structuralism: art as not autonomous.
Structuralists view society and its rules as expressions of deep structures, often binary codes, that express our primary natures. A systematic study of such codes is semiotics, which was later hijacked by Poststructuralists as evidence that language alone provides a true reality.
Saussure worked on a much smaller canvas and devised a semiology that properly applied to linguistics. Certainly the signified (concept) and signifier (sound or letter group) were connected only arbitrarily, as had been noted since Aristotle. But Saussure made it a cardinal feature of his system: the principle of arbitrariness, he said, dominates all linguistics. The English call their faithful friend dog and the Spanish perro. Historically, there are reasons for the difference, but Saussure’s approach removes them from consideration: we look only at language as normal speakers use it now.
Binary opposition is a common feature of the western intellectual tradition (e.g. individual versus society, true versus false) and Saussure writes this opposition into his system. No particular unit (word, sound, concept) has any intrinsic value beyond what it derives from the presence of other units in the system, similar or dissimilar. Any unit (and that includes larger elements of syntax and meaning) can substitute for any other, or be compared to another. Words acquire their values in two ways. One is by virtue of being strung together in sentences: their syntagmatic relationships. The other is paradigmatic, associative, from experience of the world outside, whether directly through sense impressions or via mental operations. This paradigmatic way is not logical: we build up chains of associations — school, playtime, games, competition, etc. — where the end members have no obvious connection with each other. {2}
Two points need to be made. Firstly, language can be studied from many aspects (as individual expression, social need, aesthetic shape, etc.) but Saussure’s approach cuts these off, treating language as a self-contained system of signs. The arbitrary nature of signs is a product of that approach: it is not proved by his system but presupposed by it. Secondly, the binary opposition is a structuring device: a conscious choice. Formal logic has a stronger case for the opposition (true or false) but has in practice an imperfect grasp on the world, commonly uses more than two values, and has branched into deontic, modal etc. forms.