Barry Dingle's homunculus never achieves his telos
on Order and Flux in Northampton
the fundamental unbridgeability of the gap between self and other is reinforced. That gap entails alterity, the nexus of subjectivity in the objectof communication that cannot be reached by communicative intent
The philosopher Richard Rorty held that the purpose of philosophy is not to find answers, but to keep the conversation going. In Wallace's writing, the same perspective is visible.
The term "dialogic" here, and elsewhere in this study, is intentionally ambiguous. It refers both to Bakhtinian dialogism--that is, pertaining to double-voicedness, either narrative or linguistic--and to the state of being in dialogue.
