The Legacy of Structuralism: From Its Dogmas to Methodological Pluralism

There is a widespread idea that the Philosophy Department at University of São Paulo, has been structuralist since the 1960s. In my opinion, this is a myth, the result of a misunderstanding of what structuralism is. I distinguish between three parts of structuralism: its conception of philosophy, its dogmas and its method for doing history of philosophy. I then discuss, for each of these parts, in what sense structuralism may still have left deep traces, for better or worse, in the Philosophy Department at University of São Paulo. Next, I point out what seems to me to be an ambiguity in the structuralist idea of method: one should distinguish between the philosopher’s method and the method of the structuralist historian of philosophy. Concerning the first, while structuralism offers an argument against all dogmatic methods, I propose the skeptical method as the best one. Finally, I argue that the structuralist rules for doing history of philosophy are good ones, but in many cases insufficient. Thereby I propose a methodological pluralism.