Questões de Alteridade e Identidade

Abstract

Based on the work of Mikhail M. Bakhtin, this paper discusses his view of the individual person and the relation of otherness, also approaching the works of more contemporary authors who have discussed issues of identity and otherness according to the Bakhtinian philosophy. In a Bakhtinian perspective, and also in the Ponzian and Geraldinian views, it is the tense social environment, thus the other, that organizes and defines who I am. It is at the level of social relations, through language, that we are constantly affected by others, and so they participate in our human development process. According to Bakhtin, the relation of otherness dialogically affect all instances of the individual’s constitution. The philosophy proposed by this author shifts the organizing center of utterances / actions from the self to the other, destabilizing the dominant worldview of our culture. We are constituted by several relations of otherness and they are established in several contexts. These encounters with others prevent the establishment of a complete and stable identity of self, which is also diverse and multiple