The writings of Mikhail M. Bakhtin attracted the attention of literary and cultural scholars in the last third of the 20th century to such an extent that he can be regarded as one of the most important reference authors of postmodernism. Julia Kristeva and Jan Assmann base their terminological foundational decisions on him, and since 1994, there has even been a center at the University of Sheffield dedicated exclusively to the study of Bakhtin and his circle. Given the powerful impact of his work, the question arises regarding the philosophical historical references of his thinking. Wolfram Eilenberger primarily reconstructs the influences that stemmed from German philosophy, particularly from Ernst Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms. Against this backdrop, Bakhtin's theory of language and culture is examined in various directions.