ABSTRACT
Structuralism has the advantage which the discussion so far has found lacking in other schools of thought and theories of society. This chapter considers structuralism and evaluates it as an adequate sociology of culture and, more specifically, of artistic creativity and experience. For if, as it claims, the structural method can reveal the fundamental structure of thought in a given society at a given time, it must certainly be recognised as a serious contender as the essential analytical tool for the apprehension of Weltanschauungen. The chapter discusses separately two of structuralism's chief exponents in social anthropology and sociology, namely Claude Levi-Strauss and Lucien Goldmann. The introduction of the concept of structure gives us a potentially important tool for this analysis, and in the hands of Goldmann, the tool is employed without sacrificing the fundamental perspective of meaning. Social groups are defined, in accordance with Marxian tradition, by their self-consciousness and their needs and purposes.
