Abstract
The goal of this chapter is to explore the ontological basis of self in the theoretical framework of dialogical psychology. This theoretical approach presupposes the Ego-Alter interdependency and the multiplicity of positions that they can adopt one in relationship with the other. This approach elaborates on the classical philosophical perspectives of Bakhtin, James, Mead and Peirce. To delve deeper in that direction, we will attempt to articulate some aspects approached by the psychological perspective of cultural-semiotic constructivism developed by Simão (2010), which builds phenomenologically upon the perspectives of Valsiner, Boesch and Marková regarding the ontological dimension of the “I-Other-world” relations, with the semiotic approach to the self (cf. Peirce, Colapietro, and Wiley) as a dialogical-interpretive process. Constructivist dialogism allows us to consider the relation between the microlevel—of the individual—and the macrolevel—of the community—as a continuous process of dialogical exchanges. The “I-Other-world” relation enables the development of the self as a dialogical-semiotic process, and cannot be reduced to the mere rational deliberation. Peircean triadic semiotic posits a phenomenological analysis of human experience through three universal categories. They correspond to the qualitative, factual and general dimensions that are part of everything that happens to us, and of everything that happens in the universe; the categories—Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness—have an ontological dimension, besides the phenomenological one. They can be used to analyze the three fundamental and interrelated aspects of the self: affectivity, Otherness and temporality, respectively, which are also central in the perspective of the semiotic-cultural constructivism.
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Notes
- 1.
See, for instance, International Journal for Dialogical Science, 2006, Vol. 1, No. 1 and Theory & Psychology, 2010, vol. 20, no. 3.
- 2.
The researches that feed the reflections of this meta-theoretical and ethic perspective have been developing at the Laboratory of Verbal Interaction and Knowledge Construction of the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo, and have counted with the contribution of many researchers formed and working at that Laboratory.
- 3.
The work of Peirce is quoted in the usual way: CP x.xxx, which refers to volume and paragraph in the Collected Papers; EP2: p. x, refers to a page in the volume The Essential Peirce Vol. 2 (1893–1913).
- 4.
Peirce came up with the term ‘phaneroscopy’ in order to differentiate his phenomenological analysis from that of Hegel (CP 1.284).
- 5.
In terms of Dialogical Self Theory, Peirce’s critique of ‘dualism’ is aimed at any kind of ‘dichotomy’ (p. 10).
- 6.
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Andacht, F., Michel, M., Sánchez, H., Simão, L.M. (2020). A Meta-Theoretical Approach to the Ontology of the Self in Dialogical Psychology. In: Lopes-de-Oliveira, M., Branco, A., Freire, S. (eds) Psychology as a Dialogical Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44772-4_1
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