The subject of discourse: a possible and necessary dialogue

Abstract

The goal here is to discuss the place of authorship in discourse considering that reality presents itself to the individual in its particular form, that is, things have always, ontologically, some characteristic that makes them at once universal and singular - and thus, particular. For one to apprehend the real by means of subjectivity it is necessary to perceive the singularity and universality from particularity. The real world and the knowing subject cannot be taken one for the other. The materiality expressed in a discourse brings the mark of that subjectivity that has produced it, for it represents, simultaneously, the relation between an individuality situated in a historically defined time and space and a reality that is being represented by that same individuality, conscious of what it is doing, but without having control over all alternatives presented by that same reality. In sum, the debate about the position of the subject and of authorship in discourse asks for the understanding that the subject is constituted by and according to social contradictions. To face such an issue, we employ Lukács' notions of social being, of forgetting 2, developed by Pêcheux, and the concept of discursive intent as defined by Bakhtin.