School of thought
Post-Structuralism
Movement
Classification
- Period
- c. 1966 CE onward
- Regions
- Europe (origin)
- Domains
- Philosophy of Language, Political Philosophy
Overview
Post-Structuralism names a loose grouping of mainly French thinkers, active from the late 1960s, who questioned whether meaning, knowledge, or the self rests on any fixed foundation. Derrida argued that meaning is never fully present in a sign but always deferred (différance), Foucault analyzed how discourse produces power and knowledge, and Deleuze developed a philosophy of difference, multiplicity, and becoming that resists all totalizing systems.
Key ideas
- Différance: Derrida's neologism: meaning is always deferred, never fully present. Every sign refers to other signs in an endless chain — there is no transcendental signified anchoring the system.
- Power/Knowledge: Foucault: power is not merely repressive but productive — it produces knowledge, truth, and subjects. What counts as 'true' is shaped by systems of power.
- Rhizome: Deleuze and Guattari's alternative to hierarchical thinking: knowledge and reality are rhizomatic — non-hierarchical, multiply connected, with no center or foundation.
Key figures
Jacques Derrida · Michel Foucault · Gilles Deleuze · Julia Kristeva
Methods used
Influenced by
- Marxism
Adapted the Marxist analysis of ideology and power — via Althusser — while rejecting its economic determinism and totalizing philosophy of history.
- Phenomenology
Reacts to
- Structuralism
Contested the claim that meaning rests on stable, universal, self-contained structures: Derrida and Foucault kept the analysis of systems of difference while arguing that no such system ever closes and that its oppositions are historically produced, not timeless.
Later connections
- Feminist Philosophy Influenced by this tradition
Butler took up Foucault's point that systems of power produce the subjects they claim only to represent, and argued from it that sex, not just gender, may be culturally constructed.
- Neo-Pragmatism Influenced by this tradition
- Postmodernism Influenced by this tradition
Extended the post-structuralist attack on totalizing systems and on stable reference: Lyotard turned it against the grand narratives that legitimate knowledge, Baudrillard against the sign that no longer refers to any original.
References
- Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Postmodernism
- Oxford Bibliographies in Literary and Critical Theory, Post-Structuralism (2017), Introduction — Formation: the theorizing later grouped under this label emerged predominantly in France.
- Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2001), ch. 8 ('The Structuralist Invasion'), section 'Marx and Althusser'
- Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2001), chs. 9–10 ('Foucault', 'Derrida')
- Gary Gutting, French Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge University Press, 2001), ch. 8 ('The Structuralist Invasion') and chs. 9–10 ('Foucault', 'Derrida')
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Michel Foucault, §§3.3–3.4
- Of Grammatology — Jacques Derrida
- Discipline and Punish — Michel Foucault
- A Thousand Plateaus — Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari