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Publications

2003
Beller, Mara . 2003. The Word with a Loophole and the Word with a Sideward Glance: Dialogical Approach in Science and Literature. Partial Answers 1(2): 27-43. . Publisher's Version

This paper argues that the dialogical analysis provides a potent and fruitful methodology for understanding the very process of scientific creativity, as well as for interpreting both scientific and literary texts. Contra Bakhtin, who considered scientific activity and its products as a prime example of monologism, the author argues that a scientific article, “populated” by many invisible interlocutors, is best perceived as rich polyphony of addresses and responses to the "other.” Bakhtinian concepts “the word with a loophole” and “the word with the sideward glance” point to the basically addressed nature of our intellectual and emotional life in a particularly apt way.

Mara Beller (1945-2004), Barbara Druss Dibner Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the Hebrew University, is the author of Quantum Dialogue: The Making of a Revolution and of numerous articles in history, philosophy, and sociology of science.

updated in December 2014

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