ABSTRACT
The relation between Superstructuralism and Metaphysical philosophy is already apparent in Saussure's concept of ' langue'. For the concept of 'langue' is precisely the concept of an objective idea. Before Saussure, language was traditionally viewed in terms of a physical sound on the one hand, and a mental idea on the other: the former existing in the world of objective things, and the latter inside individual subjective minds. But Saussure's signifier, in so far as it is taken up into ' langue', is not a thing but, as we have seen, a category of sound, a conceptualized 'sound-image'.1 And Saussure's signified, in so far as it is taken up into 'langue', is not an event inside individual subjective minds but, as we have seen, an everpresent, pre-existing social reality. In the realm of ' langue', the traditional dualism between objective things and subjective ideas simply falls away.
