The Personality of Act-performer in M.M. Bakhtin’s Essay “Toward a Philosophy of the Act”

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the concepts, expressing the idea of personality in M. Bakhtin's essay “Toward a philosophy of act” (1922–1924). The concepts of “subject”, “personality”, “Act-performer”, “I”, “Other”, which Bakhtin uses in his early works, often have different meanings, which complicates the understanding of the author's ideas. We can distinguish, at least, a twofold interpretation of the individual Act-performer concept: on the one hand, existentialistic and personalistic – appealing to a certain integral unit, which has self-consciousness and responsibility; and, on the other hand, communicative and dialogic, appealing to the person, who is forming and realizing him/herself on the in communication with others. Thus, the second meaning, that is presented in “Problems of Dostoevsky’s Art” destroys the image of a responsible moral subject through replacing it with an image of speaker, who is in a dialogue with others and knows others through dialogue. For Bakhtin, intersubjectivity becomes a space for the emergence of individual’s self-consciousness as well as the moral obligation, the adoption of norms and values that determine the Action-performer’s deeds. The article analyzes who these subjects are, between which intersubjectivity arises. It is concluded that Bakhtin had no any coherent concept of the subject. However, the subject as he/she presented in the essay “Toward a philosophy of act”, can be characterized as: concrete, open, incomplete, cognitive, appropriating values, self-aware, autonomous, constituting the world and the Other, strong-willed, but not active in the sense of committing any action aimed at the Other.