Return to Saussure

Introduction For several centuries, Western thought rested on a seemingly stable conviction: that human experience is the ultimate source of meaning and authority. To know the world was, in the last instance, to return to oneself—to perception, reflection, or judgment. Whether in philosophy, politics, or ethics, the subject functioned as the final point of reference. Today, this assumption no longer holds with the same force. Decisions once grounded in intuition are increasingly delegated to systems that register, process, and anticipate behavior. What appears at first as a technical development points toward something more fundamental. The question is no longer simply how we know, but who—or what—counts as a knower. Humanism and the Authority of the Subject Modern humanism emerged from a decisive reorientation. With René Descartes, certainty was no longer anchored in tradition or external authority, but in the immediacy of thought itself. The cogito did more than establish a f...