2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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P HILOSOPHY, NON-PHILOSOPHY, AND SCIENCE
There are several reasons pointing toward the non-philosophical status, in the sense ex-
plained above, of Structuralism. In this section, I will briefly indicate the circumstantial ev-
idence surrounding Lévi-Strauss’s work that seems to suggest that his relationship with
philosophy is very similar to AI’s. I will provide a more detailed discussion, conducted on
the basis of the internal features of the theory proposed by Lévi-Strauss, after the analysis
of the central concept of “structure” will have been carried out in chapter 5. Then, in chapter
6 below, I will follow the thread of Lévi-Strauss debate with the philosopher Paul Ricoeur
to provide a more conclusive assessment of Structuralism’s non-philosophical status. In
this section, I will just indicate the main coordinates of Lévi-Strauss’s confrontation with
philosophy in order to provide the guidelines of the assessment to follow later on.
The preliminary evidence can be found, mainly, in the introductory chapter of Lévi-
Strauss’s autobiographical work, Tristes Tropiques, in the Introduction for a collection of
works by the anthropologist Marcel Mauss that he edited a few years earlier in 1950, and,
finally, in an exchange with the editors of the philosophical journal Cahiers pour l’Anal-
yse—Jacques Derrida and Jean Mosconi—that took place in 1967.
The principal features of this confrontation are very similar to the characteristic traits
of the debate between AI and philosophy: it is a conflict born from an excessive proximity,
from a similarity of intents that makes it difficult to keep the two projects apart in spite of
their alleged incommensurable differences. This feeling of closeness is shared by both
Lévi-Strauss and his fellow opponents. In “The Making of an Anthropologist,” for exam-
ple, Lévi-Strauss recounts how his intellectual apprentissage began with a degree in phi-
losophy at the Sorbonne where he studied with the future leaders of the phenomenological-
existentialist movements: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty.
However, he is quick to add that he grew quickly bored of the intelletual gymnatics that
philosophy had been reduced to, and that seemed the only sufficient condition for a quick
success in the field. He enjoyed good academic success and was well respected in the philo-
sophical circles—he was, in other words, a “well trained philosopher.” But the secret of his
success, he explains, was based on his mastery of the philosophical art
du calembour qui prend la place de la réflexion; les assonances entre les