Public Dialogical Selves: Excentric Beings in Language

Dialogical Self Theory brings together traditions about the self and about dialogue within an inspiring framework that highlights processes and insists on human beings' relatedness to Others. From this general dynamization of the self several challenging topics result, such as stability within dynamics, the self's uniqueness within polyphonic collectivities, and its plurality and recognizability within developmental movements. Recently, one can observe the formulation of a desideratum that could precisely resolve some of these challenges. Several scholars are looking for a kind of thirdness that reaches beyond the inter-subjects and introduces a mid-level located before the social. Interestingly, this is linked to issues of form, more easy to acknowledge e.g. on an institutional level. This discussion is important for it promises a dialogical articulation of polyphonic sociality with dialogic individuality, of stability and dynamics, of recognizability within change. I view this articulation realized through an aspect that gives the self performances the quality of the social by simultaneously keeping their subjective quality, thus differentiating the self's dialogicality: form – “wandering” language forms. I will address language as the third aspect, the formative medium of the dialogical selves per-formations, leading to a decidedly public notion of the DS, which includes Plessner's notion of “excentric positionality”.