The spell of language
Subtitle: poststructuralism and speculation
By: English version by Linda Jordan and Thomas G. Pavel.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 178
Subjects: Structural linguistics -- France
Description: "Originally published as Le Mirage Linguistique, this book, available for the first time in English, remains the definitive study of the role of linguistics in structuralism and poststructuralism. Thomas Pavel examines recent French thought through the work of luminaries such as Levi-Strauss, Lacan, Foucault, and Derrida.

The "spell of language" for Pavel consists of three things: the promise that linguistics seemed to represent for the humanities and social sciences; the distortions, misunderstandings, and willful neglect incumbent upon the "linguistic turn"; and, above all, the break with traditional humanism.

He isolates three modes of thought - moderate structuralism, scientific structuralism, and speculative structuralism - and shows how even as they diverge from each other, they all advocate an antihumanist point of view." "In this book, Pavel shows that structuralism's flawed use of linguistic theory has rendered hollow the philosophical core of a whole generation of work in the human sciences."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Originally published: The feud of language : Oxford ; Cambridge, MA : Blackwell Publishers, 1989.