The Norms of Answerability: Social Theory Between Bakhtin and Habermas

Greg M. Nielsen brings Mikhail Bakhtin's ethics and aesthetics into a dialogue with social theory that responds to the sense of ambivalence and uncertainty at the core of modern societies. Nielsen situates a social theory between Bakhtin's norms of answerability and Jürgen Habermas's sociology, ethics, and discourse theory of democracy in a way that emphasizes the creative dimension in social action without reducing explanation to the emotional and volitional impulse of the individual or collective actor. Some of the classical sources that support this mediated position are traced to Alexander Vvedenskij's and Georg Simmel's critiques of Kant's ethics, Hermann Cohen's philosophy of fellowship, and Max Weber's and George Herbert Mead's theories of action. In the shift from Bakhtin's theory of interpersonal relations to a dialogic theory of societal events that defends the bold claim that law and politics should not be completely separated from the specificity of ethical and cultural communities, a study of citizenship and national identity is developed.

Table of Contents:
Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction: Theory on the Borders of Sociology Syncrisis and Anacrisis: The State of Bakhtin Studies Creativity and General Sociological Theory The Bridge between Culture and the Political 1. Diversity and Transcultural Ethics Disciplinary Orientations Decentered Subjects and Critiques of Discourse Ethics The Creative Side of the Normative The Normative Side of Creativity Between the Creativity and the Normativity of the Act 2. Communicative Action or Dialogue? Communicative Action and Moral Development The Limits of Universal Reason Dialogism: Mixing the Word and Style 3. The World of Other's Words Bakhtin and Voloshinov on the Subject of the Utterance Social and Ethical Worlds of Dialogue in Dostoevsky The Frankfurt Tradition Habermas's Break Genres of Discourse in Literature and in Theory From Dostoevsky to Calvino Convergence and Difference 4. On the Sources of Young Bakhtin's Ethics (Kant, Vvedenskij, Simmel, Cohen) Kant's Three Postulates Vvedenskij's Fourth Postulate Simmel's Shadow Bakhtin and the Formal Ought Cohen's "Discovery of Man as Fellowman" Influences and Steps 5. Action and Eros (Kant-Weber-Bakhtin) Kant: Duties Toward the Body Concerning the Sexual Impulse Weber: Action, Ethics, and Eros Bakhtin: The Fourth Postulate and Body-Dialogue Eros and Action Today 6. Reflexive Subjectivity (Mead-Bakhtin) Philosophical and Disciplinary Orientations Between Consciousness and Language: The Ambiguity of Experience Murder, Confession, and Community Why the Subject Is Behind Us Action Inside and Outside the Subject 7. Citizenship and National Identity On the Dialogue Between Ethnos and Demos Identity For and against the Nation 8. A Dialogue on the Nation in Postnational Time The Nation as a Sociology of Culture: The Quebec Case Habermas: The Nation as Subjectless Communication Taylor: The Nation as a Politics of Concession Kymlicka: On National Minorities Associational Sovereignty: Fourth Way? 9. Conclusion: On Culture and the Political Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
Greg M. Nielsen is Associate Professor of Sociology at Concordia University and Adjunct Professor in the Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought at York University. He is also the author of Le Canada de Radio-Canada: Sociologie Critique et Dialogisme Culturel.

Review :
"Bakhtin is a hot topic, and the Bakhtin scholarship behind this book is first rate. This book also makes an original contribution to discussions on post-national democracy." - Brian C. J. Singer, author of Society, Theory, and the French Revolution: Studies in the Revolutionary Imaginary "I think the author's use of Bakhtin's dialogism in order to provide a basis for negotiating between the extremes of ethnos and demos is an original and intellectually important contribution to social-political philosophy in an age that recognizes diversity as a major resource and problem for society." - Fred Evans, author of Psychology and Nihilism: A Genealogical Critique of the Computational Model of Mind