subjective admin

[luke edmonson]

fredric do as you see fit.

The HUMANIST model presupposed:


1.) That there is a real world out there that we can understand with our
rational minds.

2.) That language is capable of (more or less) accurately depicting that
real world..

3.) That language is a product of the individual writer's mind or free will,
meaning that we determine what we say, and what we mean when we say it; that
language thus expresses the essence of our individual beings (and that there
is such a thing as an essential unique individual "self").


4.) the SELF--also known as the "subject," since that's how we represent the
idea of a self in language, by saying I, which is the subject of a
sentence--or the individual (or the mind or the free will) is the center of
all meaning and truth; words mean what I say they mean, and truth is what I
perceive as truth. I create my own sentences out of my own individual
experiences and need for individual expression.


The STRUCTURALIST model argues


1.) that the structure of language itself produces "reality"--that we can
think only through language, and therefore our perceptions of reality are
all framed by and determined by the structure of language.

2.) That language speaks us; that the source of meaning is not an
individual's experience or being, but the sets of oppositions and
operations, the signs and grammars that govern language. Meaning doesn't
come from individuals, but from the system that governs what any individual
can do within it. 


3.) Rather than seeing the individual as the center of meaning,
structuralism places THE STRUCTURE at the center--it's the structure that
originates or produces meaning, not the individual self. Language in
particular is the center of self and meaning; I can only say "I" because I
inhabit a system of language in which the position of subject is marked by
the first personal pronoun, hence my identity is the product of the
linguistic system I occupy.