The Dialogical Self

This concept emerged from working with valuation theory and the self-confrontation method in theory and practice and from a historical analysis of the psychological and novelistic literature.

- Starting point: The contrasting philosophical thoughts of  Descartes and Vico

- Considers the self as multivoiced and dialogical

- Is inspired by James's psychology of the self and the Russian literary scholar Mikhail Bakhtin who introduced the concept "polyphonic novel" after an analysis of the works of Dostoyevsky

- Acknowledges not only the role of human interchange but also the impact of power

For a detailed exposition see the book The Dialogical Self: Meaning as Movement

For the anchoring of the dialogical self in recent trends in psychological literature see the article Voicing the Self: From Information Processing to Dialogical Interchange

For the relationship between the dialogical self and the process of globalization see the article Moving Cultures: The Perilous Problems of Cultural Dichotomies in a Globalizing Society

See also Special Issues on the Dialogical Self

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