Dans l’ombre du structuralisme (Chklovski, Merleau-Ponty… et Chpet ?)

In the Shadow of Structuralism: Šklovskij, Merleau-Ponty… and Špet?

I wish here to tackle Gustav Špet's work in the context of a specific interpretation of the history of structuralism. This interpretation will focus on the covert existence of a question that structuralism tried to sideline early on, but which, in effect, haunted it ever since its origins in Russian formalism: it is the question of perceptual sense , or in more phenomenological terms, the question of the modes of donation of sensible reality in intelligible and meaningful structures. My purpose, thereby, is to gain a critical perspective on a very important issue of Špet's philosophy, namely, his ontological conception of the sign.