Two decisive problems about Toward a Philosophy of the Act: the cleaved world and the attributes of the Being and the ethical act

Abstract

Toward a Philosophy of the Act, a fragmented and unfinished essay written by Mikhail Bakhtin, is one of the texts of the 1920s that better let us glimpse the subtle and complex dialogue established by the Russian philosopher with the philosophical field of his time, in particular through an exciting interpretive turn in Kant’s legacy. This paper seeks to discuss how the concept of an apartness between the world of life and the world of culture and the problems of both the attributes of Being and the open eventness of the responsible act are instrumentalized in a way that allows this philosophical turn, setting what accounts for Bakhtin’s first great contribution to occidental thinking.

Keywords

• Ethical act
• Responsivity
• Architectural responsiveness
• Neo-kantianism