ABSTRACT
Fredric Jameson's Valences of the Dialectic offers one of the most pertinent ways to approach this question, as it argues that all structuralist thought has, albeit without knowing it, always been dialectical. After presenting the central criteria constituting postmodern dialectics and structuralism according to Jameson and Gilles Deleuze, respectively, the chapter explores the differences between the two modes of thought, and their respective realms, through an analysis of Franz Kafka's parable "Prometheus". Drawing primarily on Vladimir Lenin, Georg Lukacs, Theodor Adorno, and Slavoj Ziaek, Jameson proposes three criteria as the most central principles of postmodern dialectical thought. In describing the logics of structure and sense, Deleuze provides a different articulation of the negative relation between the incommensurables in identity. Deleuze would object to Jameson that the aforementioned dialectical models of analysis do not formulate a structure as their object, let alone constitute structuralist thought.
