'Bakhtin and the Hegelian Tradition' explores the influence of Georg Hegel and
Hegelianism in the philosophy of Mikhail Bakhtin. The thesis demonstrates that, either
directly or indirectly (through neo-Kantianism, Lebensphilosophie, and phenomenology),
Hegelian philosophy made a fundamental contribution to Bakthin's thought throughout
his career. To this end, the thesis maintains a close connection between the historical
analysis of philosophy and contemporary philosophical thought.
Historically, the thesis discusses Bakhtin's work with reference to, among other,
Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, and the important
works of Bakhtin's contemporaries-especially the Lebensphilosophen Wilhelm Dilthey
and Georg Simmel, the neo-Kantians Hermann Cohen and Ernst Cassirer, and the
phenomenologists Edmund Husserl and Max Scheler.
Philosophically, the thesis critically analyses Bakhtin's key concepts and theories
in order to disclose their philosophical character. In particular the thesis evaluates the
origin and evolution of Bakhtin's concepts of the subject, the object, the ought, culture
and knowledge, and looks at his theories of being-as-event, intersubjectivity, language,
genre, and world-view. By applying both analytic philosophy and Michael Kosok's
formalised dialectical logic, the thesis demonstrates that many of Bakhtin's key concepts
and theories have an indubitable Hegelian nature, or indeed origin.
One of the most fundamental issues this thesis reveals is Bakhtin's desire to
redefine and develop the nature of the Hegelian methodology, and in particular the nature
of dialectics. As such, this investigation into Bakhtin's Hegelianism is valuable for the
fact that it presents a new perspective on Bakhtin's philosophical concepts and theories,
as well as a new viewpoint on Hegelian philosophy.