Ferdinand de Saussure

Pierre-Alexis Mevel (University of Nottingham)

Ed. by David Houston Jones, University of Exeter
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.06: French Writing and Culture: Early Twentieth-century , 1900-1945.
Vol. editors: Kate Averis (Universidad de Antioquia), Hugo Azerad (University of Cambridge), Patrick ffrench (King's College London), Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Akane Kawakami (Birkbeck, University of London), Siobhán McIlvanney (King's College London), Sinan Richards (King's College London), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 26 Nov 1857
Died 22 Feb 1913
Activity 1877-1913

Places

Born in Switzerland
Active in France; Switzerland

Activities

Primary

Philologist

Resources

The lectures that Ferdinand de Saussure gave at the University of Geneva (1907-1913) constituted a breakthrough in how we perceive the relationship between language and thought. Whereas, up until this point, thought was generally considered to precede language, Saussure argued that language and thought constituted each other, and could not be separated. Indeed, in a famous metaphor, he likened language and thought to the recto and verso of a piece of paper: one cannot cut what is on one side without cutting what is on the other. Saussure’s linguistic theories would later constitute a major influence on Western thought, and particularly on the anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss, the phenomenological philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty,…

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1829 words

Citation: Mevel, Pierre-Alexis. "Ferdinand de Saussure". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 May 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3943, accessed 25 November 2024.]

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