On Human Sciences: Dialogues Between Ernst Cassirer and Mikhail Bakhtin

Abstract

Many studies, aiming to analyze the philosophical roots of the ideas of the so-called “Bakhtin Circle,” have shown some convergences between the thought of the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer and the ideas outlined by the Circle’s authors. Therefore, in this article, we seek to compare Cassirer’s theories about “cultural sciences” with Bakhtin’s reflections on these same sciences. Throughout the article, we point out similarities and differences in the discussions presented by the two authors. We highlight a clear similarity in the ways in which the authors (Cassirer and Bakhtin) approach the object of human sciences as opposed to the object of natural sciences, based on the idea of “personification” and “thingification” (Bakhtin) and knowledge of the “other” and knowledge of the “thing” (Cassirer). We concluded that this similarity would be due to the reading that both authors would have made of the works of Scheler, Dilthey and Rickert.