Toward a philosophy of the act: considerations about singularity, emotive-volitive tone, and duty

Abstract

Toward a philosophy of the act constitutes an extremely dense work regarding the concepts and reflections it proposes. In addition, it functions as the outline of a broad philosophical project, foreseeing the paths trodden by Bakhtin and the Circle in their later writings. We understand that it is, therefore, a work that has a markedly philosophical character, which may require a different reading effort from the one required by others. Given this, we believe it is necessary to undertake a reading path capable of granting a holistic view of this work, based mainly on the analysis of key concepts that integrate it – singularity, duty, and language – and enunciating some indications of the correlation with issues addressed in the later Bakhtinian production, such as the concepts of utterance, alterity, and dialogism. For this, we propose a reading of this initial production of the Circle, based both on the Bakhtinian work itself and on the propositions of some of the main thinkers who discussed that production, such as Sobral, Amorim, and Bubnova. In our perspective, Toward a philosophy of the act establishes a close relationship between singularity, emotive-volitive tone, and duty. Such concepts, we believe, continue to integrate the future works of Bakhtin and the Circle, even under other denominations.