Abstract

Dialogue and Meaning: What is the Significance of Dialogue in Our Lives? Background Dialogue’s fundamental premise is that human beings need to speak together about what is most important. Dialogue’s promise is to reveal; us to ourselves and the possibilities for living this life. Overview Plato’s driving force in dialogue is love of wisdom, his means reason, his ideal world order. Buber’s is love of man, his means relation, his ideal the unity of man. Mine is love of life, with the individual as means and the ideal; sense of wonder and its consequence, deep appreciation for life. For Plato speaking is orderly and rational. For Buber it is simply what occurs, given genuine partners, between the two partners in dialogue, the relation is most important. I claim that sense of wonder should be included in dialogue’s compass because it is a worthy guide to life’s potential. The life energy of the dialogue partners, joined with the life energy of nature through the sense of wonder moment, man-nature, is the example of potential. In arresting us with its encapsulation of existence, sense of wonder shows us our own. Conclusion There is a way of speaking, dialogue, and a way of being through the life energy of our embodiment, in the dialogue, to arrive at the best way to live life. In showing the way, is dialogue’s significance. In arriving at the best life to live is where the meaning is.