On the Philosophical Methodology of Research and Classification of Poststructuralism

Firstly, the author observes that the term “poststructuralism” has some deficiencies, though it is largely used in behalf of the thought of the French philosophers Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, or Gilles Deleuze. It seems to be inappropriate or insufficient in relation to the ontological meanings of these different philosophers' works. Foucault himself wondered why scholars use this “label”. To understand Foucault, this term is rather unnecessary. The French philosophical thought seems to be replaced by the so-called “French theory”. The author does not elaborate this critical point. Secondly, the author postulates some methodological restrictions on the use of the term. Thirdly, he gives a categorical frame to the problematics viewed through poststructuralism. The main problem is the relationship between the social and the vital (G. Leblanc). Finally, the author offers a methodological order of research on the “poststructuralist” thought, from concepts, periods, authors to academic comparisons and heuristic applications. After this methodological introduction, the author tries to apply to this problem the methodology of classification elaborated in 1970 by the Soviet scholars Sergey Meyen and Juri Schreider for biology and linguistics. This classification means the possibility of natural classes. In this sense, the author argues that there is no hierarchy of philosophical thought and poststructuralism belongs to the level of meta-classification. The author remembers that Foucault himself, in his Order of Things, put the classification in question, saying there were two different types of classification in different periods of time: taxonomy and structural classification. The author calls this difference onto-ontic and thinks that there must be a post-classical, heuristic, and natural classification with two levels of analysis. The term of poststructuralism can belong to meta-classifications and the level of “meronomy” (Meyen) can be filled with such concepts as classical and modern epistemes, etc.

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