Russian philosopher of dialogism, responsible deed (postupok), and carnival, Mikhail M. Bakhtin (November 4 (16), 1895, Oryol, The Russian Empire − March 7, 1975, Moscow, the USSR) worked with the literary material of masterpieces by Dostoevsky, Rabelais, Goethe, Gogol, and so on. Bakhtin did not directly introduce the notion of the possible in his writings. However, the terms “possible,” “possibility,” or “impossible” in many of their variations were highly used by Bakhtin throughout of his writings. Some, or, maybe, even the most, of these uses were mere functional, reflecting a way of articulating his ideas or a way of talking. However, others apparently represent important philosophical conceptualization, which I want to discuss in this essay.
I have abstracted five distinct philosophical conceptualizations of the notion of “the possible” in Bakhtin’s work. The first one is purely negative, “the empty of responsibility possible,” as a form of “theoriticism” criticized by Bakhtin (1993...
Notes
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Here and further, in quotes of Bakhtin, the italics are original by the translator, and the bold is mine.
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References
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Matusov, E. (2022). The Possible in the Life and Work of Mikhail M. Bakhtin. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_40-3
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