Ferdinand de Saussure, Structuralism 

could someone help me how I can like this video more than one time?

Professors uploading their lectures for the public to listen to for free are the salt of the earth, thank you so much.

Brilliant as usual Dr Masson. Thank you for posting these lectures. I had not understood why I was feeling so uncomfortable with what I was being taught at university and with what I was reading in academic literature. I am now beginning to understand through listening to your lectures and hope to be able to form cogent arguments when discussing these matters. Your work is essential.

Excellent. Thankfully students are still taught by lecturers like Dr Mason.

Greetings from Brazil! Bravo!! What a lecture! Your lucidity shines.

So glad I found this lecture. They tried to teach me this material in school, and I just got frustrated, because I could tell they had so many things wrong with their beliefs, but I had no background with which to explain the problems, so I sort of gave up on learning any more about the subject. It’s occurred to me many times that these early texts in linguistics were responsible for countless incorrect ideas, and now I can see how one would criticize it accurately.

I like it when he said : Adam called her Eve (eve means the mother of all living ) because it's the reflection of who she is, so it's not just a naming process it's a signifying process..!! 🥰🥰 woooow , im in love 😍

Thank you professor for uploading these videos. I know how much hard work it takes to put these up. Even in our country (or mostly in countries like us), this fanaticism for post-structuralist movements is as crazy as it gets. Currently, (especially for us in the fields of Art Studies) they don't even bother to talk about Augustin or Plato/Aristotle in courses like Form and Meaning. They just start from Saussure and Semiotics and right away only to get to French Post-Structuralists such as Derrida among others. It's getting rather annoying. For students like me who do appreciate classic art and people like T.S.Elliot, these classes are an absolute pain especially when we cannot approach them critically. Thank you once again from Iran.

Thank you so much, Dr. Masson. Great class!

I want to thank you. This video teached me what I haven't learned in years.

🎯 Key Takeaways for quick navigation: 00:25 🌐 *Structuralism, the foundation for post-structuralism, is explored in the context of Ferdinand de Saussure's influence on literary theory post-1960s.* 01:57 📚 *Saussure's influence on literary theory, despite being less known than Marx or Freud, is specifically tied to the system of language, distinguishing him as a literary thinker.* 03:30 🤝 *Saussure shares common ground with key 20th-century thinkers, emphasizing the importance of language structure in explaining phenomena, similar to Heidegger, Wittgenstein, and others.* 05:23 💬 *Saussure's theory asserts that signs in language are arbitrary, meaning there's no inherent connection between the signifier (word) and the signified (concept), emphasizing the role of human will in language.* 08:23 🏛️ *Saussure's theoretical impact extends beyond linguistics, influencing diverse disciplines such as literature, biblical studies, education, psychology, and history, highlighting its practical influence in shaping contemporary literary theory.* 28:58 🗣️ *Language, according to Saussure, doesn't name pre-existing entities but functions as a system of differences, emphasizing convention over independent meaning.* 31:06 🌐 *Different languages use unique signifiers and approach the phenomenal world differently, leading to concepts that may be untranslatable between languages.* 39:15 🌈 *Saussure's view of language involves a continuum of signifiers, like colors on a spectrum, suggesting that language conventions are arbitrary and not rooted in a natural order.* 43:09 ⚖️ *The binary nature of language, with concepts like male/female, day/night, leads to a power dynamic where the dominant is considered essential, and the opposite is seen as a negation without inherent value.* 51:26 📚 *Saussure's linguistic theory challenges the idea that language can convey true things about reality, suggesting that language is a play of signifiers without a transcendental signified, influencing modern philosophies and issues like political correctness.* 56:45 📚 *The word of the year is "they," reflecting the use of the plural form for a singular subject, a trend present since the 1980s in politically correct speech.* 57:51 📈 *The selection of the word of the year by lexicographers is based on popularity and usage trends rather than scientific accuracy or truthfulness.* 58:58 🔄 *Ferdinand de Saussure's focus on synchronic language use, emphasizing the present context over diachronic historical perspectives, is discussed.* 01:00:13 🔤 *The binary model, crucial in postmodern literary theory, involves syntagmatic (linear relationships within a sentence) and paradigmatic (interchangeable elements) views, impacting language and thought.* 01:08:46 💻 *Claude Levi-Strauss's structural anthropology, rooted in semiology, introduces the binary of human vs. nonhuman, influencing environmental movements' views on nature and culture.* Made with HARPA AI

I’d love to follow along with the course but I can’t tell what video I should watch next! You mention concepts you’ll discussion more in depth that I’m very interested in, such as ahumanism and the relationship to nature and how we get environmentalism

Thank you professor for uploading such a beautiful content with complete detail.....amazing representation

Currently in Uni right now as an English major. We’re being heavily washed in Structuralism at the moment. You’re videos have been hitting the nail on the head for me. Thank you so much! Always wonderful to hear a voice of reason in the field of Literature. Question: I have a plan to use my degree to teach. Do you find it difficult to hold the views you do and teach the subject you do in today’s academic climate?

Prof. Masson, I observed that you made the discussion of the concept of "arbitrary" complicated. Arbitrary can simply be defined as social convention, agreed upon by a community, man-made. Simple, you see.

Brilliant. I really enjoyed the presentation Dr. Masson.

Such wonderful content!

Love you Sir, it is so enlightening

Interesting lecture. It gives me some context to the modern ideological phenomenon of assuming that the word "woman" has no relation to the biological reality of human females, and is instead referring to some nebulous notion of socially constructed gender identity, even though the etymology of woman and female don't really allow for that. Thank you for all of your lectures, Dr. Scott.

"Part of the perfection of existence is the existence of imperfection within it,since,were their no imperfection,the perfection of existence would be imperfect." Ibn al Arabi (r,a)

Very enlightening and refreshing lecture. I’m not sure I understand the difference between synecdoche and metonymy. Is the former a specific part (like “hands” for a ship’s crew) and the latter a descriptor of something else?(like depths for the sea or wild blue yonder for sky)

Regarding the definition of signifier and signified, the latter I understand (ie the concept, not an actual thing; thus, the concept of a 'tree' and not any particular type of tree), but I am still having trouble with the signifier. Does it mean the sound we hear, the letters we read, which point our mind to particular concepts (signified eg tree, chair, dog etc)?

just what i needed. ;)

❤

Nice professor

Thank u so much sir, can u please explain transformational grammar

How I got here, I asked. How do we know words mean what they say they mean

Where i can read more about what you point as the (bad)core of the binary structure of the language, as Culture x Nature, for instance ? That book Ideas Have Consequences goes further on that?

1:10:26 The reason philosophers don’t think about thinking is because all the philosophers who thought about thinking stopped being philosophers thereafter because when you think about thinking, thinking stops. Hence, all the philosophers that we know about are the ones who never stopped thinking. Had they thought about thinking, that would have been the end of their thinking

The signified can be arbitrary since different people may imagine different types of trees.

♥

Adam is signifier for all man and the name of different people is signified because when you specify the person by name you get it about signified...what i assume

Can some one help me plz🥺 In the light of what you have already studied ( structuralism (euro/american), post Bloomfieldialism, try to criticize these theories. Also, try to put a suitable theory for language analysis.

For the curious I think the Danish word Dr Masson referred to is Hygge

9:00 beginning

1:00:00

How does this line of thinking not collapse on itself? If language cannot say true things (51 min mark), then is that true? Is it just that the person holding the view doesn't think it through? Earlier this year, Hannah Nicole Jones responded to an article by the man who opposed her tenure by saying his words amounted to nothing more than a power grab. Yet her own articles were not?

After this he taught Adam the names of all things. Then He set these before the angels and asked, "Tell Me the names of these things, if you are right (in thinking that the appointment of a vicegerent will cause disorder)". Quran 2:31 Nomenclature is the means by which human mind grasps the knowledge of things. Hence, the whole information of man, in fact, consists of assigning names. for things. Thus, teaching Adam the names of all things was meant to impart their knowledge to him."

Focus on Saussure. Why do you need to mention Schopenhauer's Will when discussing the meaning of the arbitrariness of language? Language, as defined by Saussure, and the Will as explicated by Schopenhauer, are entirely different. Remember that Schopenhauer is a Kantian thinker who claimed to expound the noumenon of Kant. Kant asserted that the categories of thought are innate while Saussure stated that language in its general sense is a SOCIAL construction.

02:24 Los estructruralistas 09:45 Sign

Thnk you sir for great lecture

.it is the concept of maya in hinduism.

12:08 Kant and Locke

I was hoping to learn about Saussure, but instead this is a bunch of ideological polemics and critique (conveniently framed as "consequences") which muddy actually understanding the material. Maybe the second half of this talk presents Saussure's actual ideas from his own perspective, but I wouldn't really trust it's objectivity at this point. I get the sense this guy doesn't actually want to teach this material and so has to qualify anything Saussure thought in order to protect the fragile students from possibly being effected by it.

I have been following your lectures for a long time, and not one single time did you cease to amaze me. I laughed out loud when you said the pronoun "they" offended you 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣. I am too frustrated with the political correctness/innocuous movement. I am an arduous follower of Jordan Peterson, Harold Bloom, and C.S. Lewis. I wish I could pursue Ph.D. under your invaluable guidance at Tyndale. Does Tyndale take foreign postgrad from India?

If language has been observed to possess diachronic qualities, then why would the word 'they' changing in meaning be outside the realm of possibility or distress you so? You say you are outraged, but surely this is a natural thing for words to do. I understand that a word changing from representing something plural to something discrete being unusual, but language is meant to change? Because society changes, and there must be words which describe reality as it becomes and is and so because there are enough visible non-binary, trans, etc people occupying a space in the collective consciousness language has adapted to reflect this fact and they word 'they' has grown another meaning in this context. I am not saying it is a perfect solution, I am just confused as to why you would be outraged language doing what language does- following the strongest will of the people, speaking their reality into existence.

Funny how John introduced Jesus in association with Language. "In the beginning was the Word, and the word was with God...... And the word became flesh" As if whole of existence depends on a medium (language) and that source was god itself and that became flesh. What a way to give an introduction oh man. (Language is the house of beings) ( Lacan's psychoanalysis, subjectivity is only made possible by entering into the language after the "mirror stage") As if John knew that whole of existence was contained in him(jesus) Just a funny thought I had I'm sorry this has nothing to do with the lecture.

levi strauss

heidiger

intellectual digestion of hindu concepts.

prog circle

Ferdinand de Saussure studied in depth the Panini grammar in Sanskrit and came up with all these theories of structuralism...which were published by his students post his death.....no credit just intellectual digestion 😆👎🏽