Encounters with the other, toward a dialogical conception of the self

Abstract

This dissertation seeks to unfold a conception of selfhood that affirms the active, formative role of the other in the demarcation and constitution of the self. Taking the strong position that one is not able to know oneself in any sort of determinate way without the interacting presence of an other, it is argued that the self is a dialogical achievement. In arguing for a dialogical conception of the self, this work draws largely on the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin, the Russian literary theorist, philosopher of language, and preeminent apologist for the wide-ranging significance of dialogue in human existence. Following an Introduction, which considers the central themes and arguments presented herein, Chapter 1 examines aspects of the modern philosophical tradition that are antithetical to the dialogical view put forth by Bakhtin. Among the themes considered in this chapter are the modernist privileging of the epistemic activities of the individual subject, the denial or devalorization of this subject's dependence on the other, and the representational model of language and communication that reinforces this modernist subject's presumed sovereignty and self-sufficiency. Also included in this chapter is a consideration of the modernist assumptions underlying contemporary portrayals of the self, par5ticularly those informed by the Piagetian, structural-developmental framework. Chapter 2 explores the status of Bakhtin's "dialogism" as a general perspective on the nature of knowledge and subjectivity. It is shown that in contrast to modernist conceptions, Bakhti acknowledges the constitutive significance of social-communicative relations with the other for the subject's perception of the world and itself. In keeping with this dialogical conception of the subject, this chapter also considers the constitutive importance of language for human subjectivity. Chapter 3 examines Bakhtin's metalinguistic theory of the utterance with a view to highlighting the notion that any individual use of language necessarily implicates the other, and more specifically, the word or discourse of the other. Chapter 4, in turn, considers the more specific implications of Bakhtin's account of the utterance for a dialogical conception of the self. Working from the assumption that the vicissitudes of the self parallel those of the utterance, it is argued that the dialogical self be regarded as an unrepeatable event of meaning which implicates both the previous and anticipated utterances of others. Also included in this chapter is a detailed consideration of the ontological significance of the other's recognition or responsive understanding for the constitution of selfhood. In Chapter 5, critical aspects of the dialogical view are brought further into relief through a comparative analysis of the writings of Bakhtin and George Herbert Mead. This chapter argues that while both theorists espouse a social ontology that stresses the relation between self and other as it defines and manifests itself in human communication, only the Bakhtinian conception of dialogue, and of inner dialogue in particular, recognizes the enduring importance of the otherness of the other for the communicative process of self-formation. Among the more specific features of the Bakhtinian approach to be considered in this regard are its emphasis on difference as an enabling condition for dialogue; its resistance to formulations which see dialogue as a dialectical process that tends progressively toward the eradication of otherness; its depiction of the self's multiciplicity as a non-systemic aggregate of voices in interaction; and its provision of an account of the internalization process that preserves the sense of the particularity, and hence the otherness, of the voices that populate our inner speech. In an effort to illustrate the methodological and analytic utility of the view presented herein, Chapter 6 offers a dialogical reading of the autobiographical utterances of three children. Upon describing the nature and content of these self-relevant utterances from the vantage point of the structural-development framework, they are reconsidered in light of some of the ideas and assumptions associated with the Bakhtinian dialogical perspective. More specifically, the possible social origins of autobiographical discourse are considered, as are the ways in which such discourse betrays an active, "double-voiced" orientation to the other's word. Chapter 7 attempts to move beyond a conception of dialogism simply as an ontological given, that is, as a description of how language invariably operates. It is argued that dialogue, over and above this descriptive dimension, is an ethical ideal for development, one that suggests a particular valorized way of engaging the word of the other. In this regard, the dialogical self emerges as something worthy of advocacy. Finally, in the Conclusion section, dialogism is considered in terms of its potential status as a metatheoretical discourse for developmental psychology, and more specifically as a framework which, by virtue of its reliance on an open sense of time, has particular implications for the way we conceptualize the process of change.