Saussure: A Hegelian going stray

When I studied Saussurean linguistics, the commonly held view was that the Course laid the foundations of structuralism. Much emphasis was put onto the dualism langue-parole (language-utterance) and therefore, one seemed to ignore the fact that Saussure set the basis of his semiology on the triad langue-langage-parole. Of course, Saussure, at the beginning of the Course, is set to look for the subject matter of a science of language and the distinctions he makes among language, human speech and speaking are made in order to justify the chosen subject of linguistics, i.e. language. And the subject matter of linguistics is, for Saussure, the most stable part of the triad, the passive collection of the conventions adopted by society that enable individuals to exercise the faculty of speech. Thank you very much.


A closer and more careful examination of the triad makes me believe Saussure is establishing a Hegelian distinction among the universal (langue), the particular (langage) and the individual (parole). 'Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other' (p. 4). Furthermore, one cannot help but think on further Hegelian influence in Saussure. Let us have a look.

First, let us ponder Hegel's assertion that philosophy is distinguished from the other sciences in that it alone can presuppose neither its object nor is method. Philosophy, for Hegel, starts with a subjective presupposition. Philosophy, unlike other sciences, cannot make a clear start. Its quest for detaching from representations and dealing with notions that are severed from them is an impossible one because notions (unlike Kant's belief) are not a given, they are historically constructed (i.e. they are subjective). Philosophy, for Hegel, is circular. Now, let us have a look at the following reflection written by Saussure in the Course: 'Other sciences work with objects that are given in advance and that can then be considered from different viewpoints; but not linguistics. Someone pronounces the French word nu 'bare': a superficial observer would be tempted to call the word a concrete linguistic object; but a more careful examination would reveal successively three or four quite different things, depending on whether the word is considered as a sound, as the expression of an idea, as the equivalent of Latin nudum, etc. Far from it being the object that antedates the viewpoint, it would seem that it is the viewpoint that creates the object' (p. 8).

So what is the departing point that cuts up Hegel's approach toward philosophy from Saussure's approach toward a science of signs? The answer may lie on the chosen part of the triad. What Saussure does when he points out the universal is the subject of a science of the life of signs in society is severing from it the particular and the individual. For Hegel, in contrast, there cannot be universal without the individual instantiation.


It is all very well said, of course, but the task is horrifyingly difficult. The problem arises when one tries to keep the three moments of the notion (universal, particular, individual) together throughout research only to discover that the exercise has gone stray, becoming an unintended exercise in reification (the researcher is, after all, looking forward to achieving a higher level of generalisation) or it is so grounded that no generalisation is possible: The conclusions of research only apply to the individual case.