A pesquisa em ciências humanas: uma leitura bakhtiniana

This text approaches, based on the theoretical work of Mikhail Bakhtin, questions related to the specificity of the knowledge produced by Human Sciences and their implications for the researcher ́s task. The text aims at discussing the constitutive moments of the act of researching, that is: the encounter between the researcher and his other, during the development of the field research, and the obligation which the researcher assumes later on, by writing his paper, in order to give form and content, through the creation of concepts, to the researched reality. In each one of these moments, what is pointed out is the ethical obligation of the researcher in the production of solid human understanding in the act of researching.


For an epistemology of Human Sciences
Thinking about the construction of an epistemology of human sciences from Mikhail Bakhtin's philosophy of language demands that the researcher of this field face an initial challenge, that is, the characterization of what it is to know an object, and what it is to know an individual, another cognoscenti subject. To Bakhtin, this distinction is fundamental, for it allows the researcher to characterize each element, object and subject, in its specificities, in its own limits. When we think about the knowledge that can be elaborated when the subject comes across an object, devoid of interiority, we observe that this object can reveal itself through the cognoscenti subject's unilateral act and, therefore, this knowledge is of the order of practical interest. On the other hand, when a particular subject opens up to the knowledge of another individual, there must be a certain distance, because, when you open up to the other, in this case, you also remain turned toward yourself. This duplicity -to be a subject and, at the same time, an object of knowledge -requires that the human sciences be defined with basis on a problem that is peculiar to them and with basis on a specific field of exploration. The criterion that guides this kind of knowledge must concern itself with the density and the depth of what is revealed through the encounter of the researcher and his other 1 . The researcher of the field of human sciences is, therefore, shifting through the terrain of discoveries, of revelations, of knowledge, of communications, of the productions of meaning between the I and the other. In this context, we can highlight the importance of secrets, lies, indiscretions, offenses, of the clashes of points of view that inevitably occur in human relations. Bakhtin discusses the opposition between "right" and "wrong", because this criterion belongs to the register of the universal truth, validated by criteria that seek accuracy. Accuracy assumes the coincidence of an object with itself, something that is possible and necessary under certain circumstances. However, knowing implies the acceptance of the crumbling of our certainties, problematizing whenever possible the explanations that do not contain replicas. Bakhtin, when distinguishing knowledge produced inside the exact sciences from knowledge within the human sciences, says the following: The exact sciences constitute a monologic form of knowledge: the intellect contemplates a thing and expounds upon it. There is only one subject here -cognizing (contemplating) and speaking (expounding). In opposition to the subject there is only voiceless thing. Any object of knowledge (including man) can be perceived and cognized as a thing. But a subject as such cannot be perceived and studied as a thing, for as a subject it cannot, while remaining a subject, become voiceless, and, consequently, cognition of it can only be dialogic (1986, p.161).
Bakhtin's epistemology of human sciences, based on his philosophy of language, discusses the strong presence of positivism in modern Western thinking, creating another possibility to produce knowledge within human sciences. The argument for that is that the knowledge men can have about the natural world differs from the knowledge they can have about themselves, about their nature, their creations and ways of life. By taking into account the particularity of the encounter between the researcher and his other and, consequently, the specificity of the knowledge that can be generated from this condition, what stands out is the production of a piece of knowledge that is inevitably dialogical. To Bakhtin, we have to take into consideration the complexity of the bilateral act and of the depth of a piece of knowledge that is constituted and that reveals itself in the dialogical I-other relationship. Dialogism and alterity, in Bakhtin's work, are concepts that can't be thought about separately. Alterity, in its conception, is not limited to the consciousness of the existence of the other, nor is it reduced to what is different, but also bears estrangement and belonging. The other is where the search for meaning takes place, but also, simultaneously, it is the place of incompleteness and temporariness. This perspective shows the status of permanent incompleteness of the subject, the coming-into-being of man's condition in the world. It also denounces the precarious conditions of the theories that seek, through an instrumental language, to represent the totality of man's experience in the world. The world known theoretically is not the whole world (BAKHTIN, 1993).
From this tension between the ambitions of the theory and the singularity of existence in life, the philosopher elaborates the fundamental concepts -dialogism and alterity -that allow us to think about the relationship between the researcher and his other within the research. Based on the assumptions of Bakhtin's thinking, it is necessary to take into account that the act of researching is a moment marked by exceptionality, that is, it is a unique event, and it needs to be understood within the realm of this singular dimension. In this perspective the researcher breaks away from the alleged neutrality in the production of knowledge in human sciences, allowing himself to be affected by the circumstances and by the context in which the scene of the research develops. Since this fact is inevitable, the issue for the researcher is no longer to control his performance to minimize as much as possible the consequences of his attitudes in the field, but, on the contrary, it is crucial to explicit in his account how the consequences affect him. In other words, the researcher asks about the specificity of knowledge that is produced in a shared way, in the tension between the I and the other, through a consensual complicity between them. As we will see, it is discussing the understanding that the subject creates about himself, through the relationships with others in life, that Bakhtin lays the assumptions that guide our thoughts about the relationship between the researcher and the subjects in the realm of the research.

The construction of self-consciousness through the eyes and the words of others
The understanding that the subject has of himself is constituted through the eyes and the words of others. Each one of us occupies a particular spatial-temporal position, and from this unique place we reveal the way we see the other and the physical world that surrounds us. In this analytical perspective, the emphasis is in the place occupied by the look and the word in the constitution of the meaning we make of our experience of being in the world, a meaning that is intersected by values that are a part of the culture of a given time. By observing the social interactions and the enunciations that sprung from everyday life, we see our absolute necessity of the other. Our individuality wouldn't exist if the other didn't create it. Each person's inner territory isn't sovereign, as Mikhail Bakhtin explicits (1984, p.287): to be means to be for another and through the other, for oneself. It is through the eyes of the other, impregnated with values, that I communicate what is inside of me. Everything that has to do with me arrives in my conscience through the look and the word of the other, that is, the awakening of my conscience is realized in the interaction with others, which is constituted by a particular axiological dimension.
Everything that pertains to me enters my consciousness, beginning with my name, from the external world through the mouths of others (my mother, and so forth), with their intonation, in their emotional and value-assigning tonality. I realize myself initially through others: from them I receive words, forms and tonalities for the formation of my initial idea of myself (BAKHTIN, 1986, p.138).
Bakhtin uses the concept of exotopy to explicit the fact of a consciousness being outside of another consciousness, of a consciousness seeing the other consciousness as a whole, that is, what it, the consciousness, can't do with itself. The author says there is an insurmountable limitation in my look that only the other can fulfill. Each one of us stands on the border of the world we see. By approximating the concepts of exotopy and dialogism, that is, the spatial-temporal experience with the linguistic experience, Bakhtin will say that just as my vision needs the other for me to see and complete myself, my word needs the other to have meaning.
This ever-present excess of my seeing, knowing, and possessing in relation to any other human being is founded in the uniqueness an irreplaceability of my place in the world. For only I -the one-andonly I -occupy n a given set of circunstances this particular place at this particular time; all other human beings are situated outside me (1990, p.23).
We note, based on these assumptions, that the visibility of the subject in relation to his spatial and temporal place in the world is revealed, to him, through the look and the discourse of the other. A person, from their angle of vision, can mediate, with their look and their speech, that which in me can't be seen by me. Therefore, the construction of the consciousness of oneself is a product of the way we share our look with the look of the other, creating, in this way, a language that allows deciphering mutually the consciousness of oneself and the consciousness of the other within the context of social, historical and cultural relations. This alteritary dimension experienced by the subject in the realm of social interactions works as a mirror of that which hides itself in me, and that only reveals itself to me in the relationship with the other. In this perspective, the other occupies the place of the revelation of that which I don't know in me and this fact, concrete and objective, ties us in a mutual ethical commitment. I feel responsible for the creation of my equal, so I depend on them do give a shape and a meaning to my internal experience. We can highlight three moments of awareness of the subject that reveal themselves in the meeting in life: the-other-for-me; I-for-the-other; I-for-myself. These moments do not show themselves in an isolated way, they are revealed simultaneously in the way in which the dialog in life is constructed. In summary, the surplus of vision of the other in relation to me and of me in relation to the other creates a responsible complicity between us, since neither my existence nor his existence are sovereign, but interdependent.
As stated earlier, discourse in life is intersected by judgments of value and an understanding of any speech act can't rule out the evaluations that are inevitably present in the social interactions. To think about research in human sciences as a special event in life entails taking into account the fact that the understanding of the themes that are the object of the investigation happens through the confrontation of ideas and the negotiation of possible meanings between the researcher and the subjects of the research. This approach, admitting the impossibility of any understanding without judgment of value, puts in question the place of neutrality of the researcher. Thus, if the researcher seeks to understand a given reality, his way of understanding does not break away from his way of evaluating, because both, comprehension and evaluation, are simultaneous moments of a unique integral act. However, since the researcher isn't just in the scene of the research, the big challenge regards his availability to let himself be surprised by the encounter/confrontation that happens in the field with the subjects of the research.
The person who understands must not reject the possibility of changing or even abandoning his already prepared viewpoints and positions. In the act of understanding, a struggle occurs that results in mutual change and enrichment (BAKHTIN, 1986, p.142).
Therefore, the place occupied by the researcher is marked by the singular, unique and unrepeatable experience of the encounter between the researcher and his other, in the quest to produce texts that reveal understandings, even if they are tentative, to give meaning to the events in life. The author affirms: […] we are interested rather in the specific nature of thought of the human sciences that is directed toward other thoughts, ideas, meanings, and so forth, which is realized and made available to the researcher only in the form of a text. Regardless of the goals of the research, the only possible point of departure is the text" [...] and concludes: "Where there is no text, there is no object of study, and no object of thought either" (1986, p.104).
Texts are many and varied, hence the necessary contribution of a theory of language that discusses the speech genres and their functions. However, as Geraldi says (2010), the requirement for the production of a discourse (or text) goes way beyond the knowledge of the relatively stable forms of the speech genres: it is necessary to take on the role of discoursive subject, that is, to become a speaker, which necessarily implies a relationship with the alterity, with the other. And a relationship with the other isn't built without the subject's participation, without the subject's presence, without both causing this relationship to change.
Discourse in life presents itself in its ordinary form, uninterrupted and unique.
Discourses within the theories promote pauses and gain more stability with the manifest intention of reaching generalizations and elaborating truths that constitute the philosophical, scientific or aesthetic pieces of knowledge, even if they remain tentative.

Dialogism and alterity in the research in Human Sciences
Taking the theory of language proposed by Bakhtin as the basis of our methodological concerns for the research in human sciences, the dialog between the researcher and his other gains a specificity that needs to be characterized. Here, the focus isn't in the isolated speech of the subject of the research, but in the dialogical scene that is established between the researcher and his other, producing meanings, agreements and negotiations in relation to what they think about a certain subject, in a context defined by reciprocal acts of speech. In the Bakhtinian perspective, the truth isn't inside just one person, it is in the dialogical interaction between people that look for it collectively. The world in which we live talks in many ways and these voices create the scenery where ambiguity and contradiction, certainties and uncertainties play opposite each other. Only the tension between the multiple voices that take part in the dialogue of life can manage integrity and the complexity of reality.
We should emphasize that in this theoretical approach the other, to the researcher, isn't an abstract reality, an object of research. The other is seen as someone whose speech confronts the speech of the researcher, refracting it and demanding an answer. On the other hand, the speech of the researcher refuses to assume the aura of neutrality imposed by a certain conception of scientific method and integrates itself to life, taking part in the relations and in the experiences, often contradictory, that the encounter with the other provides. Thus, we should highlight that we understand, based on this approach, that any research that involves an encounter between people, that seek to produce knowledge regarding a given reality, occurs in a context marked by a process of mutual alterity, in which the researcher and his others negotiate ways with which each one defines, so to speak, their experiences in the quest to give life a meaning.
In the dialogue between the researcher and his other, the interchange of questions and answers, the perplexity in the face of the actions and the speeches of others, as well as the points of view and values at stake, turn the research into a living process of production of meanings about the ways of perceiving and giving meaning to the events in life. The researcher, in this context, not only asks to obtain answers that meet the objectives defined beforehand, but, when he asks and, also, answers, he positions himself as a subject that, from the place of the researcher, brings many perspectives and values in relation to the experiences shared with the subjects of the research. But the research doesn't end in the encounter between the researcher and his other. It is necessary to give shape and substance to the event experienced in the field of the research, and it is in this moment that the written text comes into play. The writing of the researcher consolidates the creation of concepts whose intention is to temporarily create stable zones of thinking about a given reality.
How to characterize the specificity of this moment in which the researcher leaves the field, where the living dialogue with the subject of the research happened, to write about this event? In other words, we are asking ourselves about the epistemological consequences of the research in human sciences, from this approach, in its two constitutive moments: the encounter between the researcher and his other, and the encounter between the researcher and the text. In each of these moments of production of knowledge in the realm of human sciences, we can highlight the ethical commitment to build the solid human understanding of the experience.

The text in life and the writing of the text: the adjustments of the researcher with ethics
In the meeting between the researcher and his other, the biggest challenge is to assume the ethical commitment to the production of a selfless knowledge 2 . Bakhtin, by pointing to this necessary condition of the production of knowledge in human sciences, brings up the topic of ethics in the research.
It is important to stress that the philosopher shows, in his work, his belief in the singularity of the subjective experience and invites us to realize that it nourishes itself in the field of life, of events, in which we are inhabited by the voices of many others. This is where he summons the Being to live his experience without escaping the responsibility in the singleness of his life. The intention, therefore, is to think about ethics in the research as centered in the responsibility of the researcher, since the act of research can be understood as a unique event: initially from the singular act between the researcher and his other, and then consolidating itself in the act of writing the text.
In these two moments what is at stake is the responsibility of the researcher for what he thinks at a given moment, that is, the signature of his act of thinking. Here, our intention is to discuss the act of researching, since we understand that the event of the research comprehends, simultaneously, a "thinking about the world" and a "thinking in the world", as we admit these two different moments in the production of knowledge. On the one hand, we have the thinking that seeks to embrace the world -the theoretical thinking -, on the other hand, we have the thinking that feels itself in the world (as a part of it). With that, the research can be appreciated in its double contribution: either as an event that intends to embrace the world, through an elaboration of concepts, or as the creation of a certain way to participate in the world, which, in turn, is transformed by the incorporation of new concepts, understandings and ways of acting.
2 Ponzio (2008) proposes a comparative study of the philosophical positions of Bakhtin and Lévinas for considering that the latter, as an author committed in the realm of philosophy, leads to a deeper understanding of the theoretical consistency of the Bakhtinian thought. The concept of dis-interest (dés-inter-essement) becomes very important in the work of Lévinas, for it places the individual in a situation of limited commitment, of absolute responsibility as an individual, a unique individual, an individual that can't be substituted in his responsibility. Bakhtin also establishes, since his first essays, a relationship of mutual commitment between unity, singularity, noninterchangeability and responsibility, understood as absolute, as having "no alibis". So what actually organizes what is around in an unitary way isn't a consciousness that thematizes, that is, it is not found in the subject-object cognitive relationship, but in, for Bakhtin, the individuality of my responsibility, in which no one can take my place, and determines that I don't have alibis to live.
In Toward a Philosophy of the Act, Bakhtin notes a split between the discoursive theoretical thinking (of the sciences, of the philosophy, of the arts) and the historical experience of the human being in the real event of his existence, expressed in a series of acts or actions in the field of life. In the understanding of the philosopher, someone's life, as a singular set of thoughts and accomplished acts, make up an experience that escapes the pretense of an universally valid judgment 3 , for this, in its immateriality, is completely impenetrable to the materiality of someone's located and responsible existence. In this sense, Bakhtin's thinking postulates the existence of two worlds that face each other: the world of life, the only one in which we create, cognize, contemplate, live and die, it's also the world that offers a place for our actions that are performed According to the philosopher, the world known theoretically is an autonomous world that has its own laws, for it refers to the universe of generalizations and abstractions. As long as it remains within its own limits, the autonomy of the abstract theoretical world is justifiable and inviolable. On the other hand, Bakhtin will say, the theoretical world is likely to be indifferent towards the uniqueness of life in each one, that is, the theories are unable to grasp the eventness of the Being and the becoming.
Loaded with tension, Bakhtin's argument advances toward raising again the issue of ethics in the research, because it is in this precise moment that the tension between the two worlds finds a possible solution with the authorship of the researcher's thinking.
Thus, we argue along with the philosopher that the responsible act of the researcher establishes a singular and unitary plan that opens up in two directions: the construction of its meaning or content and the construction of its own Being as an unique event. In the singularity of his act of thinking, the world of culture and the world of life are unified, so the responsibility of this act of thinking is the only way through which the pernicious division between culture and life could be overcome (BAKHTIN, 1993, p.2).
To situate himself in the literary and aesthetic debate of his time, Bakhtin had to situate himself, for example, in relation to the formalists, for whom the art and the literature are defined for not having any external means, finding, within themselves, their justification. The philosopher criticized the formalists because he used to find common traits between them and the positivists, who believe are making science and seeking the truth without taking into consideration the arbitrary basis of their presuppositions. He will explicit his criticism by saying that the formalist doctrine is an aesthetics of the material, for it reduces the problems of the literary creations to matters of the language, considering it in the relation between its own constitutive elements.
However, this doctrine neglects the other components of the act of creation, namely, the content or the relationship with the world, and the form, understood as the construction of the author that expresses his singularity in the choice he makes between the impersonal and generic elements of the language. Thus, for Bakhtin, the material shouldn't guide the aesthetic research, but the architectural one, its construction, understood as a meeting point between material, form and content.
Could it be that in this criticism the ideas of the philosopher do not discuss the issues that approximates the authorship of the artistic creation and the researcher's authorship of the creation of the text in the field of human sciences? Could we then, boldly, from the assumption of the architectural, take on the singularity of the researcher's authorship in the construction of his research methodology?
The knowledge that is revealed from the meeting between the researcher with the other can't be forced into a framework that limits it. It must remain free. The exact sciences, on the other hand, seek to explain what remains unchanged in all changes. In short, they try to finalize a certain analysis in a given text. But the formation of the Being can't be impaired, captured by an act of knowledge that turns the Being into a single text. The formation of the Being must be free to correlate a given text with other possible texts. It is up to the human sciences to find the methodological strategies that will be able to handle this dimension of freedom that must be the main guarantee for us to remain, as researchers, faithful to the specificity of the sciences that study man and his coming-to-be.
In a singular way, Bakhtin, who as an author became interested in art, particularly in literature, shows, in his understanding of the aesthetic experience, the strength of an ethical proposal regarding the possible knowledge that we can have of ourselves and the construction of a way of relating to others. In The problem of the text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An experiment in philosophical analysis, Bakhtin mentions the principle of distance to talk about the complex relationship between the interpreted subjects and the interpreter subject, the latter being creatively refreshing. In this sense, in human sciences the precision is the overcoming of the alterity of what is foreign, without it being transformed into what belongs to the researcher. In other words, the word of the other invites the individual to the special task of understanding/accepting it. (In relation to his own words this task isn't necessary).
The philosopher alerts us to the matter that […] methods of explanation and interpretation are reduced to this kind of disclosure of the repeatable, to a recognition of the already familiar, and, if the new is grasped at all, it is only an extremely impoverished and abstract form. Moreover, the individual personality of the creator (speaker), of course, disappears completely. Everything that is repeatable and recognizable is fully dissolved and assimilated solely by the consciousness of the person who understands: in the other's consciousness he can see and understand only his own consciousness (2003, p.142-143). By discussing the model of absolute and timeless reason Bakhtin freed us from the discourses that "run" ahead of the possible and desired particularities of our own experience. As it has already been said, we explicit in this debate the ethical commitment of the researcher with his task, in which thinking becomes an extraordinary attention to the world before us. Simplicity, availability and the refusal of interpretative schemes prepared in advance are also required.
Truthfulness is the duty of the thought and the task of the researcher is to pursue it, even though he knows it is impossible to reach it in its plenitude. The commitment of the researcher is to the density and the depth of what is possible to be revealed with the research. For this task to be successful there must be complicity between the subjects of the research as co-authors in the never ending search for meanings of the human condition.