ABSTRACT
For 19th-century German scholars the problem was critical for separating the natural sciences—concerned with understanding the physical world—from the human sciences, focally concerned with the meaningful activity of human beings. More radical in its subversion of the intersubjectivist account of communication is deconstructionist literary theory. In important respects, literary theory of the kind just discussed is congenial with, or draws heavily from, the semiotic tradition. Reader response theory abandons the problem of meaning within the mind of the author, and concentrates instead on the shared sign systems of the interpretive community. The Russian literary theorist Mikael Bakhtin recognized two major tendencies in the linguistic patterns of a culture, the one centripetal and the other centrifugal. Thus, forces toward stabilization were forever competing with opposing linguistic tendencies. Of special importance, developmental theory often leaps the boundaries of professional circles and enters into the broader practices of the society.
