Poststructuralism and Deconstruction as Forms of (Linguistic) Idealism

The British academic and literary critic Catherine Belsey wrote a book called Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction. That book doesn’t mention either (historical) idealism or (20th century) linguistic idealism. Perhaps Belsey would have seen such a mention as being out of place in an introductory book. However, this essay argues that linguistic idealism is at the very heart of poststructuralism. Indeed, Belsey’s own (very positive) words about poststructuralism show that to be the case.

Catherine Belsey (left). Top to bottom: Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Lyotard and Jacques Lacan. These three figures are extensively featured in Belsey’s book.

[See my next essay, ‘Linguistic Idealism as a Weapon of Poststructuralist/Postmodernist Politics’.]

(i) Introduction
(ii) Linguistic Idealism?
(iii) Saussure’s Linguistic Idealism?
(iv) Is the World Created By Language?
(v) Conclusion: Poststructuralism’s Linguistic Idealism and Politics

This essay is largely based on an extremely positive account of poststructuralism by the academic and literary critic Catherine Belsey (who died in 2021).

In her book Poststructuralism: A Very Short Introduction, Belsey waxes lyrically about literally all the theorists and philosophers she personally associates with poststructuralism. Oddly enough, Belsey includes the…