The Intersubjective Nature of Meaning in Bakhtin and Wittgenstein

Abstract

This article aims at comparing the philosophies of language of Bakhtin and Wittgenstein. The main problem to be addressed is how these two authors thought the idea that linguistic meaning necessarily has an intersubjective nature. To this end, the article will address the Wittgensteinian “private language argument,” as discussed in Philosophical Investigations, particularly in §258, and the Bakhtinian thesis of the “dialogical orientation of discourse,” as discussed at the beginning of chapter 2 of Discourse in the Novel.