Abstract

Structuralism as well as other methods of literary criticism, take positions analogous to ones espoused in some philosophies of science. Examples are: regarding a discipline as self-contained, having no necessary connection with the external world; taking interpretation (or the postulating of theories) as an arbitrary process, valid if it makes sense of the data, thus avoiding questions of truth; diminishing individuality by overemphasizing the learned aspects of a discipline (reading as governed by assimilated rules, research as controlled by shared goals and methods and implicit agreement on fundamental questions). Interdisciplinary exchange should lead to greater awareness both of difficulties of these positions and of proposed solutions to the difficulties they raise.