Structure and the Whole - East, West and Non-Darwinian Biology in the Origins of Structural Linguistics

This book identifies the Romantic notion of the whole as the fundamental epistemological source of the notion of structure in the thinking of the Prague Linguistic Circle, primarily its Russian representatives, and studies what amounted to the slow, painful process of disengagement from the organicist metaphor in an intellectual world very different from Saussure's.

About the author

Patrick Sériot, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.

Report

"This book is one of substantial erudition and interest. Specialists in the history of ideas, and that of structuralism in particular, will be in the best position to evaluate the details and cogency of its arguments. Others, i.e., those of us with an interest in the Prague School arising in their education and research in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and specifically in linguistics, will find it fascinating intellectual history, taking them, potentially, to a far deeper understanding of the views, and their origin, of Jakobson and Trubetzkoy, views which originated not only in an interest in language per se, but also as it pertained to culture and nationhood. I know of no other book that does this."
Mark J. Elson in: Slavic & East European Journal 61.2 (2017) Nr. 18, S. 384

Product details

• Authors: Patrick Sériot
• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.2014
• EAN: 9781614517306
• ISBN: 978-1-61451-730-6
• No. of pages: 294
• Dimensions: 155 mm x 25 mm x 230 mm
• Weight: 584 g
• Series: Semiotics, Communication and Cognition; Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC]; Semiotics, Communication and Cognition; Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC]; ISSN; Semiotics, Communication and Cognition [SCC], 12
• Subject: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > Other languages / Other literatures