Roots of the “Subject” in Genetic Structuralism

The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the position and role of the subject—in terms of influencing or being influenced—in relation to the structure from the perspective of genetic structuralism that was proposed in the field of sociology and literary criticism by a Romanian philosopher and sociologist Lucien Goldmann. His theory of genetic structuralism has been widely applied in the sociology of literature. Using the basic elements of structuralist theory and at the same time understanding its weaknesses, Goldmann tried to save this theory from stagnation, inflexibility and inefficiency in explaining historical changes and developments by applying the theory of historical evolution in structuralism that increases its ability to explain social phenomena. By adding the concept of “genesis” to structuralist theory, an attempt is made to understand the dynamics of subject-structure and objective products of this relation. In Goldmann's theory, among these objective manifestations, literary creation is particularly emphasized.Genetic structuralism sees literary creation as the product of the transcendental agent, which is represented in this form by its author. The meaningful structure of a literary creation is dialectically related to the mental structure of this transcendental actor, which is in a dialectical relationship with the political, social and economic structure and is constantly evolving and changing in the persistent cycle of construction-deconstruction. For Goldmann, structures have no idealistic or neo-Kantian element, and it is human being who acts collectively and along class lines in order to create or change these structures. Therefore, the structures have a non-historical and subsequently non-functional character, and there is no need for metaphysical levels to analyze them.In the research hypothesis, it is argued that the subject of genetic structuralism, as a transcendental agent with inevitable gradual distancing from  the  absolute  agency and non-active structural subordination, hast reached a dialectical relation with structure and in the course of the formation of class consciousness and its objective manifestations, in a successive cycle of construction-deconstruction is always evolving and changing. In an attempt to understand human and social phenomena in general and cultural creations in particular, Goldmann borrows certain macro-analytic categories (such as wholeness, worldview, form, transcendental agent, possible consciousness, and object consciousness) from Georg Lukács and combines them with a series of anthropological and positivistic categories derived from Piaget (such as meaningful structure, function, the process of construction and deconstruction, the epistemological loop of subject and object, and equilibrium).The author uses the method of textual analysis for hypothesis testing. The most notable work of a critical theorist, Georg Lukács (i.e., Theory of the Novel and History and Class Consciousness) as well as Goldmann's books and essays (i.e., the Hidden God, and The Human Sciences & Philosophy, Lukács and Heidegger) are examined. The findings show that in the transition from structuralism to poststructuralism, the dialectical field of genetic structuralism combines Lukacs's sociological theory with Piaget's psychological theory, using the legacy of thinkers such as Hegel and Freud, Nietzsche, etc. and seek to find a middle ground to liberate the subject while accepting the influence of structural constraints.