![Conversation about Cross-Cultural Youth Convention, 1972 (16432965096)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Conversation_about_Cross-Cultural_Youth_Convention%2C_1972_%2816432965096%29.jpg)
Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
) is a written or spoken
conversation
Conversation is interactive communication between two or more people. The development of conversational skills and etiquette is an important part of socialization. The development of conversational skills in a new language is a frequent focus ...
al exchange between two or more people, and a
literary
Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...
and
theatrical
Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actor, actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The p ...
form that depicts such an exchange. As a
philosophical
Philosophy (from , ) is the systematized study of general and fundamental questions, such as those about existence, reason, knowledge, values, mind, and language. Such questions are often posed as problems to be studied or resolved. Some ...
or
didactic
Didacticism is a philosophy that emphasizes instructional and informative qualities in literature, art, and design. In art, design, architecture, and landscape, didacticism is an emerging conceptual approach that is driven by the urgent need to ...
device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the
Socratic dialogue
Socratic dialogue ( grc, Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the p ...
as developed by
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including
Indian literature
Indian literature refers to the literature produced on the Indian subcontinent until 1947 and in the Republic of India thereafter. The Republic of India has 22 officially recognised languages.
The earliest works of Indian literature were o ...
.
Etymology
![Galileos Dialogue Title Page](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Galileos_Dialogue_Title_Page.png)
The term dialogue stems from the Greek διάλογος (''dialogos'', conversation); its roots are διά (''dia'': through) and λόγος (''logos'': speech, reason). The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is closely associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as ''dialogus''.
As genre
Antiquity and the Middle Ages
Dialogue as a genre in the
Middle East
The Middle East ( ar, الشرق الأوسط, ISO 233: ) is a geopolitical region commonly encompassing Arabian Peninsula, Arabia (including the Arabian Peninsula and Bahrain), Anatolia, Asia Minor (Asian part of Turkey except Hatay Pro ...
and
Asia
Asia (, ) is one of the world's most notable geographical regions, which is either considered a continent in its own right or a subcontinent of Eurasia, which shares the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with Africa. Asia covers an area ...
dates back to ancient works, such as
Sumerian disputations
The Sumerian disputation or Sumerian debate is a topical short story created in the middle-to-late 3rd millennium BC. Seven major debates are known, with specific titles.
The list of the majority of the known debates is as follows (from Kramer): ...
preserved in copies from the late third millennium BC,
Rigvedic dialogue hymns The Rigveda contains a number of dialogue hymns ('s) in the form of dialogues, representing the earliest surviving sample of this genre. It can be argued to be an early precursor of Indian classical drama. They are found in the youngest part of the ...
and the ''
Mahabharata
The ''Mahābhārata'' ( ; sa, महाभारतम्, ', ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India in Hinduism, the other being the ''Rāmāyaṇa''. It narrates the struggle between two groups of cousins in the Kuruk ...
''.
In the East, in 13th century Japan, dialogue was used in important philosophical works. In the 1200s, Nichiren Daishonin wrote some of his important writings in dialogue form, describing a meeting between two characters in order to present his argument and theory, such as in "Conversation between a Sage and an Unenlightened Man" (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin 1: pp.99-140, dated around 1256), and "On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land" (Ibid., pp.6-30; dated 1260), while in other writings he used a question and answer format, without the narrative scenario, such as in "Questions and Answers about Embracing the Lotus Sutra" (Ibid., pp.55-67, possibly from 1263). The sage or person answering the questions was understood as the author.
In the West,
Plato
Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
(c. 437 BC – c. 347 BC) has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form. Ancient sources indicate, however, that the Platonic dialogue had its foundations in the ''mime'', which the
Sicilian poets
Sophron
Sophron of Syracuse ( grc-gre, Σώφρων ὁ Συρακούσιος, '' fl.'' 430 BC) was a writer of mimes.
Sophron was the author of prose dialogues in the Doric dialect, containing both male and female characters, some serious, others humor ...
and
Epicharmus
Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus ( grc-gre, Ἐπίχαρμος ὁ Κῷος), thought to have lived between c. 550 and c. 460 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher who is often credited with ...
had cultivated half a century earlier. These works, admired and imitated by Plato, have not survived and we have only the vaguest idea of how they may have been performed. The ''Mimes'' of
Herodas
The first column of the Herodas papyrus, showing ''Mimiamb'' 1. 1–15.
Herodas or Herondas (Greek: or - the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic sc ...
, which were found in a papyrus in 1891, give some idea of their character.
Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure
argumentative
In the American legal system, argumentative is an evidentiary objection raised in response to a question which prompts a witness to draw inferences from facts of the case.
One common misconception is that argumentative questions are meant only t ...
conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of
character
Character or Characters may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Literature
* ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk
* ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...
-drawing.
By about 400 BC he had perfected the
Socratic dialogue
Socratic dialogue ( grc, Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the p ...
. All his extant writings, except the ''
Apology'' and
Epistles
An epistle (; el, ἐπιστολή, ''epistolē,'' "letter") is a writing directed or sent to a person or group of people, usually an elegant and formal didactic letter. The epistle genre of letter-writing was common in ancient Egypt as part ...
, use this form.
Following Plato, the dialogue became a major literary genre in antiquity, and several important works both in Latin and in Greek were written. Soon after Plato,
Xenophon
Xenophon of Athens (; grc, wikt:Ξενοφῶν, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Anci ...
wrote his own ''
Symposium
In ancient Greece, the symposium ( grc-gre, συμπόσιον ''symposion'' or ''symposio'', from συμπίνειν ''sympinein'', "to drink together") was a part of a banquet that took place after the meal, when drinking for pleasure was acc ...
''; also, Aristotle is said to have written several philosophical dialogues in Plato's style (of which only fragments survive). In the 2nd century CE,
Christian apologist
Christian apologetics ( grc, ἀπολογία, "verbal defense, speech in defense") is a branch of Christian theology that defends Christianity.
Christian apologetics has taken many forms over the centuries, starting with Paul the Apostle in th ...
Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr ( el, Ἰουστῖνος ὁ μάρτυς, Ioustinos ho martys; c. AD 100 – c. AD 165), also known as Justin the Philosopher, was an early Christian apologist and philosopher.
Most of his works are lost, but two apologies and ...
wrote the ''
Dialogue with Trypho
The ''Dialogue with Trypho,'' along with the First and Second Apologies, is a second-century Christian apologetic text, usually agreed to be dated in between AD 155-160. It is seen as documenting the attempts by theologian Justin Martyr to show t ...
'', which was a discourse between Justin representing Christianity and Trypho representing Judaism. Another Christian apologetic dialogue from the time was the ''
Octavius'', between the Christian Octavius and pagan Caecilius.
Modern period to the present
Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian's most famous collection; both
Fontenelle (1683) and
Fénelon (1712) prepared ''Dialogues des morts'' ("Dialogues of the Dead"). Contemporaneously, in 1688, the French philosopher
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche ( , ; 6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715) was a French Oratorian Catholic priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesize the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the ...
published his ''Dialogues on
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...
and Religion'', thus contributing to the genre's revival in philosophic circles. In English non-dramatic literature the dialogue did not see extensive use until
Berkeley
Berkeley most often refers to:
*Berkeley, California, a city in the United States
**University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California
* George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher
Berkeley may also refer ...
employed it, in 1713, for his treatise, ''
Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous''.
His contemporary, the Scottish philosopher
David Hume
David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...
wrote ''Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion.'' A prominent 19th-century example of literary dialogue was
Landor's ''
Imaginary Conversations
''Imaginary Conversations'' is Walter Savage Landor's most celebrated prose work. Begun in 1823, sections were constantly revised and were ultimately published in a series of five volumes. The conversations were in the tradition of dialogues with ...
'' (1821–1828).
In Germany,
Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799. In Spanish literature, the ''Dialogues'' of
Valdés (1528) and those on ''Painting'' (1633) by
Vincenzo Carducci
Vincenzio Carduccio (in Spanish, sometimes ''Vicencio'' or Vicente Carducho; 1576 or 1578–1638) was an Italian painter who spent his career in Spain.
Biography
He was born in Florence, and was trained as a painter by his brother Ba ...
are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogues, following Plato's model, include
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' (Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...
(1586),
Galileo
Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
(1632),
Galiani
Ferdinando Galiani (2 December 1728, Chieti, Kingdom of Naples – 30 October 1787, Naples, Kingdom of Naples) was an Italian economist, a leading Italian figure of the Enlightenment. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to him as "a most fastidious and ...
(1770),
Leopardi
Count Giacomo Taldegardo Francesco di Sales Saverio Pietro Leopardi (, ; 29 June 1798 – 14 June 1837) was an Italian philosopher, poet, essayist, and philologist. He is considered the greatest Italian poet of the nineteenth century and one of ...
(1825), and a host of others.
In the 19th century, the French returned to the original application of dialogue. The inventions of "
Gyp", of
Henri Lavedan
Henri Léon Emile Lavedan (9 April 1859 – 4 September 1940), French dramatist and man of letters, was born at Orléans, the son of , a well-known Catholic and liberal journalist.
Lavedan contributed to various Parisian papers a series of witty ...
, and of others, which tell a mundane
anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
wittily and maliciously in conversation, would probably present a close analogy to the lost mimes of the early Sicilian poets. English writers including
Anstey Guthrie also adopted the form, but these dialogues seem to have found less of a popular following among the English than their counterparts written by French authors.
The
Platonic dialogue
Socratic dialogue ( grc, Σωκρατικὸς λόγος) is a genre of literary prose developed in Greece at the turn of the fourth century BC. The earliest ones are preserved in the works of Plato and Xenophon and all involve Socrates as the ...
, as a distinct genre which features Socrates as a speaker and one or more interlocutors discussing some philosophical question, experienced something of a rebirth in the 20th century. Authors who have recently employed it include
George Santayana
Jorge Agustín Nicolás Ruiz de Santayana y Borrás, known in English as George Santayana (; December 16, 1863 – September 26, 1952), was a Spanish and US-American philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. Born in Spain, Santayana was raised ...
, in his eminent ''Dialogues in Limbo'' (1926, 2nd ed. 1948; this work also includes such historical figures as
Alcibiades
Alcibiades ( ; grc-gre, Ἀλκιβιάδης; 450 – 404 BC) was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. He was the last of the Alcmaeonidae, which fell from prominence after the Peloponnesian War. He played a major role in t ...
,
Aristippus
Aristippus of Cyrene, Libya, Cyrene (; grc, Ἀρίστιππος ὁ Κυρηναῖος; c. 435 – c. 356 BCE) was a Hedonism, hedonistic Ancient Greece, Greek philosopher and the founder of the Cyrenaics, Cyrenaic school of philosophy. He w ...
,
Avicenna
Ibn Sina ( fa, ابن سینا; 980 – June 1037 CE), commonly known in the West as Avicenna (), was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, philosophers, and writers of the Islamic G ...
,
Democritus
Democritus (; el, Δημόκριτος, ''Dēmókritos'', meaning "chosen of the people"; – ) was an Ancient Greek pre-Socratic philosopher from Abdera, primarily remembered today for his formulation of an atomic theory of the universe. No ...
, and
Dionysius the Younger
Dionysius the Younger ( el, Διονύσιος ὁ Νεώτερος, 343 BC), or Dionysius II, was a Greek politician who ruled Syracuse, Sicily from 367 BC to 357 BC and again from 346 BC to 344 BC.
Biography
Dionysius II of Syracuse was the s ...
as speakers). Also
Edith Stein
Edith Stein (religious name Saint Teresia Benedicta a Cruce ; also known as Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross or Saint Edith Stein; 12 October 1891 – 9 August 1942) was a German Jewish philosopher who converted to Christianity and became a ...
and
Iris Murdoch
Dame Jean Iris Murdoch ( ; 15 July 1919 – 8 February 1999) was an Irish and British novelist and philosopher. Murdoch is best known for her novels about good and evil, sexual relationships, morality, and the power of the unconscious. Her fi ...
used the dialogue form. Stein imagined a dialogue between
Edmund Husserl
, thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations)
, thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view
, thesis1_year = 1883
, thesis2_title ...
(phenomenologist) and
Thomas Aquinas
Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...
(metaphysical realist). Murdoch included not only Socrates and Alcibiades as interlocutors in her work ''Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues'' (1986), but featured a young Plato himself as well. More recently
Timothy Williamson
Timothy Williamson (born 1955) is a British philosopher whose main research interests are in philosophical logic, philosophy of language, epistemology and metaphysics. He is the Wykeham Professor of Logic at the University of Oxford, and fell ...
wrote ''Tetralogue'', a philosophical exchange on a train between four people with radically different
epistemological
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics.
Episte ...
views.
In the 20th century, philosophical treatments of dialogue emerged from thinkers including
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...
,
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
,
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
, and
David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed u ...
. Although diverging in many details, these thinkers have proposed a holistic concept of dialogue. Educators such as Freire and
Ramón Flecha
Ramón Flecha is a Spanish sociologist who is a professor of sociology at the University of Barcelona, Doctor Honoris Causa from West University of Timişoara, and a researcher in social sciences in Europe. Alain Touraine highlighted the contribu ...
have also developed a body of theory and techniques for using
egalitarian dialogue
Egalitarian dialogue is a dialogue in which contributions are considered according to the validity of their reasoning, instead of according to the status or position of power of those who make them. Although previously used widely in the social s ...
as a pedagogical tool.
As topic
Martin Buber
Martin Buber ( he, מרטין בובר; german: Martin Buber; yi, מארטין בובער; February 8, 1878 –
June 13, 1965) was an Austrian Jewish and Israeli philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of existentialism c ...
assigns dialogue a pivotal position in his
theology
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...
. His most influential work is titled ''
I and Thou
''Ich und Du'', usually translated as ''I and Thou'', is a book by Martin Buber, published in 1923, and first translated from German to English in 1937.
Premise
Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:
# The attit ...
''. Buber cherishes and promotes dialogue not as some purposive attempt to reach conclusions or express mere points of view, but as the very prerequisite of authentic relationship between man and man, and between man and
God
In monotheism, monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator deity, creator, and principal object of Faith#Religious views, faith.Richard Swinburne, Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Ted Honderich, Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Ox ...
. Buber's thought centers on "true dialogue", which is characterized by openness, honesty, and mutual commitment.
The
Second Vatican Council
The Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, commonly known as the , or , was the 21st Catholic ecumenical councils, ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church. The council met in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome for four periods (or sessions) ...
placed a major emphasis on dialogue with the World. Most of the Council's documents involve some kind of dialogue : dialogue with other religions (''
Nostra aetate
(from Latin: "In our time") is the incipit of the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. Passed by a vote of 2,221 to 88 of the assembled bishops, this declaration was promulgated o ...
''), dialogue with other Christians (
Unitatis Redintegratio), dialogue with modern society (''
Gaudium et spes
''Gaudium et spes'' (, "Joy and Hope"), the Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, is one of the four constitutions resulting from the Second Vatican Council in 1965. It was the last and longest published document from the coun ...
'') and dialogue with political authorities (
Dignitatis Humanae
''Dignitatis humanae'' (''Of the Dignity of the Human Person'') is the Second Vatican Council's Declaration on Religious Freedom. In the context of the council's stated intention "to develop the doctrine of recent popes on the inviolable rights ...
). However, in the English translations of these texts, "dialogue" was used to translate two Latin words with distinct meanings, ''colloquium'' ("discussion") and ''dialogus'' ("dialogue"). The choice of terminology appears to have been strongly influenced by Buber's thought.
The
physicist
A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe.
Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...
David Bohm
David Joseph Bohm (; 20 December 1917 – 27 October 1992) was an American-Brazilian-British scientist who has been described as one of the most significant theoretical physicists of the 20th centuryPeat 1997, pp. 316-317 and who contributed u ...
originated a related form of dialogue where a group of people talk together in order to explore their assumptions of thinking, meaning, communication, and social effects. This group consists of ten to thirty people who meet for a few hours regularly or a few continuous days. In a
Bohm dialogue Bohm Dialogue (also known as Bohmian Dialogue or "Dialogue in the Spirit of David Bohm") is a freely flowing group conversation in which participants attempt to reach a common understanding, experiencing everyone's point of view fully, equally and ...
, dialoguers agree to leave behind
debate
Debate is a process that involves formal discourse on a particular topic, often including a moderator and audience. In a debate, arguments are put forward for often opposing viewpoints. Debates have historically occurred in public meetings, a ...
tactics that attempt to convince and, instead, talk from their own experience on subjects that are improvised on the spot.
In his influential works,
Russian
Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including:
*Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries
*Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...
philosopher
Mikhail Bakhtin
Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...
provided an extralinguistic methodology for analysing the nature and meaning of dialogue:
''Dialogic relations'' have a specific nature: they can be reduced neither to the purely logical
Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
(even if dialectical) nor to the purely linguistic (compositional
In semantics, mathematical logic and related disciplines, the principle of compositionality is the principle that the meaning of a complex expression is determined by the meanings of its constituent expressions and the rules used to combine them. ...
-syntactic
In linguistics, syntax () is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency), ...
) They are possible only between complete utterance
In spoken language analysis, an utterance is a continuous piece of speech, often beginning and ending with a clear pause. In the case of oral languages, it is generally, but not always, bounded by silence. Utterances do not exist in written langu ...
s of various speaking subjects... Where there is no word and no language
Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...
, there can be no dialogic relations; they cannot exist among objects or logical quantities (concepts, judgments, and so forth). Dialogic relations presuppose a language, but they do not reside within the system of language. They are impossible among elements of a language.
The
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
ian educationalist
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
, known for developing popular education, advanced dialogue as a type of pedagogy. Freire held that dialogued communication allowed students and teachers to learn from one another in an environment characterized by respect and equality. A great advocate for oppressed peoples, Freire was concerned with praxis—action that is informed and linked to people's values. Dialogued pedagogy was not only about deepening understanding; it was also about making positive changes in the world: to make it better.
As practice
![Shimer College Classroom Upshot](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Shimer_College_Classroom_Upshot.jpg)
Dialogue is used as a practice in a variety of settings, from
education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. Va ...
to
business
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...
. Influential theorists of dialogal education include
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (19 September 1921 – 2 May 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work ''Pedagogy of the Oppressed'' is generally considered one of the foundat ...
and
Ramon Flecha.
In the United States, an early form of dialogic learning emerged in the
Great Books
A classic is a book accepted as being exemplary or particularly noteworthy. What makes a book "classic" is a concern that has occurred to various authors ranging from Italo Calvino to Mark Twain and the related questions of "Why Read the Cl ...
movement of the early to mid-20th century, which emphasized egalitarian dialogues in small classes as a way of understanding the foundational texts of the
Western canon
The Western canon is the body of high culture literature, music, philosophy, and works of art that are highly valued in the West; works that have achieved the status of classics. However, not all these works originate in the Western world, and ...
. Institutions that continue to follow a version of this model include the
Great Books Foundation
The Great Books Foundation, incorporated in the state of Illinois and based in Chicago, is an independent, nonprofit educational organization whose mission is to help people think and share ideas. Toward this end, the Foundation publishes collect ...
,
Shimer College
Shimer Great Books School (pronounced ) is a Classic_book#University_programs, Great Books college that is part of North Central College in Naperville, Illinois. Prior to 2017, Shimer was an independent, accredited college on the south side of ...
in Chicago, and
St. John's College in Annapolis and Santa Fe.
Egalitarian dialogue
Egalitarian dialogue is a concept in
dialogic learning
Dialogic learning is learning that takes place through dialogue. It is typically the result of egalitarian dialogue; in other words, the consequence of a dialogue in which different people provide arguments based on Validity (logic), validity claim ...
. It may be defined as a dialogue in which contributions are considered according to the validity of their reasoning, instead of according to the status or position of power of those who make them.
Structured dialogue
Structured dialogue represents a class of dialogue practices developed as a means of orienting the dialogic discourse toward problem understanding and
consensual
Consent occurs when one person voluntarily agrees to the proposal or desires of another. It is a term of common speech, with specific definitions as used in such fields as the law, medicine, research, and sexual relationships. Consent as und ...
action. Whereas most traditional dialogue practices are unstructured or semi-structured, such conversational modes have been observed as insufficient for the coordination of multiple perspectives in a problem area. A disciplined form of dialogue, where participants agree to follow a dialogue framework or a
facilitator
A facilitator is a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions. In doing so, the facilitator remains "neutral", meaning t ...
, enables groups to address complex shared problems.
Aleco Christakis (who created ''structured dialogue design'') and
John N. Warfield John Nelson Warfield (November 21, 1925November 17, 2009) was an American systems scientist, who was professor and director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Integrative Sciences (IASIS) at George Mason University, and president of the Sy ...
(who created ''science of generic design'') were two of the leading developers of this school of dialogue. The rationale for engaging structured dialogue follows the observation that a rigorous bottom-up democratic form of dialogue must be structured to ensure that a sufficient variety of stakeholders represents the problem system of concern, and that their voices and contributions are equally balanced in the dialogic process.
Structured dialogue is employed for complex problems including
peacemaking
Peacemaking is practical conflict transformation focused upon establishing equitable power relationships robust enough to forestall future conflict, often including the establishment of means of agreeing on ethical decisions within a community, ...
(e.g.,
Civil Society Dialogue project in Cyprus
The Civil Society Dialogue Project followed the negative outcome of the Cypriot Annan Plan referendum, 2004, referendum in Cyprus for the re-unification of the island (known as the Annan Plan for Cyprus, Annan Plan), which took place on the 24 Apri ...
) and indigenous community development., as well as government and social policy formulation.
In one deployment, structured dialogue is (according to a European Union definition) "a means of mutual communication between governments and administrations including
EU institutions
The institutions of the European Union are the seven principal decision-making bodies of the European Union and the Euratom. They are, as listed in Article 13 of the Treaty on European Union:
* the European Parliament,
* the European Council ...
and young people. The aim is to get young people's contribution towards the formulation of policies relevant to young peoples lives." The application of structured dialogue requires one to differentiate the meanings of discussion and deliberation.
Groups such as Worldwide Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille use dialogue as a communication tool for married couples. Both groups teach a dialogue method that helps couples learn more about each other in non-threatening postures, which helps to foster growth in the married relationship.
Dialogical leadership
The German philosopher and classicist
Karl-Martin Dietz emphasizes the original meaning of dialogue (from Greek ''dia-logos'', i.e. 'two words'), which goes back to Heraclitus: "The logos
..answers to the question of the world as a whole and how everything in it is connected. Logos is the one principle at work, that gives order to the manifold in the world." For Dietz, dialogue means "a kind of thinking, acting and speaking, which the logos "passes through"" Therefore, talking to each other is merely one part of "dialogue". Acting dialogically means directing someone's attention to another one and to reality at the same time.
Against this background and together with Thomas Kracht, Karl-Martin Dietz developed what he termed "
dialogical leadership" as a form of organizational management.
[Karl-Martin Dietz, Thomas Kracht: Dialogische Führung. Grundlagen - Praxis Fallbeispiel: dm-drogerie markt. 3. Auflage. Frankfurt am Main: Campus 2011.] In several German enterprises and organisations it replaced the traditional human resource management, e.g. in the German
drugstore
A pharmacy (also called "drugstore" in American English or "community pharmacy" or "chemist" in Commonwealth English, or rarely, apothecary) is a retail shop which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacis ...
chain
dm-drogerie markt
dm-drogerie markt (usually abbreviated as dm) is a chain of retail stores headquartered in Karlsruhe, Germany, offering cosmetics, healthcare items, household products and health food and drinks. The company was founded in 1973 when it opened i ...
.
Separately, and earlier to Thomas Kracht and Karl-Martin Dietz, Rens van Loon published multiple works on the concept of dialogical leadership, starting with a chapter in the 2003 book ''The Organization as Story''.
Moral dialogues
Moral dialogues are social processes which allow societies or communities to form new shared moral understandings. Moral dialogues have the capacity to modify the moral positions of a sufficient number of people to generate widespread approval for actions and policies that previously had little support or were considered morally inappropriate by many. Communitarian philosopher Amitai Etzioni has developed an analytical framework which—modeling historical examples—outlines the reoccurring components of moral dialogues. Elements of moral dialogues include: establishing a moral baseline; sociological dialogue starters which initiate the process of developing new shared moral understandings; the linking of multiple groups' discussions in the form of "megalogues"; distinguishing the distinct attributes of the moral dialogue (apart from rational deliberations or culture wars); dramatization to call widespread attention to the issue at hand; and, closure through the establishment of a new shared moral understanding.
Moral dialogues allow people of a given community to determine what is morally acceptable to a majority of people within the community.
See also
*
Argumentation theory
Argumentation theory, or argumentation, is the interdisciplinary study of how conclusions can be supported or undermined by premises through logical reasoning. With historical origins in logic, dialectic, and rhetoric, argumentation theory, includ ...
*
Collaborative leadership
Collaborative leadership is a management practice which is focused on leadership skills across functional and organizational boundaries.
Term Exploration
The phrase collaborative leadership first appeared in the mid-1990s in response to the twin t ...
*
Deliberation
Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, usually prior to voting. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and reason as opposed to power-struggle, creativity, or dialogue. Group decisions are generally made after deliberation ...
*
Dialogical self
*
Dialogue Among Civilizations Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami introduced the idea of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Samuel P. Huntington's theory of a Clash of Civilizations. The term was initially used by Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler who in 1972 ...
*
Dialogue (Bakhtin) The twentieth century Russian philosopher and literary theorist Mikhail Bakhtin wrote extensively on the concept of ''dialogue''. Although Bakhtin's work took many different directions over the course of his life, dialogue always remained the "maste ...
*
Dialogue mapping
The issue-based information system (IBIS) is an argumentation-based approach to clarifying wicked problems—complex, ill-defined problems that involve multiple stakeholders. Diagrammatic visualization using IBIS notation is often called issue ...
*
Intercultural dialogue Intercultural dialogue (ICD) "occurs when members of different cultural groups, who hold conflicting opinions and assumptions, speak to one another in acknowledgment of those differences".Leeds-Hurwitz, W. (2014)"Intercultural dialogue" ''Key Concep ...
*
Interfaith dialogue
Interfaith dialogue refers to cooperative, constructive, and positive interaction between people of different religious traditions (i.e. "faiths") and/or spiritual or humanistic beliefs, at both the individual and institutional levels. It is ...
*
Intergroup dialogue Intergroup dialogue is a "face-to-face facilitated conversation between members of two or more social identity groups that strives to create new levels of understanding, relating, and action". This process promotes conversation around controversial ...
*
Rogerian argument
Rogerian argument (or Rogerian rhetoric) is a rhetorical and conflict resolution strategy based on empathizing with others, seeking common ground and mutual understanding and learning, while avoiding the negative effects of extreme attitude polar ...
*
Speech
Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses Phonetics, phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if ...
Notes
Bibliography
*Bakhtin, M. M. (1986) ''Speech Genres and Other Late Essays''. Trans. by Vern W. McGee. Austin, Tx: University of Texas Press.
*
* Hösle, Vittorio (2013): ''The Philosophical Dialogue: a Poetics and a Hermeneutics''. Trans. by Steven Rendall. Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press.
*Maranhão, Tullio (1990)
The Interpretation of Dialogue' University of Chicago Press
*
* E. Di Nuoscio, "Epistemologia del dialogo. Una difesa filosofica del confronto pacifico tra culture", Carocci, Roma, 2011
* Suitner, Riccarda (2022) ''The Dialogues of the Dead of the Early German Enlightenment''. Trans. by Gwendolin Goldbloom. Leiden-Boston: Brill
External links
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