Dialogical Essays - From Difference to Sharing in I-Other Relationships

This book presents a collection of interrelated essays that analyze the theoretical foundations of semiotic-cultural constructivism in psychology written by one of the pioneers in this field of research: Dr. Lívia Mathias Simão, senior professor at the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil. In each of the five essays included in this book, the author establishes a dialogue with key thinkers and intellectual traditions of dialogical approaches arriving at core points of I-other relationships according to the perspective of semiotic-cultural constructivism in psychology.
The first essay establishes a dialogue with Greek philosophers such as Parmenides and Aristotle. In the second essay this dialogue is established with semiotic-constructivist psychologists such as Jaan Valsiner, Ragnar Rommetveit and Ivana Marková. The third essay is a dialogue with the contributions of Ernst Boesch's symbolic action theory. The fourth essay proposes a dialogue between semiotic-cultural constructivists and Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. Finally, the fifth essay proposes how the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas contributes to dialogical studies of I-other in the context of semiotic-cultural constructivism.
Originally published in Portuguese for the Brazilian market, Dialogical Essays: From Difference to Sharing in I-Other Relationships is now published in English in an international edition that will be of interest to psychologists, philosophers, historians and other human and social scientists interested in epistemological, ontological and ethical aspects of I-other relationships from the perspective of semiotic-cultural constructivism and cultural psychology.


Lívia Mathias Simão, Ph.D., is Associate and Senior Professor at the Institute of Psychology of the University of São Paulo, Brazil, where she founded and presently co-coordinates the Laboratory of Verbal Interaction and Knowledge Construction. Her main research interests concern issues embracing the ontological construction of human subjectivity in I-Other-World relationships from the perspective of the Semiotic-Cultural Constructivism in Psychology. This approach emphasizes issues regarding the psycho-philosophical notions of alterity, temporality and disquieting experiences. She has internationally published articles, chapters, co-edited books and takes part in editorial boards of international journals of her research area.