Derrida's Use of Lévi-Strauss's Bricoleur in "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" In his seminal essay "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences," Jacques Derrida critiques and extends the ideas of structuralist thinkers, most notably Claude Lévi-Strauss. Derrida's engagement with Lévi-Strauss is central to his development of deconstruction, a method, and philosophy that challenges the stability of meaning and the rigidity of structures. One of the key concepts Derrida uses to illustrate his theory is Lévi-Strauss's notion of the "bricoleur." By examining how Derrida employs this concept, we can gain a deeper understanding of his critique of structuralism and his vision of the fluidity of meaning. Claude Lévi-Strauss introduces the bricoleur in his work to describe someone who constructs using whatever materials are at hand, as opposed to the engineer who operates with a pre-conceived pl...