2. Philosophy - Stefano Franchi

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ism, and it seems best to start again from an analysis of the definition that, in Ricoeur’s
eyes, summarizes the theoretical impasse faced by Structuralism: “Kantism without a tran-
scendental subject.” This definition has enjoyed a good deal of fortune, not the least be-
cause of Lévi-Strauss apparent endorsement, most famously in the “Ouverture” that opens
Mythologiques, where he says:
In allowing myself to be guided by the search for the constraining structure
of the mind (esprit), I am proceeding in the manner of Kantian philosophy,
although along different lines leading to different conclusions. […] I
am perfectly aware that it is this aspect of my work that Ricoeur is referring
to when he rightly describes it as “Kantism without transcendental subject.”
But far from considering this restriction as indicating some deficiency, I see
it as the inevitable consequence, on the philosophical level, of the ethnographic
approach I have chosen. 31
In spite of Lévi-Strauss’s polemic endorsement, however, it is important to emphasiz-
es, for a correct understanding of his position, that Ricoeur’s definition amounts to a defin-
itive condemnation, both in Kantian terms and in Ricoeur’s own, non-Kantian perspective.
In fact, a Kantism without transcendental subject is a contradiction in terms, since Kant’s
main purpose was precisely to define the limits of human reason in order to establish the
field of human freedom: the human subject lives freely in a world that is different from the
merely natural world of an objective nature subjected to necessary rules. A Kantism of the
unconscious, then, would be worse than a ridiculous parody of the Kantian project, e.g. the
effort to deprive the human subject of his freedom and to reduce it to the ranks of mere ne-
cessity. It would indeed be a totally inconsistent project, since the categorial grid analyzed
and justified in the Critiques contains the categories of a subject who perceives, thinks and
acts through them, and it is the transcendental, as opposed to the pure empirical, status of
the subject that validates the grid itself. If we take away the subject and its transcendental
status, the Kantian project is reduced to an empty formalism that cannot be pinned down
31. Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mythologiques I, Le cru et le cuit (Paris: Plon, 1964) 18-19; Engl tr. The Raw and
the Cooked (Chicago: Chicago UP, 1983) 10-11, emphasis added. The passage repeats almost verbatim
Lévi-Strauss’s response to Paul Ricoeur in the Esprit debate.