The Dialogical Nature of our Inner Lives

Abstract

Classically, we have treated talk of such things as meaning, understanding, and thinking, etc., as raising problems about mental states assumed to exist inside people's heads. And in our philosophical inquiries, we have sought determinate in-principle solutions to these problems. In the dialogical, relational-responsive view of language use presented here — influenced by Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and Voloshinov — a very different view of such talk is presented. Our ‘inner lives’ are not hidden ‘inside’ us, but are ‘displayed’ out ‘in’ the unfolding, living encounters spontaneously occurring between us and the others around us as we live out our lives