[Xmca-l] Re: A new book: Dialogic Pedagogy and Polyphonic Research Art: Bakhtin by and for Educators

[Ana Marjanovic-Shane]

Dear Greg,

Yes, it is interesting and exciting to “accomplish” dialogue in a medium like this – but in a way isn’t it the most natural medium for a dialogue? I remember when I first got an internet connection (back in the 80’s!!) and was able to exchange e-mails with so many people all over the world, it felt like a beginning of an era of real dialogue – “involving a plurality of unique and opaque consciousnesses with equal rights and each authoring and living in its own dialogically bounded world (cf. Bakhtin, 1999 , p. 6).” (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, Gradovski, 2019, p. 275). I remember distinctly how exciting it was to address people and be addressed by them in the email  – as pure voices, unburdened by their physical appearance that could betray their age, gender, speech dialect that could reveal their nationality (at the times of the civil wars in Yugoslavia), etc. Everyone could be addressed by “Thou” (in Serbo-Croatian, it is an egalitarian pronoun, treating the interlocutor as an equal, and also as someone with whom one can be direct and open, as opposed to “You”, that like French “Vou”, Spanish “Usted” German “Sie” – shows deference to a hierarchical authority of the older and/or wiser, or merely institutionally superiors or authorities). It eliminated sexism to a large extent too, and it eliminated boundaries between different circles of people: everyone and anyone could join a dialogue!

In fact, I think that group lists like this one are the natural medium for a true dialogue.

As for the issues that you feel important for our discussion: “sustainability” and “subjectivity” – let’s discuss them further.

Sustainability of EOD:

You wrote: “My question is more of an ecological one: is it sustainable in the sense that you can put it out into the world and it will be able to be taken up by teachers and others and practiced, and that this can be ongoing? Now, granted, the ecologies that I'm talking about are human ones. Hence my other question: what would need to change in order to make it sustainable? (and, relatedly, what is keeping it from being sustainable?). I like your suggestions and agree that standardized testing is a major impediment to the kind of EOD practice that you describe (as well as many other kinds of good pedagogical practices!).”

In my view, an ecology that would promote (although not guarantee) Ethical Ontological Dialogism, could only be conceptualized if and when the intrinsic, rather than instrumental, sphere of education, as a basic human need and right, can be legitimized as the main, or at least one of the main purposes of education. It is a basic human need to be educated for her/his own reasons, on her/his own terms, at the time and in the manner that is most suitable to her/his own unique life trajectory, etc.

If education is truly to be owned by the learner as his/her unalienated right of becoming, a legitimate right of pursuing a journey toward him/her-self, it would mean to completely change what today is the dominant purpose of education: to serve various other social, cultural and even personal needs. Such education, that serves other non-educational spheres is instrumental. It is a tool to help develop social goals of economy, science, technology, politics, legislature, medicine, etc. or to help a person get a better paid job, advance the position of her/his family; gain a social status, etc.

These different social, cultural and personal goals can be defined and standardized, and they can be built into an educational system. They can shape education into a fully predefined activity (conceptualized as an activity system), regardless of who are the actual students or the teachers, who will be “put through” this activity. In such educational system (as we have now), individual subjectivity is irrelevant! Any particular “acter” in the system can be replaced – because it is the system that defines what each position in it should ideally mean. Standardized tests are just a tip of the ice-berg of such activity system that is predefined and preconceptualized – in other words a system that Aristotle would describe as “poïesis” – a practice which structure, form and content are predefined, and its outcomes known in advance.

In contrast, the main purpose and premise of Education based on Ethical Ontological Dialogism is the support of the unique trajectory of each individual learning journey, which is not known in advance, and cannot be assumed to exist apart from the particular unique learner and/or teacher. Such a practice would be a “praxis” in terms of Aristotle, a practice whose purposes, goals, forms and trajectories evolve from itself and are based on the uniqueness of the involved participants, serendipity of the moment-to-moment events, the availability of the cultural, historical, economic, political, and other social “resources” (artefacts, ideas, concepts, means that can “fuel” educational inquiries). In such praxis, there exist a plurality of purposes for education, including its instrumental potentials for the society and for the individuals, and its non-instrumental values (to learn something “just because it is interesting and important to me, and I like it”). What is important is the legitimacy of each learner’s and teacher’s subjectivity. Such education is not based on replaceable individuals and does not aim to produce “replaceable” individuals.

Ethical Ontological Dialogism, in fact, requires acknowledgement of the uniqueness of each person her/his education. And that would require many changes. In that sense, “sustainability” should be not about content and form of education (curriculum, instruction, organization, even relationships), but about values and purposes of education.

Of course, ecology for EOD depends on various economic and societal conditions that either make EOD more possible and more valuable, or make it less possible and less valuable. Eugene Matusov is working on a new book in which he claims that instrumental education in the past and the present is a result of the economic and societal necessities: we need people who are trained to do many jobs in which they function as parts of large activity systems (economy, health, legal and judiciary spheres, technology, maintenance of infra-structures, etc.). Under such circumstances, human unique, unpredictable, transcending subjectivity is not only irrelevant, but can be dangerously undermining and destructive for the activity system.

However, the more predictable and the more standardized is a particular activity system, the more chance that it will be possible to develop smart machines (robots) that can do such jobs. The current development of technology, especially technology based on artificial intelligence, will enable our societies to replace many humans with real smart machines, even for highly professional jobs – in the near future. This will free many people from the necessity to act as a smart machine and create circumstances in which a society would be able to afford what today is affordable only to the very wealthy: a lot of time for true leisure, a kind of leisure that in the ancient Greek was called “skhole” (Greek: skhole "spare time, leisure, rest, ease; idleness; that in which leisure is employed; learned discussion;" – Online Etymology Dictionary: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=school). These circumstances would much better support  creation of educational ecology that promotes EOD.

And that leads us to the issue #2 –

Subjectivity and EOD

In our book, we argue that human subjectivity, in fact, has to be considered in a dualistic way – both as something given i.e., objective subjectivity, studied by conventional psychology (including sociocultural one), and also as something that is in continuous dialogic authorial subjectivity, and thus, unfinalizable, unpredictable (even for the person in question), unique and transcending her/his prior self.
We claim that

…human subjectivity always has simultaneously an objective aspect (i.e., “consciousness-as-it”) and an authorial aspect (i.e., “consciousness-as-you”) (Matusov, 2015, p. 401), we think that both positivist and dialogic paradigms are legitimate in social sciences. This dualistic science epistemology for social sciences and humanities was unapologetically proposed by Bakhtin (1986). Bakhtin seemed to accept the objectification of human subjectivity promoted by positivist social sciences as legitimate under certain conditions when personal human uniqueness, personal authorial authorship, and personal voice do not dominate a phenomenon.” (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, Gradovski, 2019, p. 277).

It is this dual mode of existence, that is the source of what you call “emphasizing different sides of the argument”. It is quite possible and often necessary to objectify subjectivity of the other and the self.  But it is also necessary to keep in mind that the subjectivity, in its very core, actually emerges in the process of dialogic meaning-making, and thus, its source, essence and actual life as subjectivity is unfinalizable, transcendent, unique and unpredictable.

In the book we identified two main sources of objectification of human subjectivity.

One main source is rooted in objective ways of how a person feels, thinks, acts, and behaves due to physical, chemical, biological, psychological, cultural, social, economic, political, historical, and institutional pressures that make human subjectivity predictable and replaceable. For example, a cognitive study shows that when some people are primed to remember words depicting old people, they might tend to walk slowly (Kahneman, 2013). Here, priming—the preexisting objectivity of human subjectivity—is revealed by the positivist research” (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, Gradovski, 2019, p. 278).

The other source of objectifying human subjectivity is

…when people are treated as objects of other people’s or their own actions. For example, in conventional schools, students are often treated as objects of teachers’ pedagogical actions to make them predictably and systematically arrive at preset curricular endpoints, to be measured by educational tests, quizzes, and exams. Alternatively, some people consciously want to limit their own uniqueness and authorial authorship in some areas to save their creative efforts for other areas. Thus, famous physicist Albert Einstein and former US President Barak Obama deliberately made their choice of everyday dress cyclical and predictable, while other people may find a choice of their everyday dress a part of their creative self-expression. Here, the objective subjectivity is new and actively constructed by other people or by the people themselves” (p. 278, italics added now).

In fact, objectifying human subjectivity is quite successfully done in all forms of behavioristic shaping of others’ behavior. There are extensive psychological, sociological and educational studies based on positivist objective and objectifying approach to human sciences. One could argue that these approaches have been successful and that a lot has been learned about the objectifiable aspects of human subjectivity.

In our book, we make a particular point in defense of objectivism of the positivist research of the given – because it studies the objective subjectivity. We do not argue that dialogism is a “better” approach, nor an “ultimate” approach. Rather, we argue that both the positivist, objective science approach to capture the givens of the subjectivity, human relations, social practices, etc., and dialogic approach to the unfinalizable, meaning-making, unique and transcendent subjectivity – are legitimate in their own right, and that it is important to find boundaries of each one’s legitimacy.  We wrote,


“We argue that both positivist science and dialogic science have their legitimacy and limitations. Thus, it is legitimate for positivist science to study objective things and objective subjectivities. For example, we praise (see Matusov, 2017) cognitive psychologist Daniel Kahneman who studied flaws of human gut subjectivity (Kahneman, 2013). However, when positivist science tries to study authorial subjectivity, live voices, dialogic meaning making, or ethical responsibility, it kills what it studies in its process. In essence, we both agree and disagree with the postmodernist critique of positivism (see, for example, Denzin & Lincoln, 2005). We agree with the critique of its limitations and of its inappropriateness in some areas of research. But, we respectfully disagree that positivism is wrong in each and every case and that it has to be eliminated.


Similarly, dialogic science has its own limitations and applicability. When dialogic science tries to study the objective world (and objective subjectivity), at best it generates good poetry, metaphors, or fiction prose, anthropologizing and ventriloquizing voiceless things, and at worst it creates new oppressive religious mysticisms or “alternative facts.” It can be legitimate for dialogic researchers to study astronomers involved in a positivist study of stars by addressing and responding to astronomers, but it is not legitimate for these dialogic researchers to try to address and respond to stars or talk with trees (see a debate on that here: Matusov & Wegerif, 2014)”. (Matusov, Marjanovic-Shane, Gradovski, 2019, Dialogic pedagogy and polyphonic research art: Bakhtin by and for educators, Palgrave, pp. 226-7)
It seems that your question is in regard of a possibility for coexistence of two legitimate educational modes: a conventional, objectifying, instrumental educational mode in which education is conceptualized as a “poïesis” – i.e. the curriculum, instruction, evaluation and its other aspects are predefined, and based on the “best practices” discovered through objectifying positivist approach to subjectivity; and at the same time, existence of the sustainable ethical ontological dialogism in which both subjectivities and education itself are deemed “praxis” that creates ecologies in which emergence of unfinalizable, transcendent, unique and unpredictable subjectivities is possible.

Ultimately, for me, Ethical Ontological Dialogism is about legitimizing the fact that this question is to be answered by the educational participant, i.e. the learner and /or the teacher (and possibly other relevant parties, like parents). In other words, ethical ontological dialogism in education should start with addressing this question to every participant: “What is the purpose of education for me? Why?” and having this dialogue be critically analyzed – and illuminating every educational decision along the way.

What do you think?

Ana


--
Ana Marjanovic-Shane
Phone: 267-334-2905
Email: anamshane@gmail.com


From: "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Date: Friday, May 31, 2019 at 3:25 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Cc: Eugene Matusov <ematusov@udel.edu>, "mikhail.gradovski@uis.no" <mikhail.gradovski@uis.no>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: A new book: Dialogic Pedagogy and Polyphonic Research Art: Bakhtin by and for Educators

Ana,

Isn't it delightful to try to accomplish "dialogue" in a medium such as this? I think I'll have to respond in toto rather than as proper conversational second parts as you have done - for fear that things will get too messy and difficult to track (much different from if we were having this conversation in person - or, at least, a different kind of messiness!).

Regarding the issue of universality, as an anthropologist, this is an occupational hazard. I should be clear that my question is different from the concern with "scaling up" (or "mechanization") which seeks to identify teaching practices that can be simply applied to all teaching encounters. My concern is precisely that there may be some places where this might not be the most ethical approach - or perhaps that it might need some further specification and/or modifications.

As for "sustainability", yes I have a slightly different understanding from what you are describing (what you are describing seems to be more like the "scaling up" issue I've mentioned above - i.e., how to mass produce education). My question is more of an ecological one: is it sustainable in the sense that you can put it out into the world and it will be able to be taken up by teachers and others and practiced, and that this can be ongoing? Now, granted, the ecologies that I'm talking about are human ones. Hence my other question: what would need to change in order to make it sustainable? (and, relatedly, what is keeping it from being sustainable?). I like your suggestions and agree that standardized testing is a major impediment to the kind of EOD practice that you describe (as well as many other kinds of good pedagogical practices!).

On the issue of the pre-existing nature of the subject, we may have to agree to disagree. Whether or not that is the case may, in part, depend on whether or not you equate "unfinalizable" with "undefined". I'm no expert in Bakhtin and I'm a bit out of touch, but from what I recall of my reading of him, the point is that we are consummated by the recognition of others and that is central to our emerging definitions of who we are. There is a subject here. The ethical caution that I see Bakhtin offering is that this moment of recognition (and hence this subject) should not be final - i.e., that is who we have come to be, not as finalized subjects, but as subjects-in-the-making, subjects abuilding (bildung?). Thus, for example, one doesn't wake each morning with a clean slate in one's relationship with one's partner as if their subject-hood is undefined. In other words, I don't think Bakthin is being ahistorical about subjects. Rather, in my reading of B, if one loves one's partner, one wakes each morning with a clean slate of who they can BECOME (unfinalized) but without neglecting who they have been to oneself (since to recognize them as "partner" is to already begin from an understanding of their subject-hood prior to your subsequent encounters with them that day). That's just my take. And note that we may in fact be in total agreement on this but just emphasizing different sides of the argument?

As for the comment about Martin Packer's book, I should have clarified that it is not about studying subjectivity "objectively" but rather is a critique of this entire enterprise. If you get a chance to have a read of it, I think you'll find some strong resonances. Apologies to Martin for mischaracterizing his work in my initial comment ("that's not what I meant!").

As for how this is "ontological", I like the direction that you propose - this is about the constitution of subjects (and, perhaps, about the constitution of reality and the worlds that we inhabit?). That's some big stuff.

Anyway, thanks much for the engagement (which I'm happy to continue - although maybe there are more productive directions than those I have taken thus far?).

And to this point of possibility and becoming, I thought I'd offer a favorite quote of mine from Lloyd Alexander's book The Castly Llyr. This is Lord Dalben's parting advice to the young Princess Eilonwy as she sets out on an adventure and is rather unsure of her ability to handle the challenges that this adventure will entail. It captures the challenge of allowing others' becoming (even if it is in spite of themselves): Dalben says to Eilonwy: "For each of us comes a time when we must become more than what we are."

Cheers,
greg




On Sat, May 25, 2019 at 10:51 AM Ana Marjanovic-Shane <anamshane@gmail.com<mailto:anamshane@gmail.com>> wrote:
Dear Greg, David and all,

Thanks, David, for another thoughtful and provoking email. Although I am faster this time in my reply, I would still like to count it in the “slow dialogue”! :)

Thanks for the opportunity for having a very thoughtful Saturday morning.

See my responses between your lines below (in red).


Ana


--
Ana Marjanovic-Shane
Phone: 267-334-2905
Email: anamshane@gmail.com<mailto:anamshane@gmail.com>


From: "xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>" <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>> on behalf of Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Friday, May 24, 2019 at 3:33 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu<mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>>
Cc: Eugene Matusov <ematusov@udel.edu<mailto:ematusov@udel.edu>>, "mikhail.gradovski@uis.no<mailto:mikhail.gradovski@uis.no>" <mikhail.gradovski@uis.no<mailto:mikhail.gradovski@uis.no>>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: A new book: Dialogic Pedagogy and Polyphonic Research Art: Bakhtin by and for Educators

Ana,

Thank you so much for your very thoughtful description/explanation of Ethical Ontological Dialogism. I know that by now you probably thought I was avoiding your answer, but I've been trying to figure how to offer a reasonable response to the feast that you put forward in your email and trying to figure out how I might respond to your post in a manner consonant with ethical ontological dialogism. I'm pretty sure I'll fail at the latter, but feast I did.

ANA: Thanks

I'm also curious if a medium like a listserve can brook the challenge of slow replies - replies that don't come for days or even weeks. I'm always surprised to see how quickly conversations come and go even in a (virtual) place as thoughtful as XMCA. Perhaps this is a sign of the times; you can find "dialogue" everywhere but seldom does it amount to much - whether ethically (cf. the dialogical fires that regularly erupt in social media) or ontologically (cf. the "dialogue" of talking heads on just about any media outlet who are expected to instantly opine on subjects about which they've had little time to think). The dialogues on XMCA are perhaps a bit slower than some of these other "dialogues" but even here on XMCA it seems the half-life of a comment is about 24 hours. So I'm wondering what a slower listserve might look like and whether slow replies might perhaps be a step toward what you have outlined as ethical ontological dialogism.

ANA: I think that we should try to do slow dialogues among other dialogues. It is true that your original email and a simple question on elaborating Ethical Ontological Dialogism (EOD), made me slow down and start to think about what I see as an essence that can be somehow described in a concentrated way but without loss of life and subjectivity. It was me, first who slowed down the discussion. And I liked the time it took to think about the issue.


That's all just to say that I was delighted by your response (and the fact that you took some time to respond) and I hope you'll forgive me for multiplying that time in my response (and, of course, that last paragraph could be seen as just an attempt to rationalize my failure to be a responsible partner in dialogue...).

Anyway, as for the project itself, I find it quite exciting and invigorating. It is a wonderfully interesting project to tease out the implications of Bakhtin's work for teachers' practice and the way you have outlined this in your email really sings to me.

If I were to ask questions about the project (and maybe some of these answers are contained in the book - I've asked our library to order it), I have two major questions that stand out. One has to do with sustainability of these principles and the other has to do with the universality of them.

ANA: Before I reply to any one of them below – you may notice that both questions are about issues important in a different, more prevalent, monologic approach of searching the “universal” and erasing the uniqueness of subjectivity by the notion of “sustainability” – which implies that teaching should strive to be something that can be replicated by others. (just a quick comment – which ties into your next paragraph)

With regard to sustainability, along with David Kirshner's question: "Do you not tremble at the selflessness that this posture demands?", I wonder if this is the kind of thing that teachers in major public school systems can easily sustain? Or is there something else that is needed in order to be able to enable teachers to realize this kind of practice? What things might need to change?


ANA: Sustainability, in my interpretation, (correct me if I am wrong), runs directly in contradiction to dialogicity! Sustainability means basing teaching on “the best practices” – or replicating past “models,” that seem to be working good. That very process in its nature is monologic, introducing something that is above and erases the uniqueness of each person’s subjectivity, and thus each teacher’s striving to create and be surprised by new moment-to-moment evolving meanings in dialogic relationships with the equally unique and unpredictable students. That cannot be “sustained”, because such a process cannot be guaranteed, as it is different for each participant.

Yes, you, Greg and David Kirschner might say “I tremble at the selflessness that this posture demands” but this trembling for me is the sign of a pulse of life. Pulse of life that can live freed of the mechanization through which the contemporary education attempts to process the participants in education.

What needs to change to enable teachers this kind of practice? A lot of things! But some countries may be timidly starting on this path (For instance New Zealand removed national educational standards https://education.govt.nz/news/national-standards-removed/ !) Of course, removing national standards is just a first step. There are for sure many more things that will have to be changed – and not all the same things for all the people in education. But I also think that the changes need to be broadly directed at creating ecologies of education in which teaching and learning can take a lot more authorial and creative turn than it is possible now. What exactly would that mean – will probably be very different for each teacher and each student.

With regard to universalizability, I wonder if you have thought much about the ideology of the subject that underlies this project? As much as the project sings to me, I wonder how much of that is because it is based on an ideology of the subject that resonates with me (I'm a fan of Bakhtin's notion of the subject as articulated in Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity). As an anthropologist I have to ask the question: what if the culture that you are working in requires acknowledgment of some fixed characteristics of the subject being addressed, perhaps even as finalized and finished categories? Relatedly, I wonder if there might not be need for some awareness of patterns of difference whether developmental differences, cultural differences, and other differences that are important to engage with in order to engage in an EOD manner with others?

ANA: You ask “what if the culture that you are working in requires acknowledgment of some fixed characteristics of the subject being addressed, perhaps even as finalized and finished categories?”
I think that when a culture requires acknowledgement of some fixed characteristics of the subject being addressed, that culture in itself has a non-dialogic ideology – ideology that requires and counts on suppressing the uniqueness of subjectivity and, thus, suppressing the meaning-making practices. So, yes, if the ideology of a culture is monologic, a project to fully dialogize teaching would be hard, potentially impossible, and would have to be “smuggled” under the radar of what the educational authorities demand. This is, in fact, what happens today in most conventional schools that are governed in a strictly hierarchical, authoritarian way, demanding reproduction of culture, ideology and dogma by setting these ideologies, standards and dogmas as the only legitimate ones, and enforcing them with standardized testing.

Even the recognition of differences in the form of the talk about developmental differences (developmentally appropriate curriculum),  cultural differences (culturally sensitive curriculum), individual differences in special education (various accommodations specified in the Individual Service Plans (ISPs), etc. – this recognition is still about how to strive toward, aim at, and somehow reach the prescribed standardized and pre-set educational end-points, despite the special circumstances of diversity, which are all perceived as forms of an educational handicap!

In my view, Bakhtin inspired dialogism does not recognize any preexisting subject, nor any pre-existing fixed characteristics of the subject.

Dialogicity is a stance that assumes that subjectivity is born in dialogue – it is not a given, not even for the person her/him-self. Rather, one’s subjectivity is constantly being born in one’s own dialogic project of becoming a person, in dialogue, where one discovers pregnant possibilities for “I” to become “ME”.

Put slightly differently, is it possible that recognizing pre-existing persons as part of (fixed) pre-existing categories might be a necessary part of an ethical ontological dialogism.

ANA: For me: No! (see above).

In other words, is there some other end of the spectrum opposite of a total rejection of these positive categories and patterns that is necessary for an ethical ontological dialogism?

ANA: You assume that the opposite of not recognizing unique individual subjectivity of others – is “recognition of preexisting person as part of (fixed) pre-existing categories”. This assumption is a trap – as it stays in the same realm of the given (positive), i.e. given in the world as such. However, the question is not whether the uniqueness of the subjectivity is given or not, the question is about whether our subjectivity is a given or our subjectivity emerges in a continuing transcendence of the given.

It seems that this positive categorization is a part of ethical dialogical practice in much of our intimate encounters - whether the mother anticipating the needs of a nursing child, a child anticipating their parent's wishes (in Korea there is a term "nunchi" which is one of the most fundamental ethical values of certain kinds of relationships and involves the anticipation of the needs of significant others; importantly, these are often in hierarchical relationships), a teacher designing a curriculum for incoming students based on what little is known of their developmental age, or the anticipatory removal of images of snakes by a man whose spouse is ophidiophobic. Prediction as part of the anticipation of needs hardly seems ethically problematic in these cases and, in fact, it seems to be exactly the opposite.

ANA: It is very important, in my view that you notice that a mother (caregiver) keeps anticipating the needs (and the subjectivity) of a child – i.e. that an ethical thing is to anticipate someone’s subjectivity!! I think that this is the core of an ethical approach – to anticipate someone’s subjectivity – and yet not to assume that one can know it, or that subjectivity is (fully) knowable. To me, that means what Bakhtin conceptualized as “unfinalizability”.

I would think that this would also mean that the goal of psychology -understanding others - has the potential to be a deeply ethical practice in the EOD sense. The one caveat is that it shouldn't be seen as the final word on any one subject - i.e., you can never fully "know" a person via the categories that they might fit into.

If I may anticipate(!) your response, I assume that an EOD approach would not avoid this but would simply be to emphasize that this is NOT the same as using one's knowledge of the Other as a final determination - as a determination of the Other's "essence and potential". That seems a critical point.

ANA: No. EOD approach is different for me. EOD approach is in anticipating surprises from oneself and the others, inviting oneself and the others to further transcend the given and making opportunities for such transcendence; rather than simply being aware that one should not finalize the other. And to develop it further, “anticipation” of the other’s subjectivity is about being genuinely interested in the other. This genuine interests opens a door for the other to join the dialogue – in which all the participants can have an opportunity for discovering/constructing and transcending their subjectivities.

A few other thoughts:

I can't help but see strong parallels between your critique of social science research and the critique offered by Martin Packer in his book The Science of Qualitative Research. Latour seems to be one of the main common touchpoints, but thematically you are engaged in very similar projects - the question of how to study "subjectivity" "objectively".

ANA: In fact, NO. The Ethical Ontological Dialogism is not about studying subjectivity “objectively”, but is about providing opportunities for and inviting people’s subjectivities to start/continue emerging in all the unpredictable and intrepid ways imaginable (and unimaginable) transcendence.

The major difference is that where you turn to Bakhtin's notion of unfinalizability, he turns to Foucault's notion of an "historical ontology of ourselves". Regardless of that, I see huge resonances between your work. And regardless of those resonances, I imagine that bringing EOD to social science research would be another angle to develop more substantially (if you haven't already!).


Oh, and a question: what is "ontological" about EOD?

ANA: Ahh, the most important question!….

To say it quickly – to me the “ontological” means that for the dialogic participants the dialogue matters on the level of their dialogic subjectivity! It matters for who they are! It matters for their ideas about the world, the others and themselves. It matters for what they desire, what they fear, what they think they can’t live with or without, etc. “Ontologically” engaged dialogue makes a difference for the continuing transcendence of the given – it can and does change big and/or small things relevant for the person and her/his personhood.

But, of course, this question requires a lot more analysis.

I have more thoughts but I think I've already said too much...

ANA: ??. Me too.


Once again, many thanks for your thoughtful and lengthy response. I look forward to reading more.

Very best,
Greg


--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu<http://greg.a.thompson.byu.edu>
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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