Linguistic and Ontological Approach in M. Bakhtin's Theory: Logic–Grammar–Poetics

Introduction. The current problem of mastering Mikhail Bakhtin's rich scientific legacy is to fix the unified approach that, albeit implicitly, provides a paradigmatic unity to the extremely wide range of topics proposed by the thinker and the diverse set of concepts he synthesized.

Methodology and sources. Emerging within the broad framework of the “linguistic turn”, which set the basic trend for the development of the humanities in the 20th century, Bakhtin’s theory methodologically accumulated all the approaches associated with this turn, including phenomenology, ontology, hermeneutics, psychoanalysis, Russian formalism, and structuralism.

Results and discussion. The broadest range of humanities phenomena – from linguistics, communication theory, and the concept of the novel to specific works of art – is induced by Bakhtin’s paradigm of understanding along the trajectory of “logic – grammar – poetics”. In this algorithm, the “normative” center is first identified, which, in its self-identity and pronominal immobility, appears in the absolute status of an “eternal” substance; then, in relation to the “logical” center, the “grammatical” existence of the dynamically active periphery is described in terms of the uncertainty of immediate becoming. In the modus of poeticization, this dichotomy, in which one side claims subjectivity and dominance, while the other plays the role of a dependent but predicate-rich entity, forms an alliance on the path of “poetic” abolition of the immanent dichotomy of center/periphery, without eliminating the ontological tension between them, which is filled with the energy of transcendent meaning.

Conclusion. Bakhtin's linguo-ontological approach clarifies the presence on the same axis of the field of logical descent, which synthesizes the pole of the monological subject in its domination over the present world and the other as its predicate relative to the pole of I/is, and the poetic ascent in the modus of the dialogical equivalence of the metaphorization of the predicative world, in which it condenses into an aesthetic image, and the metonymization of the egocentric subject, which shifts the latter to the periphery of poetic contemplation.

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