Structure
<p ><b>Structure</b> is a fundamental, tangible or intangible notion referring to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_recognition" title="Pattern recognition" >recognition</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observation" title="Observation" >observation</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_(philosophy)" title="Nature (philosophy)" >nature</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object_permanence" title="Object permanence" >permanence</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern" title="Pattern" >patterns</a> and<a href="http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Relationship" class="extiw" title="wiktionary:Relationship" >relationships</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entities" title="Entities" class="mw-redirect" >entities</a>. </p>
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This notion may itself be an object, such as a built structure, or an attribute, such as the structure of society. </p>
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From a child's verbal description of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow" title="Snow" >snowflake</a>, to the detailed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_analysis" title="Scientific analysis" class="mw-redirect" >scientific analysis</a> of the properties of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_field" title="Magnetic field" >magnetic fields</a>, the concept of structure is now often an essential foundation of nearly every mode of inquiry and discovery in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science" title="Science" >science</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy" title="Philosophy" >philosophy</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art" title="Art" >art</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-Pullan000_0-0" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure#cite_note-Pullan000-0" >[1]</a></sup>
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In early 20th-century and earlier thought, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Form" title="Form" >form</a><sup class="plainlinks noprint Inline-Template" >[<i><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://toolserver.org/dispenser/cgi-bin/dab_solver.py?page=Structure&editintro=Template:Disambiguation_needed/editintro&client=Template:Dn" >disambiguation needed <img src="/3c0d8e64-bd5d-5b33-816f-5d7fd92c5221.gif"/></a></i>]</sup> often plays a role comparable to that of structure in contemporary thought. The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Kantianism" title="Neo-Kantianism" >neo-Kantianism</a> of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Cassirer" title="Ernst Cassirer" >Ernst Cassirer</a> (cf. his <i>Philosophy of Symbolic Forms</i>, completed in 1929 and published in English translation in the 1950s) is sometimes regarded as a precursor of the later shift to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structuralism" title="Structuralism" >structuralism</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poststructuralism" title="Poststructuralism" class="mw-redirect" >poststructuralism</a>.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference" ><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structure#cite_note-1" >[2]</a></sup></p>
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The description of structure implicitly offers an account of what a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System" title="System" >system</a> is made of: a configuration of items, a collection of inter-related components or services. </p>
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A structure may be a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierarchy" title="Hierarchy" >hierarchy</a> (a cascade of one-to-many relationships), a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_network" title="Complex network" >network</a> featuring many-to-many <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Link(geometry)" title="Link (geometry)" >links</a>, or a<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice(order)" title="Lattice (order)" >lattice</a> featuring connections between components that are neighbors in space.</p>