The legacies of colonialism on both the colonised and coloniser is one thing that our world cannot escape in contemporary times. In most of the places, colonialism came with its own form of Christianity. This colonial Christianity was based on the idea of exclusion, homogenisation and conquering the other. Thus, the combination of the ideals of colonialism and Christianity brought about a type of nationalism, which was monologic. This monologic nationalism as an ideology not only creates refugees but also generates (...) a monological ‘unity’ among the people in the country of arrival against these refugees. This poses a danger to humanity as a whole. Thus, it is important for scholars of religion and theology to deconstruct ideas on the line of monologic nationalism and embrace a form of nationalism that is dialogical in nature. In this regard, this article using Mikhail Bakhtin’s idea of dialogism as its framework attempts to construct a dialogic theology of missions as a response to the global refugee phenomenon. The article argues that there must be a shift from colonial missions, which are monologic in nature to a dialogic theology of missions grounded in World Christianity.Contribution: This article attempts to point out a key legacy of colonialism and colonial Christianity: the creation of refugees, which often has not been looked at by many scholars. The problem lies not with ‘Christianity’ as a religion, but the type of Christianity being practised. Addressing this practice demands a shift from colonial Christianity to World Christianity, which is embedded within its solutions to the global refugee crisis that the world is currently facing. (shrink)

This paper explores Martin Buber’s dialogical philosophy and its influence on Lu Nan’s 呂楠 photography. By comparing Lu Nan’s trilogy, which documents marginalized communities in China, with Tyagan Miller’s Covenant: Scenes from an African American Church, the study examines how Buber’s I-Thou concept shapes their practices. It highlights their efforts to transcend the subjectivity-objectivity divide in photography, as suggested by Susan Sontag. Through the “Dialogical Aperture” framework, this research provides insights into the ethical and aesthetic dimensions of documentary (...) photography, proposing Buber’s philosophy as a pathway to more authentic representations of reality. (shrink)

Dialogic leadership as ethics method respects, values, and works toward organizational objectives. However, in those situations where there may be conflicts and/or contradictions between what is ethical and what is in the material interest of individuals and/or the organization, the dialogic leader initiates discussion with others (peers, subordinates, superiors) about what is ethical with at least something of a prior ethics truth intention and not singularly a value neutral, constrained optimization of organizational objectives. Cases are considered where dialogic leadership: (1) (...) helped build ethical organizational culture; (2) was effective; and, (3) as a by-product, produced integrative win-win results. Philosophical foundations for the method as well as differences between dialogic leadership and Theory X forcing leadership, Theory Y win-win integrative leadership, industrial democracy, participative management, action inquiry, and double-loop learning action science are explored. Limitations of the method are also explored. (shrink)

This article deals with the question of how ethicists respond to practical moral problems emerging in health care practices. Do they remain distanced, taking on the role of an expert, or do they become engaged with nurses and other participants in practice and jointly develop contextualized insights about good care? A basic assumption of dialogical ethics entails that the definition of good care and what it means to be a good nurse is a collaborative product of ongoing dialogues among (...) various stakeholders engaged in the practice. This article discusses the value of a dialogical approach to ethics by drawing on the work of various nursing scholars. We present a case example concerning the quality of freedom restrictions for intellectually disabled people. Issues for discussion include the role and required competences of the ethicist and dealing with asymmetrical relationships between stakeholders. (shrink)

The dialogical approach to paraconsistency as developed by Rahman and Camielli ([1]), Rahman and Roetti ([2]) and Rahman ([3], [4] and [5]) suggests a way ofstudying the dynamic process ofarguing with inconsistencies. In his paper on Paraconsistency and Dialogue Logic ([6]) Van Bendegem suggests that an adaptive version of paraconsistency is the natuml way of capturing the inherent dynamics of dialogues. The aim of this paper is to develop a fomulation of dialogical paraconsistent logic in the spirit of (...) an adaptive approach and 'Which explores the possibility of eliminating inconsistencies by tœans oflogicalpreference stmtegies. (shrink)

This comprehensive account of the concept and practices of deduction is the first to bring together perspectives from philosophy, history, psychology and cognitive science, and mathematical practice. Catarina Dutilh Novaes draws on all of these perspectives to argue for an overarching conceptualization of deduction as a dialogical practice: deduction has dialogical roots, and these dialogical roots are still largely present both in theories and in practices of deduction. Dutilh Novaes' account also highlights the deeply human and in (...) fact social nature of deduction, as embedded in actual human practices; as such, it presents a highly innovative account of deduction. The book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, from advanced students to senior scholars, and from philosophers to mathematicians and cognitive scientists. (shrink)

The paper argues that much of the difficulty with making progress on the issue of the normativity of logic for thought, as discussed in the literature, stems from a misapprehension of what logic is normative for. The claim is that, rather than mono-agent mental processes, logic in fact comprises norms for quite specific situations of multi-agent dialogical interactions, in particular special forms of debates. This reconceptualization is inspired by historical developments in logic and mathematics, in particular the pervasiveness of (...) such dialogical conceptions in the early days of logic in ancient Greece. The multi-agent, dialogical perspective then allows for the formulation of compelling 'bridge principles’ between the relation of logical consequence and dialogical normative principles, something that is notoriously difficult to achieve in a mono-agent setting pertaining exclusively to thought and belief. The upshot is also that the truth-preserving rules of logic generally do not have a primary normative bearing on mono-agent mental processes, and in this sense the paper sides with Harman's critique of the idea that logic has a normative import for thought and belief. (shrink)

This essay is my synopsis of the political philosophy of Charles Taylor with special reference to the central role of dialogue in his work. This includes dialogical relations with oneself, with others, with the natural world and with the spiritual dimension of life. Taylor has written many books on the history of these relationships in the West.

In the current climate of high-stakes testing and performance-based accountability measures, there is a pressing need to reconsider the nature of teaching and what capacities one must develop to be a good teacher. Educational policy experts around the world have pointed out that policies focused disproportionately on student test outcomes can promote teaching practices that are reified and mechanical, and which lead to students developing mere memorisation skills, rather than critical thinking and conceptual understanding. Philosophers of dialogue and dialogic teaching (...) offer a different view of teaching, one that counters mechanical, transmissive or ‘monologic’ teaching. In this paper, I seek to extend the notion of dialogic teaching as a method of supporting social and moral learning processes. Specifically, my focus is on answering the question: What capacities must a teacher have to engage students dialogically? Drawing on Paulo Freire and other contemporary philosophers, I examine dialogic interaction as involving a way of ‘being with learners’ and put forth three teacher capacities necessary for dialogic teaching: self-critique, narrativity and building community. I then examine further what is concretely entailed in the practice of dialogic teaching using research in educational psychology. I aim to highlight how dialogic teaching, unlike monologic teaching, involves the teacher's active ability to support learners’ identification and exploration of their own blind spots—that is, the limits of knowledge and ability—and those of others. Following this, I consider implications of my discussion for international policy on teacher assessment. I close the paper with considerations for future research on teacher capacity and teacher evaluation. This paper contributes to our understanding of teacher capacity and the nature and aims of good teaching. (shrink)

This article explores two central notions of ‘dialectics’ and ‘dialogics’ based on the work of Vygotsky and Bakhtin respectively, as well their varying interanimations within Stalin-Marxist Russian societyIt is proposed that these two positions are incommensurably located alongside one another in contemporary education. I argue that Bakhtin offers diametrically oppositional educational provocations to those of Vygotsky.The implications of these interpretations will be explored with consideration of their underlying philosophical incompatibilities and contradictions, as well as the opportunities such a consideration pose (...) for educational practice today. (shrink)

I suggest that our dialogical encounters with our fellow creatures furnish the experiential ground of ethical action with respect to them. Unfortunately, this ground is seldom realized or recognized in our society; our capacity for ethical action remains unmoored from its animating sources. Yet despite our habitual inattentiveness, nature’s creatures may still grace us with their presence in dialogue. The works of Martin Buber and Henry Bugbee provide the theoretical framework within which I attempt to work through these ideas (...) and interpret their ethical significance in the context of personal experience. (shrink)

The first-person access to the self has been widely recognized by philosophers. But a competing idea arises, challenging the first-person givenness, from those who argue that self-interpretation and self-knowledge are acquired through the third-person perspective. I argue that these two dichotomous perspectives of the self can be mediated by the second-person perspective through dialogical semiosis of narrative. Peirce’s semiotic perspective on the self emphasizes the role of a semiotic subject that participates in sign processes as an interpreting agent. In (...) this sense, the concept of self is acquired through semiosis of narrative and at the same time it is interpreted in narrative world, taking the role of character. It is character which makes a person identifiable as a person, since character is not substance but quality as a recognized pattern or type through time, which becomes a habit of act and thought, thus forming personal identity. Within this context, I argue that from the first-person perspective a deliberate subject of self as “subjective I” and from the third-person perspective a dynamic object of self as “objective I” are mediated by the relationship between self and other as an imaginary relation in narrative world, just like an imaginary line of identity, connecting word with thing. From the second-person perspective, oneself as another forms teridentity (co-identity) in textual world. I shall illustrate the interlock between the semiotic self and narrative identity through Peirce’s semiotic approach to the self and Ricoeur’s theory of narrative identity, analyzing the filmic narrative text of Burning (2018). (shrink)

A substantial body of literature in the management discipline has evolved to make the case for and analyze the impacts of cross‐sector partnerships (CSPs). Yet, not all of these CSPs manifest the requisite collaborative propensities to achieve much more than superficial sustainability. Moreover, other disciplines like economics need to be brought to bear on analyses of such partnerships. In this article, we frame sustainable development challenges as collective action problems. We argue that over‐emphasizing the role of a single actor or (...) institution will not yield genuine sustainability. Instead, we propose that a collaborative orientation is necessary for business managers as they deal with challenges as expansive and complex as those presented by goals of the sustainability of the natural environment. Cross‐sector collaborative partnerships (CSCPs) are needed to achieve collective responsibility, wherein dialogic CSCPs issue in a new paradigm of collaborative markets. Market‐based solutions that ignore or minimize the important contributions that may be made by government, academia, and civil society organizations must give way to new models of collaboration across sectors. We identity specific challenges and opportunities for cross‐sector collaboration and provide case examples. There are important limits to addressing environmental and ethics problems from a single sector focus, and we show how meaningful sustainability can be facilitated within a dialogic cross‐sector collaborative perspective. (shrink)

Dialogical Logic Dialogical logic is an approach to logic in which the meaning of the logical constants and the notion of validity are explained in game-theoretic terms. The meaning of logical constants like “and”, “or”, “implies”, “not”, “every”, and so forth, is given in terms of how assertions containing these logical constants can … Continue reading Dialogical Logic →.

Based on Buber’s dialogic philosophy, ideas from the ethics of dialogue and politeness theory, we analyze letters written by members of an Israeli organization named Besod Siach – who come from both the left and right wings, are both religious and secular, who decided to broaden and deepen the dialogue between different groups in Israeli society against the backdrop of the polarization, alienation and violence threatening the state’s integrity and democratic foundations.

Dialogic: Education for the Digital Age argues that despite rapid advances in communications technology, most educational research still relies on traditional approaches to education, built upon the logic of print, and dependent on the notion that there is a single true representation of reality. In practice, the use of the Internet disrupts this traditional logic of education by offering an experience of knowledge as participatory and multiple. The challenge identified in Wegerif's text is the growing need to develop a new (...) understanding of education that will encourage us to provide new policies, and hold the potential to transform educational pedagogy and meet the realities of the digital age. This new logic of education is dialogic and characterises education as learning to learn, think and thrive in the context of working with multiple perspectives and ultimate uncertainty. The book builds upon the simple contrast between observing dialogue from an outside point of view, and participating in a dialogue from the inside, before pinpointing an essential feature of dialogic: the gap or difference between voices in dialogue which is understood as an irreducible source of meaning. Each chapter of the book applies this dialogic thinking to a specific challenge facing education, re-thinking the challenge and revealing a new theory of education. Areas covered in the book include: - dialogical learning and cognition - dialogical learning and emotional intelligence - educational technology, dialogic 'spaces' and consciousness - global dialogue and global citizenship - dialogic theories of science and maths education. (shrink)

This article argues that children represent one vanguard of an emergent shift in Western subjectivity, and that adult-child dialogue, especially in the context of schooling, is a key locus for the epistemological change that implies. Following Herbert Marcuse's invocation of a ‘new sensibility’, the author argues that the evolutionary phenomenon of neoteny—the long formative period of human childhood and the pedomorphic character of humans across the life cycle—makes of the adult-collective of school a primary site for the reconstruction of belief. (...) After exploring child-adult dialogue more broadly as a form of dialectical interaction between what Dewey called ‘impulse’ and ‘habit’, three key dimensions of dialogic schooling are identified, all of which are grounded in a fourth: the form of dialogical group discourse called community of philosophical inquiry (CPI), which is based on the problematisation and reconstruction of concepts through critical argumentation. As a discourse-model, CPI grounds practice in all of the dialogic school's emergent curricular spaces, whether science, mathematics, literature, art, or philosophy. Second, it opens a functional space for shared decision-making and collaborative governance, making of school an exemplary model of direct democracy. Finally, CPI as a site for critical interrogation of concepts encountered in the curriculum (e.g. ‘alive’, ‘justice’, ‘system’, ‘biosphere’) and as a site for democratic governance leads naturally to expression in activist projects that model an emergent ‘new reality principle’ through concrete solutions to practical problems on local and global levels. (shrink)

Inner speech has been shown to vary in form along several dimensions. Along condensation, condensed inner speech forms have been described, that are supposed to be deprived of acoustic, phonological and even syntactic qualities. Expanded forms, on the other extreme, display articulatory and auditory properties. Along dialogality, inner speech can be monologal, when we engage in internal soliloquy, or dialogal, when we recall past conversations or imagine future dialogs involving our own voice as well as that of others addressing us. (...) Along intentionality, it can be intentional (when we deliberately rehearse material in short-term memory) or it can arise unintentionally (during mind wandering). We introduce the ConDialInt model, a neurocognitive predictive control model of inner speech that accounts for its varieties along these three dimensions. ConDialInt spells out the condensation dimension by including inhibitory control at the conceptualization, formulation or articulatory planning stage. It accounts for dialogality, by assuming internal model adaptations and by speculating on neural processes underlying perspective switching. It explains the differences between intentional and spontaneous varieties in terms of monitoring. We present an fMRI study in which we probed varieties of inner speech along dialogality and intentionality, to examine the validity of the neuroanatomical correlates posited in ConDialInt. Condensation was also informally tackled. Our data support the hypothesis that expanded inner speech recruits speech production processes down to articulatory planning, resulting in a predicted signal, the inner voice, with auditory qualities. Along dialogality, covertly using an avatar’s voice resulted in the activation of right hemisphere homologs of the regions involved in internal own-voice soliloquy and in reduced cerebellar activation, consistent with internal model adaptation. Switching from first-person to third-person perspective resulted in activations in precuneus and parietal lobules. Along intentionality, compared with intentional inner speech, mind wandering with inner speech episodes was associated with greater bilateral inferior frontal activation and decreased activation in left temporal regions. This is consistent with the reported subjective evanescence and presumably reflects condensation processes. Our results provide neuroanatomical evidence compatible with predictive control and in favor of the assumptions made in the ConDialInt model. (shrink)

This study examines how evidence is used differently in argumentative discourse compared to individual arguments. Applying a 1×2 crossover study design, 37 secondary school students were asked either to discuss a social issue with their partner before individually writing an essay outlining their opinion or, vice versa, first to discuss and then to write. As background information, they were provided with pieces of evidence with different levels of quality. Dialogs and essays were analyzed regarding (a) the type of evidence and (...) (b) the way evidence was used. Results showed that in their essays students referred more often to the pieces of evidence provided to them (shared evidence). In contrast, they used evidence more often to address the opposing viewpoint in dialogs by incorporating it in a more elaborated (clearer) line of reasoning. Findings suggest that dialogues are a more effective tool than individual writing production, and the study provides first hints regarding how to design curricula that will encourage students to use evidence in a more sophisticated way in their argumentation. (shrink)

This paper is predicated on the understanding that clinical encounters between clinicians and patients should be seen primarily as inter-relations among persons and, as such, are necessarily moral encounters. It aims to relocate the discussion to be had in challenging medical decision-making situations, including, for example, as the end of life comes into view, onto a more robust moral philosophical footing than is currently commonplace. In our contemporary era, those making moral decisions must be cognizant of the existence of perspectives (...) other than their own, and be attuned to the demands of inter-subjectivity. Applicable to clinical practice, we propose and justify a Habermasian approach as one useful means of achieving what can be described as dialogic consensus. The Habermasian approach builds around, first, his discourse theory of morality as universalizable to all and, second, communicative action as a cooperative search for truth. It is a concrete way to ground the discourse which must be held in complex medical decision-making situations, in its actual reality. Considerations about the theoretical underpinnings of the application of dialogic consensus to clinical practice, and potential difficulties, are explored. (shrink)

Even when inconsistencies are present in our premise set, we can sensibly distinguish between good and bad arguments relying on these premises. In making this distinction, the inconsistency-adaptive approach of Batens strikes a particularly nice balance between inconsistency-tolerance and inferential strength. In this paper, we use the machinery of Batens’ approach to extend the paraconsistent approach to dialogical logic as developed by Rahman and Carnielli. In bringing these frameworks closer together, we obtain a dynamic mechanism for the systematic study (...) of dialogues in which two parties exchange arguments over a central claim, in the possible presence of inconsistencies. (shrink)

In this paper, I shall show how Heidegger’s notions of Dasein’s “Being-with” (Mitsein), “discourse” (Rede), and “solicitude” (Fursorge) illustrate how he has a conception of the dialogical in Being and Time. There are at least three advantages to proposing that Heidegger is a dialogist in Being and Time. First, this paradigm offers an alternative, and more perspicuous, vocabulary for describing the discursive nature of Dasein’s Being-in-the-world as a Being-with others. Second, it provides a better way of recognizing and understanding (...) the normative dimensions of “solicitude.” And third, it helps to underscore the ineliminable sociality of Dasein’s understanding of itself and of others, such that its identity remains social even in the seemingly individualizing initial moment of becoming authentic. (shrink)

The historical emphasis of medical ethics, based on substantive frameworks and principles derived from them, is no longer seen as sufficiently sensitive to the moral pluralism characteristic of our current era. We argue that moral decision-making in clinical situations is more properly derived from a process of dialogic consensus. This process entails an inclusive, noncoercive, and self-reflective dialogue within the community affected. In order to justify this approach, we make two claims—the first epistemic, and the second normative. The epistemic claim (...) follows from Habermas’ “ways” of knowing. We argue that the dialogue emanating from this episteme focuses on the relevant facts about the patient, as well as on the values attached to these facts, thus allowing facts and their meanings to serve as the basis for reflective action appropriate to the circumstances. The normative claim follows from Habermas’ discourse theory of morality and communicative action. It determines that clinical decision-making should be approached from the perspective of the actual reality of people in their situation of illness, set in their socio-cultural background, and hence be grounded in the second-person perspective. Relocating ethical decision-making from a monological space into one characterized by dialogue is especially appropriate to the clinical encounter. (shrink)

Being a pragmatic and not a referential approach tosemantics, the dialogical formulation ofparaconsistency allows the following semantic idea tobe expressed within a semi-formal system: In anargumentation it sometimes makes sense to distinguishbetween the contradiction of one of the argumentationpartners with himself (internal contradiction) and thecontradiction between the partners (externalcontradiction). The idea is that externalcontradiction may involve different semantic contextsin which, say A and ¬A have been asserted.The dialogical approach suggests a way of studying thedynamic process of contradictions through (...) which thetwo contexts evolve for the sake of argumentation intoone system containing both contexts.More technically, we show a new, dialogical, way tobuild paraconsistent systems for propositional andfirst-order logic with classical and intuitionisticfeatures (i.e. paraconsistency both with and withouttertium non-datur) and present theircorresponding tableaux. (shrink)

Dialogue is promoted as a key strategy to ‘solve’ the ‘problem’ of diversity in educational settings. Yet, “[w]hen we select words … We usually take them from other utterances, and mainly from utterances that are kindred to ours in genre, that is in theme, composition or style”. This article problematises the complexities of dialogic engagements with foreigner teachers in educational encounters. Bakhtin’s treatment of polyphonic dialogic encounters provides an analytical frame for explicating the intertextuality of foreigner teacher engagements as not (...) only temporally and culturally, but also individually volatile. The article suggests that dialogic encounters are unpredictably complex, alive and never neutral, and that dialogic engagements can be so fraught with fear that verbal or cross cultural engagements with teacher foreigners must be recognised as risky and dangerous, and not always smooth ‘solutions’ to a ‘problem’. A dual Bakhtinian/kristevan lens expands the analysis to expose the vulnerability of dialogue, through unconscious revelations of teacher subjects that are forever in process. The article culminates in an argument for the crucial importance of a receptive, attentive ethics of care in dialogic engagements with cultural foreigners in educational relationships, to avoid fearful exposure, lifeless dialogue and silence. (shrink)

Dialogical ethics are a procedural alternative to substantive ethics such as consequentialism, deontology, principlism, casuistry, virtue ethics and care ethics. Dialogical ethics are procedural in that they do not establish goods in advance, unlike substantive ethics, but rather determine goods through a procedure enacted by the actual parties involved (although some substantive notion of justice may still be required); and they are dialogical in that the procedure is that of dialogue, involving both empathic critical discussion and negotiation. (...) A fundamental tenet of dialogical ethics may be the use of appropriate rules of order regulating dialogue among the parties involved. Some of the central characteristics of such rules of order are that they are reciprocally regulated by dialogue, that they override other ethical considerations, and that they institute empathic critical discussion and negotiation within the ethical dialogue. Dialogical bioethics are the application of dialogical ethics to ethical problems in medicine. The approach of dialogical bioethics has proven fruitful for resolving bioethical problems such as that of medical futility, where approaches of substantive ethics have reached an impasse. There is room for further study of special challenges within dialogical bioethics, such as the incompetence of some involved parties, conflicts of interests of third parties, and the cost-effectiveness of this ethical approach. (shrink)

In this paper, a critical discussion is made of the role of entailments in the so-called New Paradigm of psychology of reasoning based on Bayesian models of rationality (Elqayam & Over, 2013). It is argued that assessments of probabilistic coherence cannot stand on their own, but that they need to be integrated with empirical studies of intuitive entailment judgments. This need is motivated not just by the requirements of probability theory itself, but also by a need to enhance the interdisciplinary (...) integration of the psychology of reasoning with formal semantics in linguistics. The constructive goal of the paper is to introduce a new experimental paradigm, called the Dialogical Entailment task, to supplement current trends in the psychology of reasoning towards investigating knowledge-rich, social reasoning under uncertainty (Oaksford and Chater, 2019). As a case study, this experimental paradigm is applied to reasoning with conditionals and negation operators (e.g. CEM, wide and narrow negation). As part of the investigation, participants’ entailment judgments are evaluated against their probability evaluations to assess participants’ cross-task consistency over two experimental sessions. (shrink)

A crucial component of any education, dialogue is viewed by many social justice educators as their primary means towards rectifying social inequalities. Yet the extent to which the particular educational practices they recommend meet the needs or interests of their students who face systemic disadvantage remains unclear. This essay examines claims for and against dialogical pedagogy for increasing social justice. While conceding that dialogue is necessary for developing praxis as a student and participant in society, the essay argues that (...) the prescriptive tone of some educators committed to social justice undermines their capacity for dealing concretely with the needs and interests of those they intend to better serve. The conclusion is drawn that educators committed to increasing equality must develop pedagogical attitudes informed by various educational implications of structural injustice as well as by the specific contexts in which they serve as teachers of both particular skills and content. (shrink)

This paper is inspired by Philip Cam’s book Twenty Thinking Tools. Cam recommends classroom dialogue as the primary means for students to achieve conscious, strategic, and eventually habitual command of the intellectual moves needed for building and evaluating arguments. Classroom dialogue has indeed been found to be effective for developing students’ higher-order thinking skills, but only when students are engaged in dialogic argument. This paper addresses the dual concerns that dialogue is not widespread in classrooms, and that even where it (...) is practised, it rarely involves argument. To address these concerns, an enhancement to teacher professional learning programs is proposed: the use of authentic examples, i.e. examples drawn from students’ real-life dialogic argument. Reflecting on numerous examples of this kind is likely to boost teachers’ confidence and competence as facilitators, with the consequent benefits of broadening the use of dialogue in classrooms and enhancing the rigour of students’ dialogic argument. Authentic examples of dialogic argument are surprisingly scarce in the relevant published literature. This paper provides several such examples, together with suggestions for how they may be constructively embedded in professional learning programs. (shrink)

The notions of burden of proof and presumption are central to law, but as noted in McCormick on Evidence, they are also the slipperiest of any of the family of legal terms employed in legal reasoning. However, recent studies of burden of proof and presumption (Prakken et al. 2005; Prakken and Sartor 2006). Gordon et al. (2007) offer formal models that can render them into precise tools useful for legal reasoning. In this paper, the various theories and formal models are (...) comparatively evaluated with the aim of working out a more comprehensive theory that can integrate the components of the argumentation structure on which they are based. It is shown that the notion of presumption has both a logical component and a dialectical component, and the new theory of presumption developed in the paper, called the dialogical theory, combines these two components. (shrink)

A growing conceptual and empirical literature is advancing the idea that language extends our cognitive skills. One of the most influential positions holds that language – qua material symbols – facilitates individual thought processes by virtue of its material properties (Clark, 2006a). Extending upon this model, we argue that language enhances our cognitive capabilities in a much more radical way: the skilful engagement of public material symbols facilitates evolutionarily unprecedented modes of collective perception, action and reasoning (interpersonal synergies) creating dialogically (...) extended minds. We relate our approach to other ideas about collective minds ( Gallagher, 2011, Theiner et al., 2010 and Tollefsen, 2006) and review a number of empirical studies to identify the mechanisms enabling the constitution of interpersonal cognitive systems. (shrink)

Many of the discussions about conditionals can best be put as follows:can those conditionals that involve an entailment relation be formulatedwithin a formal system? The reasons for the failure of the classical approachto entailment have usually been that they ignore the meaning connectionbetween antecedent and consequent in a valid entailment. One of the firsttheories in the history of logic about meaning connection resulted from thestoic discussions on tightening the relation between the If- and the Then-parts of conditionals, which in this (...) context was called. This theory gave a justification for the validity of what we todayexpress through the formulae ¬ and ¬. Hugh MacColl and, more recently, Storrs McCall searched for a formal system in which the validity ofthese formulae could be expressed. Unfortunately neither of the resulting systems is very satisfactory. In this paper we introduce dialogical games with the help of a new connexive If-Then (), the structural rules of which allow the Proponent to develop winning strategies not only for the above-mentioned connexive theses but also for ¬ and ¬. Further on, we developthe corresponding tableau systems and conclude with some remarks on possibleperspectives and consequences of the dialogical approach to connexivity including the loss of uniform substitution leading to a new concept of logical form. (shrink)

In this paper, the author describes a dialogical approach tolegal argumentation from the perspective of argumentationtheory. In a pragma-dialectical approach of legalargumentation, the argumentation is considered to be part of acritical discussion aimed at the rational resolution of thedispute. The author describes how a pragma-dialecticalanalysis and evaluation of legal argumentation can be carriedout.

Dialogue has become a central theoretical concept in human and social sciences as well as in professions such as education, health, and psychotherapy. This 'dialogical turn' emphasises the importance of social relations and interaction to our behaviour and how we make sense of the world; hence the dialogical mind is the mind in interaction with others - with individuals, groups, institutions, and cultures in historical perspectives. Through a combination of rigorous theoretical work and empirical investigation, Marková presents an (...) ethics of dialogicality as an alternative to the narrow perspective of individualism and cognitivism that has traditionally dominated the field of social psychology. The dialogical perspective, which focuses on interdependencies among the Self and Others, offers a powerful theoretical basis to comprehend, analyse, and discuss complex social issues. Marková considers the implications of dialogical epistemology both in daily life and in professional practices involving problems of communication, care, and therapy. (shrink)

We tend to seek theoretical explanations of our own human behavior, to understand everything we do as arising, computationally, from a systematic set of simple laws, principles, or rules. Here, influenced by the later Wittgenstein, I argue that the very possibility of the kind of talk we use in our theorizing arises out of the joint or dialogical activities in which we engage in our practical lives together, and only has its meaning within the context of such activities – (...) thus we cannot turn it around to explain its own genesis. We can, however, achieve a greater reflective awareness of our own structuring of our own activities through the new, nontheoretical methods Wittgenstein introduces into our intellectual practices. Here, I explore some of these methods, and the strange nature of our dialogical activities when seen in their light. (shrink)

Classically, we have treated talk of such things as meaning, understanding, and thinking, etc., as raising problems about mental states assumed to exist inside people's heads. And in our philosophical inquiries, we have sought determinate in-principle solutions to these problems. In the dialogical, relational-responsive view of language use presented here — influenced by Wittgenstein, Bakhtin, and Voloshinov — a very different view of such talk is presented. Our 'inner lives' are not hidden 'inside' us, but are 'displayed' out 'in' (...) the unfolding, living encounters spontaneously occurring between us and the others around us as we live out our lives. (shrink)

The increasing incidence of ‘trafficking’ has added an incontestably disturbing dimension to the contestable nature of a ‘non-trafficked’ UK sex industry. Men who buy sex remain under-researched, though some studies have indicated ambivalence within men's attitudes. This study combines a critical discursive psychology in support of dialogical self theory. Secondary data, from prominent UK media resources, were analysed using Edley's method of combining ‘interpretative repertoires’, ‘ideological dilemmas’ and ‘subject positions’. Contrasting discursive practices indicative of wider ideological conflict were found. (...) Discursive concepts were ‘mapped’ onto Hermans and Hermans-Konopka's ‘I-positions’ to explore how these potentially dilemmatic positions might be understood in terms of identity production. The function of ‘uncertainty’, particularly salient with the increasing complexity of globalisation, was considered a factor in how men's identities might be limited by the current discursive space. A ‘dialogical’ model of self is introduced as a framework for understanding how men who buy sex might take up new, inclusive, positions. A corollary is reflected upon; that researchers, activists and buyers alike, who remain ideologically inflexible, may be sustaining the conditions for coercion through their contribution to the discursive conflict. The synthesis of discursive and dialogical analytical tools is recommended for investigating the production of selves in contested spaces. (shrink)

This article begins with an introduction to defeasible (nonmonotonic) reasoning and a brief description of a computer program, EVID, which can perform such reasoning. I then explain, and illustrate with examples, how this program can be applied in computational representations of ordinary dialogic argumentation. The program represents the beliefs and doubts of the dialoguers, and uses these propositional attitudes, which can include commonsense defeasible inference rules, to infer various changing conclusions as a dialogue progresses. It is proposed that computational representations (...) of this kind are a useful tool in the analysis of dialogic argumentation, and, in particular, demonstrate the important role of defeasible reasoning in everyday arguments using commonsense reasoning. (shrink)

This paper contrasts three non-skeptical ways of explaining and reconciling political struggles: monologue, instrumental dialogue, and a comparative dialogical approach promoted by Charles Taylor and James Tully. It surveys the work of Taylor and Tully to show three particular family resemblances: their emphasis on practice, irreducible diversity, and periodic reconciliation. These resemblances are evident in the way they employ dialogical approaches to explain struggles over recognition and distribution. They describe these as dialogical actions, and suggest that a (...) form of dialogical comparison might reconcile their various contested demands. (shrink)

Charles Taylor called for a retrieval of the ethic of authenticity that has been distorted in modern notions of autonomy and self-fulfillment. Via exchanges with others who matter to us, he proposed that human identities develop through the use of rich language draped in shared horizons of significance. The fostering of these dialogical ties beyond purely instrumental purposes, along with the recognition of the human dignity in all, may avert the fallen ideal of authenticity. Nonviolent communication affords the skillful (...) dialogue with others cradled in a shared sense of significance and supports the development of a meaningful identity—one that is formed through the realization of what exists beyond the self. The purpose of this article is to argue that nonviolent communication facilitates the retrieval of the ethic of authenticity. Narratives from nursing students’ journals on the use of nonviolent communication skills will be used to support the argument. (shrink)

May God may be understood and referred to as a “person”? This is a live debate in contemporary theological and philosophical circles. However, despite the attention this debate has received, the vital question of how to account for God’s trinitarian nature has been mostly overlooked. Due to trinitarian concerns about the unqualified use of “person” as an analogy for the Godhead, I intervene in this debate with a two-fold proposal. The first is that proponents of using a person as an (...) analogy for the Godhead will be better served by using a psychologically informed analogy of a “self” instead. In particular, the Dialogical Self model of a person holds much promise. In what follows, I argue that the “Dialogical Self Analogy” for the Godhead is more likely to uphold God’s trinitarian nature, avoid trinitarian confusion and related problems than “person” analogies do. The primary benefit of speaking of God as a Dialogical Self is that it offers a psychologically modelled analogy for God, whilst avoiding the language of person, yet strongly taking into account God’s trinitarian nature. This has the important benefit of preserving the concept and language of “person” for the trinitarian persons, and hence avoiding the linguistic, conceptual and ecumenical confusion that arises when referring to the Godhead as a person. The strength of using the model and language of a Dialogical Self as an analogy for the Godhead is demonstrated by showing its compatibility with Erickson’s criteria for describing the Trinity. (shrink)

According to the ideological surround model of research, a more “objective” psychology of religion requires efforts to bring etic social scientific and emic religious perspectives into formal dialog. This study of 245 Iranian university students illustrated how the dialogical validity of widely used etic measures of religion can be assessed by examining an emic religious perspective on psychology. Integrative Self-Knowledge and Self-Control Scales recorded two aspects of the “Perfect Man” as described by the Iranian Muslim philosopher Mortazā Motahharī. Use (...) of these instruments in correlation and multiple regression procedures identified Intrinsic, Extrinsic Personal, Religious Interpretation, Extrovertive Mysticism, Prayer Fulfillment, Universality, Connectedness, and Religiosity Scales as adaptive in their implications for a Muslim psychology of religion. Religious Crisis had maladaptive and Extrinsic Social, Introvertive Mysticism, and Quest Scales had ambiguous implications. These data illustrated how etic forms of understanding can clarify and can be clarified by emic insights. (shrink)

The ethics of Public Relations is changing: the pragmatical approach is giving way to the dialogical approach. Pragmatical PR Ethics concentrates on issues and cases and hardly has a conceptual core. Dialogical PR Ethics concentrates on procedures and structures and uses symmetric communication as its core concept. Both approaches of PR ethics have their strong and weak points. A metaethical framework is presented to combine both approaches.

In his final work, Donald N. Levine, one of the great late-twentieth-century sociological theorists, brings together diverse social thinkers. Simmel, Weber, Durkheim, Parsons, and Merton are set into a dialogue with philosophers such as Hobbes, Smith, Montesquieu, Comte, Kant, and Hegel and pragmatists such as Peirce, James, Dewey, and McKeon to describe and analyze dialogical social theory. This volume is one of Levine's most important contributions to social theory and a worthy summation of his life's work. Levine demonstrates that (...) approaching social theory with a cooperative, peaceful dialogue is a superior tactic in theorizing about society. He illustrates the advantages of the dialogical model with case studies drawn from the French Philosophes, the Russian Intelligentsia, Freudian psychology, Ushiba's aikido, and Levine's own ethnographic work in Ethiopia. Incorporating themes that run through his lifetime's work, such as conflict resolution, ambiguity, and varying forms of social knowledge, Levine suggests that while dialogue is an important basis for sociological theorizing, it still vies with more combative forms of discourse that lend themselves to controversy rather than cooperation, often giving theory a sense of standing still as the world moves forward. The book was nearly finished when Levine died in April 2015, but it has been brought to thoughtful and thought-provoking completion by his friend and colleague Howard G. Schneiderman. This volume will be of great interest to students and teachers of social theory and philosophy. (shrink)

Introducing Dialogic Pedagogy presents some of the ideas of Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin concerning dialogism in a way that will engage and inspire those studying early childhood education. By translating the growing body of dialogic scholarship into a practical application of teaching and learning with very young children, this book provides readers with alternative ways of examining, engaging and reflecting on practice in the early years to provoke new ways of understanding and enacting pedagogy. This text combines important theoretical ideas (...) with a practical application to support practitioners who are keen to promote creativity and agency through ethical self-other relations. It provides unique insights into the amazing world of the youngest child, and offers enriched understandings of the profound impact of adults in their journey of becoming (or bildung). Key points covered include: Investigating dialogic philosophy and its application to early childhood education, with an emphasis on notions of justice, democracy, ethics and answerability Considering the relationship between dialogism and pedagogical approaches Theorising a range of approaches to relevant early childhood practice, as pedagogy This accessible and readable guide offers sound theoretical principles with practical suggestions for early years' settings. The book is supplemented by an extensive online video resource website that will bring these revolutionary ideas to life.. (shrink)

In modern societies, various peoples, seemingly sharing little in language, culture or history, often find themselves within the same political communities. John Rawls has described this as the main problem in questions of justice.1 His well-known solution is the two principles of justice discussed in A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism. Yet this solution seems burdened by the fact that the principles themselves presuppose a particular culture and history. Dialogical alternatives to Rawls' theory advocate no particular principles of (...) justice. Rather, these theories of justice, best articulated by Jürgen Habermas and James S. Fishkin, leave these matters to…. (shrink)

Dialogic Materialism: Bakhtin, Embodiment and Moving Image Art argues for the relevance of Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of dialogism as a means of examining the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary moving image art forms. The volume comprises six chapters divided into two sections. The first section, Part I, illustrates the key concepts in Bakhtin's multifaceted dialogism and develops these ideas in relation to moving image art. The main focus of this first part is the proposal of what the author terms dialogic materialism, (...) which builds upon the Marxism inherent in Bakhtin, examining the material processes of cultural exchange with a particular emphasis on multi-perspective subjective relations. Part II consists of case studies that apply dialogic materialism to the moving image artwork of three artists: Stan Douglas, Jamelie Hassan and Chris Marker. Applying Bakhtinian theory to the field of the visual arts provides a means of examining the fundamentally dialogic nature of moving image art making and viewing, a perspective that is not fully developed within the existing literature. (shrink)