfill their function to allow a group or an individual to live in conditions that existed previously, are no longer rational, and must be modified to fulfill their function. (100)
        6. Many of these comportments are implicit and non-conscious.
        7. At the level of the social, once communication is introduced, there are no longer individual subjects. Communication between individuals engaged in coordinated action can be thought of as intra-subjective. The individuals constitute one subject that engages in the activity.
          1. Proposes the hypothesis "that individual subjects - or individual consciousnesses - by acting within behavior patters which in turn go through the division of labor - become transindividual…All activities connected with technology, civilization, or culture depend on the group" (102) as subject.
          2. Demarking the subject, however, is not something that is given, rather it is a the part of the researchers task, determined by his or her interests.
        8. There are many similarities between the genetic structuralist approach and psychoanalysis. However, they differ in that interpretation, in the sense of introducing structures that are not present in the date, such as the unconscious, is a necessary part of psychoanalysis, but not of genetic structuralism.
          1. Genetic structuralism restricts itself to explanation, which is the putting of a datum into a larger context which allows the function and structure of the datum within that context to become apparent.
          2. The method of understanding of a cultural work depends on extent to which that cultural work fits with its social context. The more it fits, the more a genetic structuralism explanation is appropriate. The less it fits, the more a symbolic psychoanalytic interpretation is appropriate.
          3. Between these two extremes there are mixtures of the two types of understanding. Those the dissolve the Cartesian ego into the social and those the fracture it into the subconscious as well as those that retain the personal individual.
        9. Goldman then considers various approaches to considering the aesthetic value of a work. He claims that aesthetic value belongs to the social order; and is related to transindividual logic.
        10. At the same time, reductionism should be avoided. Literary characters do not merely express a collective consciousness, rather they express the hopes and dreams of individuals in society that they as individuals are barely able to express.
    2. Discussion (highlights)
      1. Hyppolite questions the necessary connection between structure and social function. It is perfectly possible to demarcate structure without seeing structure as pointing towards a social function.
      2. Goldmann makes clear that, while there is not transindividual consciousness, in order to understand the consciousness of the individual one must understand the behavior of the transindividual subject.
      3. Goldmann distinguishes between the human sciences and the natural sciences, in that while the natural sciences are not purely objective, they have a value that is accepted by everyone - mastery of nature, the human sciences, in contrast, have specific and particular values given to them by their researchers.
      4. Lacan points out that lying behind Goldmann ideas of the subject, whether the individual or the transindividual, is the idea of a unifying unity, of knowledge or of action.
        1. Lacan argues instead that the idea of the subject arises on the level of the 'gap' instead of unity.
      5. Pratt questions whether the genetic structuralist theory that everything must be understood within a greater whole makes sense. In effect, he argues that it results in an infinite regress where each level needs to be understood within the context of a level above it.
  10. Tzvetan Todorov: Language and Literature
    1. "Literature is, and can be nothing other than, a kind of extension and application of certain properties of language."
    2. Language is not just the medium of literature, but also the model for literature.
    3. Indicates some point of connection between literary prose and language in terms of their form
      1. Closed vs. Open forms of stories are related to the two ways propositions can be combined: coordination vs. subordination
      2. Other examples include different rhetorical devices, synonymy, and polysemy
    4. Beyond a connection in regards to their form, there is also a connection between the structure of both language and literary prose
      1. Meaning in language consists in the capacity of a linguistic unit to integrate itself into a unit on a higher level; it is the entirety of its possible relationships with other words.
      2. Applying this understanding of meaning to literature will help us to distinguish meaning from interpretation. The situation is more complex here, but it seems that meaning would be the integration of the work into a higher structure of the same type of as it, while interpretation would be integration of it into some other domain of discourse, such as sociology or psychoanalysis.
    5. Another connection is the distinction between discourse and story in language
      1. Discourse involves the author in the statement, whereas story is the presentation of facts.
    6. As well as the distinction between tale, or the sequence of events, and the plot, the particular relationship given to the events by the author.
    7. Another related issue discussed is the relationship of the protagonist in story to the author or what Todorov calls the point of view.
    8. In each of these cases Todorov does not make clear the connection between language and literature, but seems to suggest that an awareness of linguistics will shed light on these issues in literature.
  11. Roland Barthes: To Write: An Intransitive Verb?
    1. Barthes also deals with the connection between language and literature.
    2. He notes that modern authors have begun to see writing as a critique of language.
    3. From this perspective, he wants to show how the activity of writing can be expressed with the help of certain linguistic categories.
    4. This discipline is Semio-criticism, which is not just stylistics, rather it concerned by the very relationship between writer and language.
    5. Anthropological linguistics has taught as a number of important principles about language:
      1. No archaic language, older languages are not necessarily more simple
      2. Language is not a simple instrument, man does not exist prior to language and then use language to express his thoughts
      3. Linguistics has its own objectivity, it forces us to distinguish levels of analysis, at the same time cultural facts, unlike natural facts, always point us to something beyond themselves
      4. Culture is a general system of symbols, culture is a language
      5. Homology is therefore a central methodological principle in studying culture, the structure of the sentence is found homologically in the structure of literary works
    6. Confrontation of certain categories of language with the situation of the writer in relation to his writing
      1. Temporality: Linguistic time always has its center in the present statement, so too in literature while there are two temporal orders, one centered on the discourse - the expression of the author, the other centered on the story - the narrative time, the former determines the temporal system of the discourse as a whole.
      2. Person: Language has two broad pairs of opposites: person (I, thou) to non-person (he, she, it), and I and non-I (thou)
        1. Whatever persons appear in the literary work, the literary work as an expression by an author is submitted to this divisions of person
      3. Voice: Active, passive, middle. 'To write' is a middle voiced verb in the sense that the agent is making him/herself the center of the action, not purely active or passive, but involved in the action
        1. The subject is contemporary with the action, being effected and affected by it
  12. Discussion: Barthes and Todorov
    1. Goldmann argues that the difference between existentialist thought and structuralist thought is a dispute over the role of history. For Sartre it was necessary to accede to history from the standpoint of the cogito. For the present structuralists the important thing is to avoid history or historicity. He also objects to the idea that man does not exist before language, he claims that man does many things that are not linguistic.
    2. Vernant raises the question of whether the renewal of the middle voice implies a decline in the idea of the agent as entirely responsible for his or her action, in this case, writing, just as the rise of active voice indicated the rise of the notion of the autonomous agent who wills action.
    3. Schnechner raises the issue of the relationship of the performance of a literary work to language, Barthes claim that a similar relationship is maintained, though in contemporary culture theater is too naturalistic to be interesting.
    4. Derrida claims the present-day literature is an attempt to think the adventure that was Western history, the history of metaphysics. He also questions the issue of whether there is a ever a true present in language, or whether language is always past, even when the statement is made in the first person singular present.
  13. Jean Hyppolite: The Structure of Philosophic Language According to the "Preface" to Hegel's Phenomenology of the Mind
    1. Paper
      1. Aim to discuss whether there is a literary style or character proper to philosophic thought and language
      2. Hegel is an interesting case study because he is possibly last great metaphysician
      3. Two major differences separate literary discourse from philosophic discourse
        1. Philosophic discourse is subject to a norm of truth
        2. Philosophic discourse contains within it its own criticism
      4. The Preface to the Phenomenology is interesting because it was written after the rest of the work and denies its own possibility, it claims that it cannot explain the Phenomenology, because the work of the Phenomenology can only be done in the form of the Phenomenology
      5. Hyppolite insists on studying the Structure of Philosophical LANGUAGE in Hegel's Preface as oppose to THOUGHT because for Hegel there is no thought outside of the unity of signifier and signified. There is no Thought outside of Language.
      6. Indeed, the organization of the world is achieved through the ordinary language that we use.
        1. "It is in language that the world takes on means and that thought is for itself both subject and object. The linguistic environment is the universal consciousness-of-self, of Being; it is the Logos. (162)
        2. Language is the fundamental expression of a culture.
      7. Hegel tries to take up philosophically a problem that in former ages only religion dealt with. That is scrutinize and to express the ordinary language, consciousness, and experience.
        1. He also wants to reconcile ordinary consciousness with scientific knowledge in way that enables them both to recognize each other as themselves.
        2. For Hegel true knowledge is where there is no division between the subject and the object of investigation.
          1. Hegel tries to create a discourse the reflects this, one which the discourse is the rhythm of things themselves.
      8. Hyppolite also tries to rehabilitate Hegel from the charge that he tried to achieve an infinite, unattainable God-eye perspective.
    2. Discussion
      1. Lowenberg raises a number of problems with the Preface, including: that it cannot be understood without the rest of the work, that it explains common consciousness in a language which is incomprehensible to common consciousness, but which Hegel claims is the only philosophic language. He also stresses the linguistic nature of Hegel's work, viewing the Phenomenology as an exploration of how far various languages can be pressed before they become self-contradictory. He also questions the idea that there could be one true philosophical language, as Hegel seems to claim there is. Further, he claims that dialectic, even Hegel's dialectic, undermines any such claim to the absolute.
      2. Hyppolite remarks that the reason that people have difficult with Hegel's language is that in his language the subject disappears. Hegel is interested in the dynamic movement of thought as opposed to the subject that provides support to language.
      3. Girard makes the connection between the Phenomenology and Bildungsroman.
      4. Hyppolite claims that he avoids the term structure because "a structure is whole in which the terms are determined by the whole and mutually determine each other within the whole." While, in "Hegel there is no method separable from the from the development, taken in of itself. That is, there is not structure of method anterior to the structure of the discourse itself." (183)

         

     

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