The Feud of Language

A generation ago a group of French thinkers attempted to unify philosophy and human science around the notions of structural linguistics. Post-structuralism, as this enterprise became known, has divided the intellectual world into two seemingly implacable camps. This book retraces the birth and development of post-structuralism, examining its intellectual aspirations and identifying its failures. Several key texts, ranging from anthropology to poetics, and from phenomenology to epistemology, are examined.