Toward a Philosophy of the Act (University of Texas Press Slavic Series) (Paperback)

Toward a Philosophy of the Act (University of Texas Press Slavic Series) By M. M. Bakhtin, Vadim Liapunov (Contributions by), Michael Holquist (Editor) Cover Image
By M. M. Bakhtin, Vadim Liapunov (Contributions by), Michael Holquist (Editor)
$24.94
Available to ship within 1-5 days

Description


Rescued in 1972 from a storeroom in which rats and seeping water had severely damaged the fifty-year-old manuscript, this text is the earliest major work (1919-1921) of the great Russian philosopher M. M. Bakhtin. Toward a Philosophy of the Act contains the first occurrences of themes that occupied Bakhtin throughout his long career. The topics of authoring, responsibility, self and other, the moral significance of "outsideness," participatory thinking, the implications for the individual subject of having "no-alibi in existence," the difference between the world as experienced in actions and the world as represented in discourse—all are broached here in the heat of discovery. This is the "heart of the heart" of Bakhtin, the center of the dialogue between being and language, the world and mind, "the given" and "the created" that forms the core of Bakhtin's distinctive dialogism.

A special feature of this work is Bakhtin's struggle with the philosophy of Immanuel Kant. Put very simply, this text is an attempt to go beyond Kant's formulation of the ethical imperative. mci will be important for scholars across the humanities as they grapple with the increasingly vexed relationship between aesthetics and ethics.

About the Author


Vadim Liapunov is an associate professor of Slavic languages and literatures at Indiana University. Michael Holquist is a professor of comparative literature and Slavic studies at Yale University.
Product Details
ISBN: 9780292708051
ISBN-10: 029270805X
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication Date: October 1st, 1993
Pages: 132
Language: English
Series: University of Texas Press Slavic Series