PHILOSOPHY OF DIALOGUE: A HISTORICAL AND SYSTEMATIC INTRODUCTION

The historical backgrounds for the current analysis of talk in its social context are as diverse as the actual orientations in this approach to discourse. Although sociology and anthropology may be the overall disciplinary location for these backgrounds, the differentiation in theoretical, methodological, and philosophical labels used to identify these orientations suggests that the influences have been multiple. Phenomenology, qualitative and cognitive sociology, microsociology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, the sociology of everyday life, formal sociology, and the ethnography of speaking have been the inscriptions on the signposts that have guided the various developments leading to a common interest in the study of natural discourse. Obviously this introduction can neither sketch the full history of such antecedents nor disentangle the complexity and variety of its present-day offspring. Rather, we must try to describe the more general features of this work and sketch the outlines of a framework for the chapters that appear in this volume. These few introductory pages only allow mention of some central concepts and principies of research. How the analysis of dialogue actually works is shown by the chapters in this volume and by the many referentes to past and current work in the field of conversational and dialogical analysis.

2018

Dialectics and a dialogical approach constitute two distinct theoretical frameworks with long intellectual histories. The question of relations between dialogue and dialectics provokes discussions in academic communities. The present paper highlights the need to clarify the concepts 'dialogue' and 'dialectics' and explore their origins in the history of human thought. The paper attempts to examine mutual relations between dialectics and dialogue in a historical perspective and develop a theoretical reconstruction of their philosophical underpinnings. It proposes to deal with challenges connected with the creation of spaces for sharing and mutual enrichment between dialogue and dialectics.

2019

A search for the foundations of the philosophy of dialogue turns the researchers to Hermann Cohen and Franz Rosenzweig. The two philosophers did not consider their theory as specifically dialogue-oriented, but they both contributed greatly to the development of the philosophy of dialogue. It is important that Rosenzweig is Cohen's successor, so that their ideas give a good illustration of the new philosophy's appearance and development. The purpose of this article includes the study of the contribution of Cohen to the philosophy of dialogue; the analysis of Rosenzweig's concept and its comparison with Cohen's philosophy; elucidation of the continuity of the two philosophers and the further development of the philosophy of dialogue in connection with the concepts of Cohen and Rosenzweig.

1987

Vo l. VI , No. 5. She has attended the Christian-Marxist Dialogue in Insbruck, Au stria, in Au gust 1987, as well as a number of ph ilosophical con ferences in Europe and the U.S.A. Czesraw Mi losz, the Nobel-prize winner, said in an interview: "In my book .!!!� �!!!.� £ i !:!!..!£ I com pared what happened in the eight eenth ce ntury with taking the wrong subway train in New York. You can go in a wrong dire ction somewhere. You go very far and ca n't get off. Ma ybe we've been on the wrong train" (Mil:osz/Gardeles, 1986).

2016

The Dialogue Society is a registered charity, established in London in 1999, with the aim of advancing social cohesion by connecting communities through dialogue. It operates nationwide with regional branches across the UK. Through localised community projects, discussion forums, teaching programmes and capacity building publications it enables people to venture across boundaries of religion, culture and social class. It provides a platform where people can meet to share narratives and perspectives, discover the values they have in common and be at ease with their differences.

The study of dialogue is a way to open several intellectual arenas for investigation while at the same time offering insights into multiple scenes of practical yet culturally diverse human practices. This article reviews several such arenas including studies of dialogue as a culturally distinctive form of communication, dialogue as an approach to understanding social practices, dialogic ethics and also dialogue as an integrative view of not only cultural practice but also natural environments. Throughout, dialogue studies are cast as a broad field with distinct disciplines within it, as holding deep value for understanding diversity in peoples’ practices, as a potential aid in helping diverse peoples coordinate their efforts together through policies, government actions, and other institutions, and as a way of monitoring not only interactions among people but also their ecological environments. In the end, the promise of dialogue studies must proceed cautiously and humbly with the assumption that human endeavors are always limited to particular peoples and places. And move onward we will, dialogically informed.

Global Dialogue Conference 2009

… of knowledge through …, 2009

In this chapter we explore the role of dialogue in education. Academic papers do not only communicate through their explicit content, they also communicate through their form. By convention, for example, regardless of the number of authors, papers will express a single coherent point of view only acknowledging apparently different perspectives to dismiss them or to integrate them into the synthesis, or 'contribution to knowledge', that is usually put forward as the purpose of the paper. This chapter breaks that convention by taking the form of a dialogue. This experiment with form is important to explore, in a self-reflective way, the nature and role of dialogue. From a dialogic point of view the purpose of education is not only to impart knowledge but also, more importantly, to draw students into dialogue. Similarly this paper aims not to produce an authoritative synthesis of the state of knowledge on dialogue in a few bullet points at the end but rather to draw readers themselves into a space of dialogue in a way that communicates, through its form, some of the intrinsic motivation and significance of the process of dialogue.

In this paper, I would like to share some thoughts provoked by the idea of establishing ‘dialogue studies’ as a distinct academic field, as suggested in the inaugural call for contributions to the new journal. These are not meant to be exhaustive of all the relevant questions that could be considered under this heading. I do not, for example, consider the question of disciplinary contributions or boundaries. My emphasis, rather, is on questions to do with ethos and coherence. In particular, I am interested in exploring the possibility, and the challenges, of cultivating a dialogic approach to the study of dialogue itself. My reflections begin with a look at the tendency, within academia, to privilege debate as a form of communication and the question of whether we might conceive a Journal of Dialogue Studies as a forum for a different kind of exchange. I then reflect on some of the difficulties of studying dialogue itself, particularly where this involves outside observers. The final section raises some issues around ‘studying dialogue’ in relation to teaching, learning and assessment. My overall intention here is to share some current, tentative thoughts in the hope that this contributes to a dialogue on the idea, and perhaps the practice, of ‘dialogue studies’.

In providing a platform for intellectually rigorous engagement with dialogue, undertaken from starting points in a wide range of academic disciplines and in relation to a wide variety of contexts, the Journal of Dialogue Studies presents editions that seek to focus on particular aspects of dialogue and its conduct. Bearing in mind a phrase from the journal’s overall working proposition that at the heart of dialogue is a ‘meaningful interaction and exchange between people’, because of its involvement with people, dialogue almost inevitably entails ethical dimensions. Therefore this edition of the journal seeks to open up and critically explore some of the ethical dimensions of dialogue, from various disciplinary perspectives and with reference to various contexts. In addressing this, contributions are made by writers with backgrounds in various national contexts including Israel, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.