R. Barthes와 C. Lévi-Strauss: 두 구조주의자의 만남과 관점의 차이

Abstract

The main purpose of the study is to explain how can we overcome a dogmatic research attitude in this dynamic world. Follow this purpose, I compare R. Barthes' philosophy and scientific vision with C. Lévi-Strauss': their points of view on ‘communication’, ‘sign’, ‘history’, ‘structure’, ‘structuralism’. Lévi-Strauss and Barthes have been discussed so many times by some structuralist perspectives without distinction. But there is grand difference between the two personalities. The Lévi-Straussian concept of communication(and of differences) is emphasized on the fixed systemic value much more than the Barthian's which refers to only a basement occurring its signification. According to this kind of difference, their objects of research are different too; signifying system for Lévi-Strauss, connotation for Barthes, although it is hard to separate each other from one to the other. Their research visions are not the same. Barthes hesitate to place a structure before its history, Lévi-Strauss focus on the other hand on the structure as a representation of men's history. Such contradictions deny the essence and root cause of the their research contents and their perspectives on the world; Barthes supports an ongoing sociological, cultural, and economic struggle between signifyngs and signifieds, Lévi-Strauss supports their combination inclined to signifying system. the two nations. If the structuralism in anthropology, sociology or in literary theories want be a unique form of knowledge construction, disappearing every subaltern knowledges, we cannot call it anything but a myth or a mythology. The structuralism of Lévi Strauss has functioned to create an alternative discourse to the semiotical imaginary as Barthes has already shown his Lévi-straussian research method. But Barthes insist that every human and social scientific method can not represent an universality but only its historical effectiveness like structuralism. This study is an examination of the perspective differences between Barthes and Lévi-Strauss. With a critical approach to the fixed idea of structuralism and its ensuing political implications, I gave an another conclusion that the interdisciplinary ongoing research between cognitive psychology and structuralist perspective is an indicative of the politically charged of contemporary structuralist mythic history.