Structure and the Whole

This book identifies the Romantic notion of the whole as the fundamental epistemological source of the notion of structure in the thinking of the Prague Linguistic Circle, primarily its Russian representatives, and studies what amounted to the slow, painful process of disengagement from the organicist metaphor in an intellectual world very different from Saussure's.

Patrick Sériot, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.

"This book is one of substantial erudition and interest. Specialists in the history of ideas, and that of structuralism in particular, will be in the best position to evaluate the details and cogency of its arguments. Others, i.e., those of us with an interest in the Prague School arising in their education and research in Slavic Languages and Literatures, and specifically in linguistics, will find it fascinating intellectual history, taking them, potentially, to a far deeper understanding of the views, and their origin, of Jakobson and Trubetzkoy, views which originated not only in an interest in language per se, but also as it pertained to culture and nationhood. I know of no other book that does this."
Mark J. Elson in: Slavic & East European Journal 61.2 (2017) Nr. 18, S. 384