Structuralism is a means of thinking that has strongly influenced areas of human inquiry including linguistics, anthropology, literary criticism, sociology and others. It is based on the concept that there is some deeper meaning or structure beneath the surface of apparent everyday events. This meaning is part of a structure that is reproduced in more or less the same way for all people in all societies. Consequently, if the deeper structures can be uncovered and their shapes and natures mapped, then that will make it possible to understand the profound foundations of human nature, thought and society.
Early structuralism was greatly involved with the work of Claude Levi-Strauss, who was active in the field of anthropology and who is perhaps best known for the book Tristes Tropiques. In his work, Levi-Strauss tried to demonstrate that remote tribes in the Amazonian region demonstrated signs of deeper structures that are present in all known societies, even those with whom the Amazonian peoples had had no previous contact. In doing this, Levi-Strauss drew upon the psychoanalytical work of such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung, who had also sought to identify ‘archetypes’ in the human mind which are widely prevalent. Hence, according to Freud, most men are united by the Oedipal desire to kill his father and take his place in bed with his mother. That so many of these structures could be named after well-known figures dating from the era of classical Greek tragedy indicated, it was thought, the widely-dispersed way in which discovery of these structures of human thought have occurred throughout history.
Another area of particular importance for the development of structuralism has been that of linguistics. Dating largely from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure, structural linguistics attempts to identify the underlying rules of language and grammar and relate them to those of different peoples across different times. Saussure’ explorations led him to argue that ‘words’ or concepts were composed of two distinct elements: the signifier, which is the verbal part of a word (i.e. what it sounds like and how it is remembered in the mind) and the signified, which is the meaning of the word or concept in the mind and which may be spread across different societies.
Structuralism is an approach that unites people with apparently disparate or wholly antithetical methods of thinking. For example, both (some) religious people and Marxist-Leninists believe that there are deeper underlying meanings to events. However, they differ in identifying the nature of structures: for religious people, the structures represent God’s plan for humanity (or a variant of this depending on the particular religion concerned) while Marxists believe it is the nature of the economic system of capitalism and historical materialism which are responsible. If structuralism does occur in this way and has such a profound impact upon the ways in which people are able to behave, then it has important implications for the concepts of free will and freedom.
译文:
什么是结构主义
结构主义是一种思维方式，它已经强烈地影响着人类在语言学，人类学，文学批评和社会学以及其他领域的研究。这种思维方式主要基于这样一种概念：日常活动的表面下存在着某种深层意义，或者说结构。这种意义是所有社会中的所有人都会或多或少地以同样方式再现的结构的一部分。因此，如果深层结构能够被揭示，其形状及性质能够被描绘出来，那么，理解人性，思想及社会也就能成为一种可能。
早期的结构主义主要涉及克洛德.列维-斯特劳斯的结构主义，克洛德.列维-斯特劳斯是活跃在人类学领域的人类学家，其代表作是众所周知《悲惨的热带》。在这本书中，列维-斯特劳斯试图向人们证明，亚马逊地区的偏远部落展示了深层结构的符号，而这些符号出现在所有的已知社会中，甚至出现在亚马逊人从前从没有接触过的人们中。在这一过程中，列维-斯特劳斯借鉴了一些心理分析的经验，如西格蒙德·弗洛伊德和卡尔·古斯塔夫·荣格，他们都曾探寻过人类大脑中所广泛存在的“原型”。在弗洛伊德看来，大多数男人都有俄狄浦斯情节(恋母情结)，想杀死自己的父亲，以取代父亲的位置和母亲躺在一张床上。有人认为，古希腊悲剧中如此多的结构原型说明了一种广泛发散的思维方式，在这种方式中，人类思想的结构已存在于整个历史之中。
结构主义发展的另一个特别重要的领域就是语言学界了。从费尔迪南. 德.索绪尔开始，结构主义语言学就尝试分析确定语言和语法的基本规则，并试图将他们与不同时代的不同民族联系起来。通过探索，索绪尔认为，“单词”或“概念”是由两个不同的成分组成：一个是能指，它是单词的音响部分（即被听到的部分及其在大脑中是如何记住的），另一个是所指，它是单词或概念在大脑中的意义部分，它在不同的社会都可以蔓延存在。
结构主义是一种将人类与看似分离或者说完全对立的人类思维结合起来的一种方法。例如，宗教信仰者和马克思列宁主义者都（部分）认为，事件存在着更深层的内含意义。然而，他们在鉴别结构的性质上却是不同的:对于宗教信仰者来说，结构代表了上帝对人类的旨意（或者说是一种依靠特定宗教的变体），而马克思主义者却认为，它是资本主义经济制度和历史唯物主义的本质。如果结构主义的确以这种方式出现，且对人类行为产生如此深远的影响，那么，它对自由意志和自由都将有着重要的意义。
