Structuralism as a Bridge
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
The structuralism of the 1950s and 60s - Saussure, Lévi-Strauss, Althusser, Lacan - was the last great systematic movement before postmodernism. It shared with postmodernism the critique of humanism, of the subject, of the philosophy of history. But it still believed in science, in structures, in knowledge.
Postmodernism - Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze, Lyotard - radicalized structuralism against itself. It retained the critique of the subject but abandoned the claim to scientificity. It retained the emphasis on difference but abandoned the idea of invariant structures. It retained the decentering of the human being but abandoned every remaining trace of teleology.
For the reception of Hegel, this movement is decisive: structuralism represented the most radical alternative to dialectics that the twentieth century produced. Where Hegel sees mediation, process, sublation, structuralism sees difference, synchrony, invariance. Postmodernism goes further still: it deconstructs not only Hegel but every claim to systematic philosophy.
The following chapters trace this movement - from structuralism through its crisis in 1968 to postmodern radicalization. It is a history of the critique of Hegel - but also a history in which Hegel keeps returning, often unacknowledged, often distorted, but unavoidable.