Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics

Beata Stawarska

A new interpretation of Ferdinand de Saussure's general linguistics based on authentic source materials
Stawarska's controversial thesis challenges the received view that Saussure was the founder of structuralism
Contains analysis of untranslated materials documenting the editorial history of the Course in General Linguistics
Offers a critique of the validity of the Course in General Linguistics, and its structuralist legacy

Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics

Beata Stawarska

Description

This book draws on recent developments in research on Ferdinand de Saussure's general linguistics to challenge the structuralist doctrine associated with the posthumous Course in General Linguistics (1916) and to develop a new philosophical interpretation of Saussure's conception of language based solely on authentic source materials. This project follows two new editorial paradigms: 1. a critical re-examination of the 1916 Course in light of the relevant sources and 2. a reclamation of the historically authentic materials from Saussure's Nachlass, some of them recently discovered. In Stawarska's book, this editorial paradigm shift serves to expose the difficulties surrounding the official Saussurean doctrine with its sets of oppositional pairings: the signifier and the signified; la langue and la parole; synchrony and diachrony. The book therefore puts pressure not only on the validity of the posthumous editorial redaction of Saussure's course in general linguistics in the Course, but also on its structuralist and post-structuralist legacy within the works of Levi-Strauss, Lacan, and Derrida. Its constructive contribution consists in reclaiming the writings from Saussure's Nachlass in the service of a linguistic phenomenology, which intersects individual expression in the present with historically sedimented social conventions. Stawarska develops such a conception of language by engaging Saussure's own reflections with relevant writings by Hegel, Husserl, Roman Jakobson, and Merleau-Ponty. Finally, she enriches her philosophical critique with a detailed historical account of the material and institutional processes that led to the ghostwriting and legitimizing the Course as official Saussurean doctrine.

Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics

Beata Stawarska

Introduction
Part I. 'Saussurean doctrine' and its discontents
Chapter 1. The signifier and the signified
Chapter 2. Phonocentrism: Derrida
Chapter 3. La langue and la parole, synchrony and diachrony
Part II. General linguistics: science and/or philosophy of language
Chapter 4. Involuntary assumption of substance, and points of view in linguistics
Chapter 5. Saussure's general linguistics as linguistic phenomenology
Chapter 6: Contributions to linguistic phenomenology: Hegel, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty
Part III. The Inception and the Reception of the 'Saussurean doctrine': the Course
Chapter 7. The Editorial inception of the Course: Bally and Sechehaye
Chapter 8. Structuralist and post-structuralist reception of the Course: Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Derrida
Appendix 1. English translations of the Course
Appendix 2. Saussure's silence
Bibliography

Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics

Beata Stawarska

Author Information

Beata Stawarska

Beata Stawarska is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon. She is an author of Between You and I: Dialogical Phenomenology (Ohio UP, 2009) and a number of essays in contemporary European Philosophy. Recent recipient of the Humboldt Fellowship for Advanced Researchers, Stawarska is an expert in phenomenology, structuralism and post-structuralism.

Saussure's Philosophy of Language as Phenomenology

Undoing the Doctrine of the Course in General Linguistics

Beata Stawarska

Reviews and Awards

"Stawarska's lucid and energetic analysis questions the identification of Saussure with prevalent views on structuralism and makes the case for reexamining Saussures legacy from a phenomenological perspective in order to reveal philosophical complexity of his work. In doing so, her study succeeds in challenging received ideas with broader implications, emphasizing the need to rethink the history of ideas in Europe and to retrace the intellectual connections severed after the Second World War." - Miglena Nikolchina, Symposium: The Canadian Journal of Philosophy

"Stawarska's analysis provides overwhelming evidence that the misrepresentation of Saussure is bound up with the reduction of structuralism to a post-WWII French phenomenon cut off, on the one hand, from its prior developments and, on the other, from its contemporaneous deployments, especially in what was then communist Eastern Europe" - Miglena Nikolchina, Canadian Society for Continental Philosophy

"Stawarska writes well; her book is often both pleasant to read and thought-provoking ... erudite and inspiring." - Anna Petronella Foultier, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews Online

"Stawarska has produced a landmark text that makes critical contributions to Saussures scholarship, continental views of language, the history of ideas, and serves as a key textual ally for feminist and decolonial perspectives on language and embodiment. What she accomplishes is nothing short of a rug-pulling inversion of Saussures thought that will also force metaphilosophical discussions in the classroom and conference halls alike." - Elena Ruiz, Human Studies: A Journal for Philosophy and the Social Sciences