From Kant to phenomenology : the philosophical affiliations of M.M. Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida

From Kant to Phenomenology: The Philosophical Affiliations of M. M. Bakhtin and Jacques Derrida” deals with the common intellectual sources of the two thinkers, and their varying responses to a range of philosophers. Previous comparisons have been made in terms of their possible contributions to literary theory, but this thesis argues they are better understood as philosophers, working within a variety of philosophical traditions, and grounded in a number of shared intellectual roots. It therefore examines in turn the understanding of Kant, neo- Kantianism, Hegel, German Romanticism, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Lebensphilosophie, phenomenology, Heidegger and Cassirer in the writings of Bakhtin and Derrida. An extended Conclusion deals with the Davos debate between these last two figures, and how Bakhtin and Derrida were received and used during the development of literary theory. This leads to an investigation of how recovering the philosophical affiliations of Derrida and Bakhtin may help reinvigorate an interdisciplinary methodological movement.