Roland Barthes: An advanture from structuralism to poststructuralism

This thesis basically has the aim of setting forth how Roland Barthes becomes himself, passing through various theoretical influences, throughout all his intellectual development, and of showing what this means social sciences. To this aim, we will employ a descriptive method, following a chronological order of his works. Barthes, first of all, set out adopting Saussure's structuralism, then turns his attention to Derrida's post-structuralism, and finally, breaking himself with the thoughts of these thinkers, develops his own theory. After these two periods, passing under the influence of the determinations of structure and subject, Barthes is withdrawn to a more indeterminate center, towards person as a singular form of existence, which no theory is asserted to encompass. In this way, society, the very object of sociology, comes to be characterized as a fiction rather than as a determination. In the final chapter of our thesis, this situation which concludes in making sociology objectless is discussed and, from this discussion, it is tried to develop a critique of the ideas of Roland Barthes.