Abstract

Many political disagreements are deeper than differences of opinion. People who simply differ in their opinions can understand and argue with one another, but between liberals and conservatives there is often a kind of mutual incomprehension. Employing different rules of relevance and inherence, they finds the views of their opponents to lack plausible grounds. By describing these forms of thinking in some detail, it is possible to better analyze intransigent problems of political dialogue and competing ideals of political association. The results of analysis also indicate that it is possible to describe further forms of thinking in addition to those that have enjoyed dominance in the past, in particular a form of democratic thinking that is distinct from the conservative and liberal forms. It is not possible to show that one form of thinking is inherently superior to the other, so that problems of dialogue will continue, but democratic thinking has resources that permit discussion to yield a former practical consensus than the alternatives.