Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square: Civic Dialogue [1st ed.] 9783030455859, 9783030455866

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Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square Civic Dialogue Lauren Swayne Barthold

Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square

Lauren Swayne Barthold

Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square Civic Dialogue

Lauren Swayne Barthold Liberal Arts Endicott College Beverly, MA, USA

ISBN 978-3-030-45585-9    ISBN 978-3-030-45586-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

to Auden and Gael, in love and awe

Acknowledgments

The Center for Faith and Inquiry at Gordon College granted me a research fellowship that helped launch this whole project (2015–2016). Further support, which allowed me to devote substantial effort to developing my manuscript, came during my time as a research fellow with the Humility and Conviction in Public Life Project, at the Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut (Fall 2016). A special shout out to all those at the Humanities Institute who provided intellectual and moral support during my much-needed time there, especially Michael Lynch, Brendan Kane, Dana Miranda, and Casey Johnson. Essential Partners gave me access to space, trainings, and great people while I worked there as Senior Research Associate (2017–2019). Trainings through the Kettering Foundation’s Centers for Public Life Research Exchange (2017–2018) and the Intergroup Dialogue Institute at the University of Michigan (2018) enriched both my thinking about and practice of dialogue. Sections of this book have also benefited from the insightful comments of Sally Haslanger and the MIT-WOGAP folks. I appreciate all those conference participants who took the time to attend and offer suggestions on presentations of parts of this book at the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation Bi-Annual Conference (2018) and the Northern New England Philosophy Association Annual Conference (2017). Peter Levine and the other members at the Tisch College of Civic Life Seminar (2017) provided stimulating discussions, questions, and insights that helped me improve Chap. 1. My thinking about, practice of, and love for dialogue have all immensely benefited from my relationships with and the generosity of John Sarrouf, Judith Oleson, Bob Stains, Kathy Eckles, Jill DeTemple, vii

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Jonathon Garlick, Betsy Hayes, Ian DeWeese-Boyd, and Margie DeWeese-­ Boyd. The two anonymous reviewers of this manuscript provided some excellent comments that helped me improve some of its organization and key concepts. And in spite of the large gap between my own theoretical knowledge of dialogue and my in-home practice of it, Pablo Muchnik has remained my biggest fan and existential support. For all those mentioned above, I am truly grateful.

Contents

1 Introduction  1 Setting the Stage   1 Dialogue and the Polis   8 Book Overview  18 Bibliography  21 2 The Roots of Dialogue 23 Introduction  23 Relationality  26 Dialogic Relationship  30 Experience Versus Relational Event  35 Bibliography  46 3 Understanding (as) Dialogue 49 Introduction  49 Fore-Structures of Understanding: Prejudice and Tradition  53 The Event of Truth: Play and Openness  63 Understanding and the Existential Claim to Truth  76 Bibliography  79 4 Defining Dialogue 81 Introduction  81 Definitions of Dialogue: Insights from Practitioners  83 Empathy and Dialogue  97 ix

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CONTENTS

Dialogue’s Claim to Truth 108 Bibliography 119 5 The Power of Dialogue123 Introduction 123 Utilizing Dialogue to Address Cognitive Bias 131 Dialogue and Implicit Bias 138 Bibliography 152 6 The Virtue of Dialogue155 Introduction 155 Epistemic Injustice and Its Virtues 156 Dialogue for Democracy: “The Task Before Us” 173 Bibliography 182 Bibliography185 Index199

About the Author

Lauren Swayne Barthold  (PhD philosophy) teaches ethics, peace studies, and conflict transformation at Endicott College, Beverly, MA. She also serves as program developer for the Heathmere Center for Cultural Engagement, a non-profit devoted to engaging youth and young adults through dialogue and the arts. She is author of Gadamer’s Dialectical Hermeneutics (Rowman Littlefield 2010) and A Hermeneutic Approach to Gender and Other Social Identities (Palgrave Macmillan 2016).

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CHAPTER 1

Introduction

Setting the Stage Given the recent rise and increased intensity of political polarization in the United States, how are we to engage in public discourse?1 If, as political theorists have argued, the norms that once governed political discourse are no longer respected and utilized,2 if “facts” differ according to one’s political lens, if polarization renders agreement a seeming impossibility, is it even reasonable to expect those who differ to be able to talk with one another?3 Was Richard Rorty’s provocation that violence seems to be the only way to deal with intractable political differences in fact a prophecy?4 1  “Political polarization is on the rise in and has increased dramatically in the USA over the past few decades and is likely to continue to increase” (Van Bavel and Pereira 2018, 221). 2  “The incivility distinctive to today’s politics comes from the erosion of norms that historically constrained political discourse and action” (Persily 2015, 8). 3  See Persily (2015), Pew Research Center (2019), Dunning (2016), Laden (2007), and Brandsma (2017). From the Pew Research Center: “Over the past two years, Americans have become more likely to say it is ‘stressful and frustrating’ to have political conversations with those they disagree with” (2018). 4  “A bigot and I can say the same … thing: that the only real question is one of power, the question of which community is going to inherit the earth, mine or my opponent’s … Both sides may agree that there seems no prospect of reaching agreement on the particular issue at hand. So, both sides say as they reach for their guns, it looks as if we’ll have to fight it out” (Rorty 2000, 13). These questions, as Chap. 5 will elucidate, are made even more troubling by the plethora of recent research that reveals the limitations of reason to change minds. See, for example, Brownstein and Saul (2016a, b); Haidt (2012); Kahneman (2011); Mercier and Sperber (2018); and Sloman and Fernbach (2017).

© The Author(s) 2020 L. S. Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6_1

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This book argues that where polarization is predominant, traditional forms of rational argumentation and reason-based persuasion will likely prove impossible. But that does not mean we need to “reach for our guns” and give up on civic discourse all together.5 Instead, we need to utilize a form of discourse that is specifically tailored to reducing polarization by first building trust and creating mutual understanding. I will define polarization as a circular process involving three features.6 First, polarization pertains to how we think about the other’s identities. Polarization feeds off of how we conceptualize the other, particularly how we interpret and privilege their various identities.7 More specifically, polarization occurs when we privilege identities that differ and downplay or ignore identities we share with the other. One’s neighbor might hold similar political ideals, but if one refuses to talk with them because they are not of the same ethnicity or religion, then polarization is more likely to ensue. Polarization, though, is not just noticing difference, nor is it even fearing difference. One could, for example, fear the other but acknowledge that those fears are unfounded and work to open oneself to listening to the other. Second, then, polarization occurs when a fear born of difference transforms into “us-versus-them” thinking. Polarization does not refer to difference per se—that is, where issue difference is easily captured by polling data.8 Pluralism is healthy for a democracy, polarization is not. For, when one is caught in us-versus-them thinking, one believes that the other’s identity is the source of the other’s alleged moral degeneration, dangerousness, stupidity, craziness, or evilness. Third, polarization entails the belief that rational and productive dialogue and interaction are impossible or fruitless. The result is avoidance, silencing, increased aggression, or violence. Rather than seeking to understand difference, polarization shuts down the desire to communicate and often fuels hostile speech and actions. Polarization disrupts habits of civic discourse not by creating difference but by exacerbating it. In other words, polarization occurs when  Rorty (2000), 13.  This definition was helped by insights by Brandsma (2017), Persily (2015), and SinnottArmstrong (2018). 7  I am not criticizing the appeal to or concept of social identities or identity politics. See my previous book (2016) that clarifies the role, meaning, and centrality of social identities. 8  Here I do not follow Sinnott-Armstrong, who names “distance” as one feature of polarization and cites Pew Research Center data to describe how Democrats and Republicans are further apart now than in the past on key issues (13). The emphasis in my definition of polarization is on how we use difference to fuel demonization of the other. 5 6

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fear of certain identity-based difference leads to avoidance, and avoidance leads to hostile stereotypes that result in “us-versus-them” thinking. Once “us-versus-them” thinking has been established, there is usually little desire to even try to dialogue with the other side. The excessive focus on identity difference that translates into a stark us-versus-them thought process and leaves one feeling that engagement with the other is fruitless captures the essence of polarization referenced throughout this book. This account of polarization is in line with the way conflict transformation experts describe it as undermining “trust and respect” to such a degree that “distorted perceptions and simplified stereotypes emerge” (Fisher and Keashly 1990, 236–237). If one does not trust the other, one will not be open to listening to the other and the discourse that emerges will be acrimonious and fueled by hostile stereotypes. Polarized communities either lack all motivation to engage in political discussion with the other side or, if they do manage to interact, they find the communication marred by antagonism and hostility. By inviting violence rather than discourse, polarization functions as (one of) the cause(s) of the lack of facility for and interest in cogent rational argumentation, as well as the tendency to reject facts offered by one’s opponents. As Kenneth Gergen describes such encounters: “to deliberate, or to argue with the opposition is, in this sense, not likely to yield understanding, for each side will locate a means to sustain the ‘evil’ of the other” (Gergen 1994, 271). Even in his book that defends the importance of sound argumentation for improving public life, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong acknowledges that “arguments do little good when the audience is not receptive…” (Sinnott-Armstrong 2018, 7). In other words, if we are going to motivate civic discourse in polarized times we must first figure out a way to build trust and cultivate the desire to communicate across difference. According to those who research conflict, we need a form of discourse that prioritizes “relationship building” over engaging in traditional forms of political persuasion and argumentation (Pruitt and Kugler 2014, 1100). This book presents what I am calling “civic dialogue” as a form of discourse that helps establish trust with, and thus increases our receptivity to, the other. Civic dialogue is a means for motivating and encouraging community members to discursively engage with others so as to attenuate polarization. While the nature of civic life requires forms of persuasion and argument that eventually must produce policy decision, dialogue serves as a form of discourse that makes such political persuasion possible and, indeed, more productive. Civic dialogue, then, can help create and sustain

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democratic, pluralistic communities. While the aim of this book is to clarify a model of dialogue that proves a powerful form of civic discourse that has a potential to address polarization, let me offer a brief introduction to what I mean by dialogue. Analogous to Plato’s insistence that the goal of education is not simply a process of pouring knowledge into passive minds but is one that requires the struggle to re-orient oneself, the model of dialogue I am defending has as its goal not shoring up better arguments, but effecting a re-­ orientation, a shift of perspective, in how we think about the other. Dialogue attends not to the cogency of the arguments offered but to the way we interpret the other, that is, the stories we tell about them and ourselves. It does this by digging beneath the explicit arguments to reveal the interests, concerns, meaning, and values motivating them. It works to expose the assumptions and values that undergird explicit arguments, which often remain hidden from both the speaker and listener. The result is that in dialogue there is a re-orientation toward underlying meanings and values that expose a fundamental human connection with the other; our stories about the other, about ourselves, and about the nature of our relationship begin to change. Dialogue thus distinguishes itself from both debate, which utilizes explicit forms of argumentation aimed at persuasion, and deliberation, which analyzes the pros and cons of specific policies, and often relies on expert testimony.9 Dialogue also differs from “casual conversation,” which has no specifiable goal.10 Unlike debate and argumentation, dialogue does not aim to convince or persuade the other that one’s own position is correct and the other’s false. Unlike some of the more classic forms of deliberation, it neither seeks consensus nor requires a regulative ideal or mutual justifiability.11 Neither does dialogue ask participants, as some forms of 9  The literature on deliberation by political theorists is too vast and subtle to provide a sufficiently nuanced definition here. Nonetheless, the main difference worth noting between deliberation and dialogue is that deliberation generally remains primarily focused on the rational evaluation of specific policies (e.g., Guttman and Thompson 2004; Neblo 2015; and Mansbridge et al. 2010). Practitioners tend to maintain that “deliberation emphasizes the importance of examining options and trade-offs to make better decisions. Decisions about important public issues like health care and immigration are too often made through the use of power or coercion rather than a sound decision-making process that involves all parties and explores all options” (National Coaltion for Dialogue and Deliberation http://ncdd. org/rc/whatare-dd/). 10  See Laden (2012), especially Chap. 3. 11  While a classic definition of deliberation emphasized reason-giving aimed at consensus (Mansbridge et al. 2010), numerous theorists have critiqued and expanded upon this initial account (e.g., Cohen, Escobar, Laden, and Young).

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deliberation do, to critically evaluate policy options.12 Dialogue’s currency is neither reasons nor justifications. Rather, dialogue draws on personal experiences articulated in first-person narratives.13 With the emphasis on speaking only from one’s own first-person experiences, participants are encouraged to avoid generalizing about the other—one speaks for oneself and not about, much less for, the other. Sharing diverse, particular experiences works to minimize harmful stereotyping and generalizations that prevent one from seeing the other as sharing in a common humanity. Emphasizing narratives set in first-person articulations allows differences to be shared, rather than covered over, in a way that fosters connecting with the other as a human. Stories are offered to promote listening, learning, and self-reflection rather than proclaiming and persuading. All participants are encouraged to genuinely listen to the other as well as themselves, reflecting on their own cultural assumptions, prejudices, and biases. Dialogue aims to promote self-reflection, awareness of one’s own assumptions, reflection on and clarification about one’s own core values, and a deeper understanding of the interests, values, and meaning lying behind the other’s position.14 Dialogue, however, is not about either sharing any old feelings one wants to or about merely making people feel good. Its goal is not an ineffable “kumbaya” or “warm fuzzies” moment. Rather, as Chap. 4 will detail, through a facilitated structure, dialogue aims to shift perspectives and to allow one to see the other through new eyes. The change in perspective is a tangible one in so far as it concerns the stories we tell about the other; such stories are given meaning via our interpretations about their identities. At the same time, it also allows one to confront one’s own (often hidden) assumptions and prejudices. One changes one’s own views by listening to what matters to the other and then relating that to one’s 12  See the National Issues Forum website for issue guides that use a form of deliberation that encourages citizens to weigh options on a variety of public issues (https://www.nifi. org/en/home). 13  While more will be said in Chap. 4 about the structured process in which stories are shared, let me clarify here that in a dialogue stories are not offered as a form of argument or persuasion. In this way, the use of narrative in dialogue is different from its use in deliberations as advocated by Young (2010, 70ff) or by feminist legal scholar Kathryn Abrams (1991). 14  Political theorist Georgia Warnke has also suggested a non-deliberative form of discourse, one aimed not at consensus but at meaning: “Whereas deliberation allows us only either to confirm or to give up on the public character of our reasons and considerations, interpretive discussion allow us to explore larger ranges of meaning” (Warnke 2013, 766).

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own story and beliefs. In this way, a common humanity is revealed which can establish a basis for a more productive, because less polarized, approach to civic life. In other words, dialogue refuses a definition of public discourse given in market terms, where each individual struggles to convince the other that their own individual desires should be accepted by all. Dialogue is not about winning but about creating—creating new interpretations and meanings that connect us with the other. Let me emphasize that in esteeming dialogue I am not arguing that reason, persuasion, argument, justification, and facts are unimportant. Rather, my interest is to defend a different way of speaking with others that proves effective in instances where facts and reason-based political argumentation have lost their saliency and motivating power. In this way, dialogue can also be taken as a way to expand upon what John Dewey, over a century ago in The Public and Its Problems, named as one of the complicating factors of public discourse. Dewey described how the gap between “‘facts’ and the meaning of facts” is ignored by the standard model of public discourse that assumes that if one simply “accumulates enough [facts]… their interpretation stares out at you,” and he went on to refute the idea that “bare phenomena” alone are enough to “coerce belief” (Dewey 2016, 59). I am not sure whether it is a comfort or not to imagine that Dewey was concerned with a similar anti-fact phenomenon to that which confronts us today. In any event, Dewey invites a way forward by turning our attention to the “meaning of facts,” which is not always readily apparent. Facts, as Dewey was well aware, do not always speak for themselves. To say, however, that “facts have lost their meaning” is not to state a fact about facts per se. Rather, it is to maintain that public discourse is often performed in such a way as to sunder the facts from their social, cultural, emotional, and historical meanings. Certain structures and practices through which we make facts public can too easily preclude a ready access to their meanings since such structures and practices fail to attend to, in Dewey’s terms, “human desire… interest and purpose” (62). This phenomenon can be seen when panels of experts (aka “talking-heads”) are presented either on television or as a way to set the stage for a community discussion afterwards; in such instances true understanding of the other rarely occurs since presentation of facts alone rarely changes minds.15 15  See, for example, Van Bavel and Pereira (2018); Haidt (2012); and Sloman and Fernbach (2017).

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There are a variety of cognitive biases that prevent us from connecting meaningfully to facts presented by our opponents. If an expert is aligned with the opposing side, simply hearing them speak, no matter how cogent the facts and arguments offered, will be unlikely to change one’s mind.16 In order to improve rational argumentation in a polarized public square, we first need to create an environment where people are more interested in listening to, rather than screaming at, one another. Speaking more loudly (or even more slowly) will not do the trick. We need a lesson in hermeneutics not diction in order to ascertain a better way of communicating. That is to say, we need practices and conditions that help us better understand the other, creating more “positive human relationships across groups,” in order to, as violence researcher Rachel Kleinfeld notes, “reduce extreme political polarization” (Kleinfeld 2018, 58). Acknowledging that a well-developed capacity for pluralistic public discourse that utilizes sound rational arguments and fact-based persuasion is crucial for sustaining democracy, this book sets forth a model of dialogue that can renew civic discourse by cultivating the “soil” in which such discourse can flourish. The hermeneutic challenge I offer is that a dialogue aimed at exploring meanings and values of participants beyond those that paralyze communities can open up interpretive discussions that not only enlighten but allow a plurality of voices to contribute to civic meaning making. Civic dialogue is a way to create the necessary foundations upon which pluralistic democracies can flourish. A final preliminary point about dialogue, to be developed in Chap. 4, is that dialogue is not a free-flowing conversation in which anyone can say anything they want. In dialogue, the particular differences are shared as the means to a common understanding. A specific structure with communication agreements and advanced planning is required. Dialogic practitioners maintain that about seventy-five percent of the work of dialogue occurs prior to the actual dialogue. For example, prior to the dialogue, practitioners speak with all parties involved to get a sense of what needs to be talked about and what sort of language is best avoided and what sort best utilized. Ground rules are drawn up and the actual dialogue is a carefully orchestrated affair with one (or more) facilitator(s) ensuring that best practices are followed. Dialogic practitioners, on whom I draw in this book, are trained professionals. There is a demand for this professional work since, alas, the type of dialogue I am describing rarely happens  I discuss these claims in more detail in Chap. 5.

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naturally. And while there is no single format that everything termed “dialogue” must follow, when I use the term “dialogue” throughout this book I shall refer to an oral exchange that follows a specific structure, relies on advanced preparation and facilitation, and has as its goal mutual understanding.

Dialogue and the Polis The belief that where rational argumentation proves impotent the only recourse is violence is one that is challenged in the opening section of Plato’s Republic. Inviting us to consider a third way, the encounter between Socrates and Polemarchus reveals something about the political potential of dialogue and its capacity for moving us beyond the violence versus rational persuasion dilemma.17 It is also a way of highlighting the importance of connecting with another on the level of meaning as opposed to just facts, a point that will be deepened by Arendt’s analysis with which I close this chapter. Recall that Socrates and Glaucon are returning from a religious ceremony in the Pireaus and preparing to leave town when they meet up with Polemarchus, who orders them not to leave and instead to come spend the evening at his house. In fact, he is so eager to have Socrates join him that, after sending his slave boy running ahead to grab hold of Socrates’ tunic to implore him to wait, Polemarchus resorts to threatening Socrates with violence, saying: “Do you see how many of us there are? Either prove stronger than these men or stay here.” The choice is starkly put: Socrates and Glaucon can either use force to overpower this larger group of men or else submit and go to Polemarchus’ home. Is not this sentiment precisely what underlies so much of our contemporary public discourse where political debaters use words to fight their opponents? Indeed, many political debates are now cast as sports competitions—“the first fight is in the books”—where candidates are described as “trading body blows.”18 I  All quotations in this section are taken from Plato 1991, 3–4 (327a–328b).  See CNN coverage of the July 2019 second round of Democratic debates (https:// www.cnn.com/opinions/live-news/commentary-night-2-of-democratic-debate-june-27/ index.html); also see https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/12/politics/who-won-the-debate/ index.html Additionally, the New York Times constantly focused their reporting on “who won” the debates: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/27/us/politics/democraticdebate-winners-losers.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/politics/debatewinners.html; https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/opinion/democratic-debatehouston.html 17 18

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want to take a closer look at what happens next in order to appreciate Plato’s relevance for considering an alternative response. In his reply to Polemarchus, Socrates tries to avoid violence by advocating the power of persuasion: “Isn’t there still one other possibility… our persuading you that you must let us go?” But Polemarchus—perhaps representative of those who find philosophy impotent in the “real world”— retorts by exposing the fatal flaw of persuasion: “Could you really persuade [us] … if we don’t listen?”19 Indeed, some consider the refusal to listen as a form of violence.20 As a result, violence, or a threat thereof, is made to appear even more politically expedient than persuasion since it does not require the impossible task of getting the other to listen against their will. Where no-one is listening, shouting and violence tend to be the default strategies. Before Socrates has a chance to respond, Glaucon jumps in to cede Polemarchus’ point and says: “There’s no way.” Polemarchus then triumphantly responds: “Well, then, think it over bearing in mind we won’t listen.” Given that persuasion proves impotent when others refuse to listen, and since Polemarchus has just admitted that he refuses to listen, it appears that Socrates and Glaucon are back to having to choose between either utilizing or submitting to violence. Or are they? I want to argue that the falsity of the dilemma between persuasion (represented by Socrates) and violence (represented by Polemarchus) is proved by Adeimantus’ subsequent intervention. For note what happens next: Adeimantus turns to Socrates and begins to describe to him the novel torch race on horseback and all-night festival that is set to occur that evening, thus engaging Socrates in a friendly conversation that shifts the focus by inviting him to consider some points of interest he had not previously thought of. Adeimantus’ efforts to build bridges and reveal common interests are hallmarks of dialogue. In other words, Adeimantus appeals to the personal interests and desires of Socrates in describing the events of the evening. Socrates replies with genuine 19  If Hannah Arendt is correct in her assessment of Plato’s disappointment with persuasion after Socrates’ failure before the jury (Arendt 1990, 73), we might read Polemarchus’ question as motivating the whole Republic-as-“dialogue” that ensues: namely, how is the philosopher to respond when persuasion proves impotent? 20  David Bohm describes the violence experienced when one is not heard: “in general, if somebody doesn’t listen to your basic assumptions you feel it as an act of violence, and then you are inclined to be violent yourself…” (Bohm 1996, 53).

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interest to Adeimantus saying, “On horseback? That is novel. Will they hold torches and pass them to one another while racing the horses, or what do you mean?” Adeimantus’ clever dialogic intervention—exemplary of the most skilled facilitator—highlights common interests that help turn the interaction away from a stark win-lose scenario. His words invite a new interpretation. Even Polemarchus joins in and he adds further details including the promise of dinner and conversation. Glaucon then (again) concedes: “It seems we must stay.” And this time Socrates confirms, saying, “if it is so resolved, then this is how we must act.” I think we can conclude from this exchange that in spite of the lack of rational persuasion attempted by Socrates and Glaucon, they did not simply submit to a threat of violence. For Adeimantus describes the evening’s events in a way that shows them to be meaningful and of interest to Socrates. As a result, Socrates and Glaucon decide to remain—but not out of the fear of the threat of violence but because a common and shared interest has been discovered. Adeimantus thus disproves the very assumption Polemarchus had articulated and that Glaucon (and Rorty) had initially and (too) quickly agreed to: namely, that submission to the threat of violence is the only alternative when rational persuasion seems impotent. Nothing in the text indicates that it was submission (i.e., the fear of violence) that dictated Socrates’ and Glaucon’s ultimate decision to remain in the city. What we witness was a type of communication that appealed neither to pure logical argument nor to (threat of) violence. On offer were activities of genuine interest to Socrates that helped him notice the commonality and congeniality of the evening’s events. I begin with this close reading as a way of setting up my preliminary definition of dialogue, to be developed in subsequent chapters, as a spoken interaction that opens a common space for listening to and acknowledging the desires and interests of another in order to achieve mutual understanding. Dialogue is a form of interpersonal exchange in which each participant’s desires and interests are offered up and received in such a way to reveal a commonality. Its goal is mutual understanding. Putting it in Platonic language that I shall further clarify below by way of Arendt: it is a way of forging connection through sharing “opinions” that reveal the deeper, universal “truth.”21 In other words, I am categorizing 21  As Chap. 2’s analysis of Martin Buber makes clear, “universal” and “commonality” are existential rather than epistemic terms in so far as they describe our fundamental connection to the other.

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Adeimantus’ words that offered a friendly appeal to, in Dewey’s terms, the “desires, interests, and purposes” of Socrates, as elucidating the essence of dialogue. Yet while dialogue might be fine among friends who meet in the road, is it fit for the polis? To help us ponder in more depth the political relevance of dialogue and its  ability to discern truth in opinion, I turn to Hannah Arendt’s essay “Philosophy and Politics.”22 Arendt contends that Socratic dialogue was an important and novel practice that utilized opinion. She writes: “Although it is more than probable that Socrates was the first who had used dialegesthai (talking something through with somebody) systematically, he probably did not look upon this as the opposite or even the counterpart to persuasion, and it is certain that he did not oppose the results of this dialectic to doxa, opinion” (80).23 What I want to focus on, though, is her point about the relevance and role of doxa, particularly how she goes on to note that “the word doxa means not only opinion but also splendor and fame. As such, it is related to the political realm, which is the public sphere in which everybody can appear and show who he himself is. To assert one’s own opinion belonged to being able to show oneself, to be seen and heard by others” (80). Arendt further develops her claim that dialogue elicits doxa, and thus appearance, in her analysis of the maieutic nature of dialogue: “What Plato later called dialegesthai, Socrates himself called maieutic, the art of midwifery: he wanted to help others give birth to what they themselves thought anyhow, to find the truth in their doxa” (81). And she goes on to reflect:

22  Let me clarify that my analysis does not require me to defend Arendt’s public-private distinction. In fact, it is my hope that my reflections offer a way to complicate her problematic distinction, which Seyla Benhabib has termed her “phenomenological essentialism” (Benhabib 1992, 94). 23  As Arendt construes it, political persuasion is a form of violence (although oddly and incorrectly she pits persuasion against compulsion [74]). She writes: “To persuade the multitude means to force upon its multiple opinions one’s own opinion; persuasion is not the opposite of rule by violence, it is only another form of it” (79). Perhaps she has in mind Gorgias’ statement that if Helen of Troy had been rationally persuaded to leave her home, as opposed to physically abducted, it still would have counted as an act of force. Additionally, John Sallis uses persuasion as one form that nous’ generation of the world takes (Sallis 1999, 91). In any event, “persuasion” had a variety of different meanings in Greek, and therefore I do not find it problematic that she considers dialogue as a form of persuasion.

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Yet, just as nobody can know beforehand the other’s doxa, so nobody can know by himself and without further effort the inherent truth of his own opinion. Socrates wanted to bring out this truth which everyone potentially possesses. If we remain true to his own metaphor of maieutic, we may say: Socrates wanted to make the city more truthful by delivering each of the citizens of their truths. The method of doing this is dialegesthai, talking something through, but this dialectic brings forth truth not by destroying doxa or opinion, but on the contrary reveals doxa in its own truthfulness. The role of the philosopher, then, is not to rule the city but to be its ‘gadfly,’ not to tell philosophical truths but to make citizens more truthful… Socrates did not want to educate the citizens so much as he wanted to improve their doxai, which constituted the political life in which he too took part. To Socrates, maieutic was a political activity, a give and take, fundamentally on a basis of strict equality, the fruits of which could not be measured by the result of arriving at this or that general truth. (81)

There is a lot to unpack here but let me start by saying that Arendt helps us regard with suspicion the idea that structuring a discourse to allow the maximum number of truths to be proclaimed is always the best way to improve a democratic discourse. A debate in which each side proffers its best truths to “destroy” their opponent’s opinions is not the Socratic ideal of politics-as-education. Arendt seems to be suggesting that the successful polis is not defined by its end, that is, consensus, or arriving “at this or that general truth,” but by its means, that is, dialogue. For only dialogue can create a truly public and equitable space. The philosopher here is not assigned to the role of ruler but rather that of midwife. Furthermore, I think we can extend Arendt’s emphasis on Socrates’ maieutic endeavor by maintaining that the maieutic activity lets what is appear, but that this can only happen with the involvement of another person. And although birth and appearance require another person, namely, a midwife, the midwife does not threaten or rationally persuade the infant to be born; her role is to encourage what already is to come forth. Descartes, alas, was no midwife and “truths” are not that which are most self-evident, clear, and distinct to one’s own mind. In a time of political, social, and religious turmoil, it is neither Descartes’ “man who walks alone and in the dark” nor our contemporary social media warrior who can return us to truth. Rather, we need a midwife who elicits appearance, birth, without recourse to disembodied reason alone or threat of force. In fact, as Socrates reminds us in the Symposium, birth can only take place in the presence of beauty and tranquility. That truths are not proclaimed and

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argued for but revealed, elicited forth from doxa (81), insures their meaningfulness since they are seen to emerge from a particular embodied individual as well as a particular socio-historical milieu. Too often in our frustration with fact/truth-deniers we forget Dewey’s point about the need to attend to the meaning of facts, that is, to recognize that they are tied to particular socio-historical and embodied interests. As finite, embodied, historical beings we cannot do away with doxa and expect to get straight to “the truth” and “the facts”—as the image of the solitary thinker suggests. The implication here is that “midwife” needs to replace “meditator” as the dominant epistemic metaphor. Dialogue is that practice that allows us to take opinions-as-embodied-meanings seriously. Arendt also draws our attention to the fact that by allowing the opinion of another to come together with one’s own opinion, dialogue generates a community of equals in so far as no single opinion is exalted as truth. Dialogue is the antidote against individual opinion congealing into “truth-­ as-­a-final-end-point” since it entails the ongoing examination of all opinions. In addition to avoiding a fixed hierarchy with a single regnant truth, dialogue also prevents the unhappy state of relativism where everyone simply votes for his or her own opinion as truth. It is precisely this sort of relativistic pluralism that prevents a functioning polis that Plato feared and that motivated him to seek a better form of dialectic—one grounded in an ongoing dialogue that produces a commonality between interlocutors rather than any specific conclusion, truth, or consensus.24 Arendt reads Socrates as demonstrating that dialogue is that form of citizenry that builds the community by establishing what is held in common, what lies in between. Such a dialogue creates a “commonweal” revealing what is held in common, shared, and “between” citizens in order 24  Arendt writes: “Plato was the first to use the ideas for political purposes, that is, to introduce absolute standards into the realm of human affairs, where, without such transcending standards, everything remains relative” (1990 75, emphasis added). Yet she admits, and I agree, that Plato never intended the ideas as purely political much less as standards, if by standards we mean knowable criteria by which to measure and judge. The realm of the forms, rather, functioned as an image to indicate a type of regulatory ideal, an impossible-toachieve telos of human existence, a liminal image—not a blueprint or set of measurable criteria. Plato’s defense against the relativism of the Eleatics was not to summon a knowable creed but to show us that without an imagined telos, human life is meaningless. Without a highest truth, rationality is impossible. Yet as Socrates’ words imply again and again, we can never know with certainty, clarity, or distinction what these forms are. The good is beyond being, beyond conceptualization. See Barthold (2010), Chap. 5 for a protracted argument about the role of the good in Plato.

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to sustain an equality. Walls and laws may be able to protect or secure what already exists, but they can never create the equality necessary for true community. Dialogue cultivates the continued growth of community; walls enshrine a community and thus constrain it. It is important to stress here that Arendt saw the possibility for creating a “commonweal” as funded by difference. Dialogue requires, and does not seek to eradicate, difference. Equality does not mean that everyone is identical but that “they become equal partners in a common world—that they constitute a community” (83). Arendt concludes, “The political element…is that in the truthful dialogue each of the friends can understand the truth inherent in the other’s opinion… Socrates seems to have believed that the political function of the philosopher was to help establish this kind of common world, built on the understanding of friendship in which no rulership is needed” (83, 84).25 For Arendt, the political relevance of dialogue is its ability to aid one in seeing how the world appears to one’s friend, thus enacting both commonality and equality. I want to clarify, however, that what Arendt is expressing here is not some form of cognitive empathy. To see the truth in another’s opinion is not merely to be able to reiterate their beliefs. Spewing back the talking points of one’s interlocutor does not necessarily guarantee connection (or meaning). If dialogue is indeed an active and ongoing process that creates community, we need more than mimesis. I take Arendt’s point to be that there is a type of human interaction that is beneficial for creating a community in so far as it evinces a shared perspective, requires equality, and allows the other to appear. Both dialogic partners stand on equal footing in the realm of appearance. Such a community of equals cannot be established by rational argument alone—particularly that form of rationality we call instrumental—but neither does it require force. Arendt explains: On this level, the Socratic ‘I know that I do not know’ means no more than: I know that I do not have the truth for everybody, I cannot know the other fellow’s truth except by asking him and thereby learning his doxa, which reveals itself to him in distinction from all others. In its ever-equivocal way, the Delphic oracle honored Socrates with being the wisest of all men, because he had accepted the limitations of truth for mortals, its limitations through dokein, appearances, and because he at the same time, in opposition to the Sophists, had discovered that doxa was neither subjective illusion nor 25  See Nicomachean Ethics 1155 a 20–3. See also Allen (2004), which defends a form of political friendship as central to a thriving democracy.

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arbitrary distortion but, on the contrary, that to which truth invariably adhered. (85)

Dialogue is that form of interaction in which we continually engage the other in genuine questions about her doxa in such a way as to allow her to appear. Such engagement would require much more than cognitive empathy in the sense of knowing the thoughts of the other. Dialogue is a process that trades in more than facts and does not seek out a final truth; it serves to establish, generate, and continually make visible what is in common. Arendt concludes her reflections on the political potential of philosophy with a section on wonder. She claims that for Plato the beginning and end of philosophy is wonder, which is a general, wordless, existential form of questioning. Unlike scientific questions that are easily put into words, aim at the particulars, and explicitly address practical concerns, philosophic wonder is aimed “above” and in its generality renders one speechless—as exemplified by Socrates’ stupendous moments of wonder that paralyze him, preventing him from speaking and walking. Because of this speechlessness, Arendt maintains that wonder removes the philosopher from the polis, whose realm is speech and action. I contend, however, that she is incorrect to suggest that Plato insists that philosophy must end in speechless wonder. For the dialectic Plato develops is grounded in Socratic dialogue that, as we have seen, remains ongoing. It is dialogue’s very ongoing nature that preserves the distinction between sophists and philosophers. As Arendt’s earlier analysis has revealed, Socrates does not take opining in and of itself as a bad thing; rather, it only becomes problematic when opinion is treated as the final and complete telos. Socrates demonstrates in his dialogues how a genuine openness toward another keeps a degree of wonder active to the extent to which it prevents one from taking one’s own doxa as truth. If one is truly trying to understand how the doxa of another appears to her, one cannot persist in claiming that one’s own doxa is truth. As Arendt has rightly maintained, there is nothing wrong with possessing doxa so long as one does not defend it as truth. In fact, doxa, as a form of appearance, is what dialogue trades in. Against Arendt I want to argue that dialogue should be understood as a way both to prevent us from converting doxa into a (pseudo) truth and to prevent us from remaining in speechless wonder. If both wonder and doxa are legitimate facets of human nature, then dialogue can serve as a form of dialectic that keeps us from getting stuck in either one of these

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two components. We need others who can help prevent us from taking our own doxa as truth, which returns us to the experience of wonder. The new opinion we hear another expressing can break us out of our routine wordiness and make us pause in wordless wonder. This is a necessary step in so far as to keep speaking and defending one’s own “truth” can silence the other, denying their capacity for acting and speaking. But neither should we remain in wordless wonder, no matter how tempting and appealing it may be. For Plato’s allegory of the cave instructs us that it is unjust for the philosopher to remain in the sunlit bliss of speechless wonder. Justice demands that the philosopher return to the realm of doxai and engage others so that their doxai might also undergo a review. Dialogue is the form that such dialectical pedagogy takes in so far as it requires more than a single individual to enact. As such, dialogue is the closest we can get to a life of pure wonder and the closest we can get to truth—yet we never quite arrive. And this is the life that Socrates modeled. Yes, we wonder at ultimate truth, as Arendt puts it, but we are also language-using, social beings whose speech reveals our desire to connect with others and so we try (are compelled) to put truth into words, and the result is doxa. When the other encounters our doxa, she is motivated to consider how it accords with her doxa, and is provoked to wonder, where wonder entails a degree of speechlessness in so far as one is not trying to argue against anything in particular that the other has said. In its generality, wonder promotes the openness required for true dialogue, and Arendt notes how the power of wonder derives not from rational argumentation but from an existential encounter (98). Opposed to wonder is the desire to win that drives debate and requires a focus on defending and attacking particular claims in order to come to a conclusion. We could also oppose wonder to instrumental inquiries that seek the best means for a given end. Wonder, which occurs according to Arendt only when existence is at stake, incites the general ongoing dialectic of dialogue and prevents anyone from claiming to have won a specific argument (98–99). Against Arendt, however, I am arguing that it is the tension between wonder and doxa that motivates dialogue, particularly dialogue of a political sort: one that connects us with another and in so doing creates a public space, a viable pluralistic polis. A life of pure wonder is unfit for mortals with social needs. After all, even Socrates had to pause from his wonder and come in and join the feast and conversation with friends; friends (and food) are necessary accompaniments to the philosophic journey.

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For Socrates, the practice of philosophy-as-dialogue never comes to an end, reflecting the endless plurality of humanity. Plato sought to ground dialectic in Socratic dialogue in a way that maintained the anti-relativist thrust of his forms while at the same time acknowledging human finitude and fallibility. Taking seriously Platonic forms does not imply that we can reach or know them, much less that we can allow dialogue to come to an end in wordless silence. As the myth of Er suggests, even physical death does not put an end to the need for philosophizing, since it proves useful in choosing our next life. For that reason, I detect a political relevance in Plato’s account of dialogue that I maintain already meets the conditions Arendt spells out in her concluding paragraph of the essay I have been exploring: If philosophers, despite their necessary estrangement from the everyday life of human affairs, were ever to arrive at a true political philosophy they would have to make the plurality of man, out of which arises the whole realm of human affairs—in its grandeur and misery—the object of their thaumadzein. Biblically speaking, they would have to accept—as they accept in speechless wonder the miracle of the universe, of man and of being—the miracle that God did not create Man, but ‘male and female created He them.’ They would have to accept in something more than the resignation of human weakness the fact that ‘it is not good for man to be alone.’ (103)

I take Socratic dialogue to be affirming precisely this sense of plurality: not only do we exist in a plurality but we are finite beings for whom plurality proves beneficial. Wondering alone, by oneself, is not philosophy—at least not the sort of philosophy endorsed by Plato and Socrates. Our human condition of finitude and plurality requires us to situate that wonder in an appropriate form. Dialogue is just such a form in so far as it invites us to wonder along with others and to consider their doxa as important and fallible as our own.26 26  My criticism of Arendt here might seem to help explain a failure in her theory of judgment that Benhabib notes: “Where I depart from Arendt though is in her attempt to restrict this quality of mind [judgment] to the political realm alone, thereby ignoring judgment as a moral faculty. The consequences of her position are on the one hand a reduction of principled moral reasoning to the standpoint of conscience, which is identified with the perspective of the unitary self, and on the other hand, a radical disjunction between morality and politics which ignores precisely the normative principles that seem to be embodied in the fundamental concepts of her own political theory like public space, power and political community” (1992, 141).

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In conclusion, I have appealed to the interpretation of Arendt to defend my claim that in the opening scene of the Republic there is something significant revealed about dialogue’s political potential. Before being able to build their ideal city in the private space of Cephalus’ home, these friendly architects needed to establish a foundation suitable for such a city. As the “prefiguration of the whole political problem” (Bloom 1991, 441), their encounter in this opening scene teaches us that the ideal city is to be founded not on violence or persuasion but rather on dialogue.

Book Overview The precise nature of dialogue and its role in reducing polarization and promoting a flourishing democratic human community in the polis is the topic of the rest of the book. Drawing on both philosophers and practitioners of dialogue, I defend an approach to dialogue that proves a crucial civic practice for creating a stronger pluralistic democracy. Chapter 2 looks at the origins of dialogue as stemming from our fundamental relationality, which Martin Buber describes as the primordiality of the I-Thou relation. I provide an in-depth discussion of some of the central themes in Buber’s existential account of dialogue, and maintain that we should read his work as suggesting two categories marking the dialogic ontology of our human condition: relationality and dialogic relationship. This reading of Buber allows me to defend a normative dimension in his thought that will undergird subsequent claims about the importance of utilizing dialogue in civic life. If, as Martin Buber maintains, we are primarily relational rather than rational animals, then dialogue, as a form of discourse that affirms our original relationality, should be utilized to promote true connections with others as “Thous” rather than objectifying, indeed de-humanizing, the other as an “It.” In describing the importance of dialogic relationship, I underscore the mutual agency of both the I and Thou whereby both experience a change that reflects a deeper understanding of self and other. The result, in the words of Dewey, is to transform our “natural association” into a “community.” While Buber is sparse on detailing how his ontology of dialogue can be translated into practice, particularly one relevant for the public realm, the rest of the book establishes Buber’s I-Thou relation as central to both the theory and practice of dialogue. Elucidating the import of Buber for theory and practice alike allows me to defend civic dialogue’s efficacy for cultivating and deepening

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our association, that is, our fundamental connection, with others in order to sustain a pluralistic democracy. In the third chapter, I highlight the Buberian themes in the work of the twentieth-century German hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, not only in terms of Gadamer’s use of dialogue as the central trope for describing what goes on in the process of understanding, but also for some of the key concepts Gadamer utilizes to explicate the dialogic nature of understanding: namely, the fore-structures of understanding, prejudice, openness, play, and truth. Gadamer clarifies the sort of knowledge that emerges from our dialogic condition and reveals the flaws of (a particular strain of) modernity’s foundationalist commitments that have led to a reductionistic and diminished understanding of the nature and aim of civic discourse. Gadamer’s antisubjectivism, which extends a similar point of emphasis in Buber, exposes and lends credence to the implicit dimensions of understanding. Truth is not simply a term used to affirm a proposition that results from an explicit reasoning process. For Gadamer, truth is an event that transcends subjective intentions and occurs when the horizons of two interlocutors merge to form a new horizon of understanding, a horizon in which both find themselves changed. I will argue that reading Gadamer through a Buberian lens helps address criticisms of Gadamer’s concept of tradition, specifically claims that his account is marred by a passivity that robs it of any capacity for critique. I demonstrate the active role of the understanding agent in both engaging in the play with purpose and also being open to challenges posed by the other, which introduces a dimension of critical reflection. Finally, by integrating Gadamer’s conception of truth and Buber’s ontology of dialogue, I clarify how a truthful dialogic encounter occurs when both parties arrive at a new, shared perspective—one in which they actively participate but one that transcends both of their volitional powers. Chapter 4 introduces the work of dialogic practitioners in order to further deepen the theoretical account of dialogue and to help clarify exactly what the practice of dialogue requires and looks like. This chapter primarily focuses on one specific approach to dialogue, “Reflective Structured Dialogue,” developed by Essential Partners27 that places first-person experience and narrative at the heart of such a practice. I discuss the method and aim of dialogue as defined by a variety of practitioners and then examine it through the theoretical lenses developed in the previous two  https://www.whatisessential.org

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chapters. I analyze the various components of the structure in order to defend the power of using first-person narratives and to respond to critics who worry that the effect of dialogue is merely to promote “warm feelings.” While some practitioners define mutual understanding as empathy, I discuss recent philosophical and psychological work on empathy and argue that the goal of dialogic understanding should not be conceived as empathy—either emotional or cognitive. Bringing Buber’s existential emphasis together with Gadamer’s account of the role of truth in understanding, I maintain that mutual understanding is best defined as acknowledging the other’s claim to existence as a Thou. To take up the truth claim of the other is to engage in a dialogic relationship that affirms the other’s status as a Thou. Chapter 5 addresses some of the contemporary research on cognitive bias that challenges a traditional western philosophical conception of thinking and argues that dialogue can be an effective practice for attenuating such bias. Studies demonstrate that we are most susceptible to cognitive bias when we attempt to utilize a form of reason that aims to be autonomous, objective, rational, and explicit. Drawing on Gadamer’s defense of the pre-structures of understanding, I defend dialogue as a form of discourse better able to avoid the biases that corrupt our second-­ level, explicit cognitive processes. Dialogue’s emphasis on listening, sharing first-person narratives, and reflecting on deeply held, implicit values suggests it can be relevant for addressing first-level cognitive processes in ways that traditional forms of explicit argumentation cannot. Dialogue’s focus on the implicit dimension of cognition not only makes it less susceptible to some of the negative effects of cognitive bias, but it can also be utilized to counter some unwanted implicit biases. In other words, dialogue can aid us in bringing our implicit cognitions more in line with our explicit beliefs and make us more receptive to listening to, and learning from, the other. The final chapter, Chap. 6, defends the legitimacy of dialogue as a civic practice by exploring its role in fostering the civic virtue of openness, which is demonstrated to prove effective in curtailing certain forms of epistemic injustice. Is dialogue really as inclusive as its defenders maintain? I take-up several criticisms of Miranda Fricker’s proposal that testimonial and hermeneutic justice serve as adequate epistemic virtues to counter epistemic injustice. Comparing the account of openness in Chap. 3 with contemporary discussions of open-mindedness, I develop an account of hermeneutic openness as a virtue particularly well suited to address

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epistemic injustice. Finally, I end the chapter by returning to the Deweyan strains with which I began, offering a reading of Dewey’s essay “Creative Democracy: The Task Before Us.” I argue that Dewey’s essay can be read as advocating the sort of dialogic practices esteemed in this book, practices that contribute to the creation of a more just, pluralistic democracy.

Bibliography Abrams, Kathryn. 1991. Hearing the Call of Stories. California Law Review July 79 (4): 971–1052. Allen, Danielle. 2004. Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown v. Board of Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Arendt, Hannah. 1990. Philosophy and Politics. Social Research 7 (1): 73–103. Barthold, Lauren Swayne. 2010. Gadamer’s Dialectical Hermeneutics. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield. ———. 2016. A Hermeneutic Approach to Gender and Other Social Identities. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Benhabib, Seyla. 1992. Situating the Self. Malden, MA: Polity. Bloom, Allan. 1991. Interpretative Essay, In The Republic of Plato, translated with notes, and interpretive essay, and a new introduction by Allan Bloom. Basic Books. Bohm, David. 1996. On Dialogue. New York: Routledge. Brandsma, Bart. 2017. Polarisation: Understanding the Dynamics of Us Versus Them. Schoonrewoerd, the Netherlands: BB in Media. Brownstein, Michael, and Jennifer Saul, eds. 2016a. Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volume 1: Metaphysics and Epistemology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ———, eds. 2016b. Implicit Bias and Philosophy, Volume 2: Moral Responsibility, Structural Injustice, and Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dewey, John. 2016. The Public and its Problems. Edited and with an Introduction by Melvin Rogers. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Dunning, David. 2016. Psychology Shows that Democrats and Republicans Can’t Even Agree on Objective Reality. Quartz, Oct 31. https://qz.com/823183/ republicans-and-democrats-cant-agree-on-the-facts/ Fisher, R.J., and L.  Keashly. 1990. A Contingency Approach to Third Party Intervention. In The Social Psychology of Intergroup and International Conflict Resolution, ed. R.J. Fisher. New York: Springer-Verlag. Gergen, Kenneth J. 1994. Realities and Relationships. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Haidt, J. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage Books. Jane Mansbridge, James Bohman, Simone Chambers, David Estlund, Andreas Follesdal, Archon Fung, Cristina Lafont, Bernard Manin, Jose Luis Marti.

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2010. The Place of Self-Interest and the Role of Power in Deliberative Democracy. Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (1): 64–100. Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New  York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. Kleinfeld, Rachel. 2018. A Savage Order. New York: Vintage Books. Laden, Anthony Simon. 2007. Negotiation, Deliberation, and the Claims of Politics. In Multiculturalism and Political Theory, ed. Anthony Simon Laden and David Owen. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2012. Evolution of Human Emotion: A View through Fear. Progress in Brain Research 95: 431–442. https://doi.org/10.1016/ B978-0-444-53860-4.00021-0. Accessed 1 Nov 2019. Mercier, Hugo and Dan Sperber. 2018. The Enigma of Reason. United Kingdom: Penguin Random House. Persily, Nathaniel. 2015. Introduction. In Solutions to Political Polarization in America, ed. Nathaniel Persily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pew Research Center. 2018. More Now Say Its Stressful to Discuss Politics with People they Disagree. https://www.people-press.org/2018/11/05/morenow-say-its-stressful to-discuss-politics-with-people-they-disagree-with/. Accessed 20 Jan 2020. ———. 2019. Partisan Antipathy: More Intense, More Personal. https://www. people-press.org/2019/10/10/partisan-antipathy-more-intense-morepersonal/. Accessed 20 Jan 2020. Pruitt, Dean G., and Katharina G. Kugler. 2014. Some Research Frontiers in the Study of Conflict Resolution. In The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, ed. Peter T. Coleman, Morton Deutsch, and Eric C. Marcus. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Rorty, Richard. 2000. Universality and Truth. In Rorty and his Critics, ed. Robert Brandom. Malden, MA.: Blackwell. Sallis, John. 1999. Chorology: On Beginning in Plato’s Timaeus. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 2018. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. Uncorrected proofs. New York: Oxford University Press. Sloman, Steven, and Philip Fernbach. 2017. The Knowledge Illusion. New York: Riverhead Books. Van Bavel, Jay J., and Andrea Pereira. 2018. The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief. Trends in Cognitive Science 22 (3): 213–224. Warnke, Georgia. 2013. Deliberation and Interpretation. Philosophy and Social Criticism 39 (8): 755–770. Young, Iris Marion. 2010. Inclusion and Democracy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 2

The Roots of Dialogue

Introduction Leading dialogue theorist and practitioner William Isaacs (founder of the Dialogue Project at MIT and author of Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together), like other dialogue practitioners in the field he helped found, based his work on Martin Buber’s principle of fundamental relationality and reiterated Buber when he proclaimed, “in the beginning was the relationship” (Isaacs 1999, 16). This chapter examines how Buber’s dialogic ontology, based on the fundamental relationality of humans, can be used to ground a theory of dialogue able to deal with divisive civic discourse plagued by polarization. Buber’s emphasis accords with John Dewey’s, who also recognized the way in which our fundamental relationality can provide the grounds and motivation for a more intentional democratic community.1 Dewey described how “we are born organic beings associated with others, but we are not born members of a community” (Dewey 2016, 180). Both Buber and Dewey affirm that the fundamental connection shared by all humans needs to be actualized and put into practice through concrete dialogic relations if we are to achieve a viable pluralistic community.2

 For a comparison between Buber and John Dewey, see Pfuetze (1967).  In Chap. 6 I expand upon the relevance of John Dewey’s three creeds of democracy for civic dialogue. 1 2

© The Author(s) 2020 L. S. Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6_2

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Clarifying in a more systematic way Buber’s dialogic ontology also aids in conceptualizing what happens when attempts at discourse fail or seem impossible. For instance, when we start from an assumption of separate individuals our vision for politics looks very different than when we start from an assumed relationality. Attending to the connectivity lying at the heart of human experience is crucial for communities wherein excessively confrontational forms of speech cause individuals to forget their fundamental connectedness. Buber’s thought, therefore, is essential to the theoretical and practical approaches to dialogue discussed in this book in so far as it reminds us of the importance of our assumptions about human existence.3 “In the beginning is relation (die Beziehung)” (Buber 1958 18, 27; 1995, 18), proclaims Buber, thus enunciating relationality as humanity’s primary mode of being. I take Buber as replacing the 2500-year-old definition of humans as “rational animals” with “relational animals.” This chapter elucidates why this re-description is a significant and fecund one for the approach to dialogue presented here. While few would dispute the claim that relationships are something that humans desire, strive for, and need, Buber’s point is that “relationship” is not only the end-point of a one-way path of desire; it is also our origin, that out of which we emerge. Buber aims to disclose how abstract and objectifying discourse that takes the modern subject to be central is not the most propitious path to strengthening communities. As Avnon explains: “the problem of the modern subject is not the development of the objectifying capacity of thought per se, but rather the forgetting of the original relation to being that preceded the objectifying movement. The original relation is genuine; the abstraction is not” (Avnon 1998, 134). When “thought structures” are taken to define the subject, true dialogue, and hence community, remains out of reach. Where civic discourse is broken, sometimes what might be required is a discursive strategy that enacts our fundamental relationality without heavy-handed abstraction. When Buber describes the “a priori of relation” as “the inborn Thou” (1958, 27), he means that the I only appears as coming out of, and in response to, its original relation with the Thou. We do not start with an 3  Research in psychology suggests the need to belong as an evolutionary one: “It remains plausible (but unproven) that the need to belong is part of the human biological inheritance” (Baumeister and Leary 1995, 518). Evolutionary or not, they go on to argue that it is a “fundamental human motivation” (520).

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individuated I and then encounter a Thou-as-other. Buber explains: “The fact that this Thou can be known … is based on the a priori of relation” (27). Knowledge of another, according to Buber, requires a prior relation. This bold statement raises two immediate questions. First, what is his argument for such a claim? Second, if the I is already connected with the Thou, what does it mean to pursue a relationship with the Thou? Buber’s writing is at times frustratingly short on clear argumentation and long on evocation and metaphor. While this chapter takes his claims as explanations of phenomena rather than as a non-circular argument, I defend Buber’s thought as philosophically substantial and implying a normative claim. I will read Buber’s ontology of dialogue as delineating two levels of relation: (1) relationality (the a priori I-Thou characterized by pre-­ linguistic existence common to all humanity that prefigures human volition, similar to what Dewey means by our “organic association” with others) and (2) dialogical relationship (characterized by the I’s linguistic relationship with a Thou and what Buber will also go on to insist requires distance, similar to Dewey’s reference to the community we need to work toward).4 I contend that we should read Buber as demonstrating that the “dialogical relationship” between the I and Thou is derivative of and reflects our original “relationality,”5 and that as relational animals we should strive to cultivate dialogic relationships that remain the goal of any actual genuine conversation. My terminology of “relationality” and “dialogic relationship” helps answer the question as to whether or not Buber’s thought makes normative claims by explaining how Buber can claim both that Beziehung is a fundamental component of human nature and is that which we must strive to cultivate. This move thus addresses worries that some philosophers, like Gabriel Marcel (1967), note regarding an alleged conflict between the descriptive and prescriptive dimensions of Buber’s work. My reading accounts for both the descriptive and prescriptive

4  Buber also refers to this type of comportment as the “in-between” and “interhuman.” I discuss these terms below. 5  While Buber himself uses die Beziehung (relation/relationship) without making a distinction between relationality and relationship, I find the distinction helpful in so far as it reflects Buber’s two-fold ontology of our fundamental wholeness (which encompasses relation with nature, art, and the divine) and the dialogic activity of entering into a relation with another human being. See Friedman (1965, 21–22). Although this two-fold level of existence may sound reminiscent of Heidegger, Friedman notes several differences between Heidegger and Buber (1965, 11–12, 14, 16).

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components.6 At the same time, it clarifies how Buber’s thought maintains an anti-subjectivist strain without diminishing agency—a point that will prove crucial for a defense of Gadamer’s dialogic hermeneutics.

Relationality In order to clarify what Buber means that our fundamental mode of being is relational, let us begin with his account of human development. He describes how the birth of the child requires a physical separation from the natural world of the womb in order to first encounter a “spiritual connection,” a “relationship,” that makes possible the eventual verbal utterance of the I-Thou. With the example of birth, Buber elucidates the original, non-rational, pre-linguistic (and one might even say, using his own terminology, “spiritual”) urge for connection that is manifest in the infant who turns her face toward another face, indiscriminately reaching out for no known or conceptualized object in particular. It is such primal desires unmediated by language and prior to volition that reveal a relationality that pre-exists any conceptual sense of the Thou. Buber asserts: It is simply not the case that the child first perceives an object, and then, as it were, puts himself in relation with it. But the effort to establish relations comes first—the hand of the child arched out so that what is over against him may nestle under it; second is the actual relation, a saying of Thou without words, in the state preceding the word-form; the thing, like the I, is produced late, arising after the original experiences have been split asunder and the connected partners separated. (1958, 27)7

Buber’s emphasis on our fundamental relationality to the world sounds similar to Merleau-Ponty’s point that without relationships a child can never develop language. Both Buber and Merleau-Ponty emphasize the non-rational and pre-linguistic nature of this original “relationality.” The 6  My reading also avoids the fundamental error Avnon notes in Buber’s work, namely, that he “misrepresents reality” (1998, 200). Avnon concludes that “Buber failed where he most wanted to succeed: in applying his ideas to the actual founding of a concrete community… The words streamed from his pen and affected his readers, yet the man himself could not direct others towards a unification of word and deed through direct, immediate example” (211). By extending Buber’s thought through Gadamer to dialogic practitioners, I take his theory in a different direction than he did, thus avoiding the limitations Avnon notes. 7  This quotation reveals another similarity to Dewey vis a vis the latter’s famous essay, “The Reflex Arc in Psychology.”

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capacity for language, in other words, is made possible by relationality (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 109). Merleau-Ponty goes on to describe how as a child discovers, finds, and creates herself in relationships, thought and language subsequently develop and thus a world emerges (113). Rejecting the classical psychological view that an individual and separate psyche is the most basic starting point, Merleau-Ponty describes consciousness first and foremost as “a relation to the world” (117). Consciousness is not what inheres within “my” body accessible only to “me” and out from which one acts on a separate entity (i.e., the world or the other). Only in so far as consciousness is turned outward toward the world can one discover one’s own consciousness at all (116–117). The eminent communications theorist Kenneth Gergen affirms a Buberian strain when he writes: “We are all in this way interdependently interlinked, without the capacity to mean anything, to possess an ‘I,’ except for the existence of a potentially assenting world of relationships” (Gergen 1994, 268). Apart from the other there is neither an “I” nor meaning. To further unpack Buber’s evocative and metaphorical language about his inference that our impetus for relationships stems from our fundamental relationality, I will make an analogy to Augustine’s theological metaphysics that attempts to make sense of human desire for the Divine. At this juncture, it is important to clarify that like Augustine, Buber intends to offer an explanation of a phenomenon and not to offer proof of that phenomenon’s existence. Augustine had been clear that his aim in writing was to help Christians understand their belief on a deeper level and not to prove the existence of God to those who did not already count themselves believers. So, too, we must acknowledge Buber’s assumption about fundamental relationality and not expect him to offer, for instance, neuro-­ scientific or evolutionary evidence for its existence. Like Buber, Augustine takes seriously the erotic component of human nature. For Augustine, human desire is fundamentally directed at the Divine, which leads Augustine to puzzle over the question of how one could desire God if one does not already know God, that is, how could one (know to) desire what one does not know? On the other hand, taking up the Platonic assumption that desire implies lack, Augustine wonders why, if one already knows God, does then one desire God? Augustine’s answer draws, in part, on both our temporality and finitude: God was once known by humans but due to the “fall” we no longer know God. That is, humans at one point in time knew God but have now forgotten God. Augustine thus reasons that

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we can desire God based on the fact that our desire is aimed at that which we once knew but have now lost/forgotten through memory.8 There is a similar line of reasoning in Buber’s anthropology when he insists on a fundamental relationality that precedes and gives rise to an urge for a more defined and specific relationship. Interestingly, by defining the soul as “the longing for the Thou”(1958, 28),9 Buber implies that the “soul” cannot be categorized spatially; it is not a component of our being that is located in the physical body—and hence one need not assent to absurd proposals to locate it, for example, in the pineal gland. I read Buber as implying that the “soul” refers to an erotic dimension that helps explain our longing for particular connections with others. Humans just are, in other words, relational beings, and the “soul” is that part of our being that expresses such desire. Both Buber and Augustine start from a place of believing that a certain type of desire or love marks human being and proceed to understand its nature and its implications. Buber, like Augustine, has no interest in proving this basic intuition about desire; like Augustine, he is addressing himself primarily to those who “believe in order to understand”—and not vice versa. I am not interested in defending a non-­circular proof of the original relationality of the I-Thou but rather in elucidating Buber’s meaning and showing how subsequent thinkers have taken up his notion to develop their own dialogical philosophies. For Buber, there is a pre-verbal desire for a relationship with an other that confirms or assumes a relationality even before the child can speak to—much less conceptualize—either an I or a Thou (1958, 27). Buber explains how a pre-linguistic infant can desire its mother even though the infant has no concept of (i.e., does not “know” the meaning of) “mother.” Buber describes this initial and fundamental relation—what I am terming “relationality”—as a “category of being” (1958, 27), yet it is not able 8  Putting things this way leads Augustine to another conundrum, namely, where/how does God exist within us if God is—as Augustine initially (and wrongly) assumes all substances must be—extended? In order to solve this metaphysical problem while avoiding the absurdities of either having to figure out the physical place and manner in which God dwells within us, or having to maintain that we can desire what we do not know, Augustine realizes that God, like truth, is that which can exist without extension. With this realization, Augustine concludes that God’s non-spatial presence within humans allows him to assert that humans have known God, yet due to the fall have lost (i.e., forgotten) this knowledge. Below I describe a parallel move made by Buber in his definition of the soul as erotic not spatial. 9  He also defines soul elsewhere as “consciousness.”

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to be predicated on the Aristotelian categories of “sometime or someplace” (1958, 8–9).10 Just as Augustine refused to conclude that God exists in space, so Buber writes that when one says “Thou” to another human being one does not do so in the confines of “some time or place” (9).11 For Buber, to spatialize and/or temporalize another is to render the other an It (9)—which is not to say it is never legitimate to do so. Buber’s point, however, is that in order to do so a prior relationality between the I and Thou must exist. Buber, like Augustine, defends a category of being that is not reducible to concepts of space and time but which in fact makes their very conceptualization possible. When Buber writes, “The primary word I-Thou establishes the world of relation” (1958, 6), I take him to mean that the primary “word” I-Thou, one that remains non-verbal and refuses the confines of both space and time, precedes the I-in-space (1958, 22) while at the same time making possible our spatial/worldly existence. Our very ability to utter “Thou” to the other proceeds from a more primordial connectedness and unity. Buber’s point is that there is an original unity of I-Thou such that they are inconceivable as separate entities. Again, Merleau-Ponty’s account helps clarify Buber’s rather mystical meaning: “there is a first phase, which we call pre-communication, in which there is not one individual over against another but rather an anonymous collectivity, an undifferentiated group life” (Merleau-Ponty 1964, 119). It is the stage in which “the child is unaware of himself and the other as different beings” (119). To further concretize the applicability of Buber’s point, let us consider a contemporary example of a therapeutic practice called “Open Dialogue,” which describes the way in which our initial fundamental relationality transforms itself into actual language, that is, a verbal dialogue, and in so doing creates the world of meaning: Developmental psychologists Lev Vygotsky and Colwyn Trevarthen describe a process by which the caregiver and baby enter a dialogue straight after birth. Communicating through verbalizations, facial expressions, movements, and mutual attention to the world of objects, they begin to influence each other’s emotional states and behaviours. There is a gradual maturation 10  Again, reminiscent of Augustine’s theistic ontology that avoids attributing extension to the Divine, Buber writes that the Thou “fills the heavens…all else lives in his [sic] light” (8). 11  Levinas also affirms that the “between” cannot be reduced to categories of space and time: “The interval between the I and Thou cannot be conceived as a kind of stellar space existing independently of the two terms which it separates” (Levinas 1967, 139).

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of this dialogue, from the use of objects, to signs, and then to language. The mother’s voice is gradually internalized by the child, forming an inner speech through which it regulates its own emotions and behaviour. Throughout this process, words become building blocks for complex, higher mental functions. From words come our thoughts. The words that form our thoughts are not static symbols. For Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, words carry only fragments of meaning, with a more complete meaning arising only through an exchange of words (dialogue) with others. This could mean that our language, our thoughts, and our world are constructed largely through our interpersonal relationships, rather than on empirical truths. (Stockman 2015)

Here we see the way in which contemporary dialogic practitioners describe in more technical and clinical language the way in which prior relationality gives rise to language. There is a non-linguistic, fragmented relationship that permits subsequent language. The suggestion that language is constructed out of relationships resounds with Buberian echoes in so far as Buber contends that the very ability to utter “I,” “Thou,” or “It” ushers forth from what has already been experienced. The human-­ made linguistic world is founded on a priori relationality. It is inconceivable that an I should exist in the world as completely other than the Thou which it later encounters. Buber insists that “the ‘I’ emerges as a single element out of the primal experiences, out of the vital primal words I-affecting-Thou and Thou-affecting-I, only after they have been split asunder” (1958, 21–22). In other words, this relational a priori eventually gives rise to a necessary split and distancing, which is what allows a relationship between the I and Thou to be formed, bringing us to the second level of Buber’s ontology.

Dialogic Relationship Buber’s emphasis on this original ontological relationality does not mean a mystical fusion where all is undifferentiated. Some degree of preliminary distance is required for any relationship, which entails two distinct entities joined together.12 I am claiming that the dialogic relationship, which is created through dialogic encounters with another, serves as an important ontological concept, one that helps to clarify how Buber can maintain both that we are “always already” defined by relationality and yet in need  See Friedman 1965, 21ff, for additional insights into this point.

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of cultivating and enacting a relationship, which we must strive toward with a skillful practice. The point here is that there can be no between without two, without difference born of distance, and “dialogue” is the name that Buber gives this “through-way” between the two. Friedman confirms this point: “The unfolding sphere of ‘the between’ Buber calls the ‘dialogical’” (Friedman 1965, 26). In fact, as Buber reminds us, “dialogue’s” prefix is “dia,” which comes from the stem meaning “through,”— it is not “di,” meaning two, as is sometimes assumed when dialogue is contrasted with monologue. Buber’s point is that a human being is not reducible to the individual but neither is humanity an undifferentiated mass. Dialogue comes to be defined as that activity of interaction that requires both relationality and distance—where both are “states of being” that are necessary for subsequent relationships (Friedman 1965, 22). For a child to enter into a relationship with her mother, for example, she must both proceed from an a priori relationality and experience distance. Buber’s point can be seen in the words of the anthropologist Marilyn Strathern, who clarifies the ability to separate oneself as necessary not only for relationships but for formation of society: “By division I mean the capacity for people to differentiate themselves from one another. Division implies a previous relationship, even if only by proximity. It underlies the way we translate humanity into social life” (Strathern 2005, 86). Buber describes how these two conditions of being—relationality and distance—either permit the subsequent formation of a dialogical relationship (maintaining a proper balance of distance and connection) or exacerbate the distance and convert into an I-It relationship. In other words, there is no necessary causal connection between relationality and relationship—even where distance is maintained. Friedman clarifies the role of distance: The baby does not proceed directly from complete unity with its mother to that primary I-Thou relation which Buber has described in the child in the first part of I and Thou. Already in its first days, according to Buber, a child has the fact of distance, that is, the sense of being as different from and over against him. In entering into relationship with its mother the child completes this distance. (1965, 23)

Not all human beings are engaged in dialogical relationships; some persist primarily in I-It relations. And while I-It relationships are a fact of human existence and not necessarily to be spurned, anyone who lives solely in I-It

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relationships fails to achieve a robust human existence. Buber acknowledges the inherent risk for all human beings that the distance required for a dialogic relation may in fact produce a separate I that becomes, and remains, an It for another. To be born into relationality is the possibility for, not the guarantee of, subsequent relationships. Let us take a closer look at the role distance and relation play in Buber’s thought. On one hand, the developmental requirement for separation seems an obvious point: separate sperm and egg join together as a unified entity which, as initially separate from the uterus, proceeds to form an attachment to it. Next there is an ongoing division/separation of cells that serves to create a unified fetus. Finally, the fetus physically detaches to emerge out from the mother’s body, and yet there is an immediate need for physical unity/attachment of a different sort, which is then required for and followed by adequate psychic separation. Buber’s point is more than just one about physical separation, however. He insists that the separation that occurs through birth is not just physical but is also “spiritual”— or “ontological,” as demonstrated by the fact that the newborn turns toward the voice of the mother. And while of course the “need” of an infant for her mother could also be explained on a biological/evolutionary level, at the heart of Buber’s existentialism lies a rejection of such reductionism.13 For Buber, the efforts of the infant to form connection cannot be reduced solely to physical needs. He explains, The primal nature of the effort to establish relation is already to be seen in the earliest and most confined stage. Before anything isolated can be perceived, timid glances move out into indistinct space, towards something indefinite; and in times when there seems to be no desire for nourishment, hands sketch delicately and dimly in the empty air, apparently aimlessly seeking and reaching out to meet something indefinite. You may, if you wish, call this an animal action, but it is not thereby comprehended. . . [None] of these acts is experience of an object but is the correspondence of the child— to be sure only ‘fanciful’—with what is alive and effective over against him…it is the instinct to make everything into Thou, to give relation to the universe. (1958, 26–27)

This last phrase is crucial for understanding how the infant can be said to “make all into a Thou” in so far as the Thou originally dwells within the 13  Careful attention to the requirement of distance to relationship addresses a concern voiced by Gabriel Marcel (1967, 44).

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infant. The primary word “I-Thou” that characterizes relationality is like a seed that can grow into a genuine relationship. Being able to confront another-as-Thou is the fruit that grows from relationality combined with distance. It is this initial communicative encounter that allows dialogue to emerge. It is in this sense that we should understand what Buber is getting at when he insists on the a priori of the “word I-Thou”: “my speaking of the primary word to the Thou is an act of my being, is indeed the act of my being. The Thou meets me. But I step into direct relation with it … The primary word I-Thou can be spoken only with the whole being … I become through my relation to the Thou; as I become I, I say thou. All real living is meeting” (1958, 11). His claim that the “primary word I-Thou can only be spoken with the whole being” is evidence that we should refuse a literal interpretation of “word”-as-verbal-utterance here. To “speak the primary word I-Thou” does not mean to vocalize a word. Rather, it is in truly and fully relating to and meeting another that one communicates the “word” I-Thou. Buber is maintaining that to truly meet another is to invoke our fundamental relationality, without which no verbalizing of “Thou” is possible. In this sense, refusing to take “word” here in a literal sense of “spoken language” is captured well by Isaacs who maintains that, following Heidegger, we should translate “word”/“logos” as relationship (Isaacs 1999, 19). Putting it in other terms, one could maintain that our primordial relational unity is defined by a potential I-Thou. The actuality of the I-Thou requires something more: namely, distance that then gives rise to language. Language at once creates a world in which the possibilities for relationships are now actualized, enacted; at the same time, it reveals something fundamental about our being, namely our fundamental relationality. The dialogical relationships that humans create are never ex nihilo; they proceed from a prior relationality. This point helps clarify what Buber means by the “sacrament of dialogue” (Buber 2002, 21), which I take as his way of saying that dialogic praxis is the outward sign (expressed by volitional action) revealing an ultimate truth and reality—namely, the truth of our primordial relation that precedes the volitional act. Extending the religious language here, we could say that dialogue-as-sacrament “saves” us in so far as through enacting dialogue we “confess” and affirm a deep truth about our humanity. For Buber the power of language creates a new manifestation of Beziehung, what I am referring to as “dialogic relationship.”

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The fundamental relationality of our being as manifest in the I-Thou relationship finds its fulfillment in a specific type of linguistic communication that Buber calls, at different times, both “dialogue” and the “interhuman.” He writes, “The sphere of the interhuman is one in which a person is confronted by the other. We call its unfolding the dialogical” (1965, 75). And he later explains: As the sphere of the interhuman I do not designate the relationship of the human person to his fellowman in general, but the actualization of this relationship. The interhuman is something that takes place from time to time between two men; but in order that it may take place again and again, in order that genuine meetings may occur and ever again occur, the Thou in relation to his fellowman must be inherent in man. (Buber 1967, 711; emphasis added).14

To avoid Buber’s imprecision here, I am using “relationality” to designate the a priori relation all humans have with one another and “dialogic relationship” to refer to the interhuman/dialogic realm that is not a priori but premised thereon and requires actualization. Dialogic relations—or the interhuman—can be understood as both reflecting and expanding our original relationality, and I take Buber to be maintaining that in order to be able to enter into particular relationships, there must be a more general and prior relationality. The relationality inherent in our human nature is what awakens and makes possible our conscious desire for relationships. But this describes only a potentiality and not an actuality. Given the lack of necessary causality between relationality and dialogic relation, one might wonder why some forms of communication contribute to relationship and some promote increased individuation and individualization. What accounts for the move toward a dialogic relationship?

14  While Silberstein maintains that there is a chronological progression from Buber’s use of in-between in I and Thou to his later use of dialogue and interhuman to describe the same phenomenon (Silberstein 1989, 298 n. 26 and Chapter 5), Friedman makes no such chronological distinction. Friedman clarifies: “The interhuman is the I-Thou relationship in so far as the latter refers to the dialogue between man and man [sic]” (Friedman 1965, 27).

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Experience Versus Relational Event To understand what Buber envisions by such a dialogic relationship and the importance of the interhuman, one should examine the distinction he makes between “experience” and “event.”15 Buber refrains from describing our encounter with another as an “experience” (Erfahrung), which he defines as a form of manipulation, whereby we objectify the other and treat the other like an It. To treat the other like an “It” is to objectify the other by trying to control or manipulate the other or the situation for one’s own individual ends and goals. When one tries to experience the other, one reduces them to isolatable and manipulatable parts. To experience the other in this impoverished sense is to reduce the other to an object that one can usurp for one’s own needs. Buber warns that objectifying the other can occur even when we intend to “help” them but the other ends up becoming an object to be used to meet one’s own goals. Other examples of “experiencing” the other can occur when we are attracted to or focus on the other’s status, knowledge, power, information, and so on. Essentially, objectification occurs in any sort of relationship that permits the experiencing subject to take something from the other-as-object without ever fostering a mutual connection with the other. Whenever the other is perceived and interacted with only for the subject’s purpose and needs, one is privileging the I-It relation, which remains devoid of mutuality. “Relational event,” on the other hand, signifies what lies at the heart of any relationship, namely, an ongoing, open, and mutual encounter with a Thou, where one does not try to control the outcome, much less the other.16 The encounter with a Thou takes place with one’s full being while 15  Ronald Gregor Smith, in the 1958 Scribner’s Edition of I and Thou, translates Erfahrung as “experience,” which indicates Buber’s use of it in a reductionistic sense. (In one instance, where Buber refers to the Du der Erlebnisse [1995, 21], Smith confusingly renders the translation as “Thou of experience” [1995, 21].) Smith translates Vorgang (1995, 30, 49, 92) and Ereigniss as “event,” Beziehungsvorgang (1995, 33, 89, 93) and Beziehungsereignis (1995, 21, 28, 76) as “relational event,” and Begegnungseresgnis as “event of meeting” (1995, 53). Since most (but not all) of the time Buber uses Vorgang to indicate a causal event that can be reduced to a moment in time and/or plotted on a graph, I will contrast “experience” with “relational event.” 16  Buber more consistently uses Erlebnis in his early writings, later concluding that he was mistaken in using Erlebnis (1967, 712), since it had excessively psychological and individual overtones, and that he prefers the term “meeting” or simply “relationship.” See the previous note that shows that in Ich und Du he most frequently uses either Beziehungsvorgang or

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relinquishing the need to control and dominate the other by excessive agential means (1958, 11). Only when one forsakes one’s urge to manipulate the other for one’s own purpose can one truly enter into relationship with a Thou. Buber’s point in this context is an anti-subjective one in so far as relationality is a “meeting” in which one is caught up in an event; in “meeting” the other one refrains from experiencing them as one experiences an object.17 Buber emphasizes how the relation is always mutual (8, 15) and therefore any genuine meeting is always marked by reciprocity that elicits a responsibility to the other rather than attempting to possess or appropriate the other for one’s own desires and needs. A “relational event” is an encounter with a Thou; “experience” is an encounter with an It. Buber explains, “If I face a human being as my Thou, and say the primary word I-Thou to him, he is not a thing among things, and does not consist of things… I do not experience [in a reductive sense described above] the man to whom I say thou. But I take my stand in relation to him, in the sanctity of the primary word basic word” (8–9). For Buber, saying Thou is a sacred act (9), in part due to the way in which it requires a risk that involves a receptivity to what is wholly other (10). Beziehungsereignis. For the sake of conceptual clarity and to keep the English terms closest to the spirit of Buber’s intent, I will continue to use the English word “event.” “Event” is also central to Gadamer’s thought, as will be discussed in the next chapter. 17  In spite of the many similarities between Gadamer and Buber (which I discuss in the next chapter), it is interesting to note that while Buber primarily esteems Erlebnis and is critical of Erfahrung, Gadamer’s philosophy maintains the inverse. I take their difference in terminology in spite of their similarity in meaning to stem from their respective relationships to Dilthey. Buber was a student of Dilthey and likely initially affirmed Erlebnis as the richer sense of experience, connecting it up to our psychological experience. Erfahrung for Dilthey was understood as sensory experience, which both Dilthey and Buber took as reductionistic. See Kepnes (1992, 8) for further clarification along these lines. Gadamer, on the other hand, remained critical of Dilthey’s romantic hermeneutics from the start and thus likely sought to distinguish his hermeneutics from Dilthey’s by inverting the importance and centrality of the two terms. Zand and Braiterman explain: “Contrasting with the Kantian concept of experience (Erfahrung), Erlebnis (encounter), or revelation of sheer presence, is an ineffable, pure form that carries not an iota of determinate or object-like conceptual or linguistic content. Buber always insisted that the dialogic principle, i.e., the duality of primal words (Urworte) that he called the I-Thou and the I-It, was not an abstract conception but an ontological reality that he pointed to but that could not be properly represented in discursive prose” (Zank and Braiterman 2014). It would seem as if Erlebnis for Buber refers to the a priori ground/experience, ineffable experience, reality that pre-exists but makes possible human interaction. Whereas for Gadamer, Erfahrung, while never reductionistic, always implies some degree of applicative agency and hence negative learning, which would be verbal and derivative. In any event, both esteemed the non-subjectivistic understanding of “experience.”

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Buber’s preference for the term “relational event” also indicates his anti-subjectivism in so far as it describes the fact that the ongoing processual nature of dialogic relationship transcends individual willing and agency. An event cannot be predicted, quantified, or controlled by any individual; in this sense there is an anti-subjective dimension. Referencing Arendt, it is to co-create a space in which both I and Thou can appear. The activity of dialogue refers to that which incorporates what surpasses and transcends human doing while stemming from and returning us to our fundamental relationality. Buber explains the event-like nature of dialogue that transcends human intentionality: “We do not find meaning lying in things nor do we put it into things, but between us and things it can happen” (2002, 42). Thus while a dialogic relationship is one that requires active engagement and affirmation—hence agency—the meaning that emerges out of the betweenness of dialogue also requires an acknowledgment of that which transcends human doing. He insists: “Humanity, human will, human understanding, are not everything. There is some reality confronting us” (1965, 172). How are we to understand this transcendence that confronts us with “reality”? While Buber is clearly a religious thinker who affirms that “the other” can refer not only to humans and nature but also the divine, I want to argue that one need not affirm any particular religious creed in order to make sense of this human-­transcendent other that characterizes the event of dialogue. To understand how it might be possible to avoid affirming “reality,” that is, the human-­transcendent other, as divine, let me highlight the similarity between what Buber writes here and Gadamer’s insistence on the centrality of play in the process of understanding that challenges excessively subjective accounts of understanding proffered by Schleiermacher et al. Gadamer helps us comprehend the other that transcends human doing as the play of the game itself—that in which players get caught up and that transcends human willing and doing.18 I will explicate Gadamer’s account of play in the next chapter, but here I want to consider how two Buber scholars, Zank and Braiterman, utilize the religious term “revelation” to clarify the transcendent

18  For example, the Rilke poem Gadamer uses as an epigraph to Truth and Method is illustrative of this point: Catch only what you’ve thrown yourself, all is/ mere skill and little gain;/ but when you’re suddenly the catcher of a ball thrown by an eternal partner/ with accurate and measured swing/towards you, to your center, in an arch/ from the great bridgebuilding of God:/ why catching then becomes a power—/ not yours, a world’s (1992).

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dimension of dialogic relationality, indicative of “relational event” rather than “experience,” without defending a transcendent divinity: At the core of this model of existence is the notion of encounter as ‘revelation.’ As understood by Buber, revelation is the revelation of ‘presence’ (Gegenwort). In contrast to ‘object’ (Gegenstand), the presence revealed by revelation as encounter occupies the space ‘in between’ the subject and an other (a tree, a person, a work of art, God). This ‘in between’ space is defined as ‘mutual’ (gegenseitig). Contrasting with the Kantian concept of experience (Erfahrung), Erlebnis (encounter), or revelation of sheer presence, is an ineffable, pure form that carries not an iota of determinate or object-like conceptual or linguistic content. Buber always insisted that the dialogic principle, i.e., the duality of primal words (Urworte) that he called the I-Thou and the I-It, was not an abstract conception but an ontological reality that he pointed to but that could not be properly represented in discursive prose. (Zank and Braiterman 2014)

Attempting to add further insight to the ontological reality of the I-Thou relationship, Zank and Braiterman emphasize the importance of the “in-between.” Lest this concept still remain on the abstract level, this insight from dialogue practitioner Robert Stains contributes some clarity: “Dialogue returns us to the life-giving ‘between’ that has been erased by our black-and-white world. It is in that between space that the work of recognizing and reweaving can happen, yielding the kinds of mutual respect that other forms of conflict resolution may not offer” (Stains 2012, 37). The “in-between” is the vital space of dialogue that resists concretization as “good” or “bad,” “mine” or “yours,” and so on. Stains helps us further grasp how the event of dialogue occurring in such a space provides a way to avoid the endless and futile clash of wills and to allow something new to be ushered forth. It is the creative act—one irreducible to the effect of two wills—that serves as an event whose surplus is more than the sum of the parts. Where the goal is connection of an immersive variety, one must lose oneself to the whole play of the event and only then can one fully encounter another. Such contact that occurs in true presence and hence indicates true relationship is possible only when one opens oneself not only to the full being of another but also to the dynamism of the dialogue-­asevent. It captures the event-like nature of existence in which we are “caught up,” rather than that which we control; the lack of control implies a vital and organic mutuality and it cautions us against conceiving of dialogue as

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one more sort of experience that we try to dominate and manipulate. I maintain that Buber’s inability to adequately discursively represent the fundamental relationality that gives rise to dialogic relationship should lead us to acknowledge it as an ontological assumption (analogous to ones made by both Augustine and Kant), one necessary to his ontology of human being. That he is not completely without justification in making such an assumption, and its importance for the practice of dialogue, can be seen in the way that many practitioners of dialogue rely on Buber’s ontology. Let me illustrate how such betweenness necessitates openness to the full being of another by looking at a concrete example. The psychologist Carl Rogers, in his dialogue with Buber, describes the essence of healing that goes on in therapy as necessitating but also encompassing more than a desire to “help” another. For, as we saw above, where one approaches an other solely with the mindset of helping them, one could too easily treat the other as an It in so far as they become a project, a means to one’s own end-as-helping. Rogers describes how although his work as a therapist can, on one level, certainly be described as trying to “help” his patient, he maintains that this desire is not foremost in his mind when interacting with a patient. Rogers explains: “…in the interchange of the moment, I don’t think my mind is filled with the thought of ‘now I want to help you’. It is much more ‘I want to understand you… . Who are you?’ It seems to me that is a desire to meet a person, not ‘now I want to help.’ It seems to me that I’ve learned through my experience that when we can meet, then help does occur, but that’s a by-product” (quoted in Buber 1965, 176). Rogers’ emphasis on the mutuality of healing that occurs and his description of his genuine desire to meet another as a Thou aptly captures what Buber means by “relational event.” (This point will also prove crucial in the operational definition of dialogue given in Chap. 4, which emphasizes the exchange of meaning and stories as aimed at connecting with the other rather than using facts to persuade the other.) From what Buber says in this dialogue, it is evident that in order for one to meet the other there must be the willingness to allow the other to change herself and to be open to an organic mutuality. Rogers clarifies how the mutuality of an event requires “as far as possible, to change something in the other, but also to let me be changed by him” (1965, 168). Roger’s point is that the therapeutic relation requires “meeting people openly without wanting to dominate” (168). Indeed, the dialogue between Buber and Rogers itself bids us conclude that to meet someone is to engage in a real “event,” in

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which each of the interlocutors comes away changed (170)—and only then can healing occur. Subsequent chapters will explore in more detail exactly what constitutes such change, specifically its connection to truth. Not only is the dialogic exchange irreducible to mere facts, it is also important to point out how Buber warned against reducing the aim of dialogue to an emotional response. Buber rejects sympathy as the outcome of dialogue and decried the attempt to equate such confirmation of another as having to do with sympathy. Dialogue is not about producing warm feelings or relating with another emotionally—which could be a product of an imbalance of power or neediness and entail the reduction of the other to an It. For Buber, defining a dialogic relation simply in terms of emotions is to reduce it to pure subjectivity. Instead, Buber describes dialogue as transcending the subjective versus objective dualism by eliciting an ongoing engagement, a “living together” (1965, 74–75). Mutuality and healing are the fruits of connection, which requires being open to the other in the fullness of their being and refraining from reducing the encounter to an exchange of information. When Buber describes the transformational event or the “turning” as the process of the It becoming a Thou through relation (1958, 33), we could recall Socrates’ account of education that concerns a re-orientation of the soul. In the same way, dialogue requires a turning toward being—both of the other and one’s own—and a turning away from the need to seek facts or information. Only a real encounter with the other can illuminate one’s existence as more than a spatio-temporal object. As Paul Pfuetze maintains, for Buber “real dialogue is the way to existential truth” (1967, 533). Hence more than ever in an age that attempts to define humans as “Its,” dialogue can prove the antidote to such de-humanization. I believe this is what Buber is getting at when he writes, “The I is real in virtue of its sharing in reality. The fuller its sharing the more real it becomes” (63). “Reality” is the name for the relational event in which I and Thou engage each other without reducing the other to It status, where one merely “experiences” the other. To treat the other as an It is, ultimately, unreal and to fall into superficial ways of relating. For Buber, one must struggle to go beyond the mere appearance of a relation with another, which could manifest as I-It, and exert effort to be with another with one’s full being. It is this shared dimension of relationship that Buber refers to as “reality”: “all reality is an activity in which I share without being able to appropriate for myself. Where there is no sharing there is no reality. Where there is self-­ appropriation there is no reality. The more direct the contact with the

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Thou, the fuller is the sharing” (63). Buber defends the dialogic relationship as what permits this fundamental sharing of and, in reality, aimed at truth, one that avoids mere appearances that portray the other as an It. Subtle (and not so subtle) attempts to appropriate the other as status-­ conferrer or information-giver prevent dialogue. I take Buber as saying that one can be saved from the oblivion of pure It-ness only by mutually relating to the other in the form of dialogue. In other words, dialogue as the expression of the robust mutual union of I and Thou expresses humanity’s full, that is, true and real, being. Again, with a nod to Augustine, we could say that the movement away from such a union implies non-existence, which could even be understood as the effort to deny full existence to the Thou. Refusing to enter fully into a relational event with a Thou is a way to reduce them to an It. Counter-­ posed to the one who unites by revealing the between is the one whose “I” demands all others be “Its.” Buber cites as an example Napoleon, who reached out to others so that the other-as-It could serve him. One “experiences” the other as an It when one attempts to manipulate the other for “the cause,” or treats them as a machine to be utilized. There can be no relational event in such instances, and our being is diminished. Buber helps us see that speaking without listening reduces the other to an It to be manipulated. Even trying to convince or persuade the other of one’s “own” truth is a way of silencing the other by objectifying them in so far as one attempts to insert one’s own truth into the mind of the other. By refusing to treat the other as an It, one enters into the relational event of dialogue listening and questioning, receptive and open to the otherness of the other rather than offering defensive assertions or persuasion through rational arguments or quantified data. Buber terms this openness to the being of the other “awareness.” And it is awareness rather than specific knowledge that serves as the goal of dialogue. What exactly does Buber mean by “awareness?” He puts it this way: a man meets me about whom there is something, which I cannot grasp in any objective way at all, that ‘says something’ to me. That does not mean, says to me what manner of man this is, what is going on in him, and the like. But it means, says something to me, addresses something to me, speaks something that enters my own life. It can be something about this man, for instance that he needs me. But it can also be something about myself … It may be that I have to answer at once, to this very man before me; it may be that the saying has a long and manifold transmission before it, and that I am

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to answer some other person at some other time and place, in who knows what kind of speech, and that it is now only a matter of taking the answering on myself. But in each instance a word demanding an answer has happened to me. We may term this way of perception becoming aware… The limits of the possibility of dialogue are the limits of awareness. (Buber 2002, 11, 12)

Buber here is attempting to describe an awareness that issues forth from a true dialogue: namely, an awareness of our own being as well as the being of the other. The change of being that occurs in dialogue does so not due to an accrual of objective facts or data points. The meaning and substance of such an address cannot be reduced to propositional utterances. Buber describes how such an address remains always a question since it “never gives information or appeasement” (14). Awareness requires an attitude of openness and serves as an antidote to the defensiveness emerging from an initial fear of otherness. What we do not know we tend to fear and too often fear incites domination and defensiveness. Buber reflects: To be aware of a man, therefore, means in particular to perceive his wholeness as a person determined by the spirit; it means to perceive the dynamic centre which stamps his every utterance, action, and attitude with the recognizable sign of uniqueness… It is only possible when I step into an elemental relation with the other, that is, when he becomes present to me. Hence I designate awareness in this special sense as ‘personal making present.’ (1965, 80)

I take Buber to be maintaining that it is through the personal sharing and openness with another that something is made present, or in Hannah Arendt’s words, made to appear. True receptiveness to otherness requires openness and wonder rather than certainty, receptivity rather than dogma, anguish and expectation rather than triumphalism. The result is an encounter of the true presence of oneself and the other. Buber implies as much in his essay “Dialogue,” where he describes what it means to really see or encounter the other and to receive a word from them. Buber describes an event in which we are changed by a word coming to us, a word that is not necessarily physically articulated. This book defends an approach to dialogue that is not merely a meeting of minds where we seek to persuade the other of our propositional truth. In dialogue, we do not see the other through the lens of causality in which

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we exert our sovereign will to dominate or beat the other. Rather, in true dialogue, human beings encounter each other qua human being-as-Thou, which suggests an existential dimension of dialogue that becomes manifest in Buber’s language of “relational event.” He insists: “The dialogue that produces knowledge is not limited to cognitive processes but entails a meeting of whole persons. Accordingly, the process that culminates in knowledge is not a mental process but an existential process that transpires ‘not between minds, but between whole persons, who stand before us as concrete, bodily beings’” (Buber 2002, 28). In spite of Buber’s own renouncement of his work as “existentialism,” I want to highlight the existential emphasis of his dialogic ontology, since it helps distinguish dialogue from other forms of conversation and human interaction.19 In Chap. 4, I will develop a more thorough conception of the goal of dialogue that will build on this notion of awareness, which will be shown to relate to the openness Gadamer esteems as necessary for mutual understanding. The basicness of this relationality that Buber defends leads him to conceive of dialogue as requiring more than explicit rational exchanges. Consequently, the term “rational animal” remains, in its reductive assumption, an inadequate definition for humans; a philosophy built on such an assumption will fail to foster human flourishing. As Laurence Silberstein explains, “Buber argued that to live authentically we must move beyond rational thought and embrace life in all of its fullness. By defining our relationships to other people and to nature in terms of rational, goal-­ oriented categories, we suppress the life forces and creative drives within us, thereby fostering the conditions for our own alienation” (Silberstein 1989, 108). I contend that for Buber, authenticity refers to our acknowledgment of our fundamental relationality which then awakens us to choose to actualize dialogic relations as our way to be in the world. Authenticity does not refer to the exertion of an independent will but is achieved when we engage in the mutuality of dialogic relations. One’s authenticity is demonstrated by refraining from conceptualizations that privilege mediated experiences of the other, and which prevent true human connection. For Buber, dialogue is what effects a primary and legitimate form of 19  Given that Buber’s refusal to identify with this term was in part a rejection of the nihilistic emphasis of Sartre, I chose to preserve this term, which will also be beneficial in noting some of the similarities between Buber and Gadamer in Chap. 3. And even though Gadamer is not usually considered an existential thinker (which is interesting given that his teacher, Martin Heidegger, was), he credits Kierkegaard as being the most influential philosopher for his own thinking (Grondin 2003).

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human connection that is not reducible to purely rational exchange of information but that nonetheless requires both I and Thou to act, to respond, to choose. It is by stepping into the ongoing, authentic event of dialogue with wonder and openness that one maintains one’s agency as a Thou for the other’s I. By taking Buber’s account seriously we are in a better position to diagnose and remedy some of the problems we confront in society today. Buber’s thought helps us see that argumentation and persuasion are not the only ways to enact a civic discourse, and certainly not the most propitious for repairing our relationships with others in order to move beyond intractable political discourse. We need a mode of discourse that recognizes the richness and authenticity of the I-Thou relation and invites us to attend to both how we speak and listen to the other. When political discourse aims at winning, then our relationality gets covered over and dismissed. Given the current psychological research that shows that humans are wired to connect, Buber is helpful for understanding dialogue as a mode of relating to the other that allows us to affirm their humanity without reducing them to an It, thereby securing a viable and meaningful connection with them. Where public discourse gets stuck in polarization, Buber’s thought reminds us to privilege our relationality over our rationality, which tends to assume the autonomous I as the starting and ending point. As Isaacs explains: “Dialogue is a conversation in which people think together in relationship. Thinking together implies that you no longer take your own position as final” (Isaacs 1999, 19). Instead of trying to fix or find solutions, dialogue “asks us to listen for an already existing wholeness, and to create a new kind of association in which we listen deeply to all the views that people may express. It asks that we create a quality of listening and attention that can include—but is larger than—any single view” (20). It is that mode of interacting that treats others not as isolated entities but as fundamentally connected. The term “dialogic relationship” underscores the significance Buber attaches to the responsibility implied therein. Throughout this chapter, I have been highlighting the way Buber makes clear the important connection between the fundamental relationality of our being and dialogue. Buber writes, A relation between persons that is characterized in more or less degree by the element of inclusion may be termed a dialogical relation … . all conversation derives its genuineness only from the consciousness of the element of

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inclusion—even if this appears only abstractly as an ‘acknowledgement’ of the actual being of the partner in the conversation; but this acknowledgment can be real and effective only when it springs from an experience of inclusion, of the other side. (1965, 115)

Buber’s point is that our actual, concrete dialogues are a reflection of a more fundamental way of being as indicative of our fundamental ontology, and in subsequent chapters I will argue that any successful civic discourse must, at some point, acknowledge and base itself on this way of being. Actual dialogues emerge from this ground and aim to reveal, recover, and reinforce our most basic level of relationality. By attending to Buber’s dialogic ontology we can better understand the reasons behind the concrete and specific requirements for actual dialogue. The normative implications of Buber’s account lie in his ontological assumption about humanity: namely, that it is de-humanizing to privilege modes of communication that treat the other primarily and foremost as an “It” rather than a “Thou.” Implicit in Buber’s account of the human condition is an assumption that communication should promote the other’s “Thou-ness” and minimize their “It-ness.” In other words, we need to see more of the other not less. If all humans are marked by relationality, bearing the seed of the Thou within them, then practices and communication that deny the reality of our human condition are wrong. Buber’s call to activate the reality of our belonging to another maps on to Dewey’s call to move from association to community. Like Dewey, Buber traces a moral line between our belief about human existence and what our responsibility is in light of that belief. Buber, no doubt, would stand in agreement with Dewey’s claim that a democratic community requires us to regard everyone as equally human; the motivation to treat others as equals fulfills our deeper, underlying need for connection. The flourishing of human existence that occurs in the true community of which Dewey speaks is made possible due to our fundamental relationality. Buber helps us understand equality as the genuine meeting between I and Thou and that only such a dialogical relationship indicative of equality satisfies what Buber referred to as the fundamental drive to commune.20 A dialogic encounter in which we treat the other as an equal is that form of communication that gets us the sort of connection, community, and flourishing that we most want as humans-qua-humans. Merleau-Ponty offers a similar description of the  See Silberstein 1989, 145.

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importance of dialogue in revealing and confirming our connectedness with others: In the experience of dialogue, there is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my thought and his are interwoven into a single fabric, my words and those of my interlocutor are called forth the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a shared operation of which neither of us is the creator. We have here a dual being, where the other is for me no longer a mere bit of behavior in my transcendental field, nor I in his; we are collaborators for each other in consummate reciprocity. (1994, 354)

The point of dialogue is not to return us to what we once were or to deny or suppress difference, but to build on our original relationality to create a community of “collaborators.” The next chapter looks at the hermeneutic philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer who relied on Buber’s I-Thou to argue for the dialogical nature of understanding. Gadamer elucidates the connection between dialogue and textual understanding in so far as the aim of understanding cannot be reduced to epistemic propositional content but refers to a “moral bond.” Taking a closer look at Gadamer’s hermeneutics and identifying similarities with Buber will allow me, in Chap. 4, to clarify with more precision just what this “moral bond” looks like in terms of an operational account of interpersonal dialogue. Hermeneutics’ namesake, Hermes, the messenger between gods and humans, invites us to understand hermeneutics as the act of building bridges, of making connections that yield meaning. My aim is to draw on both Buber and Gadamer to develop an account of civic discourse that renders connection as its aim.

Bibliography Avnon, Dan. 1998. Martin Buber: The Hidden Dialogue. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield. Baumeister, Roy F. and Mark R. Leary. 1995. The Need to Belong: Desire for Interpersonal Attachments as a Fundamental Human Motivation. Pscyhological Bulletin 117 (3): 497–529. Buber, Martin. 1958. I and Thou, second edition with a postscript by the author, trans. Ronald Gregor Smith. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. ———. 1965. Knowledge of Man, edited with an introduction by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Row.

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———. 1967. Reply to my Critics. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. ———. 1995. Ich und Du. Stuttgart: Reclam. ———. 2002. Dialogue. In Between Man and Man, trans. Ronald Gregor-Smith, with an introduction by Maurice Friedman. New York: Routledge. Dewey, John. 2016. The Public and its Problems. Edited and with an Introduction by Melvin Rogers. Ohio: Ohio University Press. Friedman, Maurice. 1965. Introductory Essay. In The Knowledge of Man, ed. Martin Buber. New York: Harper and Row. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1992. Truth and Method. Second Revised Edition, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad. Gergen, Kenneth J. 1994. Realities and Relationships. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Grondin, Jean. 2003. Hans-Georg Gadamer: A Biography, trans. Joel Weinsheimer. New Haven: Yale University Press. Isaacs, William. 1999. Dialogue and the Art of Thinking Together. New York: Currency. Kepnes, Steven. 1992. The Text as Thou. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Levinas. 1967. Martin Buber and the Theory of Knowledge. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. Marcel, Gabriel. 1967. I and Thou. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. 1964. The Primacy of Perception, edited with an introduction by James Edie. Illinois: Northwestern University Press. ———. 1994. Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. from the French by Colin Smith. New York: Routledge. Pfuetze, Paul E. 1967. Buber and American Pragmatism. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Paul Arthur Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. Silberstein, Laurence J. 1989. Martin Buber’s Social and Religious Thought. New York: NYU Press. Stains, Robert R., Jr. 2012. Reflection for Connection: Deepening Dialogue Through Reflective Processes. Conflict Resolution Quarterly 30 (1): 33–51. Stockman, Tom. 2015. Open Dialogue: A New Approach to Mental Healthcare, Psychology Today Blog July 12, https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ hide-and-seek/201507/open-dialogue new-approach-mental-healthcare. Accessed 30 June 17. Strathern, Marilyn. 2005. In Other People’s Shoes. In After Terror, ed. Ahmed Akbar and Brian Forst. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Zank, Michael, and Zachary Braiterman. 2014. Martin Buber. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/ entries/buber/

CHAPTER 3

Understanding (as) Dialogue

Introduction For the twentieth-century German philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, Martin Buber’s ontology of dialogue captured something fundamental about the process of human understanding. Gadamer’s philosophic hermeneutics, like much of Buber’s thought, was directed at correcting the instrumental and reductive biases in theories of knowledge propagated by the Enlightenment and turn-of-the century positivism. It is thus unsurprising that Gadamer drew on Buber’s language of I and Thou to argue that understanding is fundamentally dialogical and cannot be reduced to or modeled on scientific method. Even when we are interacting with a text, we must, if we are to truly understand it, approach it as a Thou and refrain from treating it as an It. Dialogue evinces the truly humanistic spirit in its capacity to produce human solidarity, and Gadamer presents a model of understanding that aims at such an end.1 Put this way, this chapter serves as a rebuttal to those like Darren Walhof who maintain that the I-Thou emphasis of Gadamer denotes an apolitical bent. In spite of an important defense of Gadamer’s latent democratic theory that relies on a “phenomenology of conversation,” Walhof nonetheless claims that “the I-and-Thou character of [Gadamer’s] thought seems too limited for thinking through the problems of mass democracy” (Walhof 2017, 37). Elucidating the connections between Buber and Gadamer also addresses 1

 For the importance of solidarity in Gadamer’s hermeneutics see Gadamer (1992a).

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the concern of those who are critical of the importance Gadamer attaches more generally to the relation between the I and Thou.2 This chapter defends the importance of Buber’s I-Thou for Gadamer and also argues that Gadamer’s reliance on Buber to develop his dialogic hermeneutics plays a crucial role in helping us think more deeply about how to use civic dialogue to overcome a polarized public square. Before I examine the second part of Truth and Method where Buber’s influence is explicitly seen in Gadamer’s account of how truth emerges in the particular form of understanding we call the “human sciences,” let me first note several of the implicit, yet nonetheless significant, similarities between Buber and Gadamer that will prove central to my reading of Gadamer. First, like Buber, Gadamer refuses to define truth solely as a predicate of a proposition and instead describes truth as an event (Ereignis).3 Truth is that which humans experience in an active way that never transcends but emerges out of and engages their historicity. To make his point, Gadamer devotes the first part of Truth and Method to showing how truth manifests in the experience of art. Second, then, both Gadamer and Buber appeal to art to help describe the phenomenon of understanding. Gadamer uses art to illustrate the event-like nature of truth in the first part of Truth and Method and Buber used art to exemplify dialogue, referring to it as “the realm of ‘the between’” (Buber 1965, 66). Gadamer esteems art as indicative of truth in so far as in the experience of art we find ourselves caught up in a form of playing that exceeds human subjectivity. I will explicate in more detail Gadamer’s anti-subjective account of play below, but for now let me quote Silberstein, who describes the appeal of art for Buber in terms that resonate with Gadamer’s account. Silberstein describes how for Buber, “art is neither an expression of human consciousness nor an imprint of the outer world, but rather an event of relation, of the between” (1989, 165).4 As we saw in the last chapter, it is the notion of “between” that captures the heart of the I-Thou relation for Buber, and for Gadamer, as we shall see below, this between is central to his discussion of the fusion of horizons. Gadamer writes, “The true locus of hermeneutics is this in-between” (Gadamer 1992b 295, italics original). Underlying both of their thinking is an anti-subjectivism defined by one’s engagement in an  See Honneth (2003), Risser (1997), and Warnke (2014).  A term also central to Gadamer’s teacher, Martin Heidegger. See Vallega-Neu (2010) for the role Ereignis plays in Heidegger’s thought. 4  See also Friedman (1988, 333–335) for his discussion of the role of art in Buber. 2 3

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event that transcends individual volition or intentionality but does not render null the individual understander. Third, both Gadamer and Buber maintain that truth requires the active engagement of the individual in the process of understanding. When Paul Pfuetze maintains that for Buber “participation is the essence of truth” (Pfuetze, 515), he could be referring to Gadamer. For Buber, true connection is definitive of authentic human existence and below I take a closer look at how Gadamer’s account of mutual understanding incorporates a similar theme of connection in so far as it requires a revelatory encounter where both understanding parties are brought to a third, new horizon. For both Buber and Gadamer, our genuine encounter with the other sweeps us up into something larger than any individual, which requires the individual to change but not disappear. Fourth, Gadamer, like Buber, rejects empathy—either cognitive or emotive—as the defining mark of understanding. To arrive at a truthful understanding with another is not equivalent to grasping either the thought content or the feeling content of the other, which renders the understander too passive. Finally, Gadamer, like Buber, insists that the dialogic relation is possible not only between humans but between humans and non-human entities—like texts, art, and nature (and for Buber, the divine). The aim of this chapter is not to offer an entirely new reading of Truth and Method but to use the Buberian account of dialogue developed in the previous chapter to deepen our grasp of Gadamer’s dialogic hermeneutics. (To do this, I will need to rehearse some (perhaps) familiar territory for those who are well acquainted with Gadamer’s philosophy.) Reading Gadamer through a Buberian lens helps us understand why dialogue is a central feature of not just human existence but for creating communities of Thous and avoiding pseudo-communities defined primarily by instrumental relations of Its.5 Both Buber and Gadamer maintain that to be a moral member of a human community, one must engage dialogically with others.6 In the second part of Truth and Method Gadamer’s appeal to Buber becomes explicit in terms of Gadamer’s use of “I and Thou” to describe our relationship to tradition and its inescapable and productive role in understanding. In order to understand a text (Gadamer’s main focus in 5  While Marvin Fox (1967) argues that Buber’s ethics requires grounding in a Transcendent Being, Maurice Friedman (1967) suggests there is also warrant for grounding Buber’s ethics in his dialogic philosophy. My work can serve as a defense of Friedman. 6  For more on the dialogical ethic in Gadamer’s hermeneutics, see Kögler (2014a, b and c).

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Truth and Method), Gadamer instructs us to approach the text’s tradition—as opposed to the text per se—as a Thou. “For tradition,” Gadamer writes, “is a genuine partner in dialogue, and we belong to it, as does the I with a Thou” (Gadamer 1992b, 358). Gadamer utilizes Buber’s language of I-Thou to defend tradition as something living and that which cannot be reduced to a sterile and inert object that can either be ignored or fully appropriated for one’s own uses. This emphasis is crucial for demonstrating how tradition remains alive and active and that we therefore must listen to it with the same sort of openness with which we would listen to another human being. Gadamer’s analogy between understanding a person-as-Thou and understanding a tradition-as-Thou leads him to emphasize the dialogical nature of understanding, insisting that “it is more than a metaphor; it is a memory of what originally was the case, to describe the task of hermeneutics as entering into dialogue with the text” (368). The understanding that results is not the product of quantifiable, isolatable facts produced by techne; rather, it concerns our fundamental being, as Gadamer affirms when he insists that dialogue transforms us into a communion (378). One of Gadamer’s main contributions to interpretation theory was his criticism of earlier efforts to define understanding in terms of its psychological underpinnings. Gadamer targets theorists such as Schleiermacher and Dilthey who had argued that to understand a text one had to “get into” the mind of its author, or engage in cognitive empathy or “divination” using Schleiermacher’s term.7 If one could think (i.e., replicate) the exact thoughts of the other—what theorists today refer to as “mind

7  Schleiermacher (1977) and Dilthey (1989). For a twentieth-century defense of authorial intention that aims its criticism directly at Gadamer, see Hirsch (1967). For more recent evidence that Gadamer may have perpetuated an incorrect reading of Schleiermacher and Dilthey along these lines, see Gjesdal (2009, chapters five and six). Yet in spite of Gjesdal’s critique of Gadamer’s use of Schleiremacher, she writes, “does this then mean, as Gadamer claims, that Schleiermacher does not acknowledge the productivity of tradition and that he proposes, against the thrust of Gadamer’s argument, that understanding is always understanding of the same (i.e., that it involves no element of application)? To a certain extent it does. According to Schleiermacher, there is, hypothetically, an interpretation or a set of interpretations that would get things right. Understanding is not a question of understanding differently, but of understanding correctly” (Gjesdal 2009, 170). “Gadamer,” Gjesdal goes on to note, “in analyzing Schleiermacher’s idea of a stricter hermeneutic practice, is right in pointing out that early nineteenth-century hermeneutics does not deal with the truth-happening in the encounter with the past” (Gjesdal 171).

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reading”8—then one could understand them. The theory that stipulates that to understand a text is simply to be able to recreate (i.e., replicate) the mindset of the author was later called “authorial intention.” One could note a certain affinity between the authorial intention position and the overly rationalistic and methodological formulations of understanding. Both positions assume that we can reduce understanding to the act of mimicking or replicating the thoughts that lie in another’s mind. Accordingly, both affirm that the best way to achieve understanding is through the giving and taking of propositions.9 For Gadamer, the authorial intention theory was inadequate primarily because (1) it failed to acknowledge the powerful role tradition and history play in understanding and (2) it deemed the understander too passive (e.g., it required conceiving of the “mind as mirror of reality”), thus foreclosing any possibility of truth. In the following two sections I will address each of these claims, respectively. By examining the role Gadamer assigns to prejudices, tradition, play, openness, and truth in the event of understanding, we will be in a better position to grasp the importance of his anti-subjectivist attack on previous models of understanding and his own positive contribution to a model of dialogue.

Fore-Structures of Understanding: Prejudice and Tradition Relying upon and further developing Heidegger’s emphasis on the fore-­ structure of understanding, Gadamer explains the historical and contextual nature of textual interpretation, thus criticizing the earlier reductionistic psychological models of textual understanding that focused primarily on the way in which the interpreter could access the author’s mind. To expose the fore-structure of understanding is to articulate how all interpretations are motivated by expectations of meaning. One does not just approach a text randomly or without motivation; one approaches a text with questions, which are motivated by prior socio-historical interests and meanings. Gadamer explains:

 See Stueber (2006).  For a more detailed historical account of the role of empathy in understanding see Stueber (2006, 2012, and 2018). 8 9

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A person who is trying to understand a text is always projecting. He projects a meaning for the text as a whole as soon as some initial meaning emerges in the text. Again, the initial meaning emerges only because he is reading the text with particular expectations in regard to a certain meaning. Working out this fore-projection, which is constantly revised in terms of what emerges as he penetrates into the meaning, is understanding what is there. (Gadamer 1992b, 267)

It is the work of understanding which remains an ongoing and circular activity, to expose, critique, or confirm such fore-meanings. Understanding does not require the abolishment of all fore-conceptions, only their re-­ working which comes about as they are initially exposed when one is “pulled up short by the text”—where either the text “does not yield any meaning at all or its meaning is not compatible with what we had expected” (268). Heidegger argued that the circularity involved in understanding—namely, that we approach a text with projections which are then pulled up short or confirmed by the text itself, leading to new projections, and so on—is far from vicious. The constant back-and-forth required by the process of understanding invites a fecund fluidity which opposes rigid conservation whereby nothing new is learned. To avoid the reification of fore-meanings that would render one deaf to the living voice of the text, one must remain open to the text and approach it with questions. As such, only one who is sensitive to the otherness of the text “is prepared for it to tell him something” (269). One who believes she already exhaustively knows the meaning of the text cannot understand it. But does this mean that we must forsake, or suspend, all of our knowledge in approaching the text? Is an open mind a blank one? What Gadamer iterates next is key: But this kind of sensitivity involves neither ‘neutrality’ with respect to content nor the extinction of one’s self, but the foregrounding and appropriation of one’s own fore-meanings and prejudices. The important thing is to be aware of one’s own bias, so that the text can present itself in all its otherness and thus assert its own truth against one’s own fore-meanings. (269)

Gadamer goes on to insist that since all understanding “inevitably involves some prejudice” prejudice itself is not the problem; rather the problem is “the tyranny of hidden prejudices” (270). Only those prejudices that remain buried due to our inability to adequately question

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them—what today we might refer to as “implicit biases”—prove detrimental to understanding. This claim leads Gadamer to attack the Enlightenment’s “prejudice against prejudice” (270). Gadamer explains that “prejudice” is not a false judgment per se but a pre-judgment—that which occurs prior to a claim of knowledge and subsequently can be proved true or false. Gadamer maintains, in line with research on implicit bias (which I will address in Chap. 5), that to think that we can begin from a completely objective and prejudice-free place is itself a prejudice of the Enlightenment that needs to be dispelled. What is required is not a blank mind (or a mind-as-a-glassy-mirror) but a willingness to have one’s prejudices exposed and challenged. Once we reject a Cartesian model of understanding in which one is required to remove all unscrutinized beliefs prior to admitting true ones, then the ongoing and circular nature of the quest for truth is seen as an advantage not a disadvantage. It is precisely this ongoing reflective inquiry that Gjesdal misses in her criticism that Gadamer’s misreading of Schleiermacher generates several dualisms in Gadamer’s own hermeneutics that were not there in Schleiermacher: namely, those between hermeneutics and reflection, validity and historicity, and historicity and autonomy (Gjesdal 2009, 215–216). In what follows I will offer reasons for why she is incorrect to claim that “Gadamer, in spite of his commitment to a dialogical understanding of rationality, systematically denounces the relevance of critical reflection to the hermeneutic enterprise” (216).10 I will maintain that it is the dialogic nature of understanding that makes possible some degree of critical distance from our perspective.11 While one cannot reflect oneself out of one’s own tradition, this does not mean one is prevented from critical reflection on one’s tradition. To grasp Gadamer’s point we must pay attention to his claim that it is only by being “pulled up short” through the dialogic

10  My criticism here is of Gjesdal’s interpretation of Gadamer and not of her claims about Gadamer’s misreading of Schleiermacher. Even though Gadamer may miss some of the subtleties of Schleiermacher, Gadamer’s  efforts to address the emergent scientism of his day (whatever the source) should be read in light of his claim in his “Preface to the Second Edition”: namely, in attempting to correct a bent stick, one has to bend it too far in the opposite direction. Gjesdal at times seems to be guilty of the very sins she attributes to Gadamer in his reference to Schleiermacher. 11  Warnke, too, raises similar concerns about the lack of critical reflectivity in Gadamer’s account of tradition. Specifically, she sees a tension between Gadamer’s affirmation of the way we belong to tradition and our capacity for negatively experiencing it (2014).

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interaction that one is allowed to be open to the changes invited by the negativity of experience, yielding true understanding. It is in this context of addressing some of the Enlightenment’s hermeneutic errors that Gadamer pens a section entitled (rather unfortunately for a German writing in the 1950s) “The Rehabilitation of Authority and Tradition.” Here Gadamer gives an, albeit idealized, account of authority in which, against the Enlightenment’s rejection of all authority, he defends it as requiring active assent. It is the nature of true authority that it must be acknowledged, that is, actively given or bestowed, not blindly and passively obeyed (Gadamer 1992b,  279). One particular form of authority central to hermeneutics is tradition, whose power over us consists in its very ability to ground our knowledge. Gadamer is not saying here that we must grant authority to any and all tradition all the time. Neither is he maintaining that authority can never be wrested by force. Rather, his point is about understanding; if we are to understand a text—that is, give it authority over us—then we must (1) recognize our past complicity with it and (2) genuinely interact with it in a way that reveals difference through the negativity of experience. Gadamer thus rejects Romanticism’s stark opposition between reason and tradition. For a tradition to be viable it must be affirmed and activated anew: “preservation is an act of reason” (281), Gadamer claims, thus affirming a critical component of tradition. As far as the study of the human sciences goes (Gadamer’s focus in this second part of Truth and Method) it is our tradition that presents us with our subjects and queries of interest. Gadamer insists that all inquiries emerge out of and are motivated by our socio-historical situatedness. That tradition is our source cannot be denied; that it should (or that all components of it should) be a future resource can only be determined by our critical—that is, dialogic—interaction with it. Gadamer calls us to both recognize tradition’s role in our being and also critically reflect on its continued role in our knowledge. Recall my emphasis in the previous chapter that to maintain, as Buber does, that we emerge from a fundamental relationality is not to claim that we are not individuals. The dialectic in Buber’s thought between connection and distance can be mapped on to Gadamer’s point about tradition. We are born into tradition, but language and culture also make possible distance from and changes to it. Just as Buber’s thought encompasses the two discrete moments of relationality and dialogic relationship that are neither identical to nor in conflict with each other, so Gadamer’s thought affirms, as we shall see in more detail below, both our belonging to and our critical experience of tradition.

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Gadamer’s main concern in discussing tradition is to reject the subjectivism inherent in the call for a methodological approach to understanding. While part of his point is that without tradition our knowledge claims would have no validity—they would be arbitrary and capricious—this does not constitute the whole of his position. He is also calling us to actively reflect on and engage tradition to achieve understanding. Granted, taken on its own, the following sentence could easily be misunderstood as implying a complete disappearance of the understander: “Understanding is to be thought of less as a subjective act than as participating in an event of tradition, a process of transmission in which past and present are constantly mediated” (290). However, Gadamer’s main goal of dethroning the almighty cogito must be kept in mind. His anti-­subjectivism is not a call to surrender passively to socio-historical forces that hold us hostage, but rather to remind us that we “cannot separate in advance the productive prejudices that enable understanding from the prejudices that hinder it and lead to misunderstandings” (295). For critical reflection to happen, we must open ourselves to encountering that which is “other” by allowing the other to truly question us (299). The one who merely passively ingests everything that tradition throws at them cannot claim understanding. Gadamer’s dialogic emphasis takes seriously the role of the other who exposes difference as based on implicit and explicit, as well as warranted and unwarranted, biases. In this section in Truth and Method, the “other” to which Gadamer is specifically referring is the text’s historical situatedness—its tradition; his specific interest is the communion of understanding that occurs between the understander and tradition. His claim that “understanding is, essentially, a historically effected event” (303, italics original) suggests that history initiates, motivates, and makes possible all understanding. But lest this make tradition sound like a process that imprisons one within its own hermetically sealed walls—thus leading to incommensurability—Gadamer chooses to emphasize the living dimension of tradition, saying it is “not simply a process…but a language—i.e., it expresses itself like a Thou” (358). For Gadamer, in order to understand a text we must remain receptive to its living tradition as to a Thou who speaks a living language. In other words, we must engage tradition-as-a-Thou (as opposed to an “It” or object) whose language, spoken dialogically, is the text. If we are to understand, we must remain open to its claim, even when it makes a claim that challenges us. Given what Gadamer writes elsewhere about the power of language as a creative force, it is simply inaccurate to assume that tradition always

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functions to limit our understanding or is a source of oppression. Gadamer’s point is that tradition presents us with a claim to which we are requested to respond, thus inviting a dialogue with tradition. To acknowledge the importance of tradition does not entail being blindly taken over by the tradition, losing all initiative or autonomy. If that were the case then tradition would be treating us as an It rather than as a Thou. Gadamer’s emphasis on anti-subjectivity does not render the understander powerless or inert. His point was to reveal how tradition itself is an active and living component of understanding, which does not entail the dualism that the understander is rendered hostage to the force of tradition. Gadamer relies on the idea of dialogue in order to reject both the utter passivity and the utter power of the understander. Just as an interpersonal dialogue both requires and produces difference and commonality, so Gadamer locates the same dialogic relation in the process of textual understanding: “Tradition is a genuine partner in dialogue, and we belong to it, as does the I with a Thou” (358). Just as being caught up in a new way of seeing the world in a conversation with another person does not render us enslaved to the other, so being caught up in a dialogic relation with tradition does not render it our master. The reason why the dialogic moment of the I and Thou remains central for Gadamer’s hermeneutics is precisely because it protects Gadamer from illicit charges that he renders the individual understander entirely subsumed by tradition. The Buberian influence on Gadamer must be taken into account in order to defend against the criticism that Gadamer succumbs to dualism by pitting his hermeneutics against reflection or overemphasizing historicity to the exclusion of allowing any agency on the part of the interpreter. One can only remain open in so far as one remains an I, active and engaged, as opposed to an It, a passive object. Indeed, Buber insists that in so far as one is an I, one will reach out to engage the other. It is the nature of the I to actively engage the other.12 Far from implying that all agency or critical capacity in relation to the tradition dissipates, the dialogic connection requires openness and invites a critical response. David Rasmussen, therefore, is wrong to claim that “The very attempt to reach a critical perspective would go against the 12  Pace Warnke, if our view of history remains stagnant, if we remain unchanged, this means we have failed to treat tradition as a Thou. The shortcoming is in our comportment toward the Thou, in our failure to take up tradition’s question to us, and not in Gadamer’s account of tradition per se (Warnke 2014, esp. 347—348).

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authenticity of the experience of openness as Gadamer has defined it” (Rasmussen 2002, 509). Rasmussen believes that any critical moment would automatically render tradition an It. But this seems an odd way to conceive of openness in a dialogue, especially, as we shall see below, given Gadamer’s defense of experience as that which pulls us up short. Certainly, we can maintain a critical dialogic interaction with another person without reducing them to an It. In fact, as we shall see below in Gadamer’s account of the moral component of understanding, it is when we remain closed off to the other, rendering their words insignificant and dismissing them out of hand, that we treat them as an It. For Gadamer, part of being open is being open to the play of the game, but equally important is the ability to be open to listen to the other’s claim—even when, especially when, they challenge us. If we are to truly hear the other, then we must be open to being challenged, to hearing something new, to being “pulled up short,” and engaging in a back and forth questioning with the other. In order to explain in more depth what active engagement with tradition looks like, one that finds us neither passively subsumed into it nor assuming we can free ourselves from its influence, Gadamer discusses the moral dimension of relating to a Thou. Gadamer’s account of the moral versus immoral dimensions of understanding follows Buber’s description of the three ways we can relate to the other, which Buber referenced as “technical,” “monological,” and “genuine.” Like Buber, Gadamer denotes two immoral relations where we treat the Thou as an “It.” First, by focusing on physical aspects (as an object to be observed from a medical or neuro-scientific perspective) or quantifying isolated behavior (as an object of psychology, anthropology, or sociology), we objectify the other. A method or technique is used to exclude subjectivity and focus on only what is “typical and regular” (Gadamer 1992b, 359), often with the aim of predicting behavior. There are, however, times when it is necessary to treat the other as an object from this technical perspective (and hence a more accurate term for this form of relation may be “amoral” rather than “immoral”), for example, when a surgeon operates on a person focusing only on a body part. Gadamer’s point is that this way of treating the other blocks a genuine, that is, moral, understanding of the Thou. Treating the other as a heteronymous object to be dominated or reducing the other only to objective traits (i.e., using empirical facts or observations about a person to silence, ignore, or exclude them) is a failure to fully understand the other and does not attain a moral connection. When it comes to a text, believing we know all there is about

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a tradition, exoticizing it, or regarding it as utterly incomprehensible and thus worthless are all ways to objectify a tradition and prevent it from speaking to us. When western philosophers fail to admit texts from eastern philosophy into the canon they are refusing to accept the other as a Thou, believing “It” has nothing to say to them. Or, conversely, bringing an “exotic” text from another culture into one’s course without preparing students to be interrogated by it is also a way to reduce its function to merely “bringing diversity” into one’s class rather than working toward equitable pluralism. We might also think of Hannah Arendt’s charge of cultural philistinism to describe those who read the classics just so they can be seen as intellectuals; they read not to listen to the text but to use the text to shore up cultural clout. When the text becomes a badge of honor, it remains an object for our use rather than a partner in understanding. The second way to relate to a Thou for Gadamer is to recognize the person as a subject but only as conditional upon one’s own subjectivity (similar to what Buber referred to as “monologue disguised as dialogue”). It is the tendency to see someone as more than their empirical features but to still see them as necessary for one’s own project. Gadamer calls this sort of relation “not immediate but reflective” (359), and we could also describe it in Buberian language as treating the other as an It. The Seducer in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or comes to mind as an exemplar of this “reflected” relation. One could know someone personally, even intimately, but yet one’s relationship with them might be geared solely to benefiting oneself. As another example, we could point to Jane Addam’s charity worker, a middle-class, educated young woman who enters into the immigrant working-class neighborhood to “help” them. In this instance, the charity worker never really needs to know her “clients,” nor does she allow herself to be affected by them—they remain a project for her that yields the attitude: “I really know what’s best for you, here let me help you.” All help is uni-directional and mediated through the lens of the charity worker’s own goal—a figurative “monologue.” The subjectivity of the poor is acknowledged only in so far as it affirms the charity worker’s subjectivity. The immoral move here is to fail to fully acknowledge the other-as-subject who has her own projects, goals, and agency and instead to insist that one’s own knowledge contains all there is to know about the other. The subjectivity of the other is seen only through one’s own perspective; one is unwilling to truly accept the claim as given by the other. One might accept some degree of the “otherness” of the other, but only on one’s own terms, in one’s own language, and in so far as it serves one’s own ego. The charity

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worker, for instance, no doubt sees the otherness of the immigrant and may even be scrupulous in asking questions, yet accords the immigrant only a limited degree of subjectivity, for example to make choices regarding personal hygiene and cleanliness. Regarding tradition, Gadamer describes as indicative of this second way “a person who believes he is free of prejudices, relying on the objectivity of his procedures and denying that he is himself conditioned by historical circumstances” (360). As the charity worker is blind to her own biases about the poor, so the reader in this instance may think they know the tradition of the text but remain in fact blind to their own prejudices, thereby imposing their own view onto the text without really listening to it. Another way that the distance of reflectivity might manifest itself is when one enters into a debate where the aim is to use argumentation to persuade the other of one’s own correctness. In this situation, one is not really open to hearing anything new from the other beyond what can provide fodder for further argumentation. When the sole goal of an exchange is communication of specific information or when one side seeks to win over, dominate, or control the other, we could use Buber’s language and say that the Thou becomes an It and one is no longer relating morally to the other. In fact, Buber calls this sort of exchange a “technical dialogue”—language that accords with Gadamer’s own critique of “technique,” which fails to give space for the human judgment that comprises phronesis. In both of these instances Gadamer maintains: “A person who reflects himself out of the mutuality of such a relation changes this relationship and destroys its moral bond. A person who reflects himself out of a living relationship to tradition destroys the true meaning of this tradition in exactly the same way” (360, emphasis added). Only the third way of relating with a Thou counts as moral, which entails “experiencing the Thou truly as Thou—i.e., not to overlook his claim but to let him really say something to us. Here is where openness belongs … Without such openness to one another there is no genuine human bond. Belonging together always also means being able to listen to one another” (361). Treating tradition as a “moral phenomenon” (358) requires being open to it in such a way that allows the “tradition’s claim to validity” to really say something to one (361). Openness here means being ready to listen to and interact with the other’s claim. When we assume that we already know the tradition, what it has to say to us, or that it is too foreign to speak to us at all, we objectify tradition and deny it Thou status. For Gadamer, openness is required to form the human bond we share with

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others; to effect belongingness we must listen to the other: “Belonging together always also means being able to listen to one another” (361). Gadamer insists that relating morally to another in this bonded way does not literally mean that we thoroughly “understand” the other—that is, that we really know all they are thinking or feeling. To demand as much would be to endorse authorial intention theory. Nor does it mean that we forsake critical questioning; if that were the case, there would be no need for Gadamer to insist that belonging entails listening to the other. One cannot listen to that which completely subsumes one. Rather, Gadamer’s point is that the process of understanding, that is, true hermeneutical experience, is defined not by what we know but what we do not know. Hermeneutical experience is marked by the ability to be open to the claim another makes—even when it goes against you. When we listen to another, we are able to take up, to accept, the Thou’s claim to validity, and a moral bond is formed whereby we experience belongingness. It is important to clarify the existential emphasis here in order to avoid a relativism that equates the connection of understanding with either a simple agreement with a claim or a passivity that renders the understander unable to offer any critical reflection. We listen to belong and not simply to acquire a new belief, much less to mindlessly agree. While I will discuss Gadamer’s concept of openness in more detail below, let me remark on the relevance of Buber’s philosophical influence on Gadamer here. To fully appreciate Gadamer’s point about tradition we must take seriously why he draws on Buber’s I-Thou at all, namely, to demonstrate that we can both belong to tradition, in terms of sharing a fundamental relationality with it, without which we would not have any capacity to understand or use language at all, and at the same time activate this belongingness in a way that requires a genuine, negative experience. It is the negativity of experience, Gadamer explains, that confronts us with aspects of difference and otherness such that we are genuinely pulled up short. To say as Buber does that we share a fundamental belongingness with all humanity does not imply that we will never encounter any difference with the other, much less be challenged by their otherness. Belonging to one’s family does not mean there cannot be genuine ruptures and negativity of experience. In fact, often it is those to whom we most belong with whom we have the most challenging experiences that force us to reflect anew. To those like Risser (1997) who wonder why Gadamer took the detour through Buber’s I-Thou on his route to explicate the role of tradition in understanding, I would point them back to this underlying theme in

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Buber’s work and its relevance for Gadamer’s project. By basing his textual hermeneutics on Buber’s I-Thou relation, Gadamer helps us grasp that if we are truly relating to a Thou, then we will not, nor be expected to, remain submissively uncritical and non-reflective. The viability of an I-Thou relation is made possible only by the (inter)active reflection, the genuine engagement, by both parties. A true friend is not one who serves as a “yes-man” to us. Being connected in a deep bond with another does not entail that we do not have to contend with fierce and disturbing difference. Often it is those whom we know most well who are best able to surprise us by their words and deeds. So while it is true that Gadamer fails to explicitly endorse any critical method, this is not due to a rejection of critique or of method writ large. He is not pitting truth against method but is elucidating a dimension of understanding that remains outside the scope of method. This is not the same as claiming, however, that critical reflection cannot be part of the existential relational event between I and Thou. I read Gadamer as demonstrating that critique, like truth, is not found only in the domain of method. Truth, along with its critical dimension, is defined in terms of a certain existential comportment toward the other rather than as an epistemic state regarding a claim. To further explore the nature of the belongingness between I and Thou, I will now take a closer look at how a truth claim emerges in the process of understanding in a way that incorporates reflection and renders it significant for dialogue.

The Event of Truth: Play and Openness The central focus of Gadamer’s magnum opus, Truth and Method, was to demonstrate that a theory of truth modeled on scientific method is neither the only legitimate nor most fundamental way to conceptualize truth. What is Gadamer’s positive conception of the role of truth in understanding? A general and brief answer is that truth is an event in which one finds oneself changed. While here is not the place to either explicate or defend Gadamer’s account of truth writ large, I will briefly define Gadamer’s account of truth and clarify its role in the model of dialogue I am advancing based on Buber and Gadamer.13 Thus while my model of dialogue is a precursor to an argumentative exchange of reasons this does not mean there is no place for truth or reflection. In order to demonstrate the relevance of Gadamer’s account of truth for dialogic understanding, I will  For a more detailed account of Gadamer’s notion of truth see Barthold 2010.

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address two concepts central to it, namely, play and openness, and show their relevance for connecting with a Thou and experiencing existential truth. Gadamer turns to the concept of play to explain the ontology of a work of art and how it illustrates hermeneutic experience. It is crucial to note that Gadamer uses “play” to describe the “mode of being of the work of art” and not the subjectivity of the viewer of the art (101). This point seems overlooked by those who read Gadamer’s account of play as rendering the subject passive. While some forms of playful attitude may entail passivity—entertainment that requires only passive viewing, for example— Gadamer insists that to play well is to be active. But more to the point, Gadamer is not interested in how the subject plays but in how in true play the intentionality and purposiveness of the individual subject are suspended such that “play fulfills its purpose only if the player loses himself in the play” (102). What is let go of here is the will to win and control the other; what is utilized is the activity of remaining open and engaged. Getting caught up in the game is the whole point of play, and while the player intends and knows this, such “knowledge” is tacit and implicit rather than explicit. Gadamer seeks a way to challenge the typical account of knowledge in which the knowing subject approaches the object-to-be-­ known-and-controlled. He uses the concept of play to illustrate how the work of art “becomes an experience that changes the person who experiences it” (102), where the true “subject” is the work itself in so far as it has its own “essence, independent of consciousness of those who play” (102). Gadamer takes the artwork as inviting the “viewer” to join in its game, to transform into an active player. Conceiving of the being of the work of art as playful also emphasizes the constant back and forth movement, whose sole goal is to keep going. Repetition constantly renews itself in play, which seeks no terminus (103). The movement of play is primarily driven by the game itself as opposed to any individual player. “Play is not to be understood as something a person does…the actual subject of play is obviously not the subjectivity of an individual…but is instead the play itself” (104). For instance, Gadamer describes the “play of colors,” the playing of animals, the way water plays, and we could also reference the “play of light.” The anti-subjective nature of play is reflected in the way play itself takes over for any individual player (105). Analogously, we could think of how an athlete being in “the zone” entails relinquishing control while at the same time demanding alertness to the game as a whole as well as physical activity. The players relinquish

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their own individual intentions (e.g., to score the most points or to win) that remain extrinsic to the play at that moment and the movement is governed only by the internal, organic, and emergent structure. Play’s anti-subjective dimension for Gadamer requires losing oneself in such a way that one is caught up in that which transcends individual players. Humans find enjoyment in play in so far as play provides relief from cognitive and volitional intentions: “The structure of play absorbs the player into itself, and thus frees him from the burden of taking the initiative, which constitutes the actual strain of existence” (105). People enjoy playing in so far as it provides relief from the daily occurrences requiring constant decision and control. There is pleasure in letting go of the control of our lives and finding ourselves caught up, lost, in the back and forth and the ongoing nature of the game. Gadamer insists: “all playing is being played” (106). In playing, then, one relinquishes extrinsic goals and submits oneself to, and loses oneself in, play itself. At the same time, there is a responsibility and directionality on the part of the player who must commit herself to remaining in the game, refusing to remove herself from the game and following the rules. We must not lose sight of the fact that in order to play one must choose to immerse oneself in the game and choose to play by the rules. Gadamer warns against being a spoilsport, which occurs when one withdraws from the game. In playing, then, it is not that the player literally disappears, loses all agency, or foregoes awareness, reflection, or intentionality. The intention to keep on playing and to keep the game in motion— not to win, which would entail the cessation of the game—remains operative. Furthermore, the best players are those who, after the play has stopped, reflect on what they could have done better so as to use their past experience to inform and procure future games. To play well, in other words, does not require one to never engage in critical reflection. Such is the worry of Hans-Herbert Kögler when he maintains that Gadamer “unfolds the concept of play as a comprehensive and overpowering event. Consequently, inasmuch as Gadamer takes this concept of play to be the crucial feature of dialogue, little remains of the reflective-critical symbolic autonomy that two subjects may interactively bring forth through conversation” (Kögler 1999, 55). To claim as much is to neglect the role Gadamer assigns to openness. Therefore, in order to further explore how Gadamer’s anti-subjective account of play does not render the individual utterly passive, let us examine his conception of openness.

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Being open does not just mean passively allowing the play to keep going willy-nilly or being open to anything that happens. If one is going to be open to keeping the play going, one must also have a clear focus and follow the rules. Openness does not entail doing anything one wants or blindly succumbing to anything that happens. When one aims to understand the other or a text, one’s understanding is directed at some object in particular—this is not a free-for-all, a free-spinning, directionless, type of play. There is a particular text or Thou we want to hear something from, rendering a degree of seriousness about and focus to the play itself. While there are various ways to be open in understanding, not all of them are productive for arriving at truth, which is essential to Gadamer’s account of understanding. Openness is necessary for the event of truth—but what exactly are we open to and what sorts of constraints come into play?14 I will argue that for Gadamer openness has three main features. First, one is open to the claim of truth as manifest in die Sache (the subject matter). Second, one is open to the negativity of experience. Third, one is open to the dialectic of posing, and responding to, questions. First, Gadamer maintains that understanding a text aims to clarify not the author’s intentions, but die Sache, the subject matter. One’s openness is directed toward the meaning of the text not the author’s mindset. One is not opening oneself to take on the thoughts of the author or to getting inside the mind of the author. What makes Gadamer’s point important is that, against the history of defining understanding in terms of empathy, he contends that where our aim is truth, empathetic mind reading can never be the criterion for understanding.15 He maintains that if we have a conversation with the other in order to get to “know him—i.e., to discover where he is coming from and his horizon,” then “this is not a true conversation—that is, we are not seeking agreement on some subject—because the specific contents of the conversation are only a means to get to know the horizon of the other person” (303). Empathy precludes truth in so far as adopting the perspective of the other is a passive stance on behalf of the understander, which prevents any transformation. In writing about how 14  In Chap. 6 I will build on this discussion of openness to show its relevance to current literature on the virtue of open-mindedness in order to maintain that openness serves as a virtue crucial for civic discourse. 15  In this initial section I am focusing on empathy as a cognitive process and not on the emotional connotations of that term. Gadamer’s all-too-brief criticism of empathy complements some of the more recent, and much more in-depth, work on the limitations of empathy, which I discuss in Chap. 4. See Stueber (2018) for a succinct history of this term’s use.

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we are to have a dialogue with tradition, Gadamer warns that should one be able to gain full knowledge of an other’s horizon—that is, cognitive empathy for that position—then no true dialogue, and therefore no truth, has occurred. In these instances, Gadamer tells us that the understander “cannot be reached” since he has made his “own standpoint safely unattainable” (303). Where one’s own standpoint is walled off, no true change or shift of horizons occurs. Openness entails making ourselves vulnerable to and reachable by the claim made by the text. As we shall see below, it means being willing to be pulled up short and to acknowledge the inadequacy of one’s own understanding. When we attempt to place ourselves in the perspective (what Gadamer terms the “horizon”) of another we actually forego understanding since we prevent the other from making any sort of claim on us. Empathy, that is, the ability to place oneself in the mind/perspective of the other, can be described as an act of subordinating oneself to another whereby one exchanges one’s own position for that of the other. But when an interaction of only exchange takes place, true understanding has not occurred. The criterion of truth is change not exchange. (We could say that Gadamer rejects not only the subordination of self but also the subordination of the other—where we try to force our perspective onto the other, which manifests as domination or oppression. The subordination of either self or other, rendering self or other as an It, prevents the fully engaged mutual transformation of two Thous, since what occurs is a mere exchange.) According to Gadamer’s theory of understanding, when we seek only empathy for the other’s perspective— defined in terms of being able to recreate their beliefs—we actually sequester ourselves off from the other such that the two can never meet. In that case, there can never be what Gadamer terms a fusion of horizons and as a result no truth claim can emerge. The “fusion of horizons” is Gadamer’s term for the mutual understanding that serves as the goal of understanding. It is crucial to underscore that horizons are not something that can be entered or exited, much less changed, at will. Rather, the term “horizon” suggests the perspectival nature of all knowing and seeing and is that which refuses manipulation by an individual. An individual is engulfed within a horizon, providing them with perspective, and the only way it can shift is by the individual themself shifting and moving. One’s horizon can move, but it makes no sense to say that one sees another horizon and then chooses to enter into it. Horizons move as the individual moves and when two individuals move together their combined movements create a shared, and thus new,

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horizon. The horizonal shift reflects the way that understanding entails a new way of seeing together. Gadamer explains: Transposing ourselves consists neither in the empathy [Einfühlung] of one individual for another nor in subordinating another person to our own standards; rather it always involves rising to a higher universality that overcomes not only our own particularity but also that of the other. The concept of ‘horizon’ suggests itself because it expresses the superior breadth of vision that the person who is trying to understand must have. To acquire a horizon means that one learns to look beyond what is close at hand—not in order to look away from it but to see it better, within a larger whole and in a truer proportion. (305)

Gadamer’s use of “horizon” clarifies the anti-subjective nature of understanding and sheds light on why one should reject defining empathy as the goal of understanding. Gadamer is not saying that we should make no effort at all to understand the perspective of the other, nor is he warning us against empathy per se; his point is that empathy (as it has been used in this particular tradition of textual understanding) is an insufficient condition for understanding and when pursued as the sole goal of understanding can actually block truth. Gadamer’s main criticism of empathy is that it is insufficient for allowing a claim of truth to be made. If we were somehow able to simply give up our own horizon and jump into that of another, there would no longer be an “I” to understand the “Thou.” Indeed, were this to be possible, it would mean the “I” becomes the “Thou.” Understanding that denies all difference is no understanding at all: for there ends up being no Thou for truth to make a claim to. In rejecting the authorial intention model of understanding, Gadamer replaces the mind of the other as the object of understanding with die Sache. Downplaying mind reading, however, does not mean that any sort of chit-chat with a Thou qualifies as the openness of a good dialogue; the subject matter serves as the constraint setting limits and boundaries. Being “open” to talking about the latest basketball scores when one is supposed to be discussing the meaning of the Aeneid does not count as openness. Changing the subject or avoiding a claim does not count as openness. Neither does openness mean indiscriminately being open to whatever is new, to whatever comes one’s way. The play in which one is caught up is focused, directed, and rule-bound, not frivolous or capricious. An attitude

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of openness means that one is willing to receive a claim of truth that the text makes, and for Gadamer this means that dialogic understanding must be focused on and be constrained by die Sache. We can also say that openness is, in part, motivated and entailed by the anticipation of completeness discussed above. We anticipate, believe, that the text has something meaningful to say to us, something that we have not heard or understood before, something that we can learn from. This anticipation directs and focuses us. When one is open, one is committed to pursuing truth as opposed to power, status, affirmation, being seen as right, and so on. Since according to Gadamer’s dialogic account the goal of understanding is getting clear about die Sache, and not simply defending one’s opinion or convincing the other that one is right, then one must be open to hearing something new from the text—even if it goes against one’s current beliefs. Openness is the attitude that allows one to do just that. If we are to open ourselves to the claim of the text rather than to the thoughts in the mind of the author, and do so in such a way to change our horizon of understanding, then what does such openness look like and what is its application for interpersonal dialogue? Is it possible to be more precise about the nature of this openness, particularly as it pertains to the bond we have with tradition? We can further grasp Gadamer’s account of being open to that which is new, challenging, and oppositional to us by considering a second condition of openness, the negativity of experience. Openness is the quality that allows one to genuinely take in new experiences—even when, particularly when, they challenge us and go against us. Gadamer calls this “the negativity of experience,” which refers to the experience of realizing that “something is not what we supposed it to be” (354). Gadamer references Aeschylus’ pathei mathos, learning by suffering, as indicative of the negativity of experience. That openness does not seek finality in certainty can be further explained by the fact that when one is truly experiencing, and thus truly “experienced,” one remains open to ever new experiences. Gadamer explains, “The dialectic of experience has its proper fulfillment not in definitive knowledge but in the openness to experience that is made possible by experience itself” (355). The experienced person is precisely that person who never claims to “know it all” or to have complete knowledge. To “be experienced” means precisely to remain open to new experiences (355), and thus to change. Gadamer’s account of openness affirms the holistic, situational, and embedded nature of understanding. Webs of beliefs emerge out of situations in such a way that describing beliefs as attaching only to individual

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mental states per se proves inadequate. Prejudices remain not only hidden but potent in their very obscurity. Openness defines the general attitude required by an individual within a situation, or “event” as Gadamer calls it. In other words, while it might seem reasonable that as soon as an individual is confronted with a challenge to her belief X, the open-minded individual then suspends belief X, Gadamer rejects such an account as placing too much power in the individual’s explicit cognitive capacities. His more robust account of prejudice and tradition demonstrates that understanding is not able to be captured by such a narrow and reductionistic account. Understanding does not proceed linearly or according to explicit subjective cognition alone. In his efforts to motivate an anti-­ subjectivist model of understanding, Gadamer decries those who insist that one can choose to suspend one’s prejudicial beliefs. That there is no method or procedure for routing out prejudicial beliefs in advance of the process of understanding does not mean, however, that we are entirely powerless to confront them or must remain under their power or that our beliefs can never change. Gadamer’s point is that an orientation of openness that invites ongoing dialogue is the best hope for encountering a truth claim. Openness is an existential stance one takes toward another: one is primarily open to listening to the experiences of another. Openness means being willing to be brought along by the dialogue to another horizon. In so far as openness leads to a change of horizons rather than a change of particular, explicit beliefs, it describes an existential rather than epistemic orientation. Placing the emphasis on the existential process of openness in the situation undergirds Gadamer’s anti-subjective approach in so far as it places limitations on how much power the understander actually possesses to be able to change  her mind. Gadamer’s emphasis on openness clarifies the possibility of having some of one’s current beliefs changed but in a way that results from the event-like nature of the interaction with another rather than the effect of the individual’s efforts alone. Change emerges from the holistic process rather than resulting solely from an individual’s volition. Against those who would defend open-mindedness as the ability to bracket (or transcend) individual prejudices or beliefs at will, Gadamer invites us to conceive of understanding less individually and more holistically, as seen in his emphasis on play. As we saw in the above discussion, there are many prejudices we do not know we have before we enter into a process of understanding. Therefore, it does not seem adequate to maintain that being open requires one to be willing to discard any specific belief

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or set of beliefs. This is a crucial point in so far as one barrier to dialogue is sometimes the unwillingness of a person to suspend, or treat as neutral, some of their fundamental beliefs. For example, if a Christian, in order to dialogue with a Muslim, must declare as disposable their belief in the divinity of Christ, then any dialogue would be precluded from the outset. But if one is open to being changed in general, without having to specify at the outset what that change would look like—much less which particular beliefs should be changed—then there may be more hope for a dialogue. What is required, then, is to be open to an exchange where one can “learn through the suffering” of being challenged and questioned. Openness is an attitude that allows one to truly listen to the claims of the other/die Sache even, and especially, when this means coming face to face with the negativity of experience; openness does not mean suspending one’s explicit propositional beliefs. While I will discuss in more detail in Chap. 6 how current accounts of open-mindedness compare with Gadamer’s emphasis on openness, I want to offer a brief comparison here with Jonathan Adler’s account of open-­ mindedness, since it helps bring out the existential emphasis in Gadamer’s account. Adler describes open-mindedness as a second-order desire aimed at one’s doxic attitudes in general, and he helps further clarify the sense in which openness implies a general willingness to be pulled up short rather than an intentional suspension of particular explicit beliefs. According to Adler, the open-minded person reasons: since I am fallible, I should remain open to the change that encountering another’s view may produce. Adler argues that since this definition of open-mindedness does not require one to specify that any one belief in particular may be false, being open-minded does not lead to any contradictions and nor does it require one to deny the strength or certainty of any particular belief. Adler sounds close to Gadamer when he writes, “When one keeps an open-mind one places oneself in a position to discover that some of one’s beliefs may be mistaken” (Adler 2004, 131). His view accords well with my claim that the openness required is existential, in so far as one lets the other speak and is open to listening, rather than epistemic, which requires one to question or suspend the veracity of a particular belief. The mark of such existential openness, Gadamer tells us, is the ability to be engaged by, and engaged in asking, questions. Third, then, the openness marking true experience requires active engagement in questioning and responding to questions: “It is clear that the structure of the question is implicit in all experience. We cannot have experiences without asking

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questions” (Gadamer 1992b, 362). This point is crucial for correcting the misbelief that according to Gadamer openness entails complete passivity on our part. But it also clarifies that questions transform the negativity of experience into knowledge. We must be open to being confronted by our own lack, by our own finitude and limitations, but we cannot stop there. The dialectic is seen in the fact that we must allow the negativity of experience to set us on the path of genuine questioning that leads to knowledge. Gadamer maintains: “In order to be able to ask, one must want to know, and that means knowing that one does not know…the path of all knowledge leads through the question. To ask a question means to bring into the open” (363). That one “knows one does not know” gives rise to a question that “breaks open” what one is trying to know. An attitude of openness, then, requires a confrontation with our lack that inspires a question. A true question—as opposed to a pseudo or “leading” one—is one that is indeterminate and unknown at the moment it is asked. By contrast, the one who is not open to confronting their lack remains uninterested, afraid, defensive, or speechless. Openness, though, is manifest not only in the ability to pose a question to the text; it is also manifest in the ability to receive a question from the text.16 Our dialogue with the text, then, is driven by questions, not propositions or assertions. It is not about dominating the other or the subject matter but about testing one’s own opinions in light of the subject matter. The proper question arises from knowing that one does not know, from being open to learning through suffering, which requires a back and forth with the text characteristic of dialectic. Gadamer thus follows Plato in describing the art of questioning as a form of dialectic: “As the art of asking questions, dialectic proves its value because only the person who knows how to ask questions is able to persist in his questioning, which involves being able to preserve his orientation toward openness. The art of questioning is the art of questioning even further—i.e., the art of

16  Gadamer also insists that understanding requires not just hearing the claim put to one; it also requires one to understand the text or subject matter  as a response to a question. Gadamer describes Collingwood’s point thusly: “We can understand a text only when we have understood the question to which it is an answer” (1992b, 370). As Gadamer goes on to clarify, we can only understand a work of art in so far as we are able to understand “the question which it answers” (370).

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thinking. It is called dialectic because it is the art of conducting a real dialogue” (367).17 We must, therefore, be open to the question addressing us in as much as we are open to asking the right question of the text. Openness here is understood as the ability to forego opinion and acknowledge our own ignorance in order to allow new ideas to emerge. New ideas, even those that appear suddenly, “always presuppose an orientation towards an area of openness from which the idea can occur—i.e., they presuppose questions … Every sudden idea has the structure of a question” (366). Our ability to engage in critical reflection on our ideas is a necessary feature of the dialectic of questioning. That understanding is fundamentally dialogical for Gadamer means that the understander remains open in such a way to allow questions to emerge and to elicit a new way of seeing things that speaks directly to one. Now we are poised to better understand Gadamer’s earlier claim that “the hermeneutical task becomes of itself a questioning of things” (269). Dialogic understanding is question-driven in so far as “the essence of the question is to open up possibilities and keep them open” (299). The question emerging from the tradition, text, or other to whom we belong is one that pulls us up short. To give oneself over to the conversation is not to relinquish all of one’s critical capacities but to relinquish one’s control that aims to win. Gadamer explains: “To conduct a conversation means to allow oneself to be conducted by the subject matter to which the partners in the dialogue are oriented. It requires that one does not try to argue the other person down but that one really considers the weight of the other’s opinion. Hence it is an art of testing. But the art of testing is the art of questioning” (367). In summary, openness, characterized by Gadamer as an existential orientation that allows one to engage genuine questions, is the means by which one experiences the event of truth and achieves understanding. Openness implies the possibility of not simply being open to changing specific beliefs that one holds (which places an excessive demand on the individual’s cognition and volition) but also having one’s views changed by the experience in such a way that shifts one’s perspective and 17  While Gadamer (among others) certainly sees a general affinity between dialogue and dialectic, the goal of dialogic understanding differs greatly from the goal of Eleatic dialectic that Plato used Socratic dialogue to contest. Eleatic dialectic was in fact lacking the dialogic quality and proceeded more like debate. Hence Plato’s dialectic became indelibly wedded to Socratic dialogue. See Barthold 2010, chapter one for Gadamer’s construal of the role of dialogue and dialectic in Plato.

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invites new questioning. It requires both a letting go in order to surrender to the play and remaining active in the continual process of proposing and responding to questions. Acknowledging the importance of the question that emerges from openness is a way to address Georgia Warnke’s worry that having a bond with someone/something prevents one from being able to “experience” it in a transformative way (Warnke 2014). Warnke insists that Gadamer tames our relation to tradition by advocating that all knowledge that comes out of our interaction with it is recollection, thus limiting what we can learn and occluding any possibility of having negative experience with it (Warnke 2014, 23). If Warnke is correct, this would also mean that one cannot experience the truth of one’s tradition. For only when one experiences the claim of a text in such a way that one is changed has one truly had a hermeneutic experience, what Gadamer calls “truth.” The event of truth is the experience one has with a Thou in which one finds oneself changed due to this new belongingness. Warnke worries about the “obscurity” of Gadamer’s claim that “without…openness to another there is no genuine bond” (Warnke 375), and asks whether openness precedes a genuine bond or vice versa. Here is where an appeal to Buber helps clarify what Gadamer means by belonging to the other. I take Gadamer’s account of belonging to be analogous to Buber’s. On both accounts, there is an original connection with the other that is often obscured or hidden. Without this basic belonging or connection, no communication would be possible, no question posable. There would be no desire or impetus to be open to the other if we truly believed the other (tradition) was impenetrable or so wholly different as to be incommensurable. And yet this fundamental belonging can and must give rise to an open questioning that transforms our initial belonging into a “dialogic relationship,” or in Gadamer’s language, “genuine belonging.” Both Buber and Gadamer stress how we must actively be willing to truly listen to the other, while letting go of our will to project our own pre-conceived ideas onto the other. This latter deed cannot be accomplished by sheer force of will—it can only occur when, in recognizing our fundamental belonging, we open ourselves to listen to, indeed be challenged by, the other. It is precisely this being pulled up short by the otherness of the other that can create a new and deeper sense of genuine belonging. (Although of course, as we saw with Buber, there is no guarantee this will happen—hence the requirement to remain open.)

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Pace Warnke, then, the more deeply we genuinely belong to the other the more we will remain open to both the questioning and being questioned inherent in our dialogic connection. Are we not most changed, and indeed most challenged, by those to whom we most genuinely belong? If one finds that one’s belonging to one’s spouse, one’s country, one’s religion, even oneself, prevents the event of truth and that there is nothing that can remain surprising about the other, nothing more to say, nothing more to ask, then surely one has begun to regard the other as an It. Fundamentalism (whether religious, nationalistic, racist, etc.) could be defined in part by treating one’s tradition as an It. Neither was Rassmussen correct to claim that treating the other as an It is the result of a critical understanding. Rather, treating the other as an It is the result of failing to dialogically engage with and belong to the other. It does not make sense to maintain that belonging to the other entails we cannot learn more or be surprised or disturbed by difference. Belonging does not mean being blind to differences but precisely to remain open and engaged. (Again, we could say that fundamentalists are those who deny the negativity of experience, believe they already know it all, and thus stop questioning.) I take Gadamer to understand genuine belonging as entailing our implicit, primordial connection to, and our openness that creates a genuine connection with, the other. A hermeneutic experience, like a moral relation with a human Thou, requires openness to hearing their claim so as to enter into a deeper, more genuine belongingness with them. The activity of inviting the other to speak to us and offering our promise to listen that takes place in true dialogue enacts our belonging. When Gadamer, commenting on the nature of historically effected consciousness, insisted that there is another option between blind assimilation and a naïve rejection of difference (Gadamer 1992b,  361–362), he was echoing Buber’s insistence that the dilemma between a complete and passive belonging to and a total separation from the other is a false one. All genuine relations with a Thou contain moments of both “strangeness and familiarity” (295). Our relation with a Thou is dialectical and cannot be frozen at one point in time. And this point leads us to Gadamer’s account of truth in textual understanding, which, as the next chapter will detail, will prove crucial for understanding the ultimate aim of interpersonal dialogue. As we learned in the previous chapter, to share a bond with the other is not to be identical to it. In the same way, our belongingness to tradition is what allows us to be open to new experiences that change us.

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Understanding and the Existential Claim to Truth Gadamer insists that understanding is fundamentally dialogical, and if, according to his hermeneutics, all understanding requires a claim of truth, then it seems that we must conclude that according to Gadamer, all dialogue must entail a claim to truth. But what does this mean? Are there different types of truth claims? In other words, how does what Gadamer writes about textual understanding prove relevant for helping us understand interpersonal dialogue? Specifically, if textual understanding aims at die Sache, where does die Sache come into play in interpersonal dialogue? I have pointed out that Gadamer is explicit about the fact that his account is not addressing intersubjective understanding but understanding the subject matter of a text. I want to argue that just as Gadamer borrowed from Buber’s account of interpersonal dialogue to develop his theory of understanding texts, so we can develop Gadamer’s hermeneutics to help us clarify what is at stake in interpersonal dialogue. At the end of the second part of Truth and Method, Gadamer offers this description of the goal of understanding: in a successful conversation they both come under the influence of the truth of the object and are thus bound to one another in a new community. To reach an understanding in a dialogue is not merely a matter of putting oneself forward and successfully asserting one’s own point of view, but being transformed into a communion in which we do not remain what we were. (379)

What does this “communion” have to do with die Sache? To encounter truth means opening oneself to the claim of the other/text in such a way that one is drawn out of one’s prior horizon to a third perspective. Gadamer describes this encounter as a “communion,” a joining, a connection, a new way of relating to the other that transcends one’s previous position or horizon. Again, the aim is not to see just what the other sees or to see the exact same thing: understanding goes beyond empathy. Obviously, one can be changed in a variety of ways from an encounter with another. The change that Gadamer maintains is indicative of truth, however, is the shift into a new horizon, which he describes as a new communion forged with the other. Earlier we saw Gadamer’s emphasis on the importance of connecting with the other in terms of forming a “higher universality.” I want to draw attention to the similarity between Gadamer’s

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language of “higher universality” and Buber’s emphasis on the common humanity that we share with the other. Interpreting Gadamer through the lens of Buber’s existential emphasis allows us to understand die Sache of an interpersonal dialogue as the existential truth claim made by the Thou. A genuine dialogue between individuals requires, in Buber’s terms, an existential awareness of the other’s claim as a Thou. Extending Gadamer’s account, we could say that taking up the other’s claim to truth entails acknowledging that the other is making a genuine claim on one, thus requiring one to change. It is in one’s openness to be confronted by “the experience of human finitude” (357) that exposes one to the pathos, the suffering, required by all genuine understanding and that bears the mark of truth. Being open is the ability to take up the other’s claim as a question posed to oneself and invites, indeed requires, one to experience change. It is not simply a giving and taking of reasons, which, although it might result in some change of beliefs, occurs only between two Its and does not yield a change into a communion of two Thous. What is essential for promoting the movement to a new fusion of horizons is the capacity to acknowledge the existential claim of humanity that another person bids us respond to. As Buber’s existential emphasis has revealed, to regard another as a human does not merely mean defining them as a member of the species Homo sapiens. What Gadamer takes as central to the nature of dialogue is its ability to create a vital connection via a new, common horizon. To regard the other as human is to move into the awareness of our genuine belonging to each other, acknowledging the other as a Thou. Indeed, it was Gadamer’s hope that dialogue could be the path to a recovered human solidarity that would put human existence on a less dubious path marked by: “the reawakening consciousness of solidarity of a humanity that slowly begins to know itself as humanity, for this means knowing that it belongs together for better or for worse” (Gadamer 1992a, 86). Against those who maintain that Gadamer’s hermeneutics implies an assimilation, or subordination, of the other into us, we must reiterate that, as Buber’s thought reveals, one cannot “belong” to what is identical to one. Understanding does not entail a transformation of the other’s horizon into our own. In order to belong together, to maintain a communion, difference and differentiation must remain. If all beings are one, there is no communion. Furthermore, horizons are always moving, understanding never ceases, the dialogue is ongoing, thus disallowing any totalizing stasis. It is the mark of the ideologue or totalitarian to proclaim that the time for questions is over.

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Gadamer’s emphasis on dialogue as an active path toward creating commonality is similar to the work of dialogue theorist David Bohm who, in thinking about what constitutes a good dialogue, noted how the Latin roots of the word communication (commun + fie) render its meaning “to make or do something in common” (Bohm 2008, 2). The emphasis on the active nature of making and doing together is central to Bohm’s conception of dialogue, which he defines as a form of communication in which participants create something in common. Bohm, like Gadamer, rejects the idea that dialogue is a form of persuasion in which one side offers propositions in the effort to convince the other of the veracity of their belief so that at the end of the exchange each side holds the “true” belief in common, with one person having “won” and the other “lost.” In this form of persuasion, “commonality-as-sameness” is achieved when one person takes the perspective of the other; thus even though they both end up sharing the same perspective, no new perspective is created. Bohm insists that “in a dialogue, each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together” (3). The creative potential in Gadamer’s concept of fusion of horizons is captured by Bohm’s point that the aim of dialogue is not to force or persuade the other to take on one’s own perspective, but to allow a “flow of meaning in the whole group, out of which may emerge some new understanding. It’s something new, which may not have been in the starting point at all” (7). Bohm qualifies what is necessary for this to happen: “such communication can lead to the creation of something new only if people are able freely to listen to each other…without trying to influence each other. Each has to be interested primarily in truth…, so that he is ready to drop his old ideas and intentions, and be ready to go on to something different” (3). Let me close this chapter with a rather cryptic statement by Gadamer that gains clarity when read through Buber’s existential lens: “The genuine result of experience, then—as of all desire to know—is to know what is. But ‘what is’ here, is not this or that thing, but ‘what cannot be destroyed’ (Ranke)” (Gadamer 1992b, 357). What is it that cannot be destroyed and why does Gadamer equate this with “what is”? As we learned in the previous chapter, for Buber the “reality” that is accessed is the “reality” of our connection with others, of our shared community and solidarity as humans, that is, as Thous. Through dialogue a bond is created that allows us to recognize the other as a human person, a Thou, someone

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for whom our new awareness entails openness. It is this connection that all humans long for and that cannot be destroyed. In the next chapter, I turn to the work of practitioners to clarify precisely how the practice of interpersonal dialogue aims at just this: namely, at revealing the underlying and fundamental humanity that we hold in common.

Bibliography Adler, Jonathan. 2004. Reconciling Open-Mindedness and Belief. Theory and Research in Education 2 (2): 127–142. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 1477878504043440. Barthold, Lauren Swayne. 2010. Gadamer’s Dialectical Hermeneutics. Lanham, MD: Rowman Littlefield. Bohm, David. 2008. On Dialogue. New York: Routledge. Buber, Martin. 1965. Knowledge of Man, edited with an introduction by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Row. Dilthey, Wilhelm. 1989. In Selected Works, Vol. 1, Introduction to the Human Sciences, ed. Rudolf Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Fox, Marvin. 1967. Some Problems in Buber’s Moral Philosophy. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. Friedman, Maurice. 1967. The Bases of Buber’s Ethics. In The Philosophy of Martin Buber, ed. Schilpp and Maurice Friedman. Illinois: Open Court. ———. 1988. Martin Buber’s Life and Work. Vol. 2. Michigan: Wayne State University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1992a. Reason in the Age of Science, trans. Frederick G. Lawrence. Cambridge: MIT Press. ———. 1992b. Truth and Method. Second Revised Edition, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad. Gjesdal, Kirsten. 2009. Gadamer and the Legacy of German Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hirsch, E.D. 1967. Validity in Interpretation. New Haven: Yale University Press. Honneth, Axel. 2003. On the Destructive Power of the Third: Gadamer and Heidegger’s Doctrine of Intersubjectivity. Philosophy and Social Criticism 29 (1): 5–21. Kögler, Hans-Herbert. 1999. The Power of Dialogue. Cambridge, MA: MIT. ———. 2014a. The Crisis of a Hermeneutic Ethic. Philosophy Today 58 (1): 9–22. ———. 2014b. Ethics and Community. In The Routledge Companion to Philosophical Hermeneutics, ed. Jeff Malpas and Hans-Helmut Gander. New York: Routledge. ———. 2014c. Dialogue and Community. Journal of the Philosophy of History 8 (3): 380–406.

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Rasmussen, David. 2002. Hermeneutics and Public Deliberation. Philosophy and Social Criticism 28 (5): 504–511. Risser, James. 1997. Hermeneutics and the Voice of the Other: Rereading Gadamer’s Philosophical Hermeneutics. Albany, NY: SUNY Press. Schleiermacher, Friedrich. 1977. Hermeneutics: The Handwritten Manuscripts. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Silberstein, Laurence J. 1989. Martin Buber’s Social and Religious Thought. New York: NYU Press. Stueber, Karsten. 2006. Rediscovering Empathy. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2012. Understanding Versus Explanation: How to Think about the Distinction between the Human and Natural Sciences. Inquiry 5 (1): 17–32. ———. 2018. Empathy, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring), Edward N.  Zalta (ed.), URL =https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/ entries/empathy/. Vallega-Neu, Danielle. 2010. Ereignis: The Event of Appropriation. In Martin Heidegger: Key Concepts, ed. B.W. Davis. Durham: Acumen. Walhof, Darren. 2017. The Democratic Theory of Hans-Georg Gadamer. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Warnke, Georgia. 2014. Experiencing Tradition versus Belonging to It. The Review of Metaphysics 68 (2): 347–369. 

CHAPTER 4

Defining Dialogue

Introduction Having looked at why dialogue proves essential to human experience, I now want to consider an operational definition. What exactly are the concrete components of a dialogue that, in line with dialogic philosophies of Buber and Gadamer, help us encounter the other in such a way that can move civic discourse from polarization to understanding? Before answering this question, I first want to briefly distinguish what I am calling “dialogue” from the sort of political debate, deliberation, and argumentation that is often assumed to be the go-to form of discourse in the public square, for example in candidate debates, town hall meetings, community expert panels, and deliberation-based issue forums. Let me clarify some general characterizations of what I will loosely refer to as debate and deliberation.1 Political debate and deliberation, according to their folk definition (as opposed to how deliberative democrats conceive of the term), tend to utilize rational arguments to persuade the other, cull factbased evidence from experts in the field, invite participants to weigh benefits and trade-offs of specific options, and aim (either immediately or eventually) at policy consensus. Dialogue, on the other hand, utilizes 1  My use of “deliberation” here is meant to reference its folk usage, as opposed to a scholarly definition. I use “debate and deliberation” to refer to the ways that most citizens—as opposed to political and deliberative theorists—understand the term: namely, people coming together to debate, argue, and deliberate over which policy options are the best. For further qualification about my use of these terms, see Chap. 1, notes 9 and 11.

© The Author(s) 2020 L. S. Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6_4

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narratives based in first-person experience, encourages genuine questions of curiosity to promote deeper reflection and expose gray areas, and aims at mutual understanding. Diana Eck, who developed the Pluralism Project at Harvard, explains the essence of dialogue this way: “Dialogue is the process of connection…. Dialogue is premised not on unanimity, but on difference. Dialogue does not aim at consensus, but understanding. Dialogue does not create agreements, but it creates relationships” (Eck 2005, 28). I will distill the differences between dialogue and forms of discourse like debate and deliberation into four main themes. First, the emphasis in dialogue is on listening and asking genuine questions rather than on asserting propositions aimed to persuade the other of the correctness of one’s own views. Second, dialogue does not rely on rational justifications and reasons that all can accept but draws on first-person perspectives and narratives. Third, rather than focusing on evaluating policy options or utilizing persuasion to obtain consensus on policy, dialogue invites an openness to explore the tacit tensions and overlooked uncertainties that expose the gray, in-between areas of particular positions and policy. Fourth, it uncovers deeply held values, and personal hopes and fears, of both oneself and the other, that ultimately serve both to reveal and foster an underlying common humanity. Even though dialogue is not debate, deliberation, mediation, or problem solving, its political relevance lies in its capacity to function as “a prelude” to these more typical political forms of discourse (Herzig and Chasin 2006, 3). Dialogue that aims at fostering connections with the other can lead to “reducing the likelihood of gridlock in the halls of Congress, hatred in the arena of public opinion, and potentially dangerous misrepresentations in our sound-bite saturated media” (1). In other words, dialogue can be a first step toward improving civic discourse and bringing about social change, and it is these dimensions that I want to exploit. Thus while social action, policy agreement, and immediate consensus are not explicitly tied to the goal of dialogue (138), dialogue can be utilized as a precursor to or preparation for both political argumentation aimed at consensus and various forms of activism. As some practitioners maintain: “Our broadest goal is to enrich public conversations, that is, to improve the way that the public discusses and deliberates divisive controversy” (Chasin et al. 1996, 327). If the understanding wrought by dialogue can be demonstrated to be a means to avoid further or potential violence, harm, and oppression by creating a better connection among the dialogic

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partners, then it is not unwarranted to defend dialogue as an important political tool for promoting a more flourishing democratic community and robust deliberative process. As communication theorists Gergen, McNamee, and Barrett maintain: “dialogue may be our best option for treating contentious realities” (Gergen et  al. 2001, 698). And dialogue practitioner Linda Ellinor clarifies: Dialogue is not a go-to plan for solving political problems, but it CAN help develop the understanding that can lead to break-through solutions to problems. When people get stuck or polarized around political issues, one thing that can help is the dialogic process of removing the need to make a specific decision which then allows them to actually listen and hear each other and to possibly be changed by the process. (Ellinor 2017)2

Why do theorists and practitioners alike find power in dialogue to address contentious communication patterns?3

Definitions of Dialogue: Insights from Practitioners I begin with a discussion of an approach to dialogue developed by Essential Partners (EP), one of the oldest and most renowned organizations devoted both to facilitating dialogues in situations of conflict and to training facilitators.4 Their approach, called “Reflective Structured Dialogue” (RSD), is spelled out in a comprehensive training manual, has a long history of success, and is one of the approaches that is most focused on conflicted dialogue across difference, making it highly relevant for civic discourse plagued by polarization. Along the way, I will also incorporate perspectives and practices of other approaches and clarify how Buber and Gadamer both deepen and challenge dialogue’s efficacy. I am not attempting to provide a comprehensive account of all dialogic approaches currently on 2  See Ellinor and Girrard (1998) for more details on a slightly different approach to dialogue, one based on the writings of physicist-turned-dialogician David Bohm. 3  See Walsh (2007) for research into the efficacy of civic dialogue and a comparison with deliberation. 4  http://www.whatisessential.org (formerly Public Conversations Project). Essential Partners has advised numerous contemporary organizations whose work borrows heavily from the theory and practice of Reflective Structured Dialogue to bridge divided communities: Ben Franklin Circles, Better Angels, Colossian Forum, Heterodox Academy, Living Room Conversations, Open Mind Platform, Story Corps, and the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion.

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offer but am culling significant practices from some of the most longstanding, commonly utilized, and successful approaches in order to clarify what an operationalized account of dialogue looks like in line with the theoretical underpinnings of dialogue spelled out in the previous chapters.5 If dialogue differs from other forms of political argumentation in so far as its goal is neither consensus nor agreement, what is the aim of dialogue? EP’s training manual, Fostering Dialogue Across Divides: A Nuts and Bolts Guide from the Public Conversations Project, specifies various goals: “reduce stereotyping and increase mutual understanding,” “change the way” people with differing positions “view and relate to each other,” and “discover shared values and concerns which may lead to collaborative actions” (Herzig and Chasin 2006, 1). The manual also speaks of “bridge building,” “promoting healing,” “developing more trusting relationships,” and “gaining fresh perspectives on the costs of the conflict and begin[ing] to see new possibilities for interaction and action” as outcomes of dialogue (3). It opens with a very general definition of dialogue as “a conversation in which people who have different beliefs and perspectives seek to develop mutual understanding” (3).6 Drawing on Chaps. 2 and 3, part three of this chapter will be devoted to a theoretical analysis of the goal of dialogue. But first I want to spell out the history and practice of RSD in more detail. Developed in the 1970s with its theoretical origins in family systems theory, RSD seeks to mitigate conflict so that new patterns of interaction may occur. It was originally aimed to help repair “relationships characterized by distrust, animosity, stereotyping, and polarization”(3). Just as couples entering into marriage therapy desire to experience a change in the way each partner relates to and interacts with the other (as opposed to winning an argument), so dialogue participants enter into dialogue with the hope that rigid patterns of conflicted behavior will change so as 5  Two other dialogic approaches I have studied and received training in are: Bohmian dialogue (Bohm; Bohm, Factor, and Garrett) and Intergroup Dialogue (based at the University of Michigan, https://igr.umich.edu/article/national-intergroup-dialogue-institute). I have witnessed first-hand many strengths of these approaches but I do not see them as widely applicable as RSD for the public square. Furthermore, there are more models of dialogue than those listed here and so an adequate critical and comparative analysis of various forms of dialogue will have to be borne out in future research. See http://ncdd.org for a list of the many organizations in the United States doing dialogue and the variety of approaches used. 6  See also Appendices C-1, “What we mean by dialogue,” and C-2, “Distinguishing Debate from Dialogue” (Herzig and Chasin 2006).

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to promote less hostile and more productive forms of communication. RSD aims at changing patterns of behavior that incite violence, hostility, poor communication, and malfunctioning communities. Dialogue is not an end in itself but is directed at creating peaceful exchanges and communities and so can serve as a means to more harmonious and efficient government, institutions, and relationships (4). Additionally, by achieving its aim of “mutual understanding,” dialogue functions as a preventative measure against “deeper divisions or even violence” (4). Its first instantiation was with three leaders from each side of the abortion controversy who were disturbed after abortion providers were shot in the Boston area in the mid-1970s. Their meetings, held in secret so as to not rankle members of each side of the movement who might have perceived this as compromising their respective values, did not aim to create agreement between the two sides but to foster a deep and mutual understanding of the other side as human. One could observe that the fact that both sides were willing to come together to find ways to stop the violence already revealed a belonging, due to a fundamental shared value: murder is wrong. Of course, the sharing of this fundamental, because general, value is not enough to make difference, indeed tension, disappear. In fact, the controversy itself arises over differing interpretations of which deeds count as murder. I will argue that what dialogue does is to expand the scope of the focus from a narrow one on the seemingly intractable differences to a broader one that emphasizes the shared underlying values. Through the dialogue process, the particular social identities, although very real and necessary for human existence, are able to co-exist with, because ultimately derivative of, our shared human identity. How does dialogue move us to this experience without a facile dismissal of difference? EP Co-Executive Director and Director of Program Development John Sarrouf maintains that dialogue is a practice that helps rigid, contentious positions get “unstuck.”7 As EP’s literature describes it: “An [EP]style dialogue aims to interrupt or prevent costly conflict-sustaining interactions and encourage new, more fruitful ways of talking and relating” (5). It does this not by directly targeting isolated beliefs with arguments. The aim is not to “correct” the other side’s propositional beliefs but to end patterns of conflicted interactions by discovering shared values 7  Initiative on Campus Dialogue, Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, 30 November 2016. I am indebted to John for helping me think through much of this section.

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and commitments, thus deepening understanding of oneself and the other. As psychotherapy attests, change of behavior can occur without targeting specific “false” beliefs that need to be changed. While a wife who considers her husband selfish will likely remain unpersuaded by all the explicit reasons he marshals for why he is not selfish, this does not mean that their relationship cannot be improved by replacing polarizing argumentation with a more trusting communication style. Similarly, just because this approach to dialogue does not aim to change positions through an exchange of arguments does not mean that participants’ perspectives of the other cannot change. The change that is sought is not epistemic but attitudinal and behavioral in terms of how the two sides directly perceive and relate to each other, which requires no argument about explicit beliefs or consensus on a specific issue. Change of perspective is achieved through a facilitated process designed to support curious listening and question asking in order to re-write the stories that have perpetuated the conflict. Part of the power of coming together in this way is that each side lets go of trying to get the other side to hold a new set of beliefs about them, and, by listening to the other side, each side becomes active in re-formulating the stories they tell about the other. Because the structure of the dialogue invites self-reflection, a winner-takes-all mentality is prevented and both sides are encouraged to come together, listen, reflect, and reconceptualize—in the words of Gadamer: to enact belonging. What sort of “structure” and “reflection” serve this dialogue by reducing pernicious stereotyping? EP has designed a dialogue that requires: advance preparation to understand the history of, and the players caught up in, the polarized conflict; the crafting of specific dialogue questions ahead of time; a trained facilitator; communication agreements; silent periods for reflection; timed go-arounds to answer questions; an open question and discussion period; and a debriefing experience. The advance preparation involves speaking with some of the dialogue participants prior to the dialogue in order to allow the facilitators to grasp the nature of the conflict and the particular concerns of those involved.8 Questions are then created that minimize triggering terms for both sides, and that invite 8  Sometimes advanced preparation involves lengthy interviews with each participant or key players/leaders in an organization. This pre-dialogue interview is utilized in private settings like corporations, organizations, and churches and where the dialogue is by invitation only. When the dialogue is held in an open-invitation community setting and one does not know who will attend, prior interviews would be impossible and advance preparation focuses on question design in collaboration with organizing community members.

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open-ended responses as opposed to questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Questions are formulated in a way that helps participants move beyond standard polarizations of good versus bad, left versus right, liberal versus conservative, us versus them, and so on, by revealing tensions and gray areas in their own thinking and points of overlap with others. Opening questions are usually specifically aimed at inviting participants to share first-person narratives about personal experiences that will help others in the group understand why they value and care about what they do. Participants are asked to speak as an individual, using “I” language as opposed to “we” or “they,” staying away from arguing and persuading as well as generalizing about the other. As the dialogue proceeds, questions are posed such as “What areas of your own position do you have questions about?” or “What grey areas about the subject remain for you?” that help affirm the complexity of the issue and derail tendencies to think in terms of all-good versus all-bad. In terms of the actual setup of the dialogue, small groups of between 6 and 12 individuals are established, and they can either be facilitated from up front or have a facilitator within each group. Facilitators function, to recall the language of Arendt, like a midwife: they allow the dialogue to unfold naturally in a space established by clear agreements and order. They understand the agreements and structure to serve the appearance of each participant’s doxa, and to that extent ensure the structures remain flexible and open to change. The first part of the dialogue is to go over and obtain agreement on communication guidelines. These agreements are ideally drawn up by the group itself, and there are exercises to help the group do so. However, where time may be limited, a standard set of agreements can be drawn up in advance and presented to the group, who are then asked if they can abide by them.9 Communication agreements should primarily be actions 9  Here is a one example of Communication Agreements: In order to have a constructive conversation where people speak thoughtfully and listen respectfully, we will:

• Speak for ourselves and from our own point of view and experiences, using “I” (not “we” or “they”); • Listen to understand and speak to be understood—not to persuade others; • Speak one at a time and not interrupt; • Share air time and make sure everyone’s had a chance to speak once before speaking a second time; • Listen with curiosity and resilience; • Feel free to “pass”/“pass for now” if we are not ready or do not wish to respond;

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that can be observed so that interpretations that could feed into powerplays are minimized. For example, simply calling for “respectful” or “civil” dialogue could be a ruse to silence those who need to be disrespectful or “uncivil” to even get their voices heard. As I argue below, making agreements explicit, as well as providing a clear agenda—in other words making expectations and norms as transparent as possible—is one way to counter power imbalances (Delpit 1988). The dialogue then begins with a series of timed go-arounds where individuals are given a minute or two to reflect silently on an answer to the question posed, and to jot down thoughts if needed. After the silent reflection period, individuals take turns going around and sharing their answers. Answers are timed, “passing” (or “passing-for-now”) is always an option, it is important that no-one is ever forced to speak, and no back and forth talking to or questioning of each other at this point is permitted. After an initial introductory question followed by one or two more substantive questions are asked and answered in this manner, participants are then given a couple of minutes of silence to reflect on what they have heard and to write down questions of curiosity that they would like to pose to others. There then follows a period of roughly 15–45 minutes of open-ended questioning and back and forth dialogue. Finally, participants are asked to consider and share (orally in their small groups, in the large group as a whole, or by writing on a Post-it note to be placed where all can read) a take-away point—with the focus on something that shifted for them personally. The use of a timed structure with limits on speaking and significant pauses for silent reflection helps diminish reactive, heated responses and helps foster the ability to pause calmly and really listen. It is a way to prevent the triggering of our fight, flight, freeze, or flee reaction that occurs in situations of threat. Such a structure also ensures equal time is allotted to each participant. Allowing everyone to have an equal chance to speak in the initial go-arounds makes it more likely that the interactive dialogue time will not be dominated by only a couple of voices. It is a way to normalize everyone sharing the space equally. Making the agreements explicit and visible throughout is also a way to ensure that any participant—not just the facilitators—can intervene when necessary to remind participants • Respect confidentiality: what’s said in this space stays in this space.

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of their agreements. Finally, the agreements also remind participants to ask genuine, as opposed to leading, questions. Genuine questions aid in furthering the participant’s own understanding, by eliciting clarification and expansion of stories already shared. The communication agreements help guide participants in active listening, sharing the space, not interrupting, and asking curious questions rather than leading or defensive questions aimed to persuade the other. At this point I would like to pause to consider the benefits versus drawbacks of such a highly organized structure. Some might object, as Michael Walzer has, that it is preferable to avoid such a cumbersome artifice and instead promote “the indeterminacy of natural conversation” free from an artificially designed argumentative procedure (Walzer 1991, 187). In his criticism directed primarily at deliberative structures aimed at consensus in the public square, although Walzer extols Gadamer’s emphasis on having each dialogic partner be open to being challenged and hearing what goes against them, he goes on to fault Gadamer for advancing a form of discourse that sounds too much like a highly idealized form of deliberation, one that requires too perfect a will and makes no guarantees that individuals will even want to talk with the other (191).10 These concerns lead Walzer ultimately to reject not only standard deliberation but also Gadamer’s modified version. In their stead he defends a design-free model, what he refers to as “real talk.” Walzer defines “real talk” as: (1) unpredictable, (2) inconclusive and ongoing, (3) subject to testing and judgment, and (4) marked as much by speaking as listening and questioning. There is a fluidity of roles that defies all authority as well as a fluidity of meaning that ensures the conversation is ongoing and critical. Real talk is not constrained by elements of design that are “formal and substantive,” for these must “be worked out (and are worked out) independently of any ideal procedure” (194). Real talk is what is needed to provide the elements of design for a more idealized or hypothetical conversation. Real speech helps us better understand what free speech is and is “always inconclusive; it has no authoritative moments” (194). He maintains that the equal and egalitarian nature of political speech relies on reasons that lie outside of the ideal speech situation itself. Real talk itself, though, is without design, “unstable and restless,” ongoing, and where the basis of agreements for idealized conversations both arises and is critiqued. He helpfully 10  This criticism echoes the one made by Derrida, who, in his obituary for Gadamer, admitted his criticism was overreaching (Bernstein 2008).

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reminds us of the difference between a circular game (referencing Emerson’s definition of conversation)—which is more akin to real conversation—and a linear argument—which he equates with deliberation. He argues that if deliberation is ever going to get off the ground there must already be a fair amount agreed on (192–3), which can only be established by “real talk.” Any effort by theorists to articulate agreements in advance will artificially inscribe the very assumptions they are working to thwart. Are his criticisms relevant for the structured approach to dialogue defended here? First, must it be the case that all discursive structures thwart the ongoing nature of dialogue, as he maintains? Why think that although following a structure will assume some degree of common agreement from the outset, this structure itself cannot prove porous, flexible, and ongoing enough to allow not only real difference to emerge but also feedback that integrates itself into the structure, which can then be changed to better serve the ends of those engaged in the actual conversation? Dialogue does not work from the assumption that consensus is necessary much less possible. Additionally, in particularly protracted tensions, participants often opt for multiple, regular dialogue sessions, meaning that dialogue does not have to have a specific ending point determined in advance. In fact, the first instantiation of RSD was held over a time-frame of six years. Dialogue practitioners insist that agreements are most lasting and stable when there is a means for dialogue to continue. Describing the ongoing nature of public dialogue, one dialogue practitioner insists: “Dialogue is meant to be an ongoing process so that it keeps us adapting to current conditions” (Ellinor 2018), and I would add that this applies to the communication agreements as well. Where there is time, it is usually the group itself that comes up with communication agreements, and a good facilitator will be open to input to changes through the dialogue. Dialogue’s goal of “mutual understanding” is achieved in so far as it creates stronger communities with the capacity to speak with one another; dialogue’s goal is not the passing of a bill. And since agreement is not a necessary feature of understanding, there will always be a need to keep on talking. As we shall see below, engaging in the right sort of structure can be what allows conversation to keep going, providing citizens the chance to regularly engage in dialogue as one way to prevent the erosion of democracy. In this way, dialogue is more like the activity of physical exercise rather than any specific fitness goal. We exercise to achieve health and fitness, but once we reach our fitness goal we do not just stop exercising. “Diets” that

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are undertaken for a short time only, as a quick and easy fix, will not produce lasting change. The healthiest democracies, like the healthiest people who maintain a healthy diet for life, find ways to continue to engage in dialogue and to continue to evaluate what is working well and what is not. When done well and regularly, most even come to enjoy it and acknowledge its benefits. There is no assumption that citizens must cease talking with one another once they have voted or signed a bill. Second, while Walzer is correct to want to attend to hidden assumptions smuggled into the allegedly neutral structure, he is wrong to assume that there is any such entity as a norm-less, structure-less conversation— no matter how informal the conversation may seem; all conversations have implicit or explicit norms that structure their shape. Formalizing agreements—which can be done in a way that allows the group to offer feedback designed to make changes to those agreements if necessary—is a way to make norms explicit, thus decreasing the likelihood of oppressive norms being utilized. Think of an informal playground conversation whose implicit norms of coolness, social hierarchy, power dynamics, and so on function to exclude many non-conforming voices. Indeed, many “natural” conversations are subject to any number of identity-based power plays that normalize the silencing of the minoritized. By contrast, the model of dialogue presented here is explicit about a formal design that refuses to privilege agreement, equalizes authority, invites critical reflection on the status quo and deeply held values, and encourages genuine and pluralistic views. In this way, if a participant notes a structural component that is discriminatory or oppressive, it can be addressed. It is not too far-fetched to bring people with very different views together—in fact, many facilitators are hired to do just that. When people come together they need clear guidelines not in order to achieve an agreement but to help promote trustful, listening encounters that move the dial closer toward mutual understanding. In what follows, I will focus on four specific benefits resulting from the use of these particular dialogue structures, namely, that they allow dialogue participants to be able to: (1) listen to the other with genuine curiosity, openness, patience, and without interrupting in order to minimize defensive, hostile, and polarizing speech; (2) speak descriptively and from one’s own particular perspective (in the first person) and refrain from generalizations about and prescriptions for others so as to diminish stereotypes that feed polarization; (3) reflect on their own assumptions and beliefs so as to encounter the complexities of the issue at hand and move

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away from simplistic, Manichean dualisms; and (4) commit to abiding by agreements established by the group itself in order to minimize oppressive expressions of power.11 1) In order to be able to listen to and be curious about the other, one must not be in a heightened state of arousal produced by threat or fear—as is usually the case when we are fighting with someone. Research shows the importance of “regulat[ing] our negative emotions of anger, fear, and distress because they are the gatekeepers of communicative effectiveness” (Lindner 2014, 301). As Joseph LeDoux has demonstrated (2012), our emotions serve an evolutionary purpose to alert us to danger.12 The amygdala reacts and fear results from the processing of adrenergic neurons. This is an unconscious and automatic reaction in which “our brain begins to unconsciously prepare our decision several seconds before they reach our awareness” (Lindner 288). Given the automatic nature of heightened reactivity, we usually cannot just talk ourselves down from a defensive and agitated state. Furthermore, research shows that the operation of mirror neurons means that the feelings we perceive in others will manifest themselves in us. One’s own anger and hostility can both breed and feed off of 11  These four components are drawn from both Sarrouf and the EP training manual. Sarrouf articulates the four components of dialogue that contribute to achieving mutual understanding: (1) listen to and be listened to with care, (2) speak and be spoken to in a respectful manner, (3) learn about perspectives of others, (4) reflect on one’s own views (presentation, Initiatives on Campus Dialogue, Humanities Institute, University of Connecticut, 30 November 2016). Appendix C-1 of Essential Partners’ training manual lists these four plus one more, “share airtime so that all speakers can be heard.” Since this seems to be entailed by the first two, I will not include it. Buber also briefly lays out some practical requirements for dialogue to occur: not everyone need speak but all must be willing to participate actively and to not withdraw; no planning in advance how the dialogue will unfold, although it does have a basic order but it cannot be determined in advance; and all participants must be “capable of satisfying the presuppositions of genuine dialogue and are ready to do so” (1965b, 87). 12  LeDoux (2012) challenges the simplicity of the way in which the limbic system has been assumed to be devoid of cognitive powers and given solely to “emotions.” He also wants to distinguish between emotions as “non-conscious brain states that connect significant stimuli with response mechanisms” and feelings as “conscious experiences arising from these nonconscious brain states” (LeDoux 2015, 97). He explains: “Amygdala activation thus does not tell us that fear is felt in a human, and certainly does not alert us to fearful feelings in animals. Confusion results because fearful feelings are often correlated with these amygdaladependent responses. But correlation does not mean causation; we cannot generalize from stimulus-response mechanisms, which occur widely in animal life, to conscious feelings of fear” (LeDoux 2015, 99).

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anger and hostility in the other. In order to attain a connection and avoid further contention, we need structures and strategies—as opposed to just willpower or rational argumentation—that promote this. “What negative emotions are to threat, positive emotions are to opportunity. Positive affects and emotions promote intuitive-holistic (right hemisphere) mental strategies, while negative affects and emotions further analytic-serial (left-­ hemisphere) mental strategies” (Lindner, 302).13 Dialogue practitioner Robert Stains observes how these features play out in a dialogue situation: people who have been triggered into the fight/flight/freeze state by what someone has said tend to scan more vigilantly for signs of threat and respond reactively with defense or attack. This serves as a trigger for an opponent, who reacts in kind, setting off exchanges that replace any hope of connection with expectations of enmity that then filters perception and alters expression in downward-spiraling, self-perpetuating cycles. (Stains 2012, 35)

When a dialogue gets polarized, all our worst communicative tendencies are elicited. We are less able to access either the ventromedial frontal cortex or the orbital frontal cortex that help us regulate our emotions and make better decisions (Lindner, 286). As a result, we become more defensive, cling tighter to our generalizations and stereotypes about the other, and remain in a competitive-fight-to-the-death rather than an open and cooperative state. Stains goes on to describe how, based on his own experience in addition to the research of Dimaggio et al. (2008), the dialogic structures designed to promote self-reflection in fact help us “come to understand others more easily” (Stains 2012, 41). And that “on a number of levels, self-reflection enhances the possibility that dialogue in the midst of conflict can be a meaningful, connecting, constructive, and even transformative experience for participants” (41). 2) Research by experts in political theory and the conflict resolution field help explain the success of a facilitated dialogic approach that privileges first-person experience rather than focusing on stereotypical descriptions embedded in third-person accounts. For example, the importance of a well-structured, facilitated dialogue centered around narrative has been studied by David Ryfe. Ryfe has studied the effect of narrative in deliberations and has found that they can in fact serve as a productive way to 13  We do not have to buy into the oversimplified descriptions of completely bifurcated left versus right brain in order to appreciate the practical point being made here.

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initiate difficult discussions among those who do not already know each other. He describes how when jumping right in with argument and defenses of one’s own position is unlikely to bring people together, stories can provide a way in: it is not at all clear how individuals who barely know one another are supposed to manage their ‘public face’ in a context that seems to threaten it at every turn. Nor is it clear how participants are supposed to talk intelligently about complex public issues of which they know very little. I argue that individuals tell stories to help them overcome such barriers to deliberation. (2006, 73–74)

While Ryfe’s research focuses on deliberation rather than dialogue per se, his findings support a non-argumentative, non-consensus-directed style of discourse that can then motivate people to want to deliberate. He sees the sharing of first-person stories as functioning to help participants connect not only more meaningfully to the issues but also with others in a non-confrontational way: “I merely wish to argue that, for better or worse, storytelling is sometimes crucial for the instigation of deliberation. Without appeal to narrative, participants might simply be unwilling to enter into a deliberative encounter” (78). Motivating people to even talk with one another by fostering trusting interactions that allow true listening and speaking to occur is one of the benefits demonstrated in the use of narrative (80). He cites other research that demonstrates how the sharing of first-­ person narratives can diminish the fraughtness and fear that sometimes occur in polarized public discussions and instead promotes a trusting and civil encounter: research has shown that claims seem more valid the more individuals appear to be sincere, trustworthy, and friendly (cf. Eder, 1988; Georgakopoulu, 2001; Grimshaw, 1990; Muntigl & Turnbull, 1998; Schiffrin, 1990; Xu, 2000)….The disclosure of personal information helps this participant overcome the problem of establishing the sincerity and truthfulness of her claims. Stories also help participants instill civility and friendliness in their conversation. Prior research (cf. Brown & Levinson, 1987; Mulkay, 1985; Pomerantz, 1984; Schiffrin, 1990; Sheldon, 1992) shows that these issues can be quite important for the success of natural conversations. (78, 79)

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Of course, it matters what sort of stories are told—even when they come from a first-person perspective. Sometimes one person’s “truth” can prove quite offensive and triggering to another. For that reason, it is important that facilitators spend sufficient time understanding the nature and history of the polarization so that the most effective questions and topics can be posed to invite mutual understanding as opposed to exacerbating the conflict. Here the work of philosopher and dialogue practitioner Bart Brandsma is insightful. He describes the importance of thoughtful preparation that is part of the dialogue process: After the terrorists attacks in Paris and Brussels, coming so soon after each other, the polarization of Muslim versus non-Muslim was very intense. At the time a dialogue about identity would not have been appropriate. Rather, the discussion should have been about the conflict taking place in our society. What does a Muslim experience? What is upsetting? What makes an impact? …What fields of tension must a Muslim navigate? These are suitable questions for the non-Muslim too. What are the problems, what is upsetting, what makes an impact? What are the certainties and uncertainties and what creates a field of tension? It should not be a discussion or exchange of knowledge about identities (fuel). The important thing here is the personal narrative. (Brandsma 2017, 77)

What saves the dialogic focus on personal experience from turning into a triggering episode in which one person’s “truth” serves only to reinforce various oppressions is the commitment to assessing the situation in advance. Thus while personal narrative indeed remains central to the dialogue process, establishing a well-thought-out structure in advance is also necessary to ensure the most productive dialogue. 3) Third, questions must be crafted that replace simplistic us-versus-­ them dualisms with a deeper understanding of the complexities of the issue. Peter T.  Coleman has found that lower-complexity patterns of thought are present in what he terms “destructive” conversations and higher-complexity patterns of thought are seen in “constructive” conversations (Coleman 2011, 56). Furthermore, given his conclusion that “research shows that this tendency towards simplification becomes even more intensified when we are under stress, threat, etc.” (63), utilizing the structures mentioned above to create a trusting and non-antagonistic space is a way to foster complex thinking. Turning the focus away from attempting to correct the other’s beliefs to exploring the complexity of the

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values and meanings that one attaches to the issue places the locus of change in one’s own thinking. Questions aimed at self-reflection reveal the gray areas and reduce patterns of us-versus-them thinking that feed polarization. 4) Finally, while power is a part of all human interaction and is not always a negative feature, the use of pre-dialogue interviews, explicit agreements as well as a debriefing session can help minimize unjust patterns of coercion and domination. In preliminary interviews, facilitators can be alerted to patterns of domination and structure questions and the dialogue to address these. For instance, if one side feels marginalized by language used by the other side, facilitators can work in advance to ensure less triggering language. If one side is angry and weighed down by always having to be the ones to patiently listen to the other, work can be done to equalize the task of listening while at the same time insisting on language that expresses the feelings of the speaker and refrains from judging the other. Facilitators can also build in meta-reflection periods where they can request feedback in the midst of the dialogue—either expressed to the whole group or breaking up into affinity groups or meeting one-on-one with the facilitator to talk about what is going well and what is not going well. This practice can provide an important check to illicit and/or implicit power and also highlights the importance of having a diverse team of facilitators who represent both sides. When designing a dialogue for a highly conflicted group, it is advised to have two facilitators each representing the different identities present. A debriefing period at the end will also alert the facilitators to any forms of injustice that went on unnoticed by them. Participants can be solicited anew for changes to the process and/or communication agreements. It is the dialectical nature of the entire dialogue process that supports a more just, inclusive, and equitable experience. In summary, the use of a structure to create a listening-conducive dialogue, the use of first-person narrative to promote reflection and listening, the emphasis on exposing the complexity and gray areas, and the ongoing capacity for dialectical and critical reflection on the process itself can foster more productive community conversations and mutual understanding. Having looked briefly at an operational definition of the dialogic structure, I now want to turn to a deeper theoretical scrutiny of what is named as the goal of dialogue by practitioners and how it accords with the theory laid out previously.

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Empathy and Dialogue While a variety of terms are used by different practitioners to describe the goal of dialogue, the one that best reflects the common themes among Buber, Gadamer, and practitioners mentioned here is “mutual understanding.” A dialogue is a form of intersubjective spoken communication “in which the participants’ primary goal is to pursue mutual understanding” (Herzig and Chasin 2006, 138). What exactly does mutual understanding mean? How does it differ from other possible goals of discourse and why is it beneficial for the public square? I begin by examining a common answer given by some practitioners who define mutual understanding and the aim of dialogue as empathy. I will look at some of the reasons given by those who advocate empathy as the goal of dialogue, and then draw on philosophical literature to provide some challenges to defining empathy as the goal of dialogue. In his bestselling book The Magic of Dialogue, leadership and dialogue advisor Daniel Yankelovich focuses heavily on the importance of empathy for dialogue: “The gift of empathy—the ability to think someone else’s thoughts and feel someone else’s feelings—is indispensable to dialogue” (Yankelovich 2001, 43).14 And he goes on to name empathy as one of the three core requirements of dialogue: “A gesture of empathy is probably the closest thing to an ‘open sesame’ for dialogue” (81). In response to the question of the relation between mutual understanding and empathy, John Sarrouf responded that these two are interdependent.15 Sarrouf defends empathy as a goal of understanding in so far as he believes it helps preserve an emotional dimension of understanding, indicative of a deepened relationship, that may not be fully captured by simply saying that one can fully access and articulate the cognitions of another.16 Judith Oleson, Director of the Program on Religion and Conflict Transformation at Boston University’s School of Theology, addressing RSD, commented that dialogue creates “empathy for the enemy’s perspective and context” where increased empathy signals a change of attitude that can prepare the ground for more productive negotiations.17 Oleson stressed, though, the difference between respect (more quantitative, people report feeling heard, grasping why others hold their beliefs, action oriented—not  Also see 43–44 and 77–86.  Personal email, 15 August 2019. 16  Personal conversation, 24 April 2017. 17  Personal email, July 2015. 14 15

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interrupting, etc.) and empathy (more internal and qualitative, more emotional understanding, more of a transitional shift). She went on to explain her own understanding of the aims, use, and value of RSD: People have different outcomes for dialogue and this is certainly an area of disagreement between folks in the field. The assumption in the [EP] approach…is that the exchange of story, through a structured listening process, will evoke more understanding and a sense of empathy for ‘the other’…. In the conflict field in general, the exchange of narratives is used, particularly when there have been significant historical wounds, and two views of the same history, to obtain a sense of the other’s perspective and experience, thus for the first time, perhaps understanding, or even (but not always) gaining empathy for the enemy’s perspective/ context. As a result, the change is usually in attitude toward the other that allows for the party to consider concessions that they were not willing to give before. So in context of negotiating agreements – it has been demonstrated to be a useful process.18

Author and dialogue practitioner Linda Ellinor also references the import and role of empathy: in the psychological literature we know that we are connecting with another through mirrored empathy. If it isn’t present, groups do not bond. People do not bond. Because we have a highly traumatized culture, this aspect of dialogue is important. We can’t start with this as something that must happen, because you can’t force empathy, obviously. But, if it never develops in a group, the dialogue will remain distanced and the group…may not get the results they are looking for, which is both a left- and right-brained experience.19

Finally, one prominent organization which defines the goal of dialogue as creating empathy, where the aim is to foster the taking on of another’s perspective via story, is Narrative 4. Narrative 4 utilizes dialogue as a means for avoiding violence and promoting trust, describing its mission as “fostering empathy by breaking down barriers and shattering stereotypes through the exchange of stories across the world.”20 They set up exchanges in which two individuals from opposing sides of an issue each narrate their own story and then retell the story of the other. In such story exchanges  Personal email with Oleson, 23 June 2015.  Personal email exchange, 18 May 2018. 20  narrative4.org, accessed 25 January 2017. 18 19

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individuals are invited to think, “I am going to become you and you are going to become me.” Other descriptions from participants that indicate the importance of empathy are: “For a brief moment you are not yourself.” “I felt like I was telling his story through his skin.”21 The connection among empathy, stories, and acting is also confirmed by an actor who uses theater to promote empathy: For all interested in powerful tools for modeling and teaching empathy, I’d like to put in a plug for applied theatre and in particular a form of improv theatre that especially models empathy: Playback Theatre. In my experience, using drama, helps people feel an emotional immediacy and authenticity that is hard to get just using words. When people see others putting themselves (as improv actors) in their shoes, they feel heard in a much deeper way.22

Confirming this view is a participant in a “True Stories” event who afterwards described how the experience of empathy through theater promoted institutional dialogue: “True Story Theater helped our faculty to resolve conflicts related to leadership transition and tensions of our multicultural organization. In three sessions we were able to move into more constructive dialogue and new alliances. The result is the work of our School is now more productive, effective, and fun.”23 On one hand, using “empathy” to describe both the outcome and a key feature of dialogue seems to make sense. “Empathy” is a term familiar to many and evokes the ability to accept, identify with, and understand the feelings or thoughts of another; a number of practitioners build on this intuitive appeal. In other words, many practitioners (as well as their clients) do affirm the centrality of empathy for dialogue, suggesting that empathy is, if not a sufficient definition of mutual understanding (i.e., not the goal of dialogue per se), at least a necessary one. Such articulations by practitioners fit in well with one traditional philosophical account, discussed in the previous chapter, that defines understanding in terms of empathy. For instance, Hans-Herbert Kögler attests to how early hermeneutic theory 21  These comments were transcribed from the short five-minute video “Empathy,” accessed online, narrative4.org, 25 January 2017. 22  Christopher Ellinger, 2 February 2017 email reply on NCDD listserv. 23  Associate Dean, Simmons School of Social Work, Carol Bonner. True Story Theatre website, https://truestorytheater.com/hire-us/organizations/#toggle-id-1, accessed 2 June 2017.

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required [one] to reconstruct or even re-live the thoughts or experiences of the other such that the other’s perspective could bring itself to bear onto one’s own understanding of things—and thus allow the understanding of the other. Hermeneutics…understood itself mainly as a methodological discipline, as a scientific support structure for accessing the beliefs and assumptions of the other in order to make sense of them. (Kögler 2014c, 390)

Given these descriptions by practitioners, testimonies by participants, and the history of philosophers to define understanding in terms of empathy, I now want to take a closer look at the way in which empathy is being defined in current philosophical and psychological literature in order to help clarify the limits of empathy for dialogue. In arguing that we should not define mutual understanding, or the goal of dialogue, as empathy, I do not want to dispute the perceived or actual successes mentioned above. Nor am I disputing the fact that empathy can sometimes play an important role in helping achieve understanding. For instance, Stains maintains that “empathy may occur in dialogue but it is not the aim” and describes the aim of dialogue as both sides “feeling that they have been heard and understood by the other.”24 My claim, building on Gadamer’s rejection of empathy’s role in the event of understanding, is that when we take a closer look, empathy is ill-suited to serve as the desired end of dialogue. I will defend this claim by examining some of the more recent definitions and studies of the meaning, scope, and limitations of empathy offered by psychologists and philosophers who study the role of empathy in fostering behavioral change, particularly its role in promoting pro-social and moral behavior.25 I argue that if dialogue is a way to promote more productive communal interactions, empathy should not be taken as the ultimate goal of dialogue. 24  Personal conversation, 17 March 2017. In fact, Stains was more dubious about the role of empathy in dialogue. He sees it more as a means that could lead to mutual understanding, rather than as the definition of mutual understanding itself. 25  Pro-social behavior is defined as an action intended to help others and is often hypothesized as leading to and giving rise to moral behavior. But not all moral behavior is evidently tied to pro-social behavior. For example, some of the 10 Commandments as well as moral behavior based on purity, ritual, and prohibitory rules might not count as pro-social. Furthermore, philosophers inquire into whether or not particular pro-social behavior is moral. Thought experiments such as the obese spelunker or inquiring into the moral value of torturing a single individual to help others seek to exploit this distinction. The research I examine here utilizes both terms, and since nothing in my claims depends on the above distinction, I will use them interchangeably.

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In seeking a definition of empathy, it is important to note the distinction between cognitive and affective empathy. Cognitive empathy, as defined and used primarily by philosophers, designates the ability to take on or imagine the perspective or situation of another. Heidi Maibom writes, “in cognitive empathy we are re-centering our thoughts so that they may be said to be more reflective of those of a person in that situation than of the situation we are in ourselves” (2014, 2). In philosophical literature, cognitive empathy is often referred to as “mind reading,” referencing the extent to which one is able to read, or understand, the thoughts another is thinking. It also aligns with the authorial intent theory discussed in the previous chapter that assumes that understanding is achieved when one can think the same thoughts another is thinking. The connection between cognitive empathy and understanding is illustrated by philosopher Karsten Stueber, who writes: What such information allows us to do is to take up the agent’s perspective on his environment by simulating and reenacting his deliberative thought processes in order to understand his reasons for acting. More specifically the information allows us to do this by counterfactually entertaining certain beliefs, desires, and commitments in the imagination and by making sure that our imaginative simulation of the other person’s thought processes is not hindered and influenced by interference from beliefs, desires and values that we know the other agent does not share with us. It is only in this manner that we understand how an agent’s action is a rational response to the demands of the situation in which he finds himself (Stueber 2012, 29).

Stueber’s point is that only by a mimicking of the precise thoughts of another can we really understand where they are coming from. In order to understand another, our minds have to share the same content as the other’s mind. Other theorists, including psychologists in line with the view propounded by dialogic practitioners, use “empathy” to designate affective empathy, which Maibom defines in the following way: “S empathizes with O’s experience of emotion E in C if S feels E for O as a result of: believing or perceiving that O feels E, or imagining being in C” (2014, 3). For example, Keesha empathizes with André’s sadness over losing his dog in so far as Keesha believes that André’s sadness is caused by his having lost his dog and she feels sadness as a result of imagining herself in André’s situation. Such emotional empathy is different from sympathy, emotional

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contagion, or personal distress. Sympathy occurs when one feels badly (or happy) for another due to one’s own belief that something bad (or good) has happened to that person. Whereas empathy requires one to take on the feelings of the other, there is no such requirement in sympathy. An example of sympathy occurs when a caregiver feels sad for a child who has just been given a diagnosis of cancer even though the child is unaware of the diagnosis and is playing contently. In that situation, the emotional response of the caregiver is not caused by the caregiver having taken on the feelings of the child. Emotional contagion is deemed the most primal state in so far as pre-linguist humans like infants and non-linguistic animals may display behavior that mimics the behavior of one in pain. Studies have demonstrated that infants, for instance, show distress when hearing the cries of other infants. Finally, personal distress occurs when, upon hearing of another’s tragedy, one feels bad for oneself rather than for the other per se. Feeling overwhelmed when one sees a dead person, for example, is an example of personal distress. Attending to these different phenomena allows us to see that “empathy,” as Maibom clarifies, “is not an emotion in its own right but a way of feeling emotions” (9). Simply possessing sadness in response to the situation of another is not enough to qualify as empathy. In order for one’s feeling in that instance to qualify as empathy, one’s sadness must be the effect of one witnessing the sadness of the other. Daniel Batson clarifies the proper way of assessing empathy: “The relevant psychological distinction lies not in what emotional label is used but in whose welfare is the focus of the emotion. Is one feeling sad, distressed, concerned for the other, or feeling this way as a result of what has befallen oneself—including the experience of seeing another suffer” (Batson 2014, 42). In other words, when one feels frightened while observing someone being attacked, it is important to assess whether one is feeling frightened in the way the attackee is experiencing fear or whether one is feeling fear for oneself. What emerges from these fine-grained theoretical definitions is a bifurcated definition of empathy. On one hand, according to those who defend mind reading as the necessary and sufficient condition of understanding, when you are asked by your physics professor to articulate your understanding of “E=MC2,” then what you are being asked is to replicate your professor’s exact thoughts about this definition. Only cognition is required; feelings are not required. On the other hand, rejecting empathy as pertaining solely to cognitive content could lead some to suppose that the effects of dialogue are to produce certain emotions. For instance, if you

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see a child fall down and hurt himself, it would be appropriate to mirror his feelings back to him viscerally, communicating to him that you are feeling what he feels. No reference to his thoughts would be necessary. Our common usage of “empathy” to refer to both scenarios suggests a built-in dualism at play, leading one to conclude that if rational consensus and/or belief change is not the goal of dialogue, then one must be talking about a form of discourse aimed at cultivating certain emotions. In other words, some may fear that by downplaying rational discourse, the only alternative is to maintain that the effects of dialogue reduce to “warm and happy feelings,” which prove inadequate to yield significant political change.26 While a dialogue situation cannot be captured by appealing either to cognitive or emotional empathy alone, neither can it be adequately described as additive of the two. Mutual understanding, as I will argue below, cannot be accounted for by adding mimicked thoughts together with mimicked feelings. Something beyond empathy is required. By refusing to define empathy as the goal of dialogue, we can avoid either extreme of this reductionism based on a thought-feeling dualism, a dualism that Buber rejected when he warned against reducing dialogue to a purely subjective or emotional interaction.27 Another problem with naming empathy as the goal of dialogue is the challenge of actually being able to measure for it. Researchers identify three main ways to achieve empathy: direct perceptual witnessing, believing or inferring, and imagining or taking the perspective of the other. In terms of purely feeling what the other feels, the first way is the most successful, and studies show that we find it easier to empathize with those who are closer to us in “affection, time, and place,” specifically friends, in-group members, and those who are deemed fair rather than self-serving (Maibom 2014, 15–16). When it comes to measuring empathy, researchers study both dispositional empathy (whether a general disposition for empathy has been created, which can then be applied in future situations) and situational empathy (whether one displays empathetic behavior in a specific situation). Furthermore, accuracy of measurement remains a challenge given that the tool of measurement has primarily been self-reports, which tend to be unreliable since some studies have shown that “people 26  This response, based on a rationality-emotion dualism, is one I have met with quite a bit when presenting portions of this work at philosophy conferences. 27  John Sarrouf also noted this problematic dualism in response to reading an earlier draft of this chapter.

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often have relatively little access to their mental processes, but are likely to confabulate if pressured. Empathy self-reporting has been found to be influenced by social desirability, desire for positive self-evaluation, and stereotyping” (21). A third challenge for those defending empathy as the outcome of dialogue is the underlying assumption made by some that empathy can be aligned with certain pro-social behaviors. If dialogue can induce empathy then warring factions will be less likely to harm the other or treat the other immorally. Maibom, however, goes on to discuss how studies that attempt to measure the effects of empathy on behavior demonstrate that affective empathy is not always causally linked to moral behavior. Her own analysis of the literature leads her to conclude that “few people argue that empathy, on its own, is necessary for moral judgment or motivation” (38). Batson argues that there is no necessary connection between empathy-­ induced altruism and morality (Batson 2014), for example. He argues that empathy-induced altruism is amoral since “sometimes it will encourage people to act in accord with their moral principles; at other times, to violate them” (47). In particular, his research demonstrates that empathy-­ induced altruism can actually lead to immoral behavior when four conditions are met: “(a) a person has an opportunity to affect the welfare of more than one person; (b) not everyone’s welfare can be fully served; (c) the person holds a moral standard that specifies what action is right; and (d) empathy felt for one or more of the affected individuals produces altruistic motivation that promotes a different course of action” (47). Other studies also cast a shadow on the desirability of empathy to promote moral behavior. Since affective empathy can stimulate the same areas in the brain that are triggered when one experiences pain, it is possible that feeling empathy in response to the fear or pain of another actually creates a fight-flight response in the observer. Simply feeling empathy for another would not necessarily make one more open to understanding another since the neurological effects of empathy can trigger the fight/flight/ freeze response. Empathizing with someone being attacked by a bear or beaten up in the street may cause the observer to flee. At the same time, some researchers wonder whether this evolutionary neurological association may actually prevent us from empathically feeling fear or pain as a way to protect ourselves. Maibom suggests that It is possible that certain emotions, such as pain or fear, are never empathically felt given the high survival value of acting directly on that emotion,

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fleeing the situation for instance. It is equally possible that empathic fear typically coincides with direct fear, and that the resultant motivation is the result of balancing personal safety versus one’s motivation to help the other person to safety. (25)

In addition, Hoffman’s research demonstrates how empathetic over-­ arousal may prevent people from helping victims (Hoffman 2014, 77). Regardless of which account is most accurate (i.e., whether we can actually empathize with the fear or pain of another or we cannot), the conclusion remains the same: empathy is no guarantee that pro-social or moral behavior will result. Some, however, go even further and argue that empathy actually impedes moral behavior and should be minimized altogether. Psychologist Paul Bloom argues that emotional empathy undermines morality since it “is biased and parochial; it focuses you on certain people at the expense of others; and it is innumerate, so it distorts our moral and policy decision in ways that cause suffering instead of relieving it” (Bloom 2016, 36). Studies exposing the detrimental effects of empathy for morality focus on the way in which empathetic feelings blind us to the moral principles underlying the issue. Empathy with the “wrong” person might lead us to ignore or applaud, even, the suffering of others. For example, one might empathize with a substance user on the street asking for money and give money directly to that individual rather than supporting an organization that supports those with substance use disorder—an action that would presumably be more in line with one’s moral principles. Or, one might empathize so much with the family of a child killed in a war that one would then be motivated to engage in ethnic cleansing to revenge that child’s death. Bloom does have more admiration for cognitive empathy, although after describing the impeccable abilities of Orwell’s O’Brien to cognitively empathize with Winston as he is torturing him, he considers cognitive empathy to be morally neutral, able to be used for great good or great evil. What about those who maintain that narrative can prove an effective means for creating empathy in order to ensure moral behavior? Is there a clear causality among narrative, empathy, and moral behavior? Graham and Garrett, for instance, defend the role of narrative in inducing empathy in a way that yields moral behavior, and point to the example of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which, they maintain, “helped people empathize with an entire group of people. The effect was so powerful that this single book helped to inspire the movement to abolish slavery in America” (Graham

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and Garrett 2014, 134). Yet, even if we take their claim as a true one, narrative is no magic bullet. Bloom cites research that shows narrative is morally neutral in so far as “for every Uncle Tom’s Cabin there is a Birth of a Nation. For every Bleak House there is an Atlas Shrugged. For every Color Purple there is a Turner Diaries, that white supremacist novel Timothy McVeigh left in his truck on the way to bombing the Oklahoma building” (Joshua Landry, quoted in Bloom 2016, 48–49). Bloom, in fact, not only challenges the causal mechanism between empathy and morality but he reverses it: “Your empathy doesn’t drive your moral evaluation of the drug user with AIDS. Rather it’s your moral evaluation of the person that determines whether or not you feel empathy” (70). He claims that morality dictates one’s ability to empathize not vice versa. In terms of stories, then, one already must be predisposed to certain moral principles in order to empathize with the other.28 A real-life example of Narrative 4’s work with different sides of the gun law debate also exposes the tenuousness of the claim that narrative can be an effective means to promote empathy and thus change. In her New York Times article about this narrative exchange, Lisa Miller describes the initial appearance of the importance of empathy: If Samaria Rice had made me wonder at the utility of empathy as an implement for change, Todd and Carolyn proved that radical empathy is at least possible. They were shape-shifters. They became each other. And in that moment, the videographers were crying. The organizers, who have seen versions of this a hundred times before, were crying. No one in the room that day will ever forget what they saw. (Miller 2016)

However, in spite of this moment, minutes later a fight erupted between participants, which resulted in some participants walking out. Miller concluded: “Without a doubt, radical, revelatory empathy did occur. But did it matter? The participants would soon return to their ‘normal’ lives— Francine to her grief; Jillian to the revolver in her nightstand; Chantell to her blue uniform. Empathy did not seem to have fundamentally changed anyone’s mind” (Miller 2016). In other words, not only might empathy not be sufficient for producing change, it could do more damage. As John Sarrouf explained, “radical empathy” could invite dangerous emotions in 28  See David Livingstone Smith (2011, 263) for examples of how stories can be used to de-humanize the other.

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those not given the skills to return from being in the other’s shoes. It asks us to move too far outside of ourselves rather than situating the other’s emotions and experience in our own.29 Other practitioners note how being asked to go too far into the other’s experience can produce the feeling of violation, especially if one does not have help to return. Clear boundaries and guidance and instruction must be offered to ensure that empathizing with the other produces beneficial rather than detrimental results. Take the comments by Batson, for instance, who, in spite of his claim about the amoral nature of empathy, ends his chapter describing the way in which orchestration of empathy-induced altruism can promote moral behavior and describes historical case studies showing how empathy with one or more individuals in an oppressed group can motivate moral action in terms of helping behavior (56–58). I believe this point may suggest some role for empathy given the proper structure—something a dialogue setting could provide. Batson maintains that while “altruism and morality have no necessary connection” he does find hope in being able to “orchestrate altruistic and moral motives so they complement one another” (56). Thus for those who want to preserve some role for empathy in a dialogue, we would need to be attentive to how we could ensure that the dialogic situation provides a means to orchestrate just such a connection that tips empathy toward the moral.30 Let me be clear that my point is neither to criticize narrative as ineffective nor to criticize the work of approaches like Narrative 4. For, as I discussed above, the use of first-person stories serves as a productive component of dialogue—but it must be utilized in a carefully structured and facilitated way. In support of Bloom’s claims discussed above, what the Narrative 4 incident suggests is that it remains inadequate to reduce  Personal conversation, April 2017.  While here is not the place to go into more detail, given the possibility of immoral action being the effect of empathy, it would be productive for practitioners to scrutinize whether any of these situations describes the dialogue situation. For instance, other studies see a more positive correlation between empathy and understanding in a way that may prove relevant for dialogue work. In studies of developmental abilities in children, Maibom notes that it has been found that “empathetic responding to others… is related to the ability to take another’s perspective…Ways of responding increase in sophistication with increased self-understanding and the development of other cognitive capacities” (Maibom 27). In other words, more work needs to be done to understand the implications of studies on empathy and pro-social behavior for dialogue. 29 30

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empathy simply to an emotional response; neither is it correct to maintain that dialogue is a means of producing certain feelings. Feeling what the other feels is not necessarily a way to motivate understanding and moral action. An interaction where one substitutes one’s own feelings for those of another is not a way to create a new understanding or a fusion of horizons. Refusing a purely rational exchange does not mean taking on a purely emotional one. I am defending an approach to dialogue that rejects a rigid reason-versus-emotion dualism. Feeling what the other feels is not necessarily the best way to create trust and openness in order to be able to dialogue across difference. Given the mixed results that empathy can produce in terms of its potential to increase out-group bias that leads to stronger propensity to act with violence toward the other, I do not think it is productive to describe empathy as the goal of dialogue. Even if one could successfully protect against any immoral or anti-social effects of narrative, constructing the dialogic situation in such a way to ensure that one is empathizing in a morally beneficial way with the right person, using the language of empathy, whether defined as cognitive or emotive or some mixture of the two, does not capture the richness of describing what actually goes on in a successful dialogic exchange.31 My aim throughout this section has been to indicate the dangers of esteeming the importance of empathy without further scrutiny of its meaning and effects, and to argue that it should not be cast as the goal of dialogue. In the next section I defend a more adequate way to define the goal of dialogue.

Dialogue’s Claim to Truth I want to defend another way of conceptualizing the goal of dialogue, one that avoids some of the troubles haunting the language of empathy and that returns us to the existential emphasis found in the thought of Buber and Gadamer. The last chapter explained that according to Gadamer all understanding is directed at a truth claim made by the text. Gadamer maintains that to experience the claim of truth it is not sufficient merely to reiterate the original words of the text or the intention of its author—what one might call “hermeneutic empathy.” Rather, truth occurs only when, 31  Another advantage of moving away from the language of empathy is the liberal bias associated with that term, which therefore might raise initial red flags for some conservatives about the aim of dialogue and make them hesitant to participate.

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in seeking to get clear about die Sache (the subject matter), one finds oneself changed by the claim of the text, which means being transposed into a new horizon. This language of being changed and being brought into a “new horizon” is very close to the language utilized by practitioners who speak of a “shift” occurring in the dialogue, where “shift” references a change in perspective. What exactly does Gadamer’s account mean for an actual interpersonal dialogue? The aim of this section is to draw on Gadamer’s and Buber’s accounts of the event of truth to further clarify what it means to maintain that mutual understanding is the goal of dialogue. Let us start by looking at an EP-guided dialogue on gun control, whose aim is described on their website: By creating a space for participants to interact with one another on a human level, rather than debating the issue at large, the conversation about guns and community safety gained new complexity, deeper understanding, and a sense of hope. Instead of [trying to change the others’] minds, the design of the conversation allowed participants to examine their own views – whatever they might be – more reflectively and with greater clarity.32

What we see here is that debating the issue of gun control is not the focus of the dialogue. Neither side comes to the dialogue to gain more understanding of—that is, more facts about—the issue of gun control. Understanding, in this instance, does not mean coming to agreement about the truth of a specific claim about gun control. As we have seen, RSD is an alternative to debate and persuasion, which rely on facts and rational argumentation about a particular topic, and instead focuses on the sharing of personal experiences and first-person narratives that allow participants to connect via underlying shared values. In this way, we could say the true subject matter, or die Sache, is the underlying human values we all share. While we of course listen to both our own and the other’s thoughts and feelings, understanding is not reducible to the ability to reiterate either. Rather, what we are really listening for are the values that underlie the points of view and feelings of all participants. When dialogue is thoughtfully structured and facilitated, it allows participants to be open to hearing the other’s feelings, thoughts, values, and 32  http://www.whatisessential.org/impact-stories/guns-debate-conversation-boston, accessed 27 September 2016.

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motivations underlying their position, causing them to reflect on their own deeply held values. The point is not that one’s position on a charged issue changes but that one’s perspective of the other does. It is the ability, as Stains clarifies, “to see beyond the labels of ‘pro-gun’ or ‘pro-gun control.’”33 One does not seek to convince the other to let go of their position, nor does one necessarily come away holding the opposite position. Rather, the aim of dialogue is to produce a shift in which each side sees themselves and the other differently and is able to step out of their dualistic mindset in which everyone falls into either “pro-gun” or “pro-gun control,” or “good” or “evil.” Such a dualism only entrenches both sides in restrictive and stagnant horizons where change, and thus truth, appears impossible due to the seeming incommensurability. Gadamer’s claim that all understanding is self-understanding, which for him always has an applicatory moment in so far as one’s new understanding changes one by bringing them to a new horizon, clarifies how dialogue is a fundamental experience of self-reflection. Gadamer insists that understanding does not occur without an active change in one’s own perspective or horizon, which entails a connection to something new that transcends oneself. We could say, then, drawing on Gadamer’s language, that the change that occurs in a successful dialogue is in each individual’s own self-­ understanding, which is reflected by the move to a new horizon. Gadamer explained how such a fusion is composed of the tradition of reader and text coming together to create a new, higher perspective. The account by psychologist Carl Rogers helps us grasp what this new understanding looks like in terms of interpersonal dialogue. He explained to Buber how in a fruitful conversation between psychologist and patient, “it seems there is a real experiential meeting of persons in which each of us is changed” (quoted in Friedman 1992, 41). And Friedman reports Buber’s affirmation of “what Rogers had said as a very good example for a certain moment of dialogic existence” (Friedman 1992, 41). The thread, therefore, extending from Buber through Gadamer to practitioners is that in order for mutual understanding to occur, we must be open to seeing ourselves and the other in a new way, the result of which is the creation, or better, emergence, of a common space, a third, new horizon. Recall that when horizons move it is not the result of the will of an individual; no single individual can bring about a change of horizon by themself. Gadamer’s 33  http://www.whatisessential.org/impact-stories/guns-debate-conversation-boston, accessed 27 September 2016.

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anti-subjectivist emphasis on the way play plays us, catches us up in itself, helps us to conceive of change as what happens when one is caught up in the process of dialogue. The fusion of horizons is not the result of volitional intent; it does not occur simply when one individual chooses to rationally accept the reasons offered by the other. The shifts that are desired as an outcome in dialogue cannot be understood simply as a shift of one consciousness into another or the replacing of certain propositional beliefs with others. Gadamer helps us see that a shift itself is not sufficient to indicate a successful dialogue; not just any sort of shift will do. Rather, the shift must create a new, common horizon. What is required is the creation of a new space, that is, a new horizon, in which each party sees anew their own position as well as that of the other. In this way, dialogue can be understood as the process by which each side contributes to the creation of a shared perspective. Through the emergence of a new, shared perspective, one that transcends the previously held beliefs of both individuals, collaborative actions and the forming of trusting relationships between previously hostile parties can take place. To see how this account is borne out in practice we can take a closer look at testimonies from Narrative 4. Even though Narrative 4 explicitly maintains that the exchange of first-person narratives produces empathy, in fact what we observe from taking a closer look at participant comments is that what was in fact produced was just the sort of change described above. In other words, in spite of their explicit emphasis on the importance of empathy, when one looks closely, one observes that participants attest to the way that mutual understanding requires one to go beyond empathy to self-change, thereby endorsing a Gadamerian account of mutual understanding. Comments from Narrative 4’s online “Empathy” video reflect the way in which stories provoke self-understanding and self-­ reflection that leads to self-change. Putting oneself in the place of the other is not the ultimate goal. Here are some participants’ comments: “It’s a new part of your identity that you now understand.” “Learning about someone else’s story deepened the meaning of mine.” “You get to see yourself through a different lens.” Other comments are even more telling in so far as they indicate the shift to a common horizon: “We connected.” “People realize they have more in common than they might think at first.” “Story telling is a way to better understand ourselves and each other.” “We all have this shared humanity.” “Stories are the one

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thing that really unite us.”34 In line with Gadamer’s critique of empathy as being inadequate for true understanding to occur, participants here are in fact describing the way in which empathy is not the final goal. Rather, the final aim they are describing is actually mutual understanding, which always entails self-reflection and change that transfers one to a new horizon in which one finds oneself connected with another who is also changed. That Gadamer speaks not only of the fusion of horizons that occurs in understanding but also the claim of truth extends and deepens practitioners’ claim about the shift that occurs in dialogue. If facts per se are not the focus of such a dialogue, what does it mean to speak of the dialogue’s claim of truth? Does it require us to end up sharing the same beliefs as the other? As we have seen, mutual understanding does not entail an agreement of belief. The new horizon that occurs is not that of a new set of explicit, epistemic beliefs. I contend that the mutual understanding produced by dialogue, that is, the meaning of the truth claim experienced in the fusion of horizons, is the capacity to acknowledge the other’s claim to existence as a Thou. A successful dialogue allows us to acknowledge the other’s most basic existential claim: the Thou’s fundamental right to be— to be a Thou as opposed to an It. Affirming the other as Thou means acknowledging the fundamental relationality of the Thou and I.  While emotional contagion and mind reading can foster this, they are not sufficient (and may, at times, prove unnecessary or detrimental) for mutual understanding. A successful dialogue wherein mutual understanding occurs requires one to recognize the other as making a legitimate claim to human existence as a Thou, and the connection forged will always entail movement to a new horizon. Dialogue fosters the ability to understand the reasons and values behind why someone holds position X, which does not entail agreeing with those reasons. While one might remain in disagreement about the logic connecting the reasons with the position, the very act of listening and eliciting further explanation grants the other status as a Thou, which can then serve as the basis for transforming conflict that perpetuates hostility into a willingness to speak and listen to the other. In cases of extreme hostility that have fomented over time, such as occurs in religious and ethnic oppression or wars, or in extremely contentious and polarized political debates, we often observe rhetoric that 34  https://narrative4.com Video accessed 4 October 2016. Also see their video, “What is Empathy,” https://narrative4.com/about/history/, accessed 24 August 2018.

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de-humanizes the other by labeling them as evil, crazy, vermin, and so on. This sort of language forecloses any sort of rational interaction since the other is portrayed as inhuman. As Rorty, commenting on the motivation behind ethnic cleansing, has written, “Serbian murderers and rapists do not think of themselves as violating human rights. For they are not doing these things to fellow human beings, but to Muslims” (Rorty 1999, 167). This point is confirmed and explained by David L. Smith in his book on de-humanization, Less Than Human, where he writes: “dehumanization caught on because it offered a means by which humans could overcome moral restraint against acts of violence… By selectively dehumanizing other communities, humans … could selectively exclude ethnic groups from the charmed circle of a common humanity, slaughter them, and take their possessions…” (2011, 251). How to address such de-humanizing practices? Rather than engage in offering a reasoned argument for why the other is really human—as some theorists suggest—dialogue can be used to existentially reveal our common humanity by exposing the fundamental connection between I and Thou. Dialogue does not trade in rational argumentation that seeks to offer reasons to persuade the “superior” group that the “inferior” group is really just like them. Dialogue enacts the I-Thou relation by establishing a space to hear and indeed experience the other as a Thou. For what de-humanizing language denies is the Thou status of the other, rendering them an It. In high-conflict settings where one has written the other off since “they are not human,” it becomes beneficial to help each side experience common ground as a human. Unless one can acknowledge the humanity of the other, which I am defining as experiencing them as a Thou (as opposed to rationally acceding common Homo sapien ancestry), one will remain justified in their violence toward the other, believing “that is the only language they understand.” I will expand on the research of social psychologist Matt Motyl in Chap. 5, but findings from one of his studies pertain to the argument here about how changing our interpretations of the other via non-argumentative interactions can improve relationships with those whom we once de-humanized. Motyl concludes, “Humanization of outgroup members, recategorization of group boundaries to be more inclusive, and the formation of positive relationship with members of other groups all improve intergroup relations” (Motyl 2016, 28). Let me qualify that I am not claiming that de-humanizing the other is always or the only cause of violence—whether ethnic or racist or misogynist. In fact, I would affirm Kate Manne’s account of de-humanization in

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which she describes how misogynists do not necessarily de-humanize women but rather often feel de-humanized by women (Manne 2018, chapter 5). In other words, sometimes it is the feeling that one has been de-humanized by the other that motivates violence. In effect, what transpires in such scenarios is that those who feel de-humanized, that is, rendered Its, attempt to reassert their Thou status by committing acts of violence to reduce the other to It status. If one feels like an It then the most direct path to reclaim one’s agency as an It will likely be a reductive one that sees violence as the most appropriate path. But what about Paul Bloom’s claim that de-humanization is not at all what is at stake in ethnic violence? Bloom denies that the act of de-­ humanizing is the source of ethnic violence since in de-humanizing the other, one must assume that the other is human. Therefore, he maintains that it is precisely our ability to take our enemies as human that fuels attempts to humiliate them: one cannot humiliate a being one does not believe has consciousness or dignity as a human.35 I think his critique misses the mark on two accounts. First, the very term “de-humanize” already acknowledges his point; it assumes what he seeks to defend. It is doubtful that the Nazis really believed that the Jews were biologically “vermin.” Rather, the Nazis believed that the Jews, Gypsies, and Homosexuals were human but a lesser form of humanity. By using metaphorical language to describe their enemies, the Nazis hoped to undermine, chip away at, respect for the human dignity and worth of Jews in order to facilitate their maltreatment. The despicable language sought to strip the other of their Thou status. Since most humans feel little moral guilt at killing a rat, rhetoric that could be used to create associations between one’s enemies and rats would make it easier, on one level, to treat one’s enemies like rats—essentially as Its. Second, the point of describing one’s enemies in de-humanizing language is not merely limited to making one’s enemies feel bad, as Bloom proports; it is not only an act of name-­ calling and perhaps not even primarily an act of name-calling. Rather, such language is used to rally the support of those who would engage in bad behavior, serving to strengthen in-group commitment. The motivation to use de-humanizing language is sometimes less for those one is attempting to de-humanize and more to motivate acts of cruelty by extolling the superiority of one’s own group. De-humanizing language does not assume a literal non-human as the object of attack but a “lesser” human—where  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/11/27/the-root-of-all-cruelty

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“lesser” means different, other. To de-humanize the other is to deny them status as a Thou and render them an It. My claim for dialogue is that it is a way to address the fear of difference, which frequently promotes us-­ versus-­them thinking, by creating a discourse in which similarities become more powerful than difference. Dialogue catches one up in the play of the I-Thou experience. For this reason, dialogic practices that are integrated into the community could prove an effective antidote to calls for cruelty to others based on de-humanizing rhetoric born of the fear of difference. The civic efficacy of the Buberian and Gadamerian emphasis can now be made clear in so far as it exposes the limitations of discursive strategies that focus only on improving the procedure for the exchange of reasons in the public square. For where there is extreme difference and polarization, the first step must be to establish a space in which we experience the other first and foremost as a human being, as a Thou, with whom we share a bond, and only subsequently move on to engaging in reason giving and taking. Where our public life is increasingly polarized, sharpening our analytic and argumentative skills is certainly crucial, but it cannot be where we start and is by no means sufficient. Focusing on difference alone can result in (the appearance of) incommensurability and thus increased tensions; by revealing an underlying commonality, dialogue acts as an antidote to incommensurability on an existential level. Yes, our different beliefs may appear and indeed even remain, from a rational perspective, incommensurable, but there is more than one way to encounter the other. We do not have to see the other solely in terms of their rational beliefs; we can also view them in terms of their passions, dreams, and values, which make finding something in common with them more likely. The importance of dialogue’s ability to bring others together based on the shared humanity of I and Thou is confirmed in research that examines the efficacy of directing conflicted parties away from particulars toward abstraction. Sinnott-Armstrong writes: Research has shown that, when people identify with their particular political party, abstract thinking can increase polarization. In contrast, when people identify with their country as a whole, abstract thinking decreases polarization between groups inside that country. The mechanism behind this effect is unclear, but people who think abstractly in terms of their country appeal both to principles that bind together their whole country and also to interests that they share with other citizens of their country. These appeals have just as much force for many of their opponents within their country, so the

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result is less polarization and more mutual understanding. Of course, abstraction need not stop at one’s country. It is also possible for people to identify with their species, so that they view themselves as a human like other humans, even those in other countries. (Sinnott-Armstrong 2018, 60–61).

And as Napier and Luguri, upon whom Sinnott-Armstrong draws, put it: abstract (vs. concrete) construal has proven to reduce ideological differences in attitudes toward non-normative groups (e.g., gay men and lesbians, Muslims, and atheists) (Luguri, Napier and Dovidio, 2012) and moral values (Napier and Luguri, 2013). Thinking abstractly (vs. concretely) also reduced polarization between liberals and conservatives on policy issues, but only when people’s national identity [as opposed to partisan identity] was salient. (2016, 156)

The abstraction to our common humanity invited by dialogue, then, would seem to be an effective strategy to curb polarization. These findings are both descriptively and prescriptively relevant in so far as they help explain the efficacy of a dialogue that utilizes questions designed to expose the commonly shared deeper values while at the same time increasing the attention paid to structuring the dialogue to make sure it avoids exacerbating more concrete identity differences. Another reason, therefore, that this conception of dialogue proves more successful than traditional forms of rational argumentation in high-­ stakes encounters is that expression and acknowledgment of differences are not only not denied but they are required, serving as the basis of the dialogic exchange. Dialogue, far from entailing a glossing over or denial of difference, acknowledges and utilizes the particularity of the other and the differences between them by starting with stories that express such difference. If difference is a socio-historical reality and if hostility is often spawned by a failure to acknowledge the legitimacy of the other-as-­ different, then one must not seek to cover over or deny such difference but create a space in which the particulars can be expressed. Even though the initial content of such particular accounts may manifest difference, they also eventually allow a deeper modality of being to emerge. In a dialogue, individuals are asked to speak from their own particular experiences which then evoke common human themes and feelings. The sharing of different particular experiences, when allowed to be voiced in terms of underlying feelings and values, exposes each party to the fundamental

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human experiences shared by all. Whereas empathy requires us to feel the particulars of another person’s story and there is no further requirement to explore or deepen our connection. What both theorists and practitioners confirm is how hearing stories that elicit the broader socio-historical and personal context of an individual reveals their similarities to us. We see the other not just, for example, as a “foolhardy liberal” but as a mother who cares deeply about her children. Relating to and seeing the similarities of personal experiences helps us stop making polarizing generalizations about them. Patrick Hogan explains the power of stories to bridge difference: The nonempathic characters are often rendered nonempathic by some sort of absolutization of their character (for example, absolutization of their moral excellence or depravity). However, as a result of individual particularity in characterization, the course of narrative tends to undermine idealization and dehumanization, if these are established initially. (Hogan 2003, 214, emphasis added)

In other words, dialogue’s use of stories that provide first-person details about a particular life experience serves to elucidate existential similarities that function in a more powerful way than an abstract theoretical acknowledgment. The impossible move of actually putting or intentionally trying to think ourselves into the situation of the particular other is not required. Instead, we are asked to be open to how the particulars of their experience reveal a fundamental commonality. It is not so much that we see ourselves in them, but their story opens up a new, common horizon. We find ourselves sharing a newly formed perspective—it is not something we intentionally or explicitly enact. Gadamer’s account of truth aptly captures what happens here: hearing the story of the other causes one to reflect on, and thus effect change in, one’s own view of oneself, and in so doing, since one’s definition of the other is inextricably linked to one’s own self-­ definition as human, one’s definition of the other will necessarily change. Dialogue brings each side out of their absolutizing and polarizing stance to a new, common, and shared perspective of the I and Thou. Ryfe’s research on the power of narrative in civic discourse again proves relevant for clarifying the way in which through the telling of particular stories of one’s life, others are brought into shared concerns and values, thus serving to help create connections and to build stronger communal commitments. He writes:

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Storytelling also plays an important collective role for deliberative groups. I find that, as individuals borrow from and build upon one another’s stories, groups begin to fashion moral communities around the issues under discussion, doing so with remarkably little open or explicit conflict. Put simply, storytelling is a key mode of talk through which individuals in small group forums negotiate difficulties that naturally arise in such conversations. (2006, 73–74)

He also argues that the use of narrative has significance on the individual qua individual level and demonstrates significance for the type of community that emerges. He explains: As a long line of research on narrative argues, stories also have ontological and moral consequences for groups as a whole. For instance, Walter Fisher (1999) suggests that stories ‘give order to human experience and … induce others to dwell in them to establish ways of living in common, in communities…’ (p.  271)….In storytelling, participants not only convey their individual points of view, they also stake claims to, and invite others to inhabit, moral communities. (80)

Ryfe’s account of how stories do not simply convey factual information or propositional content but invite connection through a moral community is significant for highlighting the Buberian themes in the approach to dialogue discussed here. These are the deeply human I-Thou connections that a dialogue utilizing first-person stories can help foster. At the same time, stories provide connections that do not cover over difference but reveal a deeper common way of being. Mutual understanding occurs when the particulars of an individual’s story are accessed to reveal a deeper, shared universality. Even Glenn Beck seems to have observed the way that particulars lead to a universal connection when he opined in the New York Times: We need to listen to one another, as human beings, and try to understand one another’s pain. Empathy is not acknowledging or conceding that the pain and anger others feel is justified. Empathy is acknowledging someone else’s pain and anger while feeling for them as human beings—even, and maybe especially, when we don’t necessarily agree or understand them. (Beck 2016)

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I actually think, though, that what Beck is describing here is not empathy as theorists use that term but a Buberian acknowledgment of the fundamental unity we share with the other; it means taking a step toward the other as human. Maintaining that the goal of dialogue is to allow one to take up the other’s existential claim to existence as a Thou captures what it means to view the other as human. The mutual understanding of dialogue is the affirmation of our common humanity, which creates the space for further dialogue and other forms of discursive interaction. Buber asserts: “Whatever the meaning of the word ‘truth’ may be in other realms, in the interhuman realm it means that men communicate themselves to one another as what they are…. It does not depend on one letting himself go before another, but on his granting to the man to whom he communicates himself a share in his being” (Buber 1965b, 77). I take Buber’s point about communicating “a share of his being” to another as reflecting what occurs in the first-person narratives shared in a dialogue. To take up the truth claim of another is not to “agree” with a propositional claim on a purely cognitive level. Nor is it to “feel” close to them. It is to respond to the being of another person, affirming their humanity as a Thou. Buber proclaims: “The basis of man’s life with man is twofold, and it is one – the wish of every man to be confirmed as what he is, even as what he can become, by men; and [two] the innate capacity in man to confirm his fellow men in this way…. [A]ctual humanity exists only where this capacity unfolds” (1965a, 67–68). Dialogue’s event of truth occurs in so far as both parties can acknowledge the existential claim of the other, namely, their Thou status entailing their right to exist as a vital member of the human community.

Bibliography Batson, Daniel. 2014. Empathy-Induced Altruism and Morality: No Necessary Connection. In Empathy and Morality, ed. Heidi Maibom. New York: Oxford University Press. Beck, Glenn. 2016. Empathy for Black Lives Matter. New York Times. September 7. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/07/opinion/glenn-beck-empathy-forblack-livesmatter.html?action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&module= Trending&versionFull®ion=Marginalia&pgtype=article Bernstein, Richard J. 2008. The Conversation that Never Happened (Gadamer/ Derrida). The Review of Metaphysics 61 (3): 577–603.

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Bloom, Paul. 2016. Against Empathy. New York: HarperCollins. Brandsma, Bart. 2017. Polarisation: Understanding the Dynamics of Us Versus Them. Schoonrewoerd, the Netherlands: BB in Media. Buber, Martin. 1965a. Distance and Relation. Knowledge of Man, edited with an introduction by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Row. ———. 1965b. Elements of the Interhuman. Knowledge of Man, edited with an introduction by Maurice Friedman. New York: Harper and Row. Chasin, Richard, Margaret Herzig, Sallyann Roth, Laura Chasin, Carol Becker, and J.  Robert Stains. 1996. From Diatribe to Dialogue on Divisive Public Issues: Approaches Drawn from Family Therapy. Mediation Quarterly 13 (4): 323–344. Coleman, Peter T. 2011. The Five Percent Conflict. 2011. The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. New York: Public Affairs. Delpit, Lisa D. 1988. The Silenced Dialogue: Power and Pedagogy in Educating Other People’s Children. Harvard Educational Review 58 (3): 280–299. Dimaggio, G., et al. 2008. Know Yourself and You Shall Know the Other…to a Certain Extent: Multiple Paths of Influence of Self-Reflection on Mindreading. Consciousness and Cognition 17: 778–779. Eck, Diane. 2005. Dialogue and the Echo Boom of Terror. In After Terror, ed. Ahmed Akbar and Brian Forst. Malden, MA: Polity Press. Ellinor, Linda. 2017. National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserv email, June 13. ———. 2018. National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation listserv email, August 3. Ellinor, Linda, and Glenna Girrard. 1998. Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation. New York: Wiley. Friedman, Maurice. 1992. Dialogue and the Human Image. California: Sage Press. Gergen, Kenneth J., Sheila McNamee, and Frank Barrett. 2001. Toward a Vocabulary of Transformative Dialogue. International Journal of Public Administration 24: 607–707. Graham, George, and K. Richard Garrett. 2014. At the Empathetic Center of our Moral Lives. In Empathy and Morality, ed. Heidi Maibom. New York: Oxford University Press. Herzig, Maggie, and Laura Chasin. 2006. Fostering the Divide: A Nuts and Bolts Guide from the Public Conversations Project. Watertown, MA: Public Conversations Project. Hoffman, Martin L. 2014. Empathy, Justice, and Social Change. In Empathy and Morality, ed. Heidi Maibom. New York: Oxford University Press. Hogan, Patrick. 2003. The Mind and its Stories. New  York: Cambridge University Press. Kögler, Hans-Herbert. 2014c. Dialogue and Community. Journal of the Philosophy of History 8 (3): 380–406.

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LeDoux, Joseph E. 2012. Evolution of Emotion: A View From Fear. Progress in Brain Research 195: 431–442. ———. 2015. Feelings: What Are they and how Does the Brain Make them? Daedalus 144 (1): 96–111. Maibom, Heidi. 2014. Introduction: (Almost) Everything you Ever Wanted to Know about Empathy. In Empathy and Morality, ed. Heidi Maibom. New York: Oxford. Lindner, Evelin G. 2014. Emotion and Conflict. In The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, ed. Peter T. Coleman, Morton Deutsch, and Eric C. Marcus, 3rd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. Manne, Kate. 2018. Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny. New  York: Oxford University Press. Miller, Lisa. 2016. Gun Violence and Radical Empathy. New Yorker Magazine. December 12. Accessed at http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/12/gunviolence-radical-empathy.html Motyl, Matt. 2016. Liberals and Conservatives Are (Geographically) Dividing. In Social Psychology of Political Polarization, ed. Piercarlo Valdesolo and Jesse Graham. New York: Routledge. Napier, Jaime, and Jamie Luguri. 2016. From Silos to Synergies: The Effects of Construal Level on Political Polarization. In Social Psychology of Political Polarization, ed. Piercarlo Valdesolo and Jesse Graham. New York: Routledge. Rorty, Richard. 1999. Truth and Progress. New York: Cambridge University Press. Ryfe, David M. 2006. Narrative and Deliberation in Small Group Forums. Journal of Applied Communication Research 34 (1): 72–93. Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter. 2018. Think Again: How to Reason and Argue. Uncorrected proofs. New York: Oxford University Press. Smith, David Livingstone. 2011. Less than Human: Why we Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Stains, Robert R., Jr. 2012. Reflection for Connection: Deepening Dialogue Through Reflective Processes. Conflict Resolution Quarterly 30 (1): 33–51. Stueber, Karsten. 2012. Understanding Versus Explanation: How to Think about the Distinction between the Human and Natural Sciences. Inquiry 5 (1): 17–32. Walsh, Katherine Cramer. 2007. Democratic Potential of Civic Dialogue. In Deliberation, Participation, and Democracy, ed. Shawn W.  Rosenberg. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Walzer, Michael. 1991. A Critique of Philosophical Conversation. In Hermeneutics and Critical Theory in Ethics and Politics, ed. Michael Kelly, 182–196. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Yankelovich, Daniel. 2001. The Magic of Dialogue. New York: Simon and Schuster.

CHAPTER 5

The Power of Dialogue

Introduction Increasingly, there has been a need to acknowledge, as Walter Sinnott-­ Armstrong does in his book on how to argue, that “arguments cannot solve problems all by themselves. Even good seed cannot grow on infertile soil, so audiences must be receptive before arguments can accomplish anything” (Sinnott-Armstrong, 48). This chapter examines some of the research concerned with elucidating the weaknesses of relying on overt rational argumentation and demonstrates why, particularly in highly polarized situations, dialogue should be used as a precursor or supplement to forms of civic discourse that privilege rational argumentation and persuasion. One of the reasons that dialogue is so crucial for establishing and fostering the sort of civic discourse necessary for democratic citizens is that it can be utilized to “improve the soil,” so to speak, by helping audiences be more receptive to one another and to want to listen to the other, and it can also address some of the implicit cognitive structures that hinder the formation of a just, equal, and pluralistic society. Civic dialogue can help attenuate some of the cognitive biases that frequently show up in explicit rational argumentation and make us more hostile toward and less receptive to arguments coming from our opponents. To put it in metaphorical terms, while John Rawls proposed the veil of ignorance as the ideal for universalizing political discourse to arrive at a just policy, I am maintaining that we should remove the veil of ignorance to allow the mutual gaze of knowing. Seeing more of the other and of © The Author(s) 2020 L. S. Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6_5

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ourselves—not less—is what is called for in our vexing times, and this ability is one that dialogue promotes. In fact, this capacity seems to be what James Baldwin was getting at in his diagnosis of the social troubles plaguing our nation 55 years ago: A vast amount of the energy that goes into what we call the Negro problem is produced by the white man’s profound desire not to be judged by those who are not white, not to be seen as he is, and at the same time a vast amount of the white anguish is rooted in the white man’s equally profound need to be seen as he is, to be released from the tyranny of his mirror. All of us know, whether or not we are able to admit it, that mirrors can only lie, that death by drowning is all that awaits one there. It is for this reason that love is so desperately sought and so cunningly avoided. Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. (Baldwin 1998)

Dialogue creates an at once bold and trusting space—what some prefer to call “courageous spaces”—where masks can be removed and we can both allow ourselves to be seen and to be able to more truly see the other. Certain forms of rational argumentation have tended to assume that once one dons the veil of ignorance to cover one’s subjectivity, one is able to think according to a universal rationality. Subjectivity distorts—or so it is sometimes believed. The aim of civic discourse, however, should not always be to curtail subjective experiences; sometimes one needs to begin by figuring out how to acknowledge and productively integrate them into the conversation. Dialogue helps us attend to the connection that is most crucial: namely, between human beings as Thous rather than just between beliefs. We have all witnessed rational argumentation go terribly wrong: accusations fly, attacks are made, and even those possessed of superior rational and intellectual abilities can pounce like Thrasymachus on their interlocutors. David Bohm describes how in rational debates over scientific, religious, or political truths even highly intelligent individuals allegedly committed to the truth frequently behave badly: “they may not realize it, but they have some tendency to defend their assumptions and opinions reactively against evidence that they are not right, or simply a similar tendency to defend them against somebody who has another opinion” (Bohm

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1996, 13).1 Bohm offers insights into why rational argumentation sometimes goes poorly by explaining how if we address conflict by reason alone, we leave untouched the assumptions underlying the conflict. He goes on to describe how this process of defensiveness is frequently unconscious since we “just feel that something is so true that we can’t avoid trying to convince this stupid person how wrong he is to disagree with us” (13). Such individuals defend themselves using reasons and believe they are avoiding unconscious prejudices, assumptions, and biases. Ironically, Bohm observes, it is one’s own deluded belief in the power of one’s own rationality that can cause one to dig in even deeper, a tendency more recently named the “Dunning-Krueger” effect (Kruger and Dunning 1999). The result, as those of us who inhabit the world of philosophy know all too well, is that where such disagreement translates into argumentative duels, cognitive functioning gets impaired. Thrasymachus’ claim that justice is what those with the most power say it is, alas, all too often accurately describes what “justice” does come to mean in highly conflicted situations. Bohm’s insights track with recent empirical findings of Peter T. Coleman, who studies the efficacy of dialogue for conflict transformation. Describing the most intractable forms of conflict, what he labels the “5 percent conflict” and in his book by the same name, he writes that its “two telltale signs are (1) you find yourself denying or discounting any and all positive information about your opponent and (2) you feel overwhelming resistance (from yourself and others) to act differently toward your opponent” (Coleman 2011, 46). Both Bohm and Coleman acknowledge that non-rational forces frequently come into play, especially in highly contentious situations, even when highly rational individuals attempt to argue well. Bohm, in what sounds like a description of implicit bias, explains why this sort of tendency predominates: “people’s self-­ interest and assumptions take over….Something is happening, which is that assumptions or opinions are like computer programs in people’s minds. Those programs take over against the best intentions—they produce their own intentions” (14). He describes the tacit nature of thought as a computer-like program that drives the thinking of even the most intelligent minds. In particular, we observe how epistemic defenses call on extremely primal instincts that have been central to human preservation 1  See also Haidt (2012, chapter 4) for studies that show people’s penchant for rationalizing rather than acting rationally per se.

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for millennia. Consequently, we can be inclined to fight to the death: we feel we are not just defending opinions but ourselves (Bohm 1996, 39). Bohm describes an encounter between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr at a party, where each scientist and his colleagues remained on either side of the room unwilling to speak to the other since they were focusing only on the truth of their own propositions. Bohm remarks: “They couldn’t share any meaning, because each one felt his meaning was true. How can you share if you are sure you have truth and the other fellow is sure he has truth, and the truths don’t agree?”(43) This description fits Coleman’s account of the 5 percent conflict, which, he argues, stems in part from our natural tendency to seek coherence: When we encounter conflict, within the field of forces that constitute it, the natural human tendency is to reduce that tension by seeking coherence through simplification. Research shows that this tendency toward simplification becomes even more intensified when we are under stress, threat, time constraints, fatigue, and various other conditions all absolutely typical of conflict. (2011, 63)

It is in these situations that our “lower-level, linear political thinking” takes over, which “is associated with a simple, dualistic view of conflict situations and with a more competitive and destructive orientation” (65). The result is seemingly intractable polarization held fast by the belief that if one’s own side has the truth and is good then the other side lacks the truth and is evil. How, then, do we make changes given the “automatic” nature of such thought that tends toward the lower level? How do we elevate our political thinking and discourse so as to attain the “higher-level political thinking…associated with a tendency for cooperation and compromise in political conflict” (65)? First, let us take a closer look at how Bohm describes the tacit nature of our beliefs, one that resonates with the current research on implicit bias, which I address below: ‘Tacit’ means that which is unspoken, which cannot be described—like the knowledge required to ride a bicycle. It is the actual knowledge, and it may be coherent or not. I am proposing that thought is actually a subtle tacit process. The concrete process of thinking is very tacit. The meaning is basically tacit. And what we can say explicitly is only a very small part of it. I think we all realize that we do almost everything by this sort of tacit knowledge. Thought is emerging from the tacit ground, and any fundamental

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change in thought will come from the tacit ground. So if we are communicating at the tacit level, then maybe thought is changing. (16)

Explicit rational thought serves only as the tip of the iceberg; to make substantive changes we must address the rest of thought that remains below the surface. According to Bohm, tacit thought is social (he uses the term “communal”) and does not belong to the structure of any single individual mind.2 If shared tacit thought gives rise to explicit beliefs held by individuals, then it makes sense that standard philosophical (i.e., highly idealized and rationalized) strategies that confront explicit individual beliefs do not always prove effective. In certain instances, change must be aimed first at the deeper, tacit level, which will then produce change in explicitly held beliefs that emerge out of the deeper level. As Bohm noted above, and as we shall see further below, tacit beliefs prove particularly dominant and powerful in highly polarized situations where the tendency to rely on our impulses is strongest. Even in spite of our desire to utilize our more rational and explicit reasoning skills, in highly charged arguments we often find ourselves reacting based on tacit and implicit assumptions and impulses. Reaction often trumps reflection in the heat of the moment. Bohm argues that the most effective way to address this shared and tacit meaning is not directly through targeting individualized thought and explicit beliefs—which often exacerbate tensions—but through a form of dialogue that involves a community of thinkers interacting in such a way as to create meaning together, a meaning that transcends the volitional efforts of any individual. Recalling Gadamer’s concept of play taking over to produce a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts helps clarify Bohm’s point about the tacit nature of thought. We should seek an approach to dialogue that is more akin to playing a game where one is invited to pause one’s defensive control of mustering arguments in order to persuade the other to agree to “one’s own” belief. Bohm encourages participants to listen to and reflect on their own assumptions, feelings, and bodily sensations as well as the exchanges and movements offered by the others, which allows individuals to get more in touch with the tacit beliefs driving an explicit reasoning process. Much like in a game, one lets go of 2  Bohm’s thought that emphasizes the communal and shared nature of knowledge has much in common with more recent research on embodied cognition. See, for example, Durt, Fuchs, and Tewes (2017).

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forcing one’s will and surrenders oneself to the play of the game. Since the explicit thought emerges out of tacit thought (16), if we want sustained change, we must aim for what Bohm calls the coherence of the tacit, collectively shared meaning, which will then bring about change on the level of explicit thought that manifests as the beliefs held by individuals. Such coherence is not a product of intentional manipulation, but is akin to the successful play of a game wherein players surrender to allow the play to cohere. In a basketball game, if every player is focused only on taking a shot for themselves, the coherence of the play will be lost. One must attend to the dynamics of the whole court. While Bohm’s advocacy of coherence and Coleman’s warning that the drive toward coherence enables much conflict may seem to be in conflict, it is in fact Gadamer’s notion of play that reconciles their points. When Coleman references “coherence,” he is describing an individual’s explicit rational desire to have things make sense. A theodicy is a good example of this phenomenon: a believer witnesses suffering in the world and makes a conscious effort to rationally make the goodness of God cohere with the preponderance of evil in the world. The attempt to fit these two beliefs together can result in an oversimplification, denial of facts, and so on. It is, after all, very hard to sit with the meaninglessness or absurdity of suffering and so our explicit reasoning attempts to force a logically coherent answer. Or, we may see another human being behaving badly and, since we cannot logically explain how a good person can commit evil actions, we assume a dualistic mindset in pursuit of coherence: namely, that the individual is all bad. Bohm, however, in describing coherent thought as the goal of dialogue does not refer to the process whereby an individual makes their thoughts (i.e., parts) logically cohere with each other (i.e., the whole). Rather, for Bohm, coherent thought is a focused and tacitly ordered communal way of thinking; it only emerges in a dialogue in which beliefs emerge to cohere, without the intentional rational efforts on the part of any single participant. Coherence in this case refers to the emergence of shared meaning, akin to the fusion of horizons—a goal in line with the definition of mutual understanding given in Chap. 4. Coherence requires play that is absent the dominance or force of any individual will. When a game is being played well, there is a coherence to the actions. No single individual will is calling the shots, so to speak. In fact, top athletes speak of being in “the zone,” where their proprioception takes over and their explicit thinking subsides. The zone does not negate agency but reflects an alignment or an in-sync-­ ness of all players-as-agents. Bohm draws from his work as a physicist to

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describe how this sort of coherent thought creates intensity and power through its unified focus. He uses the example of a laser’s coherence: while an incandescent light is incoherent, the unified focus of light waves gives a laser its power, which “regular,” incoherent light does not have. Bohm explains, “you could say that our ordinary thought in society is incoherent—it is going in all sorts of directions, with thoughts conflicting and canceling each other out. But if people were to think together in a coherent way, it would have tremendous power” (16). In other words, many rational debates that become antagonistic we would call incoherent—both sides driven by an explicit and forceful manipulation of thought have stopped making any sense. I see a connection here between the ongoing and focused account of play that Gadamer describes as marking successful understanding and Bohm’s point about coherence. One could say that the best games are those in which the players possess a laser-like focus on the play itself and yet no individual’s will drives the play—the game itself takes over and yet players still maintain their agency. Again we see the importance of reflection in the dialogue process that thwarts defensiveness. Bohm called on participants in a dialogue to attend to the process of how thoughts become manifest since part of what blocks the creation of new, common meaning are the interlocutors’ various assumptions and deeply held values underlying the thoughts. In many instances, these assumptions form who we are and define our identities, and therefore we often feel that it is not simply our ideas that are being challenged and scrutinized but our very selves. As a result, we tend to defend our beliefs with extreme passion. It is as if we become our beliefs and any attack on our beliefs is perceived as an attack on us. What Bohm encourages, then, is for the participants in a dialogue to pay attention not only to the assumptions underlying their beliefs but also to “the process of thought behind the assumptions” (9). As we learned in the previous chapter, a well-facilitated dialogue invites us to start asking questions like “How have we come to hold such beliefs and what role do these beliefs play in our self-understandings, identities, and relations with others?” and “How do they function to uphold various meanings?” The reflective emphasis in the dialogic process helps us recognize that our natural tendency is to identify with our assumptions, which, when left unexamined, leads us to claim them as “truths,” and hence the increase in our defensiveness. In other words, when certain beliefs become entrenched in an overall belief structure and way of life, they become experienced as fundamental “truths” and part of the structure of our very being. Once this

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occurs, we experience them as “obvious” and “objective.” They are no longer just our opinions but become essential foundations of our identities. In a dialogue, therefore, Bohm instructs us to not only listen to the other, as well as to one’s own thought process, but also to one’s body and the “body” of the dialoguing group. In order to “play” the dialogue well, one needs to attend to more than just the words of the one speaking; one needs a proprioceptic awareness of the tacit workings of the “game.” The more we widen the scope of our perception of ourselves and others, ironically, the more focused the dialogue itself becomes. Bohm, therefore, defends dialogue as a form of discourse best suited to address, expose, and bring into awareness foundational beliefs tied to our identities. Dialogue helps expose the barriers and blockages on the tacit level in order to create truly new shared meanings. This is another way of describing how the dialogic process helps us drop our defenses and reconsider our prejudices, allowing mutual understanding to be achieved. Contemporary research on cognitive bias clarifies and deepens Bohm’s account. Both challenge the traditional belief in explicit, rational thought as the predominant means to understanding. Supporting Bohm’s observations, research confirms that the human mind is not able to willfully “meditate” away implicit influences of subjective emotions, intuitions, drives, and impulses. As David DiSalvo writes, “for the last several decades, psychology—and, more recently, neuroscience research—has been providing evidence that ‘independent thought’ is certainly not absolute, and possibly a figment of our ego’s making” (2011, 150). Research indicating the social dimension of thought proves relevant to my argument, showing that the flaws and weaknesses of reason become exacerbated when we take reason solely as the product of independent, conscious minds. According to the traditional western model of reason stemming from modernity, social influences and subjective desires can only be detrimental. But if, as Daniel Kahneman has recently put it, “beliefs do not come from where we think they came” (Kahneman 2017, 39’),3 and if reason is dependent upon, stems from, and is influenced by our social, historical, and cultural practices, then we need to reconsider what it means to reason effectively with others. 3  He continues, “Reasons have very little to do with the causes of your belief… the real causes are rooted in your personal history…. We take the reasons people give for their beliefs much too seriously…. Even if we destroy their arguments, it wouldn’t change their beliefs” (Kahneman 2017, 39’).

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In fact, dialogue does not require us to give up epistemic pursuits but serves as a way to improve them.4 It can help create an environment more conducive to sound reasoning and thus attain more reliable knowledge. In what follows, I highlight some of the research that reveals how cognitive biases are particularly pronounced when attempting to utilize explicit forms of reasoning abstracted from its tacit, subjective, and contextual cognition. By being attentive to and eliciting context, connection, and community, dialogue is able to engage the sociality that impacts our thinking. Engaging in dialogue is a way to acknowledge and utilize the social and contextual dimension of our cognition, thus placing us in a better position to avoid some cognitive biases and to eventually reason well. I argue that dialogue serves as a key strategy for improving civic discourse in so far as it allows us to connect with others without relying on distortive behaviors. As a result, we are able to avoid the sort of argument-based discourse that leaves us most susceptible to cognitive biases. Dialogue creates the conditions that allow us to obtain connection with others, therefore mitigating our urge to irrationally defend ourselves. If we know we are in a situation where we will be listened to and acknowledged rather than attacked, then, as the below research suggests, we will be less susceptible to some forms of cognitive bias.

Utilizing Dialogue to Address Cognitive Bias Dialogue can aid reasoning skills by not only connecting us with others but also promoting a meaningful connection with the issues. Dewey’s point that facts alone are not enough—we must connect facts to meaning—is one that contemporary research supports. Mercier and Sperber show how when people are personally connected to an issue, perceiving there is something at stake for them, they are much more motivated to reason well and there is a quantifiable improvement in their reasoning abilities. They conclude: “participants who would be directly affected by the setting up of a comprehensive exam were much more influenced by strong arguments than by weak ones. This experiment illustrates the more general finding stemming from this literature that, when they are motivated, participants are able to use reasoning to evaluate arguments accurately (for a review, see Petty & Wegener 1998)” (Mercier and Sperber 4  See Navajas et al. (2017) for research that shows the epistemic advantage of small group dialogue over not only individual reasoning but also the “wisdom of crowds.”

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2011, 16). Mercier and Sperber’s research challenges the claim that some people are simply bad reasoners per se and instead demonstrates that flaws and weakness in reasoning skills are more likely to occur when individuals fail to see the relation between arguments and life—in other words, they lack motivation for a “truth” that seems meaningless and irrelevant and feel no connection to the issue. When people are unable to connect their reasoning process to what matters to them, their reasoning suffers. Mercier and Sperber point to research that shows how reasoning improves when people see something is at stake for themselves. Whereas, they continue, “this is not the case in these decontextualized tasks that involve no interaction or in abstract problems. In fact, as soon as these logical problems can be made sense of in an argumentative context, performance improves. For instance, participants can easily understand a modus tollens argument when it is of use not simply to pass some test but to evaluate communicated information (see Thompson et al. 2005b)” (17). In other words, studies allegedly demonstrating how poorly people reason often involve removing reasoners from their contexts of meaning and other human connection.5 More and more research is demonstrating that reasoning is not at its best when abstracted from concrete settings because gaining the trust of our peers is not at stake in those instances. If we want people to reason with excellence, we should help them see what is at stake for them personally and help them connect argument to meaning. In light of Mercier and Sperber’s research, Chap. 4’s claims that dialogue can increase concern, connection, and community would mean that dialogue can be utilized in such a way that will then lead to improved reasoning skills and reduce unwanted biases. By connecting people to meaning and helping them feel there is something at stake for them, dialogue can provide a means for connecting with others in a common pursuit of truth. I will now address further research that helps us understand why this is the case. Research into cognitive dual processing suggests how dialogue can prove a more effective discursive strategy for promoting change of belief than explicit rational argumentation. The work of Daniel Kahneman and others describes (albeit in a very generalized way) the nature of these two levels of cognitive processing: first level processing is the implicit, unconscious, quick, and intuitive level, found in the older part of our brain, the amygdala, and second level processing is the slow, explicit, rational, intentional processing, found in the newer region of the brain, the pre-frontal 5

 See Boudry et al. (2015).

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cortex.6 Haidt and Björklund offers this account: “the human mind is composed of an ancient, automatic, and very fast affective system and a phylogenetically newer, slower, and motivationally weaker cognitive system. Modern social cognition research is largely about the disconnect between automatic processes, which are fast and effortless, and controlled processes, which are slow, conscious, and heavily dependent on verbal thinking (Bargh & Ferguson 2000; Chaiken & Trope 1999; Wegner & Bargh 1998)” (2008, 186).7 If our beliefs are formed on level one, and if the majority of attempts to change beliefs by way of the second level—that is, utilizing explicit rational argumentation—have for the most part failed, then it would make sense to inquire into how we might change belief by targeting the automatic, intuitive level. Since we are not conscious of most of our cognitive biases, intentional and conscious efforts to replace false beliefs with true ones will rarely prove an effective strategy. By utilizing the first level of cognition, I will argue that dialogue can prove more effective for addressing and curtailing unwanted biases than rational argumentation, which as an explicit and rational process operates on the second level.8 Why might dialogue prove so effective in this way? Public discourse is frequently funded by moral judgments. We form moral judgments about others—for example, “the driver of that Toyota Tundra with the Trump bumper sticker is a climate change-denying idiot who is damaging the planet”—and we also form moral judgments about policy—for example, 6  See Kahneman (2011) and Haidt (2001, 2012). These more generalized accounts should be read as capturing the “family resemblances” as opposed to the sufficient features defining two distinct systems (Stanovich 1999). Few actually defend the claim that these two “systems” are entirely independent (Stanovich and Toplak 2012). See footnote 8 for challenges to this generalized account. 7  While a few reject any sort of formulation of dual-process theory altogether (Melnikoff and Bargh 2018), there remains strong evidence for it (Pennycook et al. 2018) even among those who defend a parallel processing model (Trippas et al. 2017). The main crux of disagreement in cognitive processing theory concerns the ability to provide a sufficient account of which properties define these two processes. For example, some would reject speed as a defining feature, citing evidence that logic can also proceed quickly (Bago and De Neys 2017). One does not have to endorse a bifurcated model that stipulates two entirely discrete systems, however, in order to accept the fact that rational thought is not everything philosophers have thought it to be. In other words, whether one takes these two processes to occur at the same time or not, there is warrant for examining the role of autonomous thinking in polarized discourse. 8  The second level, as Haidt and Björklund notes, is not reducible to emotion (2008, 200).

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“the removal of confederate statues from public spaces is the right thing to do.” Much of the western political tradition has been based on the belief that coming together in the public square and exchanging explicit, rational arguments will help us achieve (or move closer to achieving) agreement on moral judgments.9 The Tundra driver and I face each other in the public square for an argumentative duel on climate change, where each of us is expected to calmly offer reasons for why we are correct. But recent cognitive research like Haidt’s sheds light on some of the weakness of standard forms of moral argumentation and why debates are anything but calm. Haidt argues that moral intuitions are formed quickly and unconsciously, based on a variety of factors like social environment, propensities, and genetics, that we only subsequently seek to justify with reasons. Our conscious reasoning occurs after an intuitive judgment has already occurred—approximately 0.4 of a second after a stimulus a judgment occurs, and 0.7 of a second after stimulus rational cognition kicks in. Haidt refers to the ex post facto component of reason as the “tail-wags-­ the-dog phenomenon,” which, in part, explains why moral argumentation is so heated and rarely results in people changing their minds. As Haidt describes it: The bitterness, futility, and self-righteousness of most moral arguments can now be explicated. In a debate about abortion, politics, consensual incest, or what my friend did to your friend, both sides believe that their positions are based on reasoning about the facts and issues involved (the wag-the-dog illusion). Both sides present what they take to be excellent arguments in support of their positions. Both sides expect the other side to be responsive to such reasons (the wag-the-other-dog’s-tail illusion). When the other side fails to be affected by such good reasons, each side concludes that the other side must be closed minded or insincere. In this way the culture wars over issues such as homosexuality and abortion can generate morally motivated players on both sides who believe that their opponents are not morally motivated (Haidt & Hersh 2001; Robinson et al. 1995). (Haidt 2001, 823)

9  As I have noted above, while recent deliberative theory offers a more nuanced perspective of what deliberation should look like, including criticisms of its earlier hyper-rationalistic approach, when one observes how “deliberation” in the public square is actually practiced (as witnessed by debates in the chambers of congress, on television, and in town hall meetings), one tends to see traditional forms of explicit argumentation being utilized.

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As a result, Haidt considers much of contemporary moral argumentation being utilized as an alternative form of force, that is, one party tries to force the other to concede. And he is not the first to conceive of argumentation as a form of force: the Sophist Gorgias stated that if Helen of Troy had been persuaded to leave Sparta by rational argumentation alone she would have been just as much a victim as she was in being carried away by physical force. A rational person cannot refuse the force of a rational argument. Or can they? Haidt reflects: “Moral arguments are therefore like shadow-boxing matches: each contestant lands heavy blows to the opponent’s shadow, then wonders why she doesn’t fall down” (823). What Haidt hopes his social intuitionist model can make us aware of is how even if “moral reasoning may have little persuasive power in conflict situations” all is not lost. For “moral reasoning can be effective in influencing people before a conflict arises. Words and ideas do affect friends, allies, and even strangers by means of the reason-persuasion link. If one can get the other person to see the issue in a new way, perhaps by reframing a problem to trigger new intuitions, then one can influence others with one’s words” (823, emphasis added). Haidt’s description helps us grasp why rational argumentation can be experienced as a violent form of contest: being confronted with a rational argument that challenges one’s core beliefs that often align with one’s most significant social identities can feel like an assault to one’s very being. If we want to affirm the centrality of the exchange of reasons in the public square, then we need to help citizens be able to see issues in new ways that do not threaten their identities. Dialogue, as Chap. 4 has detailed, is a process for aiding people to do just this by helping them reframe issues in ways that affirm their social identities while also revealing those values held in common. Dialogue is not a magical incantation that makes difference disappear; rather it provides a way to reframe and understand difference by decreasing negative stereotypes that feed polarization. Along similar lines to Haidt, Sloman and Fernbach maintain that when people are asked to discuss and reason about issues that are primarily value-driven no amount of discussion changes minds or actions. Appealing to direct argumentation, their research shows, to change minds often proves ineffectual. Sloman and Fernbach argue that community opinion, reasoning about consequences, and the values one attaches to issues all shape the positions one holds and determine how strongly one holds them. When people are talking about values that they hold sacred, “no amount of discussion is going to change them” (2017, 181). Political scientists Van Bavel and Pereira draw similar conclusions: “partisan

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identities bias a broad range of judgments, even when presented with facts that contradict them” (2018, 213). Similar to Mercier and Sperber’s research, what we learn from taking a closer look at these findings is not that reason or discussion per se is deficient and impotent; rather we learn that we must pay more attention to how reason and discussion can be better utilized, including attending to the context. How, and in what context, we use our reason matters, and thus in spite of reason’s secondary and derivative status, it is not that we must “reach for our guns,” as the philosopher Richard Rorty so troublingly put it. Acknowledging reason’s limitations does not mean giving up on moral discourse altogether. Just because rational argumentation, as Haidt and others have shown, is not an effective way to change minds does not mean all is lost. For Haidt and Björklund, moral reasoning is “a social process, not a…private act of cognition” (2008, 181). And if reason is a social process, as Haidt and Mercier and Sperber have argued, then in order to improve our reasoning and to change it for the better, we should develop a way of interacting that does not focus solely on the private act of cognition (i.e., an internal and independent cognitive activity) but engages the full range of social cognition. Here is where dialogue can play a role: dialogue can expose the values that underlie and motivate explicit beliefs, working on first-level processing in such a way that proves effective in ultimately promoting more productive moral discourse. Dialogue’s ability to utilize facilitated encounters to diminish threatening speech, as well as its ability to shift the focus from identities that divide to identities that connect, is an example of the sort of non-partisan exchange called for in Van Bavel and Pereira’s research on minimizing political partisanship: “interventions that either fulfill social needs through nonpartisan means or motivate people to search for the truth, thereby increasing the strength of accuracy goals, will reduce partisan bias. For instance, reducing worldview or self-esteem threats by affirming an individual can open their mind to otherwise threatening information” (2018, 219). Similarly, their research supports the importance of crafting a dialogue to reveal shared identities, as opposed to those identities upon which tension has been based previously: “priming alternative identities as scientists, jurors, or editors might heighten the accuracy goal and reduce partisan bias” (219). Finally, Van Bavel and Pereira endorse the importance of emphasizing what we do share in common and of being able to connect with the other as a human being:

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There is evidence that creating a superordinate identity can reduce group bias in implicit evaluations and person perception. Therefore, interventions should aim at appealing to a superordinate identity that includes all targets of the message – such as Americans or human beings…. (220)

As the previous chapter has detailed, dialogue aims at mutual understanding, which entails the ability to see one’s own underlying assumptions and values as well as those of the other in a new light, allowing the ability to see the other as a human being. The current research I am referencing affirms what the previous chapter named as the goal of dialogue, namely, mutual understanding defined as true connection, whereby the other’s claim as a Thou is affirmed. The goal of dialogue is the ability to mutually connect with the other as a Thou, which I am arguing makes sense in light of current research. Dialogue can promote a deeper and more sustainable change that contributes to a more pluralistic democracy. If two sides walk away from a dialogue persisting in their original belief about a specific issue, therefore, this does not mean the dialogue has failed. A fusion of horizons can occur even where specific explicit beliefs may not change. A successful dialogue occurs when both sides have reflected on their own beliefs in a way that puts both their own commitments and those of the other in a different perspective, revealing a commonality. An openness to and recognition of the humanity of the other-as-Thou are the desired outcomes of a dialogue. Dialogue is more consistently pluralistic in so far as it does not aim at consensus. But, some may protest, if we live in a democracy, ultimately a consensus will have to be reached. How can dialogue aid us in achieving this end? When Sloman and Fernbach make the above claim about the limitations of discursive reasoning, they are describing the limitations of a linear and atomistic picture of beliefs. By working on a system 1 level, however, dialogue can prove effective for preventing or attenuating the demonization of the other in order to develop common ground on which people are better able to listen to others so that polarization might be reduced. While it is true that eventually a decision on policy will have to be made, and while it is also true that to affirm a pluralistic democracy means that some disagreement will always remain, dialogue allows those who disagree with the final decision, to the extent to which they have been productively involved in the discourse, to feel heard, to have been recognized as a Thou, and to better understand where the other side is coming from—all of which decrease polarization. Even if one persists in their belief X after a

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dialogue, disagreeing with the majority consensus of Y, they are better able to see how and why the other endorses Y. At the same time, maybe the dialogue has helped establish some degree of common ground, say on value Z, held by defenders of both X and Y. Perhaps both sides now appreciate the complexity of the issue and the gray areas and areas of doubt underlying their own beliefs. Being able to change one’s interpretation of oneself and the other helps put an end to “us versus them” thinking and reveals common fundamental values underlying both sides—even if differences in specific beliefs remain. Deliberating can be an excellent way to argue and get clear about policy issues when the issues are not too firmly wedded to values or when both sides agree on fundamental and basic values. But when values are the primary sustainers and motivators of views, and when polarization has seemed to shut down both the desire and possibility for discourse, then beginning with dialogue can be a better way to proceed. Let me now address in more depth reasons for why dialogue can contribute to a reduction of stereotyping, hasty generalizations, and implicit bias.

Dialogue and Implicit Bias10 If we know that stereotypes, hasty generalizations, out-group bias, and other forms of implicit bias can undermine rational and just judgments, and if we know that explicit rational arguments and conscious volitions rarely work to mitigate their effects, then how are we to address them? I want to look at some research that suggests that utilizing dialogue can prove successful in curtailing some forms of implicit bias. Implicit bias is a function of automatic conditioning that is created by habitual associations. Research reveals that targeting the habitual associations may prove a successful strategy for weakening or eliminating the automatic conditioning. I will show how dialogue is a means to help change habitual associations and create new patterns of behavior. Studies demonstrate that the explicit exertion of will to combat implicit bias is rarely effective. No matter how much an individual deplores their own biased attitudes, such explicit disavowal of attitudes is not enough to 10  There is some controversy and concern over whether or not (1) current popular tests are reliable measurements for implicit bias and (2) there are adequate grounds for establishing a  causal relation between implicit bias and  explicit bias behavior. The  claims made in  this chapter do not turn on how one answers these questions.

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prevent implicit biased attitudes from remaining operative. Such intractability is due, Clea Rees explains, to the fact that even our conscious associations are largely outside direct deliberative control. I cannot just decide to eliminate the association between penguins and winter festivities from my cognitive processing system. Since we have little direct control over even associations of which we are fully aware, there is likely to be little point in trying to eradicate implicit associations directly. Trying to “will away” our implicit biases—or urging others to do so—is likely to be pointless at best and counterproductive at worst. (Rees 2016, 201)

In this context, implicit bias refers to the way in which behavioral associations implicitly produce attitude formation, therefore rendering explicit attempts to change our attitudes futile. Rees explains, Attitudes are strengthened and made more accessible by activation. The more often an attitude influences cognition, the stronger the associations between its components and the stronger the connections between those components and triggering internal and external elements. Accessibility in this sense need not be conscious. Processing units can be triggered automatically by external and internal stimuli, feedback, and associations. (200)

Surveying numerous studies that seek to understand possibilities for change, Rees is able, however, to conclude that “first, consciously chosen egalitarian commitments can be automatized; second, habituated egalitarian motivations can effectively guide automatic cognition” (202). Rees argues that (explicitly) choosing egalitarian goals can lead to their automatization, which in turn can influence the cognitive affective processing system. Describing her conclusions in terms of the two-systems model we can say that if consciously and deliberately chosen (i.e., second system) goals can eventually be automatized, then there is a way for second system associations to replace first system associations. When consciously chosen goals become automatized, they can “inhibit the influence of implicit stereotypes on cognition” (203). In other words, while we cannot directly will away unwanted biases, we can choose and set new, more egalitarian goals, which eventually will establish new patterns of behavior. Specifically, Rees notes how external motivations can be a first step to internalizing motivations. For example, while caring about how others judge you in and of itself may be inadequate to produce change, it could be an external

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motivation that serves as a first step to internalizing those values. Rees concludes: “the adoption of explicit egalitarian commitments enables individuals to change their implicit motivations by automatizing control of implicit bias” (204). These findings are relevant for thinking about how dialogue has the potential for militating against implicit bias in so far as it can be utilized to aid in habituating egalitarian commitments in such a way that they become automatized. The exchange of first-person narratives can prove instrumental in thwarting implicit bias in two ways. First, if hearing stories about the other, as I have argued earlier, works to humanize the other, then once the other is humanized and stereotypes are relinquished, one is likely to be more inclined to consciously choose egalitarian commitments for one’s behavior toward the other. Hearing a first-person story of racial discrimination can motivate the listener to consciously chose an internally motivated goal of being more egalitarian. The claim is not that a dialogue will immediately eliminate implicit bias. Rather, the claim is that dialogue can motivate an individual to explicitly choose an egalitarian goal which over time can be habituated to replace the non-egalitarian implicit association. Motivation is the necessary, though by no means sufficient, factor in thwarting implicit bias. It is also necessary to replace automatized biases with less biased beliefs. Second, then, dialogue can help provide new associations for stereotyped groups (e.g., Muslims or people with disabilities), which, when further accompanied by proper social support, can become automatized and replace the former implicit bias. For instance, Louise Antony, referencing work by Sarah-Jane Leslie on generics, writes: The most effective regimen for changing associations that create negative stereotyping, according to Leslie, is extensive, cooperative, and equitable engagement with persons of the stereotyped group in some kind of joint project. But the etiological specifics suggest that even a shallow linguistic reform might, to some extent, disrupt or prevent the formation of pernicious, striking-property generics: avoiding the use of generic nouns phrases when making attributions of features of social identity. Thus, instead of ascribing social identity properties by means of labeling nouns or generic constructions, we can use adjectives or descriptive phrases: ‘Instead of labeling a person as a Muslim, we might instead describe the person—if needed— as, say, a person who follows Islam, thus emphasizing that person is the relevant kind sortal, and that following Islam is a particular property that the individual happens to possess ([Leslie] ms: 37–38)’. (Antony 2016, 187–188)

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If dialogue can serve as an “extensive, cooperative, and equitable engagement” with the other, then it seems to qualify as “an effective regimen for changing associations that create negative stereotyping.” Furthermore, Antony’s research suggests that in addition to motivating one to treat the other in a more just way, dialogue could also provide an incentive and motivation to change the language one uses for another, thus changing both explicit and implicit associations one has of others. If an outcome of dialogue is the ability to truly listen to the other, then when this outcome is achieved one is more open to utilizing labels and identities preferred by the other rather than terms the other may find derogatory and that serve to perpetuate unwanted stereotypes. By motivating one to change one’s language for the other, dialogue can change one’s associations for and thus behavior toward another. Through dialogue, the personal stories one hears from the other provide a way to make a deeper, underlying connection that tacitly re-writes the “othering” stories one has been telling about the other. Stories and first-person narratives could work on the tacit level to change hardened patterns. The hard work of interacting with and listening to another can be coupled with the seemingly more “superficial” work of agreeing to change the way we speak of the other, which Antony and Leslie demonstrate as having an impact on how we think of the other. If the words one uses to describe the other shape one’s social realities—how one thinks of and treats them—then this is a “small” change worth making in so far as it can produce more widespread change. The implicit bias caused, in part, by the dominance of system 1 and its tendency to create heuristics that help us survive may be attenuated by the perspective taking and the cultivation of epistemic virtues like intellectual humility and open-mindedness that are fostered by dialogue. One of our evolutionary demands that aided in our survival was the ability to utilize easy and quick heuristics to judge a situation. In their 2015 paper, Samuelson and Church explain: In light of a cognitive system that oftentimes is prone to biases because of a failure of Type 2 processing to decouple from Type 1 representations when necessary, one avenue of exploration into virtuous knowing would be to investigate processes and actions that attenuate biases. From a virtue-­ responsibilist point of view, the vice of cognitive bias lies in this inability (or perhaps refusal) to decouple from the singular representation of reality that Type 1 processing provides. In this way, the cognitive system, in its insistence to stay with Type 1 representations and to not make algorithmic or

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hypothetical comparisons to other possible representations, could be characterized as ‘self-centered.’ Therefore, reducing or eliminating these biases might involve some kind of engagement with an ‘other’: someone or something that ‘de-centers’ the cognitive system, engages decoupling, and entertains different ways of thinking and other points of view. Indeed, a review of the literature reveals several types of ‘other-centered’ thinking as effective techniques for reducing biases: the use of rules of analysis (a process used by many others to arrive at a more consensual judgment); a search for accuracy (representing reality that is shared by others); a need to be accountable for one’s judgments (to defend one’s thoughts to another); and exposure to differing perspectives (seeing things from another’s point of view). (1102)

The key here would be to ensure that any engagement with the other aimed to curtail the unwanted effects of subtle heuristics would need to avoid triggering the defensive and protective parts of our brain. In other words, an encounter that requires one party to be declared the winner can produce threatening situations causing the brain to go into fight, flight, or freeze mode that prevents one from truly engaging with the other, thus thwarting substantive change. One way to minimize such a threat, Church and Samuelson suggest, is to have the encounter focus on taking the perspective of the other. This claim can be used to support the efficacy of dialogue. For, if dialogue can truly aid us in taking the perspective of another, understood as I have specified in Chap. 4 not as mind-reading empathy but as a way to foster deeper listening to the other that reveals a common humanity, then there is good reason to believe that dialogue can function to reduce bias. Samuelson and Church describe how such perspective taking can successfully do just that: Todd, Bodenhausen, Richeson, and Galinsky (2011) found that subjects who performed a perspective taking task showed less implicit or automatic racial bias (as measured by the personalized evaluative race IAT) than a control group that did not engage in perspective taking. One possible explanation the researchers offered was that since the self is the anchor in evaluating others, lessening the distance between the self and the person of another race through perspective taking allowed for more positive evaluations of the person of another race. (1106)

This is precisely the approach taken by Narrative 4, which, in addition to having participants exchange first-person stories, then goes a step further and has them tell the other’s story via a first-person narration. This

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process is a powerful way to take on the perspective of the other.11 Their website describes their “story exchange” process as: an exercise in which individuals are randomly paired off and each shares a story that in some way defines them. Afterwards, each participant takes on the persona of their partner and telling their partner’s story in the first person. The story exchange is based on the simple idea that by knowing the story of another, we are able to better understand one another. We take care to create a safe, neutral and well-supervised environment for all our story exchanges. Our facilitators are highly trained and we collaborate with guidance counselors, mental health professionals and people who care deeply about the welfare of our participants. (https://narrative4.com/missionvision/core-methodology/; accessed 26 September 2017)

The work by Samuelson and Church complements that of Rees in so far as it demonstrates the importance of cultivating habits that can mitigate the effects of cognitive bias. Going beyond Rees, however, Samuelson and Church name the particular virtue required for cultivating such habits as “intellectual humility.”12 The work of Kahneman also helps us grasp the important connection between dialogue and intellectual humility in so far as he maintains that one of the greatest causes of error is overconfidence and that “overconfidence, really, is associated with the failure of imagination. When you cannot imagine an alternative to your belief you are convinced that your belief is true” (2017, 1’06”). In other words, exposure to the story of another, especially one that helps the listener imagine a new perspective, could be a way to reduce or eliminate overconfidence and yield something akin to intellectual humility. In fact, research has shown just that. Dialogues structured to reveal gray areas or uncertainties about one’s own staunchly held position have proven helpful in getting participants to realize they do not know it all. Dialogue proves effective along these lines since it does not involve others trying to undermine one’s own epistemic certainty—which, as we have seen, usually makes one dig one’s heels in even further—but  http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/gun-violence-radical-empathy.html  Research from work as a co-principal investigator on a multi-institution grant (Sarrouf et al) does in fact suggest that dialogue can help cultivate intellectual humility and openmindedness in college classroom settings. In the following chapter I discuss the relationship between “intellectual humility” and “open-mindedness,” and explore in more detail how civic dialogue can cultivate these virtues. 11 12

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encourages participants to reflect on and consider how hearing others’ stories exposes some tensions or uncertainties in their own thinking. Structuring the dialogue to encourage self-questioning can be a much more effective way to dislodge black and white or us versus them mindsets. First-person stories can provide a way to challenge and weaken certainties held fast by first level systems. The power of stories lies in their ability to provoke what Gadamer identified as a central feature of understanding, namely, “the negativity of experience.” Referencing Aeschylus’ “learning through suffering,” Gadamer argued that understanding happens only when we are pulled up short, when something exposes a tension that must be resolved (1992b, 356–358). If it is true that, as Kahneman maintains, “mostly we go through life with the impression that we see the world as it is” (2017, 1’18”), then dialogue allows us to hear the other’s story in a way that exposes limitations, contradictions, and shortcomings in our own story. It is important to ensure, however, that the dialogue setting is facilitated and designed to maximize listening and downplay threat. The well-structured dialogue ensures that any “experience of negativity” is more likely to produce understanding, growth, and learning rather than fight, flight, or freeze. Dissonance can either be a gateway to learning—as Aeschylus’ point about learning through suffering demonstrates—or in its extreme iteration can be too overwhelming and shut down learning (Steele 2011). As we learned in Chap. 4, simply sharing stories without previous attention to the participants’ histories, desires, and experiences could lend itself to reinforcing oppression and negative stereotypes. One way to avoid having the stories shared in a dialogue yield such unwanted effects is to make sure facilitators do the prior work needed to get a sense for stories held by both sides, and to be attentive to doing as much preliminary work as needed to build trust and minimize a triggering exchange. For this reason, questions usually help participants avoid tackling “the issue” head on by asking about the personal experiences that led one to a certain position and being reminded to speak only for oneself and to avoid generalizations. In an intergroup dialogue about race, for example, a white person might share an experience that shaped their views about race by talking about their feelings and experiences as a lower-­ income white person who feels shut out of certain social opportunities. Instead of making triggering generalizations about how “it’s easier for racial minorities” or “white people who are more qualified lose out to people of color who are less qualified,” the expectation to focus on one’s own feelings and experiences reveals a genuine fear and hurt. Acknowledging

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this particular individual’s feelings does not require a participant of color to deny their own experiences of injustice. Keeping these sorts of generalizations out of the dialogue, while at the same time allowing each individual to speak honestly about their feelings and experiences, is a way to minimize triggering those involved, while at the same time not covering over the reality of different experiences. Kahneman’s work can also be used to defend the power of stories for counteracting bias caused by heuristics in so far as he describes how when an event occurs and we attempt to offer reasons for its occurrence, it is system 1 that jumps in to offer stories. Stories-as-explanations are offered immediately due to the fact that we have very little tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity. Drawing on Gazzaniga’s research, Kahneman clarifies how our intolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity is due to the existential threat posed by not knowing—a similar point to Coleman’s about the drive toward coherent explanations. System 1 proposes stories to system 2 that can then affirm and endorse these stories, which then creates beliefs that help orient us in a perplexing situation (Kahneman 2017, 42’). His research suggests a plausible reason for why stories can be powerful forces of change. First, stories, not arguments, lie at the basis of our beliefs. Arguments are given ex post facto. Kahneman insists that just because arguments feel “irrefutable does not mean they are the cause of our beliefs…. The sequence that…arguments come first and that conclusions come later is…often reversed” (Kahneman 2017, 45’). It would seem, then, that if we want to change our stories, we should attempt to replace them with other stories from the ground up, so to speak, rather than try to work from a top-down approach by providing reasons and arguments for changing our stories. This point reveals the efficacy of using narratives in dialogue to produce mutual understanding and also helps explain why relying on rational argumentation alone seldom will do the trick. The facilitated structure that utilizes narrative in dialogue is a way to effect change at its root. Second, Kahneman exposes another truth about our beliefs: they are rooted not only in stories but in people. We have certain beliefs because “we believe in the people who have those beliefs” (48’). Hearing the story of the other in the context of a dialogue may support one’s desire and capacity to believe in that person without necessarily having to believe in all of that person’s beliefs. An exchange of personal narratives allows us to see the other first and foremost as another human being, and secondarily a person with different beliefs. As a result of prioritizing similar identities over conflicted ones, polarization is

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diminished. Dialogue, when engaged with the proper reflection and structure, can expand the types of people we believe in. Learning about values, experiences, and meaning held in common can reduce polarization that arises from privileging identity difference. The purpose of a facilitated dialogue as described in Chap. 4 is one way to ensure that intragroup dialogue does not strengthen out-group bias, which leads to the next point. If we are hard-wired to distinguish between in-group and out-group, and if this capacity is likely one that we can never entirely eradicate (Mahajan et al. 2011 cited in Huebner 2016, 59), what hope is there that dialogue could both diminish out-group bias and make one open to dialogue with the out-group? Bryce Huebner writes, “Our tendency to classify others is triggered by the presentation of even minimal information…, and this feature of our psychology would be difficult, if not impossible, to eliminate. But there is a great deal we can do to moderate its impact, for this capacity is subserved by a content-poor mechanism that must be calibrated against environmental feedback to yield biases” (Huebner 2016, 59). He goes on to describe the multiple and sometimes competing systems (e.g., Pavlovian, model-free, and model-based decision) that drive implicit bias and what that might mean for thwarting their impact. Like other implicit bias researchers, Huebner affirms the significance of motivation in overcoming implicit bias: “people who are strongly committed to egalitarian goals and values show an increased capacity to inhibit or suppress the influence of stereotypes on their judgements” (65). What Huebner’s research demonstrates, however, is that “even without such chronic motivations, people can use consciously held goals to temporarily modulate reflexive responses. For example, a stimulus that typically evokes negative attitudes …can be treated as having a positive value in the context of a currently active goal” (65–66). He cites studies where participants are presented with pictures and biographies of admired African Americans and despised white Americans. Results on an IAT showed less bias toward out-­ group members even up to 24 hours after exposure to the stories and pictures (69). Huebner concludes: Reading a brief narrative and briefly imagining the life of Martin Luther King Jr. may therefore modulate existing associations by updating the stored value of race-relevant contingencies…. As Johnson et al (2013) show, reading a brief narrative about a strong Muslim woman’s response to being assaulted in a subway station effectively reduces implicit bias, especially in people who are not antecedently disposed to engage in perspective taking….

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In a sense, narrative engagement is a familiar strategy for intervening on implicit attitudes, and it shares much in common with the kind of cognitive and dialectical behavioural therapy that has been designed to retrain our implicit attitudes (cf. Huebner, 2009). There is even evidence that we can rely on repeated and directed exposure to the non-stereotypical properties of a stereotype-target to influence automatic judgements (cf. Kawakami et al. 2000). (70, italics added)

Huebner’s claims can be used to defend the benefits of utilizing first-­ person narrative in dialogue for diminishing the effects of out-group bias. Furthermore, he presents reasons for ensuring that dialogue is not a one-­ off event and that it is built into a community’s structure and practice. Motyl et al. (2011) have also produced studies that indicate the significance of dialogue for being able to reduce out-group bias. Their study builds on research that establishes that when people fear for their own life they are more likely to imbue an out-group with negative attributes. When individuals feel threatened and anxious, they rely on their own pre-­ established worldviews to create and establish comfort and meaning. When exposed to different worldviews their anxiety and fear become enhanced due to the dissonance between the two sides. This dissonance activates increased defensiveness about their own worldviews that manifests as regarding them as superior to others, which can include “attempting to convert, derogate, or kill (or support the killing of) outgroup members” (Motyl et  al. 2011, 1179). Motyl et  al. cite multiple studies showing that fear-inducing stories, like reminders of death, increase people’s tendency to endorse violent retaliation and/or extreme military action against the enemy. In order to figure out how to reduce tendencies toward retaliation and violence, Motyl et al. studied the effects of viewing pictures of and reading stories about people’s childhood experiences from diverse cultures. Subjects were then asked to write reflections on their own childhood experiences to enhance reflection on similarities. They found that perceiving similarity with others is likely to encourage people to be more willing to categorize people from different cultures as members of their ingroup. It seems highly unlikely, however, that distinctions among people from different cultures completely dissolves when they are made aware of their similarities. Thus we prefer to view the present findings as resulting from increased perceptions of similarity rather than an elimination of distinctions between groups. (1183)

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In other words, hearing stories about the lives of those who differ combined with an opportunity to reflect on one’s own narratives can thwart out-group biases by highlighting similarities. But this does not mean that difference per se is denied—which would be undesirable and unrealistic. These findings are important for demonstrating how sharing first-person stories can be used to reveal a fundamental commonality shared between sides that reduces hostilities without having to pretend that difference does not exist. These studies support claims about how a properly structured dialogue can decrease out-group bias by producing an experience of shared humanity. Fear of the other can be reduced by interacting with them in ways that reveal a shared identity without pretending that there are no identity differences. Dialogue challenges our brain’s innate tendency to simplify (e.g., by deeming all those who are not with us as against us) by allowing us to create new stories that make us more willing to engage with the other. (Our brain’s penchant for simplification is a survival mechanism as well as an efficiency mechanism—since complexity takes more brain power.13) One study that specifically focused on assessing the role of political discourse to effect change concluded, “with a well-run and carefully balanced group, dialogue can be a means whereby biases are addressed and corrected” (Hughes and Pollard 2014, 11). The particular first-person experiences shared in a respectful and trusting space that promotes self-reflection allow participants to experience commonality with the other side. Such findings are supported by Van Bavel and Pereira’s research that affirms the importance of helping people privilege their shared humanity as a way to combat implicit bias: “To change implicit partisan evaluations, an intervention should aim to change the underlying associations or activate an alternative, or superordinate, social identity” (2017, 220). One caveat remains, however, and that is the question about the longevity of effects, especially when encountering new stressful situations after some time has gone by. Huebner observes that when minor stresses come into the picture that remind us of our biases, we are likely to revert to the old and easy implicit biases. This fact, combined with the 13  “Uncertainty is a complex brain’s biggest challenge, and predictive coding evolved to help us reduce it” (Pollan 2018, 311), writes Michael Pollan drawing on the research of Robin Carhart-Harris et al. (2014). Along these lines, a question worth pondering is whether the increased polarization of politics might be a result of the increased information we are exposed to.

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complexity of our cognitive processing system, makes lasting change difficult to guarantee. Huebner notes the limitations of such interventions, since “each depends on a relatively local intervention. It would take superhuman cognitive resources to moderate and suppress all our biases in this way, especially where ongoing feedback from the racist world in which we live continually pushes back against this system” (71). In order to change our thinking for the long term, we need to change more than individual minds; we need to change social structures that sustain such biases. Changing social structures creates, according to Nilanjana Dasgupta, “environments that facilitate positive contact with members of stereotyped groups [which] create and reinforce positive implicit associations, thereby counteracting implicit bias” (quoted in Huebner, 72). In so far as dialogue aims not to change isolated beliefs but to foster a shift in thinking about values, it can serve as an impetus to inform the sorts of environments, that is, social spaces, that we create for interacting with others. Dialogue is an initial step for soliciting others in the collective project of building better worlds as opposed to a narrow focus that involves only changing individual beliefs. Keith Frankish has studied possible reasons for our implicit biases to re-emerge and/or to override our explicit beliefs. When someone forgets their explicit views, perhaps in a stress-provoking situation, Frankish terms this type “incompetence.” A second reason that implicit biases can over-­ rule explicit beliefs is a lack of motivation. In line with Rees, Frankish emphasizes that “high metacognitive motivations will be an important factor in effective override” (41). He maintains, in order to suppress an implicit bias, it is not sufficient to have an explicit unbiased belief and an explicit desire to be fair; one also needs a strong implicit metacognitive desire to make those explicit propositional attitudes effective in reasoning and action—strength of will, we might say. Failure to suppress implicit biases, I suggest, is often due to the weakness of this implicit desire. (42)

In other words, the key is to ramp up one’s implicit desire to act according to one’s explicit non-racist motivation. Frankish’s research is devoted to showing how developing strong implicit metacognitive strength of will has proved effective in suppressing implicit bias. He proposes four necessary conditions that can help override implicit belief in the instance where someone who explicitly rejects racism

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nonetheless holds implicit racist beliefs. (1) Recall and articulate to oneself one’s explicit non-racist beliefs in a given situation. The goal is to ramp up explicit reasoning so that one relies on the explicit rather than implicit belief in one’s reasoning. (2) Recognize that one’s explicit belief requires one to act in accordance with it. Some recognition, though not necessarily cognitively explicit, is required: “What is crucial is that S should realize, at least implicitly, that the conclusion is dictated by their premises and goals” (40). (3) Commit to performing the action in accord with their explicit non-racist belief (rather than revising their explicit belief or accepting inconsistency). (4) Possess a stronger motivation to act according to the explicit belief than the desires to follow the counteraction being promoted by one’s implicit beliefs (Frankish 2016, 39–40). Frankish maintains, “if these conditions are met then S’s explicit belief will override their implicit one, and they will [act according to their explicit belief]” (40). Frankish’s research accords with that of others who maintain that ensuring the correct form of face-to-face discourse with others whom we tend to judge negatively based on stereotypes can assist our explicit beliefs to function as the dominant beliefs, overriding our implicit ones. Frankish explains how “Boosting [the strength of one’s explicit beliefs over their implicit ones] might be achieved by providing subjects with direct or indirect reminders of the importance of the issue and of the harmful effects of the bias, and reduction by offering contrary suggestions” (43). As we have seen, positive direct exposure to those one holds prejudices about, as well as hearing stories about their experiences, can prove a successful means for overriding negative implicit bias. For hearing stories of the experience of the other may be one way to remind someone of the detriment of their implicit beliefs for actual, concrete humans and hence motivate them to act on their explicit rather than implicit beliefs. Face-to-face encounters and hearing stories of the other in a non-confrontational way may also serve to strengthen the motivation to follow one’s explicit belief, serving as a way to “manipulate implicit bias by manipulating a subject’s desire to honor their commitments generally” (43). That this line of research pertains to those whose explicit beliefs are in tension with their implicit beliefs—thus addressing a different phenomenon than Clees’ work— would seem to imply that the type of stories exchanged would need to be of a specific sort in order to ensure that they target themes of “integrity, consistency, self-discipline, and strength of will”—what Frankish names as the key priming attitudes (43).

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There are good reasons, therefore, to believe in the power of dialogue for attenuating several cognitive biases that can impede our discourse with others. Yet it must be reiterated that to ensure productive themes are targeted in a dialogue, facilitators need to work with participants in advance to formulate questions that avoid triggering and offensive language and terms, as well as learn about histories that may not be apt to discuss in initial dialogues. Facilitators need to scaffold the dialogue to ensure small but incrementally productive steps toward being able to address the most difficult topics. This extra level of structure, however, has the drawback of requiring a fair amount of time—on the part of both the facilitators and the participants. It is not simply a one- or two-hour debate. A successful structure, as we learned in Chap. 4, requires adequate time and planning, both on the part of the facilitators and on the part of at least some community members. Another requirement of dialogue that may prove limiting is that in situations of intense and long-term conflict, dialogue facilitators insist that participation is voluntary. Facilitators rarely allow challenging and difficult dialogues to be required (e.g., sexual assault training). Might this mean that those most in need of a dialogue would refuse to show up? Here we could learn a lesson from Matthew Stevenson, the Jewish college student who invited a white nationalist, Derek Black, to join him and some other Jewish friends for their regular Friday Shabbat dinners. Stevenson initiated these informal and social “dialogues” over a meal, and intentionally chose to talk about almost anything except the issue of conflict. Over time, these informal social dinners created a friendship between the two men, which led to Black slowly questioning the values he had been brought up with. While Black did renounce his white nationalism, that is not my point. My point is that just because not everyone who stands to benefit from a dialogue will opt to participate, this does not mean all is lost. One could consider more informal, socially oriented ways to bring people together to accomplish “mutual understanding” on the most basic level. There are many examples of community gatherings, especially involving the arts, that can bring groups divided by polarization to engage in such a way as to have fun and thereby encounter the shared humanity of the other, resulting in a de-escalation of the polarization, and they may result in more people being willing to engage in a formal, structured dialogue in the future.14 In order to make headway in a community torn apart by  NCDD.org contains stories of and resources for successful dialogues.

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conflict, even starting off small, with fewer rather than more members of a community engaging in dialogue, can lead to substantial changes, especially if the leaders of each side are the ones modeling the dialogue. Communities, therefore, will have to assess their level of conflict and whether there is sufficient motivation to spend the time and effort needed to establish a better foundation for more productive political discourse, and if so, what this will look like. Certainly, then, dialogue comes with certain limitations that a more traditional town meeting or debate might avoid, but where communities have become paralyzed by polarization, it is highly likely that there are at least a few willing to reach across the divide and spend the time needed to begin a conversation.

Bibliography Antony, Louise M. 2016. Bias: Friend or Foe? Reflections on Saulish Skepticism. In Implicit Bias and Philosophy, ed. Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul, vol. 1, 157–190. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bago, B., and W. De Neys. 2017. Fast Logic? Examining the Time Course of Dual Process Theory. Cognition 158: 90–109. Baldwin, James. 1998. The Fire Next Time. In Collected Essays, ed. Toni Morrison. New York: The Library of America. Bohm, David. 1996. On Dialogue. New York: Routledge. Boudry, Maarten, Fabio Paglieri, and Massimo Pigliucci. 2015. The Fake, the Flimsy and the Fallacious: Demarcating Arguments in Real Life. Argumentation 29 (4): 431–456. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10503-015-9359-1. Carhart-Harris, Robin, et al. 2014. The Entropic Brain: A Theory of Conscious States Informed by Neuroimaging Research with Psychedelic Drugs. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 8 (20). https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2014.000208. Coleman, Peter T. 2011. The Five Percent Conflict. 2011. The Five Percent: Finding Solutions to Seemingly Impossible Conflicts. New York: Public Affairs. DiSalvo, David. 2011. What Makes your Brain Happy and Why You Should Do the Opposite. New York: Prometheus Books. Durt, Christoph, Thomas Fuchs, and Christian Tewes. 2017. Embodiment, Enaction, and Culture: Investigating the Constitution of the Shared World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Frankish, Keith. 2016. Playing Double: Implicit Bias, Dual Level, and Self-­ Control. In Implicit Bias and Philosophy, ed. Michael Brownstein and K. Jennifer Saul, vol. 1, 23–46. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1992b. Truth and Method. Second Revised Edition, trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall. New York: Crossroad.

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Haidt, J. 2001. The Emotional Tail and its Rational Dog: A Social Intuitionist Approach to Moral Judgment. Psychological Review 108: 814–834. ———. 2012. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion. New York: Vintage Books. Haidt, Jonathan, and Fredrik Björklund. 2008. Social Intuitionists Answer Six Questions about Moral Psychology. In Moral Psychology (Vol 2). The Cognitive Science of Morality: Intuition and Diversity, ed. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, 181–217. Cambridge, MA: MIT. Huebner, Bryce. 2016. Implicit Bias, Reinforcement Learning, and Scaffolded Moral Cognition. In Implicit Bias and Philosophy, ed. Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul, vol. 1, 47–79. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hughes, Tim, and Amy Pollard. 2014. Changing Hats: How Deliberation Impacts Citizens. UK: Expert Sciencewise Resource Center. Kahneman, Daniel. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New  York: Farrar, Strauss and Giroux. ———. 2017. Interview with Krista Tippett, On Being podcast, October 5, 2017, unedited version, https://onbeing.org/programs/daniel-kahneman-why-we contradict-ourselves-and-confound-each-other-jan2019/ Kruger, Justin, and David Dunning. 1999. Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-­ Assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 77 (6): 1121–34. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.77.6.1121. Melnikoff, D.E., and J.A.  Bargh. 2018. The Mythical Number Two. Trends in Cognitive Science 22: 280–293. Mercier, Hugo, and Dan Sperber. 2011. Why Do Humans Reason? Arguments for an Argumentative Theory. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34: 57–111. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X10000968. Motyl, Matt, et al. 2011. Subtle Priming of Shared Human Experiences Eliminates Threat Induced Negativity Toward Arabs, Immigrants, and Peace-Making. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 4: 1179–1184. Navajas, Joaquin, Tamara Niella, Gerry Garbulsky, Bahador Bahrami, and Mariano Sigman. 2017. Aggregated Knowledge from a Small Number of Debates Outperforms the Wisdom of Large Crowds. Nature Human Behaviour 2: 126–132. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-017-0273-4. Pennycook, Gordon, Wim De Neys, Jonathan St.B.T. Evans, Keith E. Stanovich, and Valerie A. Thompson. 2018. The Mythical Dual-Process Typology. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 22 (8). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2018.04.008. Pollan, Michael. 2018. How to Change your Mind. New York: Penguin. Rees, Clea F. 2016. A Virtue Ethics Response to Implicit Bias. In Implicit Bias and Philosophy, ed. Michael Brownstein and Jennifer Saul, vol. 2, 191–214. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Sloman, Steven, and Philip Fernbach. 2017. The Knowledge Illusion. New York: Riverhead Books. Stanovich, Keith E., and Maggie E.  Toplak. 2012. Defining Features Versus Incidental Correlates of Type 1 and Type 2 Processing. Mind and Society 11: 3–13. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-011-0093-6. Steele, Claude M. 2011. Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect us and What we Can Do. New York: Norton. Trippas, Dries, Valerie A.  Thompson, and Simon J.  Handley. 2017. When Fast Logic Meets Slow Belief: Evidence for a Parallel-Processing Model of Belief Bias. Memory and Cognition 45: 539–552. https://doi.org/10.3758/ s13421-016-0680-1. Van Bavel, Jay J., and Andrea Pereira. 2018. The Partisan Brain: An Identity-Based Model of Political Belief. Trends in Cognitive Science 22 (3): 213–224.

CHAPTER 6

The Virtue of Dialogue

Introduction If one major driver of the polarization that shuts down discourse is constructing negative stories around and privileging distinct rather than shared social identities, then we need to take a closer look at the social and epistemic power dynamics at play in such discourse. We need to scrutinize the social and epistemic factors that lead to the silencing of groups marginalized specifically due to their social identities. Some social identities have been created primarily out of oppressive practices and therefore differences do not simply exist on a horizontal axis but on a vertical one. Accordingly, some identities are granted more social, political, and legal power than others. The identities of race, sexual orientation, gender, and able-bodiedness, for example, due to their origin in oppressive social and political structures, operate differently in society than identity differences formed around gun rights, abortion, health care, and so on. Of course, no conflict is entirely free from identity-based oppression, but some are founded more on historically sedimented expressions of oppression than others. A central question arising within the context of these sorts of identity conflicts is whether dialogue is adequate to cope with identity-based power structures that have served to silence the marginalized.1 In other

1

 See McPhail (2004).

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words, can dialogue lead to social (as opposed to interpersonal) change, and if so, how?2 In order to address concerns like these, this chapter begins by considering Miranda Fricker’s claim that epistemic injustice is a central vice that implicitly functions to silence marginalized groups, as well as her claim that the way to counter this vice is through the epistemic virtues of testimonial and hermeneutic justice. I first examine some of the literature that challenges her claims about the efficacy of testimonial and hermeneutic justice as epistemic virtues and I then consider alternative virtues to the ones she proposes. Drawing on these critiques as well as Gadamer’s account of openness developed in Chap. 3, I defend openness as a key virtue for promoting discursive equality, one that applies to the individual but that has repercussions for attenuating structural inequalities. I end the chapter appealing to Dewey’s account of democracy to demonstrate the central role civic dialogue can play in cultivating the civic habits and virtues necessary for fostering a more just democracy.

Epistemic Injustice and Its Virtues Epistemic injustice is a form of injustice committed against someone, or a group of people, based on a prejudice about their social identity. It can be considered a civic vice because it involves silencing voices in the public square, preventing public access to meaning and meaning making, and thus could at times serve to hamper forms of civic discourse that would contribute to the flourishing of certain social identity groups. I will very briefly rehearse a general account of epistemic injustice, discuss some of the criticisms directed at it, and then propose ways that civic dialogue can be utilized to curtail it. In Epistemic Injustice, Miranda Fricker describes two forms of epistemic injustice: testimonial and hermeneutical. The quintessential example of testimonial injustice Fricker provides is To Kill a Mockingbird’s Tom Robinson whose testimony is disregarded by the white jurists due to their prejudice against his social identity as a black male. Elizabeth Anderson clarifies how testimonial injustice can occur on either a transactional and individual level or a procedural and structural level (Anderson 2012). The second type of injustice Fricker names, hermeneutical, always occurs on the structural level since it involves the society-wide exclusion of certain 2

 See Dessel, Rogge, and Garlington (2006) and Gergen, McNamee, and Barrett (2001).

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voices. A hermeneutical injustice is not caused by an individual’s identity-­ based prejudice but by the way the structure of society excludes voices and agencies of a marginalized identity group. A structural injustice occurs not when an individual consciously chooses to disregard the testimony of someone from another identity group but rather when there are social norms, practices, and expectations that prevent the marginalized person(s) from being heard. In such an instance, those on the dominant side may be unaware they are silencing others. Fricker gives the example of how women’s voices were silenced before there was a coherent naming of the practices that comprise sexual harassment. It was not necessarily the case that individual men consciously chose not to listen to the testimony of victims of sexual harassment. Rather, women were tacitly silenced due to the fact that society provided no means, because no language or laws, for allowing men to acknowledge a key oppressive feature in the lives of many women. One way to counter such unjust practices and habits is, according to Fricker, to cultivate a virtue that allows the checking of prejudices and the prevention of their operation. Fricker names these requisite virtues “testimonial justice” and “hermeneutical justice.” Below I look at two of the challenges that Benjamin Sherman and Elizabeth Anderson bring against Fricker’s esteem of testimonial and hermeneutical justice as virtues. To focus the discussion, I begin with Sherman’s critique of the virtue of testimonial justice which attaches to an individual. I then propose a virtue more adequate for countering epistemic injustice, namely, what I call “openness.” Next, I take up Anderson’s critique of hermeneutic justice as ineffective for countering structural oppression. I close by affirming Anderson’s Deweyan strains that allow me to defend dialogue as a civic practice well-suited both to cultivate individual virtues able to attenuate testimonial injustices and to promote structural change that thwarts hermeneutical injustices. In his 2016 article, Benjamin Sherman rejects Fricker’s move to overcome epistemic injustice with the virtue of testimonial justice. I will mention three of his criticisms as a way to set the stage for defending open-mindedness as a virtue more suited to countering the oppressive and silencing practices Fricker names as epistemic injustice. I will then offer a critical account of open-mindedness in order to argue, drawing on Chap. 3, that a better virtue for countering epistemic injustice is openness, which can be cultivated by dialogue.

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First, Sherman maintains that one of the reasons that defending testimonial justice as a virtue is problematic is that it is a disposition that proves too difficult for most individuals to actually attain. He writes, virtue theory must claim that there are, in fact, virtues—that is, stable dispositions of character that reliably succeed at achieving the right sorts of out-­ comes. Where the outcomes in question are defined modestly enough, virtues look fairly plausible: it requires no stretch of the imagination to suppose there is such a thing as honesty, where that is the stable disposition not to lie or intentionally mislead others. But when the outcomes in question are systematically difficult for people to recognize or achieve, it is less clear that there is any realistically possible human disposition that will reliably achieve them. (Sherman 2016, 234)

Since “virtues” refer to stable dispositions, and if a certain disposition is unattainable in practice or unstable, then it would make little sense to refer to it as a virtue. This is not to say that it is not a valid ideal to strive for, but a moral ideal is not necessarily a virtue. Sherman notes that Fricker’s description of the alleged virtue of testimonial justice as requiring that one “avoid certain kinds of error” (240) conflicts with contemporary research on cognitive bias. He maintains that the requirement to “avoid certain kinds of error” simply sets the bar too high to be achievable, therefore rendering her claim about testimonial justice being a virtue problematic. Sherman explains that because testimonial justice requires more than having a disposition to be aware of one’s shortcomings, in that one oneself must actually avoid error, we should doubt Fricker’s claim that testimonial justice is a virtue. A second concern Sherman raises is that for the traditional virtues, one must be able to self-correct when one has failed to attain the virtue. In other words, having a specific virtue entails that one is able to correctly assess whether one actually has or does not have it. There can be no false positives whereby one thinks one possesses the virtue when one in fact does not. If one lacks courage, and has the correct definition of it, it is fairly easy to recognize (or at least be persuaded) that one lacks that virtue. Sherman creates an example to illustrate his point about the inadequacy of defending testimonial justice as a virtue. The Grand Cyclops is a leader of a KKK chapter who utilizes reasons and even appeals to the language of justice to defend his own prejudiced views and unjust behaviors. He uses his prejudices to defend himself as virtuous. Sherman describes the

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following scenario: “suppose someone asks him, ‘What about your reactions to the testimony of black people, women (in traditionally male contexts), immigrants, non-Christians, Catholics, queer people, and leftists?’ ‘Well,’ he says, ‘those reactions are epistemically just; my credibility judgments in those cases are exactly appropriate’” (237). As Sherman describes it, it is not simply that he fails to notice the content and effects of his views. Rather, he displays a correct definition of the “virtue” and uses reason to defend his particular explicit prejudiced ideas and unjust behaviors as virtuous. Even after reflecting, he sees no error in his ways and thus there is no guarantee that he can, much less will, correct for them. The Grand Cyclops, then, is an example of someone who claims to be epistemically virtuous yet is not. In contrast, it is hard to imagine one who lacks courage being able to offer an internally cogent argument for why they are courageous. Sherman thus concludes that testimonial justice cannot be a virtue given the requirement that to possess a virtue is to be able to self-correct when one lacks that virtue. Finally, given the plethora of biases that research is uncovering as well as the infinite number of social situations and individuals we could encounter, a third point Sherman makes is that even if one could identify one’s own bias in a certain situation, there is no guarantee that one would be able to address and overcome it so as to become unbiased. In other words, even if one were able to identify one’s biases in a given situation, there is no guarantee that one could be able to correct for it—a point sustained by the cognitive bias research detailed in the previous chapter. He explains: “Not only are there reasons to worry that reflection is unlikely to show us the correct credibility judgments; there is also evidence that striving for objectivity, and against prejudicial bias, is likely to be a self-defeating strategy in many contexts. Several studies suggest we are prone to becoming more biased when we consider whether or not we are biased” (243). Individuals simply don’t have the capacity to overcome all of their cognitive biases; our volitions are thwarted by deeper (i.e., pre-rational, unconscious) and larger (e.g., social imaginaries) influences. If Linda Martín Alcoff is correct that the epistemic virtues Fricker extols “are all volitional practices, or ones we might consciously cultivate and practice” (Alcoff 2010, 132), then Sherman’s critique indeed undermines the claim that testimonial justice is a virtue. As the previous chapter has argued, sub-­ rational, pre-rational, and social imaginaries all impact our cognitive abilities and individuals are not always in a position to notice, much less overcome, them. Sherman offers this in conclusion, “Having avoided or

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uprooted 1000 prejudices will not necessarily prevent you from falling prey to another prejudice, which might develop in a very different way from the other 1000. Testimonial injustice might be a vice (or family of vices) with no correlative virtue” (244). Sherman has presented three reasons for why testimonial justice fails to be considered a virtue, and why, therefore, it is false to claim that it is a virtue that counters the vice of epistemic injustice. What does Sherman propose as a way of countering this vice? Although he is neither a defender of virtue theory per se nor committed to its use to curtail epistemic injustices, he does suggest that if we want to preserve talk of virtues, we should look to virtues like “epistemic responsibility and humility” (246).3 The virtue of “epistemic responsibility,” he explains, requires only that one assumes and recognizes an ideal and works to approximate it. To be responsible is to demonstrate an effort to move toward an ideal without the need to actually achieve it. One need not know it all in order to be deemed epistemically responsible—demonstrating effort is enough. Whereas in terms of testimonial justice, one must actually achieve it: one must notice one’s unjust credibility judgment and then one must actually correct for it. Sherman goes on to claim that the virtue of epistemic humility can prove effective in countering epistemic injustice since possessing intellectual humility requires only that one is aware that one could be mistaken in one’s judgments without the further requirement that one actually could correct for them. He defends his account by showing how we can avoid the false positive problem that epistemic justice falls into in so far as the Grand Cyclops could not plausibly defend himself as possessing intellectual humility. Sherman’s account is helpful in getting us to think about what sorts of intellectual virtues might be better suited to countering epistemic injustices, and I now want to consider another virtue, closely related to epistemic humility, that may prove even more beneficial for our purposes. I want to focus on open-mindedness due to both its importance for dialogue as established in Chap. 3 and its potential for being considered a civic virtue that can counter some forms of epistemic injustice.4 I will argue that open-mindedness meets the requirements for a virtue in so far 3  In fact, he goes on to say that these two virtues would in fact be “undermined by a belief in the virtue of epistemic justice” (246). 4  On the proximity of open-mindedness and intellectual humility see Alfono et  al., and Sarrouf et al. On the importance of open-mindedness for civic discourse see Haidt (2012).

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as it does not require the same hefty requirements as testimonial justice does—one need not “reliably recognize errors,” only have the intent and disposition to do so (239). It will be shown to be effective in curtailing biases that support epistemic injustices in so far as it implies an ongoing, reflective capacity. But what exactly is open-mindedness and how does it compare with openness, discussed in Chap. 3? I examine current definitions of open-mindedness and then build on Chap. 3’s discussion of openness to offer a more extensive definition of open-mindedness and defend dialogue’s role in fostering it. In his 2015 article “Epistemic Injustice and Open-mindedness,” Jack Kwong argues that Herbert, a character in The Talented Mr. Ripley, “commits epistemic injustice against Marge because he fails to be open-minded. Specifically, he is unwilling or incapable of transcending his default cognitive standpoint to take hers seriously” (342). Linking this to Fricker’s claim that such an action is based on “sexist constructions of gender,” the upshot would seem to be that identity prejudices are examples of (a certain type of) close-mindedness. Kwong writes, Herbert’s failure to transcend his default cognitive standpoint to embrace Marge’s, a dysfunction in epistemic practice that…qualifies as a failure to be open-minded, causes him not to take Marge’s words seriously and thereby miss out on the truth. Since this is what wrongs her in the capacity as a knower, it follows that this case of culprit-based epistemic injustice results from its perpetrator’s failure to be open-minded. (343)

Kwong looks at several thinkers who have proposed overcoming epistemic injustice via a variety of virtues: “virtue of testimonial justice” (Fricker), “virtue of trust justice” (Marsh), and the ability to be “‘critically aware of the way in which [their] judgements of the intended relevance of contributions can be influenced by stereotypes and prejudices’ and acquire the ‘capacities that enable [them] to respond sensitively in identifying the intended relevance of what is said to our shared project’ [Hookway]” (346). Kwong summarizes: “Fricker’s, Marsh’s, and Hookway’s positions reveal a shared pattern: to counteract an epistemic injustice, we need to postulate an anti-prejudicial virtue with reflexive and corrective requirements tailored to the specific epistemic dysfunction and the specific wrong associated with the injustice…” (347). He further clarifies that these virtues called for are not ones currently on the market. But he does not think that a sui generis virtue is required and instead believes that

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open-mindedness will do the trick: “Nothing in these anti-prejudicial virtues, then, seems to call for any measure beyond that which is already prescribed by open-mindedness. In short, I conclude that there is no need for sui-generis virtues since open-mindedness is all that is required to eliminate culprit-based epistemic injustices” (347). Open-mindedness is enough given that it “aims to achieve this by requiring people to develop a second-order awareness of their fallibility as believers, to search for, and accept, self-knowledge about cognitive weaknesses, to self-monitor against such weaknesses, and finally, to be able to transcend default cognitive standpoints” (347–8). He thinks that open-mindedness can curtail epistemic injustice in so far as epistemic injustice “stems from closemindedness and is intellectually vicious” (349). If he is correct, and if (building on the discussion of openness in Chap. 3) we can further demonstrate a correlation between dialogue and open-mindedness, then we could find another reason to defend the efficacy of civic dialogue. Kwong helps us see how having a prejudiced belief, whether an implicit or explicit bias against someone, can lead to one form of close-­mindedness. The following belief is illustrative of being close-minded in a way that epistemically harms the other: “Person P is a member of group Q, is therefore untrustworthy, ignorant, etc., and not worth listening to or taking seriously.” Formulated more formally, we could say: “i) if someone is untrustworthy and/or ignorant, then they are not worth listening to; ii) all persons who are members of a social identity group Q are untrustworthy and/or ignorant; iii) P is a member of social identity group Q; iv) therefore, P is not worth listening to.” Kwong, for instance, describes a philosophy professor’s outright and hasty dismissal of a student’s question due to his assumption that the student qua undergraduate really does not have anything relevant to say. Kwong reflects, “Because of these dysfunctions in the professor’s epistemic practices, which are instances of close-­ minded behaviors, the student fails to be treated as a potential participant in discussion, and is therefore wronged in her capacity as a knower. The epistemic injustice committed against her therefore is the consequence of the professor’s close-mindedness” (343). In other words, this example illustrates how when close-mindedness is a result of an identity prejudice against another it functions as a cause of epistemic injustice. Close-­ mindedness involves refusing to take another person or their point of view seriously, which if based on an identity prejudice can also translate into an epistemic injustice if that individual is wronged as a knower.

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As I have described it here, the prejudiced belief about a social identity group is the cause of one’s close-mindedness toward an individual member of that group. If, however, one defines close-mindedness as a general attribute or disposition of a person, one could argue that close-­mindedness causes one to be prejudiced. While I will not specifically address whether or not Kwong conflates and collapses these, this question invites a closer look at a definition of open-mindedness. A lot of the literature on open-mindedness (e.g., Battaly, Riggs, Fantl) construes open-mindedness as aimed at a belief or set of arguments for a belief: one is open-minded if, in spite of one’s strongly held belief that P is true, one believes (or is open to considering) that P could be demonstrated to be false.5 Much of the literature explores what exactly it means to be open-minded about the truth value of P and whether such open-­ mindedness requires one to suspend belief in P. I want to turn the focus of the discussion in a different direction and away from requiring open-­ mindedness to entail the suspension of one’s belief in P. Jonathan Adler, whose work was noted in Chap. 3, takes the object of open-mindedness to be one’s own state of fallibility and not beliefs themselves: “The fallibility I can admit is not really attached to any specific belief (first-order), but rather concerns my beliefs or ways of believing overall (second or meta-order). It is to view my beliefs as what I believe, rather than just the proposition believed” (Adler 2004, 131). In other words, one could believe that P but, due to human fallibility, could also admit one could be wrong about P. Open-mindedness means being willing to keep investigating the perspective of another given one’s own limitations. Not having to be open-minded about specific beliefs does seem to get us closer to a richer and more efficacious definition, but we are still left with the question of whether we want to call someone who refuses to debate the truth of gravity close-minded. Are there not some things we would want to say that simply are not worth discussing? And if so, then

5  For example, Jason Baehr offers this definition: “An open-minded person is characteristically (a) willing and (within limits) able (b) to transcend a default cognitive standpoint (c) in order to take up or take seriously the merits of (d) a distinct cognitive standpoint” (2011, 152). Baehr earlier had articulated what such transcending looks like: “setting aside or loosening his grip on his belief” so as to get beyond “familiar or default ways of thinking” in order to imagine something different (149); he also describes it as letting go of “a privileged cognitive standpoint” (150).

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why would we call the person who refuses to do so “close-minded”?6 Others, like Spiegel, argue that Adler’s definition of open-mindedness as a meta-attitude attempting to capture the features he wants is actually intellectual humility (Spiegel 2012, 32). But regardless of what term we use, I want to argue that both Adler’s and Spiegel’s accounts set the bar too low for what counts as the preferred virtue. The mere acknowledgment that one is fallible seems insufficient for a definition of either intellectual humility or open-mindedness. I propose that if we find some value in the general esteem of open-­ mindedness but want to avoid getting ensnared in debates that require one to know in advance when one should be open-minded or not, then we should think of such openness not directed at the validity of the reasons for the argument per se—that is to the beliefs held or the cognitive standpoint—but as directed at hearing an individual express those reasons in order to better understand why that individual believes as they do. Whereas most of the literature takes the object of open-mindedness as belief states—either on a first or second level—I maintain that openness is a practice that manifests itself in the act of listening to individuals articulate the connection between their beliefs and their own experiences. Such openness is directed at affirming the agency of the other to make sense of and interpret their world. It is not directed at any specific belief but at how the other conceives of the significance of that belief for their identity and for the meaning they give their life. Taking seriously the other’s efforts at meaning making renders openness hermeneutic, rather than epistemic. For this reason, I will use the term “openness” to distinguish it from “open-mindedness.” This position is in line with Mercier and Sperber’s argument that reason helps us connect beliefs to experience in a way that promotes social connection. Even people whose beliefs we fundamentally oppose, to the degree that we could never rationally concede their veracity, are trying to make meaning of their world in a way that also connects them to others. Our openness is directed toward hearing the reasons, beliefs, experiences, and feelings of another without disembodying them from that individual’s history, context, experiences, and affects. In this way, openness means being open to hearing how an individual integrates their beliefs into their

6  See Battaly (forthcoming) where she argues that sometimes we need to accept that closemindedness is a virtue.

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life-world. We are opening ourselves to learn about the existential process by which the individual came to their beliefs. When I met a group of “young earthers” for the first time, I was genuinely curious to hear how they made sense of their belief. My openness toward hearing their views did not require me to suspend my belief that the earth is more than 6000 years old—an epistemic action I would have found impossible. What I was genuinely interested in hearing about, though, were the experiences, thoughts, people, practices, and feelings that led them to this belief. How could seemingly thoughtful, educated people make sense of such a belief? I practiced openness by directing it toward asking them how they interpreted their world and trying to understand what led them to hold their beliefs. I was open to listening and trying to engage them in further questioning that would allow me to understand them. Openness, then, means being open to investigating why and how the other interprets, gives meaning to, their experiences. As a hermeneutic, as opposed to an epistemic, virtue, openness asks about creedal interpretations and the layers of explicit and implicit assumptions underlying them. The hermeneutically open person does not feel the need to point out logical fallacies or factual errors, which likely have been heard before and would be rejected out of hand. In fact, dialogue practitioners usually try to avoid questions that ask one to give fact-based reasons for the beliefs they hold and instead ask how one interprets, that is, gives meaning to, their own personal story about the beliefs they hold. The immediate aim of openness is not to critique logic and refute facts but to create an existential connection with the other by utilizing genuine curiosity to trace and expose the causal explanations that reveal an existential origin. When we can expose and bring to light reasons-as-connective tissue, new understandings occur. Even when one walks away still incredulous that someone holds the beliefs they do, one has demonstrated openness by asking about and taking time to listen to the other explain why they believe as they do. By attending to the stories and experiences motivating the other’s beliefs, a trusting connection can be established, which can then serve to eventually form a basis for more objective and fact-based argumentation. In this way, openness in a discussion allows one to affirm the other as Thou without having to agree with their beliefs or having to spend time debating a belief one finds anathema. One could, then, dialogue with a neo-Nazi without having to debate insipid beliefs about eugenics, white nationalism, and so on. In a twist on the old “love the sinner hate the sin” adage, openness is a call to “love the believer not

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the beliefs.”7 What is at stake in dialogue is not the epistemic legitimacy of the other’s claims but the existential legitimacy as a Thou one affords one’s interlocutor. Chapter 3 esteemed the role of openness in dialogue and here I am building on Gadamer’s account of openness to argue that a facilitated and well-structured dialogue promotes openness in a way that can thwart epistemic injustice. Engaging in a well-structured dialogue encourages us to see the other in a different light; we are open to a specific other before us, and therefore better able to attend to their perspectives and experiences without generalizing about or stereotyping them. To reiterate, the openness here is directed at being open to learning something new about the person’s beliefs and respecting them enough to listen to stories of their experiences; it does not require that we are open to believing an ideology we may find insidious. Dialogue aims to shed light on the meaning underlying beliefs, that is, the stories, experiences, emotions, and so on, so we can let go of stereotypes and develop trust toward them as another human. If dialogue is a practice that utilizes openness to challenge our negative judgments of others that stem from prejudices we hold about their social identities, then dialogue can aid in the attenuation of certain epistemic injustices. The openness required by dialogue works to counter testimonial injustice by preventing us from engaging in a circular monologue about our own correctness. As Sherman maintains: “we should expect people to be systematically bad at revising their initial, biased credibility judgments through reflective reconsideration, unless they consistently had the opportunity to discuss those judgments with others who have judged accurately” (Sherman 243). It is more difficult to defend our prejudices and harmful generalizations when we are brought face to face with those who offer explanations, personal narratives, and emotional and proprioceptic feedback that invite us to reflect on how we might be mistaken, blinded, misguided, prejudiced, limited in our views, and so on. We cannot justify ourselves with the ease of the Grand Cyclops when in a dialogic interaction—at least not the sort defended here. Civic dialogue creates a space that builds trust toward the other, and once some degree of trust is established we are more open to different perspectives which can provide a resource against myopic self-deception. When we are dialoguing with the other, then we are less likely to be deceived by our own clever defense mechanisms. The key, of course, is whether and to what extent we can 7

 For a recent powerful example of just this experience, see Saslow (2018).

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truly listen to the other, but the structured and facilitated dialogue proposed here is one way to make that possible. The input of others in a facilitated space can help us more accurately assess the worth of our own judgments. The time to reflect allows an individual to be open to evaluating their own beliefs rather than being caught in an argumentative duel that prevents critical reflection and invites defensive diatribes. Defending openness as one of the virtues most suited to attenuating and addressing epistemic injustices, virtue is a way to avoid some of the central concerns Sherman raises about one’s ability to self-reflect in any epistemically meaningful way. A trusting connection established with others through dialogue can also help us more accurately assess the epistemic worth of our own judgments. Before I turn to Sherman’s second challenge to defending epistemic justice as a virtue, let me pause to clarify that while I am advocating openness as a virtuous ideal, to choose not to engage dialogically with someone is not necessarily a vice. Especially due to the power at play in all human interactions, sometimes the historical, cultural, or personal contingencies mean that a dialogue may take too much of a toll on those coming to the dialogue from a position of less power. While all should be encouraged to dialogue, no-one should be forced to do so or judged as immoral or too “coddled”8 by choosing to opt out of a specific dialogue. Since dialogue is fundamentally a call to listen, some from marginalized groups may feel they have listened enough to their oppressors. As I have stressed throughout this book, dialogue is not a panacea or the only valid form of discourse or to be used indiscriminately. There is a time and place for dialogue and sometimes prior even to a dialogue there may be a need either to have the marginalized be the only ones who speak while their oppressors listen or establish pre-dialogue affinity groups to educate the oppressors and support the marginalized.9 An example of the need for pre-dialogue affinity groups occurred when Wabanaki members of Maine’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission asked the white people to leave the room so that the members of the various Wabanaki tribes gathered could share among themselves.10 This is an important example of how dialogue needs  See Lukianoff and Haidt (2015).  For more on the necessity of affinity groups as a precursor to intergroup dialogue see McPhail (2004). 10  As depicted in the documentary Dawnland available here: https://upstanderproject. org/dawnland 8 9

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to affirm the agency of marginalized and oppressed people. There are many ways to work toward a just democracy, and the cultural and historical milieu as well as people’s individual experiences must be taken seriously and their own agency respected—which does not mean permanently ruling out intergroup dialogue. Acknowledging dialogue’s limitations along these lines is also a way to prevent openness from being cast as a call for “civility,” which can be (and historically has been) used to silence the marginalized whose only option for expressing themselves at times is to challenge the notions of civility that have worked to keep them “in their place.”11 A second criticism of Fricker’s defense of epistemic justice as a virtue, raised by Sherman (as well as others), is the inadequacy of the focus on virtues only as traits of individuals for countering structural bias. Elizabeth Anderson accepts much of Fricker’s analysis but, like Sherman, questions some of the limitations of the focus on virtues as traits of individuals. For, according to Anderson, and as the previous chapter has shown, individuals are not always able to overcome their prejudices, even when they are committed to doing so. Given the nature of cognition and social realities, it may be unreasonable to expect individuals simply to muster virtues in certain circumstances. Since I have already spent time above and in the previous chapter addressing the way cognitive biases impede the individual capacity to exercise epistemic justice, here I will focus on Anderson’s challenge that the virtues-as-individual traits that Fricker names, even if attainable, may not be adequate to counter structural injustices. I will then discuss how dialogue has the capacity for countering epistemic injustices in such a way that helps create stronger pluralistic democracies. Dialogue will be shown to contribute to the development of civic virtues that counter epistemic injustices by creating new worlds. This, according to Alcoff, is a key strategy to pursue in so far as “hermeneutic marginalization needs to address the messy, circular ways in which language and human experience is linked, and the ways in which hermeneutic democracy might yield new worlds, and not merely new words” (Alcoff 2010, 136). How can dialogue help yield new democratic worlds and not just new words? In her 2012 article, Anderson argues that epistemic justice applies not just to individual traits and actions; it should also be seen as a virtue applying to social institutions. Epistemic virtues need to be applied to and 11  For a helpful defense of the claim that open-mindedness does not mean “civility” see Walsh (2007), passim 53.

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utilized by structures. What sort of virtue is required to ensure that a dominant social collective comes to possess the necessary “interpretive resources to make sense of important features of a speaker’s experience” (2012, 166) and to curtail further marginalization of the speaker’s identity group? Confronting hermeneutical injustice requires not merely targeting the individual’s interpretations but also the social norms, practices, and languages that preclude the individual from understanding in the first place. An analogue here is the inability to understand someone who is speaking a language unknown to the listener. We do not blame, for example, a non-Spanish speaker for not understanding Spanish. The remedy for the lack of understanding is not to target the listener’s volitions—imploring them to just try harder—but to give the non-Spanish speaker tools, that is, a new language. In the same way, a society becomes more just by developing new languages, tools, and practices for understanding and identifying unjust practices. If a given culture possesses no language for, or practices that help one understand the detriments of, say, sexual harassment, we cannot (at least with any hope of success) reprimand an individual for failing to grasp this concept and to notice the behavior described by it. The question becomes, then, what are the civic practices and tools necessary for combating structural epistemic injustice and how do we promote them? I will build on Anderson’s critique to demonstrate the importance of dialogue for cultivating the requisite civic virtues. Anderson offers two ways of addressing structural bias but I will focus only on the second since it relates directly to my claims about the relevance of dialogue.12 Anderson’s account gets at what Fricker’s analysis 12  Anderson’s first point draws on the work of M.  Gilbert. Anderson writes, “structural remedies may be viewed as virtue-based remedies for collective agents. Nearly any type of mental state that individuals have can also be manifested by collectives (Gilbert 2000)” (168). Anderson goes on to explain: “When the members of an organization jointly commit themselves to operating according to institutionalized principles that are designed to achieve testimonial justice, such as giving hearers enough time to make unbiased assessments, this is what it is for the organization itself to be testimonially just” (168). An example here could be a hiring committee that, even though all its individual members are explicitly committed to a fair and just hiring practice, needs to implement some specific practices to ensure that the individual members do not discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender, race, religion, ability, and so on. As individuals, they might not display instances of testimonial injustice, but coming together as a hiring committee might entail following certain unjust practices (particularly those originating in a prior period that was marked by a variety of unjust practices). Introducing certain guidelines for their practices as a committee (blinding CVs and writing samples, reading letters of recommendation only after an initial selection has

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does not, namely, the way in which structures themselves prevent certain marginalized identity groups from being accorded credibility. To think through what this looks like, Anderson focuses on what she calls the “three structural causes of group-based credibility deficits: differential access to the markers of credibility; ethnocentrism; and the ‘shared reality bias.’” (169). In what follows, I will demonstrate the relevance of dialogue for attenuating the third, the shared reality bias.13 Anderson defines the shared reality bias as “the tendency of individuals who interact frequently to converge in their perspectives on and judgments about the world (Hardin and Conley 2001)” (170). To counteract such a shared reality bias it would seem necessary to attempt to desegregate some social structure groupings, particularly ones that skew the creation of shared reality toward oppressive practices. For example, discussing the importance of desegregating educational systems, Anderson maintains that: If group segregation is the structural ground of the types of epistemic injustice discussed above, then group integration is a structural remedy—a virtue of epistemic institutions….When social groups are educated together on terms of equality, they share equally in educational resources and thus have access to the same (legitimate) markers of credibility. When they engage in inquiry together on terms of equality, members of disadvantaged groups can gain epistemic favor in the eyes of the privileged by taking advantage of ethnocentric biases (Gaertner and Dovidio 2000). Shared inquiry also tends to produce a shared reality, which can help overcome hermeneutical injustice and its attendant testimonial injustices…. In shorthand, we could say that the virtue of epistemic justice for institutions is otherwise known as been made, etc.) would remedy this. Anderson’s point is that an epistemically virtuous individual may still get caught up in unjust social practices. 13  Regarding the first, Anderson discusses education and how there is simply not equal education opportunities for all in our country. Because some social identity groups do not have access to adequate education, they can appear less intelligent and their views are disregarded for that reason. Educational structural inequality is what promotes and sustains hermeneutical injustice in such cases. Given what has been said about dialogue thus far, I see it has potential for improving understanding within a community that can then foster good will to start making necessary changes. Granted, dialogue is no guarantee for change, but particularly in communities that lack the will, dialogue can help motivate people to work toward change. In terms of ethnocentrism, Anderson discusses research and empirical studies on in-group/out-group biases, but since I have spent some time on this topic in the previous chapter, I will not do so further except to reiterate that dialogue is among those practices that can diminish the effect of such bias.

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epistemic democracy: universal participation on terms of equality of all inquirers (Anderson 1995, 2003, 2006, 2010, 89–111). (171, 172, italics added)

Her suggestions invite us to take seriously the role that dialogue can play in changing structural inequities that underlie epistemic injustice. For, as we have seen, dialogue can be one way to help groups do just that by learning, talking, sharing, and interacting together in more open and trusting ways that can yield a more equal discourse. A well-structured dialogue should invite “universal participation on terms of equality of all inquirers,” which can therefore aid in institutional change in so far as it serves as a means for forging common understanding, shared language, shared reality, and mutual trust. It fosters an institutional capacity for trust and productive collaboration among different groups opposed to each other primarily based on a perception of identity that so often fuels ideological difference. Sustained and regular dialogue can reduce identity-­ based prejudice that feeds epistemic injustice and therefore can lead to what Anderson calls “epistemic democracy.” By allowing more voices into the conversation in a productive and meaningful way, it cultivates habits that help create more equal and just communities. Thus even though dialogue does not directly address structural injustice by itself—it does not aim to directly change a law—as we have seen, it certainly can change individuals and collectives in a way that subsequently yields fewer hierarchical and unequal structures that comprise institutions. Dialogue used in partnership with more direct efforts to change oppressive structures can prove strategic for building a more just society. For example, for someone who disagrees with the positions held by the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), a facilitated dialogue that invites them to reflectively listen to the particular first-person experiences of black individuals could allow them to disarm their defensiveness and be present in such a way that they do not need to defend the rightness or wrongness of political positions. Listening to someone else’s story in a facilitated structure that requires time for reflection and initially prevents cross-talk helps mitigate feeling threatened. When fear of threat is diminished, one is more likely to be able to affirm the credibility of the other. In dialogues where the structure allows individuals to share vulnerabilities, it becomes much more difficult to doubt the credibility of first-person narratives. One might still oppose the movement in general or the particular policy measures it seeks to advance, but dialogue helps diffuse the tensions that promote distrust of those one tends to “other.” For instance, a dialogue may lead

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some to be less likely to label members of M4BL as “crazy” or “terrorists,” and so on. Recognizing the humanity of the other is a step to being able to discuss policy, social structures, structural oppression, and so on. Subsequently and beyond the dialogue, the next time someone who had initially been hostile to the aims of M4BL hears a story from a member of that group, that individual may be less inclined to generalize in a way that perpetuates a polarized in-group versus out-group designation and may be more inclined to trust that individual and render their experience significant and meaningful. Again, the success of a dialogue is not proved by whether or not the parties achieve policy agreement but on whether there is a fundamental acceptance of the other qua human in a way that affirms civic pluralism. The key point here is that agreement on belief is not a requirement for a strong pluralistic society. Peter Coleman uses the example of how Reflective Structured Dialogue was put to use to end the violence regarding abortion in the United States. After six years of behind the scenes meetings, the three leaders of the pro-life side and the three leaders of the pro-choice side together penned these words: We hope this account of our experience will encourage people everywhere to consider engaging in dialogues about abortion and other protracted disputes. In this world of polarizing conflicts, we have glimpsed a new possibility: a way in which people can disagree frankly and passionately, become clearer in heart and mind about their activism, and at the same time, contribute to a more civil and compassionate society. (Quoted in Coleman 2011, 108)

But Coleman is quick to point out that it was not only these six individuals who were impacted by the dialogue. Their public communication of their dialogue work together, Coleman maintains, “had a powerful positive impact on the larger system,” and he quotes a journalist who observed that “the reduction in angry rhetoric that resulted from the dialogue may have helped assign to history that ugly chapter in the abortion controversy” (quoted in Coleman 2011, 108). In other words, dialogue can not only change those participating in it, but can have ripple effects on others in the community. Let me pause to clarify that nothing I am advocating here denies the relevance of protest, which is sometimes called for. Dialogue is not always possible. If one party does not want to genuinely listen and insists on persuading or arguing, dialogue cannot take place. If someone is in the

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position of power and has nothing to gain by dialoguing with a minoritized group, then protest may be the only option. Anderson recognizes that sometimes talk is not enough and can be used by those in power to quiet voices that dissent from the status quo (all in the name of propriety) and therefore in order to get people to listen sometimes disruptive protest is necessary. And yet, she nevertheless also warns that neither is protest alone enough; civic discourse is also required (Anderson 2010, 98). Protest may be a necessary means to motivate people to come to the table, where the right dialogue structure can encourage openness rather than defensiveness. I laud Anderson’s perspective here on the value of protest and disruption, and want to stress that nothing I have written about dialogue is meant to negate the value of protest and disruption, which are sometimes necessary to effect social change. My point is that it is worth exploring ways to invite a genuine dialogue at some point in the process in order to serve as a basis on which to establish a more just community. It also should be emphasized that when it comes to institutional change, dialogue should be utilized in a sustained and regular way, that is, utilized by communities on a regular, ongoing basis. It is highly unlikely that a two-hour dialogue will change institutions that have a long history of tension and distrust. Dialogue needs to be built into institutions and civic structures and practices so that it becomes part of their fabric. Dialogue is a way to build a democratic public, which returns us to Dewey’s emphasis on cultural change as central to democracy. Indeed, thinkers from J.S. Mill to M. L. King Jr. have stressed that while changing laws to promote justice is necessary, it remains insufficient to produce widespread cultural change. Anderson comments on the role such culture-creation played for Dewey, who “stressed that for democracy to work, it was not enough simply to institute legal arrangements such as representation and periodic elections. Culture had to change too, so that citizens at large, interacting with one another in civil society, welcome diversity and discussion, and take an experimental attitude toward social arrangements” (2006, 14). I now turn to Dewey to defend dialogue’s role as a democratic habit.

Dialogue for Democracy: “The Task Before Us” Benjamin Barber asserts in his book Strong Democracy that “without talk there can be no democracy” (Barber 2003, 267). While few would disagree, what remains in dispute is which type of talk is best for democracy and what, specifically, talk is expected to do for democracy. This book has

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focused on an approach to dialogue that is particularly well-suited to highly polarized situations, where individuals get stuck in rigid and hostile behavior of “othering” those who differ from them. Dialogue encourages individuals to move from defensiveness to a willingness to listen and understand. Dialogue that is structured to foster connection across difference can help promote cultural change by allowing people to be more open to opposing views, which makes them more receptive to working together with others to create a more pluralistic, dynamic, and flourishing society. By creating a way to positively engage with those who are different without having to deny difference or achieve agreement, and to yield a mutual understanding that connects participants through their shared humanity, dialogue proves a foundational practice for democracy. We cannot construct a democracy without the ability to relate, speak, and work well with those with whom we disagree. As Anderson affirms: To realize the epistemic powers of democracy, citizens must follow norms that welcome or at least tolerate diversity and dissent, that recognize the equality of participants in discussion by giving all a respectful hearing, regardless of their social status, and that institute deliberation and reason-­ giving, rather than threats and insults, as the basis of their communication with one another. An epistemic analysis of democracy helps us see that it is not just a matter of legal arrangements. It is a way of life governed by cultural norms of equality, discussion, and tolerance of diversity. (2006, 15)

As we have seen, dialogue can help promote tolerance of diversity through the facilitated sharing of personal narratives. It is a way to provide structure to allow difference to be expressed without lapsing into attacks, othering, and insults that ultimately only serve to impede understanding and trust. William Isaacs opens his book Dialogue: The Art of Thinking Together with these words: Dialogue…is a way of taking the energy of our differences and channeling it toward something that has never been created before. It lifts us out of polarization and into a greater common sense, and is thereby a means for accessing the intelligence and coordinated power of groups of people. Dialogue fulfills deeper, more widespread needs than simply “getting to yes.” …The intention of dialogue is to reach new understanding and, in doing so, to form a totally new basis from which to think and act…. And we seek to uncover a base of shared meaning that can greatly help coordinate and align our actions with our values. (Isaacs 1999, 1)

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The focus by deliberative democracy theorists on formal procedure can certainly bring (and indeed has brought) some needed benefits to civic discourse. However, the Deweyan strain Anderson lauds reveals the importance of attending not just to procedure and juridical outcomes but also culture. Democracy is composed of a variety of practices and procedures, but if it is fundamentally a “way of life” then we also need to think about how to shore up democratic culture that nourishes such a way of life. Anderson writes, “Political equality in the realm of governance cannot be realized without a democratic culture pervading civil society. This is not a matter of mere legal equality, but of habits and sentiments of association on terms of equality” (2010, 93). How can we create such a democratic culture—one based on both “solidarity” and “mutual regard” as she goes on to affirm? A hint lies in the following words by Senator Charles Sumner who, in a legal argument before the Massachusetts Supreme Court against school segregation, wrote: “Prejudice is the child of ignorance. It is sure to prevail, where people do not know each other. Society and intercourse…remove antipathies, promote mutual adaptation and conciliation, and establish relations of reciprocal regard” (quoted in Anderson 2010, 93–94). In other words, laws are necessary but insufficient, as the history of civil rights attests. As a society, we seem better at changing laws than changing culture—at least more energy seems to have been devoted to the former over this past century. Furthermore, as a glance at contemporary US society reveals, perhaps the single-minded focus on changing laws without efforts to change culture via dialogue is yet another reason for the fanning of the flame of polarization. Defining democracy only in terms of its juridical instantiation and ignoring its ultimate status as a way of life results in laws that provoke rather than heal. I am arguing that dialogic practices are necessary in order to create the habits of democratic norms that promote pluralism, dissent, ongoing inquiry, and the ability to create a just society together—that is, a democratic culture. Anderson’s emphasis on the importance of solidarity and mutual regard returns us to the Deweyan strains I began with in so far as she helps us better grasp the potential for thinking about epistemic justice as present in and necessary for social practices and institutions, like democracy. In so far as dialogue works to expose and attenuate the hasty generalizations and prejudices we often hold, dialogue could serve as one strategy to attenuate epistemic injustices by changing habits and culture. Dialogue aids in the cultivation and creation of personal habits of listening, respect, and trust, and thus in a culture that practices dialogue, it is less likely that there will

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be instances of hermeneutical and epistemic injustices. If epistemic and hermeneutic injustices are based, in part, on social identities, and if one of the effects of dialogue is to reduce the reductive and negative stereotyping generalizations that grow out of social identities, then dialogue can serve as one means for counteracting epistemic injustices. I began this book with a reference to Dewey to demonstrate dialogue’s relevance for one political tradition within western discourse and now end with one of his essays to further clarify the way in which civic dialogue can promote civic virtues.14 Dewey invites us to think about our civic discourse as a way to define and build democracy from the ground up. Rather than conceiving of civic discourse as based solely on the exchange of reasons that all can accept, Dewey proposes engaging with community members so as to privilege attitudes, practices, and habits over persuasion and argumentation per se. This is not to say that these two approaches have to be mutually exclusive. My point is that the type of discourse we promote has implications for what sort of society we want to be and how we construe civic engagement.15 In this final section I build on Dewey to advocate dialogue’s relevance in so far as it (1) focuses more on experience and the cultivation of democratic habits rather than on policy outcome and (2) is a more conducive form of discourse for avoiding cognitive bias. Turning the conversation away from a single emphasis on rational argumentation is not to dismiss its relevance. Rather, by attending first to an approach to civic discourse that fosters increased connection to meaning and to others, one will then be in a better position to recover the importance of rational argumentation and deliberation. Dewey helps us appreciate that if we attend to the proper process that focuses on cultivation rather than an outcome, then we may end up with a public square more fertile for truth. In his brief 1939 essay “Creative Democracy, the Task before us,” Dewey outlines some of the fundamentals of a strong democracy. These fundamentals, however, are not fundamentals of either political institutions or rational argumentation. Dewey conceives of the groundwork of a viable democracy in different terms:

14  Nothing that I am arguing here is affected by Talisse’s (2011) or Margonis’ (2007) criticisms of Dewey’s democratic theory. 15  For those who explicitly link up dialogue with social action see Jackson (2008), Dessel, Rogge, and Garlington (2006) and Gergen, McNamee, and Barrett (2001).

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democracy is a personal way of individual life; that it signifies the possession and continual use of certain attitudes, forming personal character and determining desire and purpose in all the relations of life. Instead of thinking of our own dispositions and habits as accommodated to certain institutions we have to learn to think of the latter as expressions, projections and extensions of habitually dominant personal attitudes. (229)

Dewey locates the building blocks of democracy in attitudes, which produce character and determine desire and purpose in all types of human relationships. The emphasis is on having the right type of attitudes that will shape how we act toward and treat others. In defining democracy as a personal way of life, Dewey implies a connection between democracy and character formation. For Dewey, democracy names neither a form of government nor a formalized discourse but what I want to call habits of citizens. Democracy, in other words, is, for Dewey, a particular sort of ethos, one that challenges three of the core beliefs that often instigate polarization: namely, the other is not a Thou deserving of equal treatment, the other is irrational and not fit to make sound judgments, and there is no good reason to cooperate with the other. I will show how civic dialogue is one way to live out the democratic faith of which Dewey speaks. In his essay, Dewey identifies three creeds of democracy and, evoking religious language, speaks of three beliefs that all democratic citizens must hold. Dewey’s intent here must be understood as following along the lines of a pragmatist named “James” who came prior to William. It is James the Epistle writer we must heed if we are to grasp Dewey’s meaning. As the author of the Christian Bible’s Book of James declared: “faith without works is dead.” In other words, for Dewey, those who profess faith in democracy and purport to follow its creed must cultivate the habits that indicate such belief. Faith in democracy without the proper works is no faith at all. Dialogue, I contend, is democratic faith in action. Dewey names the first article of faith as “belief in common humanity,”16 which he defines as “faith in the potentialities of human nature as that nature is exhibited in every human being irrespective of race, color, sex, birth and family, of material or cultural wealth” (229). This faith, he tells us, could only be manifest in one’s attitude as demonstrated by the habit of working toward creating conditions in which all humans are allowed to 16  Dewey uses the non-gender-neutral term “common man.” In what follows, I change his language to gender-inclusive terms.

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pursue their potential as human beings, free from coercion and able to pursue their own gifts, desires, and potential. One way for such faith to be exercised is by engaging in dialogue that is structured to create space for a variety of voices to be heard. While many may profess faith in the common person, not everyone lives accordingly. Refusing to listen to another and refusing to believe in the other’s worth as a vital member of one’s community are instances of failing to live out this belief. Dewey reminds us that we must live our lives to promote the conditions in which all humans can thrive and grow. The only way a democracy will know if it is creating the potential for all of its citizens to survive is if it creates the spaces necessary for everyone to articulate whether or not they feel heard and valued as members of society. Civic dialogue is one way to express our belief in common humanity in so far as it is a practice in the openness directed at being willing to genuinely listen to those who differ from us. Opening ourselves to hearing from the other is a concrete way to express our belief in the other’s value as a human being, as a Thou. As we have seen, dialogue invites the other-qua-human to speak. The second tenet of democratic faith Dewey names is “faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgment and action if proper conditions are furnished” (230). In other words, do we recognize that the other’s humanity implies their capacity to make sound judgments? While this might seem like an obvious and even trivial point, I want to highlight its significance for the way it implores us to refrain from judging the other, or generalizing about the other, as crazy, irrational, or evil. Too often debates and discussions are undergirded by implicit or explicit beliefs that one’s “opponent” is crazy, irrational, or evil, and therefore one is entitled to dismiss their claims out of hand. Dewey bids us to not write off or dismiss the other-as-human but to treat them as someone capable of valid judgment, that is, someone who has reasons for their belief—no matter how crazy or pernicious it may appear. Dewey goes on to explain, For what is the faith of democracy in the role of consultation, of conference, of persuasion, of discussion, information of public opinion, which in the long run is self-corrective, except faith in the capacity of the intelligence of the common man to respond with commonsense to the free play of facts and ideas which are secured by effective guarantees of free inquiry, free assembly and free communication? (230)

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Only if one can believe that their interlocutor has come to their beliefs with some amount of effort and reason can one affirm this second creed. What is important to note here is Dewey’s insistence not on the institutions that ensure free assembly and free communication, and so on, but on our belief—and more specifically the habit that defines it—that the other is capable of responding with common sense. Belief without action is dead. Dewey insists on developing the habits that demonstrate our democratic faith. This attitude is likely more difficult to cultivate than the bare-boned institutional and legal structures that permit its fruition. How many of us are willing to vote for free speech, the right to assembly, and so on, but lack the character traits that allow us to believe in, much less solicit, our opponent’s capacity to make thoughtful judgments? Demonstrating is one thing; sitting in a dialogue circle is another. We need to cultivate the virtuous habits that allow us to treat the other, that is, our political opponents, as if they are able to make thoughtful judgments. This means that even if the consensus reached or policy adopted is displeasing to our side, we do not demonize the other but remain willing to keep on listening to and productively engaging with them. Dewey goes on to insist that even where legal protections are in place, they are of little use where our attitudes are those of suspicion, abuse, fear, threat, and hatred. The proper attitudes as demonstrated by our virtuous habits are central to a flourishing democracy. Anthony Laden’s description of James Tully’s conception of civic (as opposed to civil) citizenship helps clarify how the Deweyan emphasis on civic habits is cultivated by a practice like dialogue: citizenship is not…a status we have in relation to a set of institutions of law and government, but a set of practices or activities we engage in with one another. Very roughly, civic citizens constitute themselves as citizens through engagement with one another, by working together to shape their common lives, question its form and find new and different ways of acting…. What makes it civic and the activity by which citizens become citizens is precisely that it is always open to contestation and questioning. The practices one learns in learning how to be a citizen then are not practices of obeying the law or taking up a set of specific responsibilities like voting, but rather the much wider array of practices of questioning and listening to the questions of others, of, in a word, engagement…. Thus, learning to be a citizen is a matter of learning not only to challenge and question, but to recognize and take seriously the questions and challenges of one’s fellow citizens. (2012b, 32, 33, italics added)

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Laden’s last charge is certainly one of the most important, albeit most difficult, requirements of a democratic citizen, namely the ability to not only listen to but engage with different views. It is the ability to know both how to speak to the other and also question the other (and indeed question oneself) in such a way that mutual understanding results. This capacity affirms the practice of dialogue as the very warp and woof of democratic citizenry. Third and finally, Dewey writes that “democracy as a way of life is controlled by personal faith in personal day-by-day working together with others. Democracy is the belief that even when needs and ends or consequences are different for each individual, the habit of amicable cooperation…is itself a priceless addition to life” (Dewey 1939, 231). There needs to be a way for us to work with others, side by side, even when there is tension and difference, limited resources, and so on for it is precisely such tension that can be a means of growth itself. Dewey’s point is about the importance of the process and experience of learning to work with those who differ from us. We seek out discussing and working together; the goal is not to seek a shining, triumphant “Truth” that requires the defeat of the evil enemy. If, as Dewey insists, democracy is a habit rather than the end point, then we must focus our efforts on the process. To maintain that democracy itself is a process is to affirm the creative power of dialogic encounters with others who differ to create something new. Eliciting stories is a way to reveal the pluralities that exist within all of us, which is often a way of allowing similar stories to emerge, which in turn yields new meaning, new connection. In a dialogue where one is asked, “What is something you appreciate about the opposing side?” often answers can lead to the generation of new realities. By sharing stories of value, commonalities are located. And using the sense of shared value, visions are fostered. Dialogue is then employed to fill out the landscape of the vision, to create a sense of a new reality, which, in turn, lays the groundwork for alternative forms of action. At the same time, the participants move from a divisive “we” vs. “them” orientation, to a conception of a “we.” In effect, they simultaneously construct a new unit in which they exist together. (Gergen et al. 2001, 707)

It is this sort of community creation that is the fruit of dialogue and shows the power of dialogue to foster relationships even without agreement on specific beliefs.

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Dialogue can also be utilized to address the fear of talking with others that Diana Mutz uncovered in her empirical studies and wrote about in her book Hearing the Other Side. While Mutz’s research maintained that most people do not like to “talk” with those of different opinions, her study focused primarily on deliberative strategies—those that emphasize argument and persuasion. I am arguing that dialogue, as a non-combative way to discuss difference, offers training to cultivate democratic skills and virtues, and provides just what Mutz calls for in the conclusion to her book: Manners for social interaction are taught from a very young age, and adults can even take whole courses on the finer points of such skills, but there is little if any instruction given to citizens in the practical skills of politics…we need instruction, and explicit norms, for how political differences should be handled respectfully in informal discourse. How can one be a successful advocate of political ideas without isolating one’s self from those whose ideas differ? (Mutz 2007, 150, italics added)

Everyday activities such as conversation are central to civic engagement, and dialogue has been shown to activate and develop those skills and virtues needed for productive civic conversation: openness, active listening, and asking curious questions. In fact, in so far as it helps build trust, foster listening, and motivate genuine questions, it involves several of the key components of engagement that Laden names as preventing democratic erosion (2012b, 23–30). Dialogue can be among those practices used to improve democratic society and prevent its erosion in so far as it improves the way citizens listen and talk to one another. If the excellence (virtue) of a citizen is to engage well with others, then dialogue is something that helps the individual to do just that. Laden defines virtuous civic engagement this way: “What, then, marks virtuous civic engagement is the nature of the activity itself: how responsive are those who engage with one another, how open to questioning and criticism” (2012b, 42). Following in the footsteps of Dewey, the aim of this book has been to deepen the sense in which such democratic habituation is cultivated in the practice of civic dialogue. For, as we have seen, civic dialogue incorporates a specific structure that aims precisely to help individuals question, listen to, and build trust with those who differ. In the end, we could say that dialogue’s goal of “mutual understanding” (a term, it seems to me, similar to Laden’s term “responsiveness” [2012a]) is the basis upon which robust deliberations can take place. In fact, one deliberative theorist also

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recognizes that “deliberative democracy requires a shared and habituated civic culture of mutual understanding of differences” (Barker 2017, 133). And in explaining how this is to be achieved, he highlights how some of the components of civic dialogue outlined in this book indeed function to diminish polarization: “What is needed is an underlying sense of collective identity: a sense that we are part of a discursive community with the inclinations and abilities to discuss our differences. Beyond sanitizing public discourse and conforming to certain rules, forging trust across divides of race, class, and culture is a matter of collectively developing habits and skills of public reason” (133).17 Civic dialogue invites the privileging of our common, collective identities over those that separate us, while at the same time legitimizing the particular differences that make us who we are. Dialogue allows individuals not merely to be recognized, but, in line with our most fundamental need, to forge connections with one another. By aiding us in developing both the motivation and the capacity for listening to and engaging with others who are different, civic dialogue serves as an antidote to polarization. In other words, engaging in the practice of civic dialogue renders us “true believers” in democracy as a way of life.

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17  In his article, while Barker calls mutual understanding a civic virtue of justice, he never adequately defines what he means by “mutual understanding” beyond naming it a habit.

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Index1

A Adeimantus, 9–11 Agreement/s, 1, 1n4, 45, 62, 66, 82, 84, 85, 87–92, 96, 98, 109, 112, 134, 172, 174, 180 See also Communication agreements Altruism, 104, 107 Amoral, 59, 104, 107 Anderson, Elizabeth, 156, 157, 168–171, 169–170n12, 170n13, 173–175 Anti-subjective/ism, 36, 50, 57, 64, 65, 68, 70 Appear, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 24, 37, 42, 45, 73, 94, 110, 115, 170n13, 178 Appearance, 11, 12, 14, 15, 40, 41, 87, 106, 115 Arendt, Hannah, 8, 9n19, 10–18, 11n22, 11n23, 13n24, 17n26, 37, 42, 60, 87

Argue, 2, 3, 9, 15, 16, 19–21, 24n3, 37, 45, 46, 49, 50, 51n5, 66, 71, 73, 76, 81n1, 85, 88, 90, 94, 100, 103–105, 108, 118, 123, 125–127, 131, 133–135, 138, 139, 157, 160, 161, 163, 164, 164n6, 166, 168 Argument/s/ation, 2–4, 5n13, 6–8, 10, 13n24, 14, 16, 20, 25, 41, 44, 52n7, 61, 81, 84–86, 90, 93, 94, 109, 113, 116, 123–125, 127, 130–136, 130n3, 134n9, 138, 145, 159, 163–165, 175, 176, 181 See also Political argument/s/ation Art/work, 38, 64, 72n16 See also Work of art Assumption/s, 4, 5, 9n20, 10, 24, 27, 39, 43, 45, 90, 91, 98, 100, 104, 124, 125, 127, 129, 137, 162, 165

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s) L. S. Barthold, Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6

199

200 

INDEX

Augustine, 27–29, 28n8, 29n10, 39, 41 Authorial intention, 52n7, 53, 62, 68 Authority, 56, 89, 91 B Beliefs, 2, 6, 8, 14, 20, 27, 45, 55, 62, 67, 69–73, 77, 78, 84–86, 91, 95, 97, 100–103, 111, 112, 115, 124–130, 132–138, 140, 143, 145, 149, 150, 160n3, 162–167, 172, 177–180 Belonging/ness, 45, 56, 61–63, 74, 75, 77, 85, 86 Between/ness, 4n9, 6, 8, 9, 13, 15, 16, 17n26, 23n1, 25, 25n5, 29–31, 29n11, 34, 34n14, 35, 36n17, 37–39, 41, 43–46, 43n19, 49–53, 55–57, 55n11, 63, 73n17, 75–77, 82, 85, 87, 89, 92n12, 97, 98, 101, 104, 106, 107n30, 110, 111, 113–116, 124, 126, 129, 132, 133, 138n10, 139, 142, 143, 143n12, 146–148, 151, 162, 164, 177 Beziehung, die, 24, 25n5 Bias, 5, 20, 49, 54, 57, 61, 108, 108n31, 125, 132, 133, 136–142, 138n10, 145–150, 159, 161, 162, 168–170, 170n13 See also Cognitive bias; Implicit bias Birth, 11, 12, 26, 29, 32, 177 Bloom, Paul, 18, 105–107, 114 Bohm, David, 9n20, 78, 83n2, 124–130, 127n2 Buber, Martin, 10n21, 18–20, 23–46, 49–52, 56, 58–63, 74–78, 81, 83, 92n11, 97, 103, 108–110, 115, 118, 119

Buberian, 19, 27, 30, 51, 58, 60, 115, 118, 119 C Casual conversation, 4 Citizen/s, 5n12, 12, 13, 81n1, 90, 91, 115, 123, 135, 173, 174, 177–181 Citizenry, 13, 180 Civic, 7, 115, 172, 173, 179, 181, 182 Civic dialogue, 3, 7, 18, 23n2, 50, 83n3, 123, 143n12, 156, 162, 166, 176–178, 181, 182 Civic discourse, 2–4, 7, 19, 23, 24, 44–46, 66n14, 81–83, 117, 123, 124, 131, 156, 160n4, 173, 175, 176 Civic engagement, 176, 181 Civic habits, 156, 179 Civic life, 3, 6, 18 Civic practice, 18, 20, 157, 169 Civic vice, 156 Civic virtue/s, 20, 160, 168, 169, 176, 182n17 Civil, 88, 94, 172, 173, 175, 179 Claim of truth, 66, 68, 69, 76, 108, 112 Close-minded/ness, 161–164, 164n6 Cognition, 20, 70, 73, 97, 102, 127n2, 131, 133, 134, 136, 139, 168 See also Explicit cognition; First-level cognition; Implicit cognition; Second-level cognition Cognitive bias, 7, 20, 123, 130–138, 141, 143, 151, 158, 159, 168, 176 Cognitive empathy, 14, 15, 52, 67, 101, 105

 INDEX 

Cognitive processes, 20, 43, 66n15, 132, 133n7, 139, 149 See also First-level cognitive processes; Second-level cognitive processes Coherence, 126, 128, 129 Common humanity, 5, 6, 77, 82, 113, 116, 119, 142, 177, 178 Communication, 3, 10, 27, 29, 34, 45, 61, 74, 78, 83–87, 97, 172, 174, 178, 179 Communication agreements, 7, 86, 87, 87n9, 89, 90, 96 Communion, 52, 57, 76, 77 Community/ies, 1n4, 3, 4, 6, 7, 13, 14, 17n26, 18, 23–25, 26n6, 45, 46, 51, 76, 78, 81, 83, 83n4, 85, 86n8, 90, 96, 109, 113, 115, 118, 119, 127, 131, 132, 135, 147, 151, 152, 170n13, 171–173, 176, 178, 180, 182 Conflict, 3, 25, 38, 56, 83, 84, 86, 93, 95, 98, 99, 112, 113, 118, 125, 126, 128, 135, 151–152, 155, 158, 172 Conflict transformation, 3, 125 Connection/s, 4, 10, 14, 18, 26, 28, 31, 32, 35, 38, 40, 43–46, 49, 51, 56, 58, 59, 62, 74–79, 82, 92, 93, 99, 101, 104, 107, 110, 112, 117, 118, 124, 129, 131, 132, 137, 139, 141, 143, 164, 165, 167, 174, 176, 177, 180, 182 See also Fundamental connection/s Consensus, 4, 4n11, 5n14, 12, 13, 81, 82, 84, 86, 89, 90, 103, 137, 138, 179 Conversation, 1n3, 7, 9, 10, 16, 25, 43–45, 58, 65, 66, 73, 76, 82, 84, 87n9, 89–91, 94–96,

201

100n24, 109, 110, 118, 124, 152, 171, 176, 181 See also Casual conversation D Debate, 4, 8, 8n18, 12, 16, 61, 73n17, 81, 81n1, 82, 106, 109, 112, 124, 129, 134, 134n9, 151, 152, 163–165, 178 De-humanization, 113, 117 De-humanizing, 18, 45, 113–115 Deliberation, 4, 4n9, 4n11, 5, 5n12, 5n13, 5n14, 81, 81n1, 82, 83n3, 89, 90, 93, 94, 134n9, 174, 176, 181 Deliberative democracy/ies, 175, 182 Democracy/ies, 2, 7, 14n25, 18, 19, 21, 23n2, 49, 90, 137, 156, 168, 171, 173–182 See also Deliberative democracy/ies Democratic, 4, 8n18, 12, 18, 23, 45, 49, 83, 123, 168, 173, 175, 176n14, 177, 180, 181 Democratic culture, 175 Democratic faith, 177–179 Democratic habit(s), 173, 176 Descartes, 12 Dewey, John, 6, 11, 13, 18, 21, 23, 23n2, 25, 26n7, 45, 131, 156, 173, 176–181, 176n14, 177n16 Dialectic, 11–13, 15–17, 56, 66, 69, 72, 73, 73n17 Dialegesthai, 11, 12 Dialogic, 7, 10, 14, 19–21, 23, 25n5, 26, 26n6, 30, 32–34, 36n17, 38, 40, 43, 45, 50, 51, 51n5, 55–59, 63, 69, 73, 73n17, 75, 81–83, 84n5, 89, 93, 95, 96, 101, 107, 108, 110, 115, 116, 129, 130, 166, 175, 180

202 

INDEX

Dialogical, 28, 31, 34, 44, 46, 49, 51n6, 52, 55, 73, 76 Dialogical relationship/s, 25, 31, 33, 45 Dialogic ontology, 18, 23, 24, 43, 45 Dialogic relationship/s, 18, 20, 25, 30–35, 37, 39, 41, 44, 56, 74 Dialogue, 2–20, 4n9, 5n13, 23–46, 49–79, 81–119, 123–152, 155–182 See also Civic dialogue; Dialogue practitioner; Genuine dialogue; Goal of dialogue Dialogue practitioner, 23, 83, 90, 93, 95, 98, 165 Difference/s, 1–3, 2n8, 4n9, 5, 7, 14, 25n5, 31, 36n17, 46, 56–58, 62, 63, 68, 75, 77, 82, 83, 85, 89, 90, 97, 108, 115–118, 135, 138, 146, 148, 155, 171, 174, 180–182 Dilthey, Wilhelm, 36n17, 52, 52n7 Discourse, 2, 3, 5n14, 7, 12, 18, 20, 24, 44, 81, 82, 89, 94, 97, 103, 115, 126, 130, 131, 133n7, 136–138, 150, 151, 155, 167, 171, 176, 177, 181 See also Civic discourse; Political discourse Distance, 2n8, 25, 30–33, 32n13, 55, 56, 61, 142 Diversity, 173, 174 Doxa/ai, 11–17, 87 E Emotional contagion, 101–102, 112 Emotional empathy, 101, 103, 105 Empathy, 14, 15, 20, 51, 52, 53n9, 66–68, 66n15, 76, 97–108, 111, 112, 117–119, 142 See also Cognitive empathy; Emotional empathy

Engage/ment, 1, 3, 15, 16, 20, 37, 39, 40, 43, 50–52, 57–59, 63, 65, 71, 73, 75, 90, 91, 105, 113, 114, 131, 140–142, 146–148, 151, 165, 167, 170, 174, 179–181 Epistemic injustice, 20, 21, 156–173, 175, 176 Epistemic justice, 160, 160n3, 167, 168, 170, 175 Epistemic vice, 156, 160 Epistemic virtue/s, 20, 141, 156, 159, 168 Equality, 12, 14, 45, 156, 170, 171, 174, 175 Ereignis, 50, 50n3 Erfahrung, 35, 35n15, 36n17, 38 Erlebnis, 35n16, 36n17, 38 Essential Partners (EP), 19, 83–86, 83n4, 92n11, 98 Event/s, 6, 9, 10, 11n23, 19, 35–40, 35n15, 36n16, 36n17, 42, 44, 50, 51, 53, 57, 63, 65, 70, 99, 100, 145, 147 Event of truth, 63–75, 109, 119 Existential/ism, 10n21, 15, 16, 18, 20, 32, 40, 43, 43n19, 62–64, 70, 71, 73, 76–79, 108, 112, 115, 117, 119, 145, 165, 166 Experience/s, 5, 24, 35–46, 50, 81, 124, 164 See also Negativity of experience Explicit cognition, 20, 70, 131, 133 Explicit rational thought, 127, 130 F Facilitation, 8 Facilitator, 7, 10, 83, 86–88, 90, 91, 95, 96, 143, 144, 151 Fact/s, 1, 3, 6–8, 11n22, 12, 13, 15, 17, 25, 28, 29, 31, 32, 37, 39, 40, 42, 52, 59, 61, 62, 65, 69,

 INDEX 

72, 73n17, 76, 85, 90, 91, 93, 100, 100n24, 106, 109, 111–113, 124, 128, 131, 132, 133n7, 134, 136, 139, 143, 143n12, 145, 148, 157, 158, 160n3, 165, 178, 181 Fallible/ility, 17, 71, 162–164 Fear/ing, 2, 3, 10, 42, 82, 92, 92n12, 94, 102–105, 115, 124, 144, 147, 148, 171, 179, 181 Feeling/s, 3, 5, 40, 51, 62, 92, 92n12, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102–105, 107–109, 114, 116, 118, 127, 144, 145, 164, 165, 171 Fernbach, Philip, 1n4, 135, 137 Fight, 1n4, 8, 88, 93, 104, 106, 126, 142, 144 Finitude, 17, 27, 72, 77 First-level cognition, 133 First-level cognitive processes, 20, 132, 136 First-person experience/s, 19, 82, 93, 148, 171 First-person narrative/s, 20, 87, 94, 96, 111, 119, 140, 141, 147, 171 Force, 8, 11n23, 12, 14, 43, 56–58, 62, 67, 74, 78, 98, 115, 125, 126, 128, 135, 145 Fore-structures of understanding, 19, 53–63 Fricker, Miranda, 20, 156–159, 161, 168, 169 Friedman, Maurice, 25n5, 31, 34n14, 51n5, 110 Friend/ship, 11, 14, 14n25, 16, 63, 103, 134, 135, 151 Fundamental connection/s, 10n21, 19, 23, 113 Fundamental relationality, 18, 23, 24, 26–29, 33, 34, 37, 39, 43–45, 56, 62, 112 Fusion, 30, 110

203

Fusion of horizons, 50, 67, 77, 78, 108, 111, 112, 128, 137 G Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 19, 20, 26, 26n6, 36n16, 36n17, 37, 37n18, 43, 43n19, 46, 49–78, 49n1, 50n3, 51n6, 52n7, 81, 83, 86, 89, 89n10, 97, 100, 108–112, 115, 117, 127–129, 144, 156, 166 Game/s, 37, 59, 64, 65, 89, 127–130 Generalize/ation/s, 5, 91, 92n12, 93, 117, 138, 144, 145, 166, 172, 175, 176 Genuine dialogue, 77, 92n11, 173 Genuine question/s, 15, 73, 82, 88, 181 Goal of dialogue, 41, 43, 82, 84, 96–100, 103, 108, 109, 119, 128, 137 H Habits, 2, 143, 157, 171, 175–177, 179, 180, 182, 182n17 See also Civic habits; Virtuous habits Haidt, Jonathan, 1n4, 133–136, 133n8, 160n4 Heidegger, Martin, 25n5, 33, 43n19, 50n3, 53, 54 Hermeneutical injustice, 157, 169, 170, 170n13 Hermeneutical justice, 157 Hermeneutical virtue/s, 157 Hermeneutic/s, 7, 19, 20, 26, 36n17, 46, 49–52, 49n1, 51n6, 52n7, 55, 56, 58, 63, 64, 74–77, 99, 100, 164, 165, 168 Horizon/s, 19, 51, 66–70, 76, 77, 109–112, 117 See also Fusion of horizons

204 

INDEX

Hostile/hostilities, 2, 3, 84, 85, 91, 92, 111, 112, 116, 123, 148, 172, 174 Humanization, 113 I I and Thou, 18, 25, 29–31, 29n11, 34n14, 35n15, 37, 40, 41, 44, 45, 49–51, 58, 63, 113, 115, 117 See also I-Thou Identity/ies, 2, 2n7, 3, 5, 85, 95, 96, 111, 116, 129, 130, 135–137, 140, 141, 145, 146, 148, 155–157, 161–164, 166, 169–171, 170n13, 176, 182 I-It, 31, 35, 36n17, 38, 40 Immoral behavior, 104 Implicit bias, 20, 55, 125, 126, 138–152 Implicit cognition, 20 In-between, 13, 25n4, 34n14, 38, 50, 82 See also Between/ness In-group, 103, 114, 146, 170n13, 172 Injustice, 96, 145, 156, 157, 161, 168, 171, 176 See also Epistemic injustice; Hermeneutical injustice; Testimonial injustice Intellectual humility, 141, 143, 143n12, 160, 160n4, 164 Interhuman, 25n4, 34, 34n14, 35, 119 Interpersonal, 10, 30, 46, 58, 69, 75–77, 79, 109, 110, 156 Interpretive/ation/s, 5–7, 5n14, 10, 18, 33, 52, 52n7, 53, 55n10, 85, 88, 113, 138, 165, 169 Isaacs, William, 23, 33, 44, 174

I-Thou, 18, 25, 26, 28, 29, 31, 33, 34, 34n14, 36, 36n17, 38, 44, 46, 49, 50, 52, 62, 63, 113, 118 J Justice, 16, 20, 125, 156–158, 161, 173, 182n17 See also Epistemic justice; Hermeneutical justice; Testimonial justice K Kahneman, Daniel, 130, 130n3, 132, 143–145 Kögler, Hans-Herbert, 65, 99, 100 Kwong, Jack, 161–163 L Listen/er, 4, 5, 9, 9n20, 44, 52, 59–62, 71, 74, 75, 78, 83, 86, 87n9, 88, 91, 92, 92n11, 96, 109, 112, 118, 123, 127, 130, 137, 140, 141, 143, 157, 165–167, 169, 171–174, 178, 180, 181 M Maibom, Heidi, 101–104, 107n30 Maieutic, 11, 12 Marcel, Gabriel, 25, 32n13 Marginalized, 96, 155–157, 167, 168, 170 Meaning/s, 2n7, 4–8, 5n14, 11n23, 13, 14, 27–31, 36n17, 37, 39, 42, 46, 53, 54, 61, 66, 68, 78, 89, 90, 95, 100, 108, 111, 112, 119, 126–132, 146, 147, 156, 164–166, 174, 176, 177, 180

 INDEX 

Mercier, Hugo, 1n4, 131, 132, 136, 164 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 26, 27, 29, 45 Method, 12, 19, 59, 63, 70 See also Scientific method Midwife, 12, 13, 87 Monologue, 31, 60, 166 Moral behavior, 100, 100n25, 104, 105, 107 Moral bond, 46, 62 Mutuality, 35, 38–40, 43, 61 Mutual understanding, 2, 8, 10, 20, 43, 51, 67, 82, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92n11, 95–97, 99, 100, 100n24, 103, 109–112, 116, 118, 119, 128, 130, 137, 145, 151, 174, 180–182, 182n17 Mutz, Diana, 181 N Narrative 4, 98, 106, 107, 111, 142 Narrative/s, 5, 5n13, 19, 81, 82, 93–95, 98, 105–109, 117, 118, 145–148, 166, 174 See also First-person narrative/s Negativity of experience, 56, 62, 66, 69, 71, 72, 75, 144 O Open Dialogue, 29 Open-minded/ness, 20, 66n14, 71, 141, 143n12, 157, 160–164, 160n4, 163n5, 168n11 Openness, 15, 16, 19, 20, 39, 41–44, 52, 53, 58, 59, 61–75, 77, 79, 82, 91, 108, 137, 156, 157, 161, 162, 164–168, 173, 178, 181 Opinion/s, 10–16, 11n23, 69, 72, 73, 82, 124–126, 130, 135, 178, 181

205

Opponent, 1n4, 3, 7, 8, 12, 93, 115, 123, 125, 134, 135, 178, 179 Oppression, 58, 67, 82, 95, 112, 144, 155, 157, 172 Oppressive, 91, 92, 155, 157, 170, 171 Out-group, 108, 138, 146–148, 170n13, 172 P Perspective/s, 4, 5, 14, 17n26, 19, 55, 58–60, 66–68, 73, 76, 78, 82–84, 86, 91, 92n11, 94, 97, 98, 100, 101, 103, 107n30, 109–111, 115, 117, 134n9, 137, 141–143, 146, 163, 166, 170, 173 Persuade, 4, 9, 11n23, 12, 39, 41, 42, 61, 78, 81, 82, 87n9, 89, 113, 127 Persuasion, 2–4, 5n13, 6–11, 9n19, 11n23, 18, 41, 44, 78, 82, 109, 123, 176, 178, 181 Plato, 4, 8, 8n17, 9, 9n19, 11, 13n24, 15–17, 72, 73n17 Play, 19, 32, 37, 38, 50, 50n3, 53, 59, 63–76, 91, 93, 100, 103, 111, 115, 118, 125, 127–130, 136, 155, 156, 167, 171, 178 Pluralism, 2, 13, 60, 172, 175 Pluralistic, 4, 7, 16, 18, 19, 21, 23, 91, 123, 137, 168, 172, 174 Plurality, 7, 17, 180 Polarization, 1–4, 1n1, 2n8, 7, 18, 23, 44, 81, 83, 84, 87, 91, 95, 96, 115, 116, 126, 135, 137, 138, 145, 146, 148n13, 151, 152, 155, 174, 175, 177, 182 Polarized, 3, 6, 7, 50, 83, 86, 93, 94, 112, 115, 123, 127, 133n7, 172, 174 Polemarchus, 8–10, 9n19

206 

INDEX

Polis, 8–18 Political, 1–3, 1n1, 1n2, 1n3, 4n9, 5n14, 6–8, 11, 11n23, 12, 13n24, 14–18, 14n25, 17n26, 81–83, 81n1, 89, 93, 103, 112, 115, 123, 124, 126, 134–136, 148, 152, 155, 171, 175, 176, 179, 181 Political argument/s/ation, 6, 82, 84 Political discourse, 1, 1n2, 44, 123, 148, 152 Politics, 1n2, 2n7, 17n26, 24, 134, 148n13, 181 Power, 1n4, 4n9, 6, 9, 16, 17n26, 19, 20, 33, 35, 37n18, 40, 56–58, 69, 70, 83, 86, 88, 91, 92, 92n12, 96, 117, 123–152, 155, 167, 173, 174, 180 Practitioner/s, 4n9, 7, 18–20, 23, 26n6, 30, 38, 39, 79, 82–97, 99–101, 107, 107n30, 109, 110, 112, 117 See also Dialogue practitioner Prejudice/s, 5, 19, 53–63, 70, 125, 130, 150, 156–158, 160–162, 166, 168, 171, 175 Pre-structures of understanding, 20 Propositional, 42, 46, 71, 85, 111, 118, 119, 149 Proposition/s, 19, 50, 53, 72, 78, 82, 126, 163 Prosocial behavior, 104 Public, 3, 4n9, 5n12, 5n14, 6, 11n22, 12, 16, 17n26, 82, 90, 94, 115, 134, 156, 172, 173, 178, 182 Public discourse, 1, 6–8, 44, 133, 182 Public realm, 18 Public sphere, 11 Public square, 7, 50, 81, 84n5, 89, 97, 115, 134, 134n9, 135, 156, 176

Q Question/s, 1n4, 9n19, 15, 25, 27, 42, 52n7, 53, 54, 57, 58n12, 61, 66, 71–74, 72n16, 77, 81, 86–89, 86n8, 95–97, 116, 129, 138n10, 144, 148, 148n13, 151, 155, 158, 162, 163, 165, 168, 169, 179–181 See also Genuine question/s R Rational, 2, 3, 4n9, 7, 8, 10, 14, 16, 18, 20, 41, 43, 44, 81, 82, 93, 101, 103, 108, 109, 113, 115, 116, 123–125, 127–130, 132–136, 133n7, 138, 145, 176 Reasons, 1n4, 5, 5n14, 6, 12, 17, 20, 27, 45, 55, 56, 58, 63, 71, 77, 82, 86, 89, 95, 97, 101, 111–113, 115, 116, 123–125, 130–132, 130n3, 134–136, 138, 142, 144, 145, 147, 149, 151, 158–160, 162, 164, 165, 170n13, 175–179, 182 Reflection, 5, 11n22, 15, 19, 45, 55, 57, 58, 62, 63, 65, 73, 82, 86, 88, 91, 96, 127, 129, 146, 147, 159, 167, 171 See also Self-reflection Reflective, 55, 60, 101, 129, 161, 166 See also Self-reflective Reflective Structured Dialogue (RSD), 19, 83–85, 83n4, 84n5, 90, 97, 98, 109, 172 Relational, 18, 25, 26, 28, 30, 33 Relational event, 35–46, 63 Relationality, 18, 24–34, 25n5, 36, 38, 43–46, 56 See also Fundamental relationality

 INDEX 

Relationship/s, 4, 7, 23–28, 25n5, 30–36, 32n13, 34n14, 35n16, 36n17, 38, 40, 43, 44, 51, 60, 61, 82, 84–86, 97, 111, 113, 143n12, 177, 180 See also Dialogic relationship/s; Dialogical relationship/s Respect, 38, 54, 88n9, 97, 114, 175 Rilke, Rainer Maria, 37n18 Rogers, Carl, 39, 110 Rorty, Richard, 1, 1n4, 10, 113, 136 S Sache, die, 66, 68, 69, 71, 76, 77, 109 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 37, 52, 52n7, 55, 55n10 Scientific method, 49, 63 See also Method Second-level cognition, 133, 133n8 See also Cognition Second-level cognitive processes, 20, 132 See also Cognitive processes Self-reflection, 5, 86, 93, 95, 110–112, 148 Shared community, 78 Shared values, 84, 85, 109, 180 See also Values Sherman, Benjamin, 157–160, 166–168 Shift/s, 4, 5, 9, 67, 68, 73, 76, 98, 109–112, 136, 149 Silencing, 2, 41, 91, 155–157 Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter, 2n6, 2n8, 3, 115, 116, 123 Sloman, Steven, 1n4, 135, 137 Socrates, 8–17, 9n19, 13n24, 40

207

Solidarity, 49, 49n1, 77, 78, 175 Speaker, 4, 92n11, 96, 169 Sperber, Dan, 1n4, 131, 132, 136, 164 Stains, Robert, 38, 93, 100, 100n24, 110 Stereotype/s, 3, 91, 93, 98, 135, 138–141, 144, 146, 150, 161, 166 Stereotyping, 5, 84, 86, 104, 138, 140, 141, 166, 176 Story/ies, 4, 39, 86, 94, 107, 118, 140–142, 144, 148, 155 Story telling, 111 Subjectivity, 40, 50, 59–61, 64, 124 Sympathy, 40, 101, 102 T Tacit, 64, 82, 125–128, 130, 131, 141 Testimonial injustice, 156, 157, 160, 166, 169n12, 170 Testimonial justice, 157–161, 169n12 Testimonial virtue/s, 156–160 Threat, 9, 10, 12, 88, 92, 93, 95, 126, 136, 142, 144, 145, 171, 174, 179 Tolerance, 145, 174 Tradition, 19, 51–63, 52n7, 67–70, 73–75, 110, 134, 176 Trust, 2, 3, 98, 108, 132, 144, 161, 166, 171, 172, 174, 175, 181, 182 Truth and Method, 37n18, 50–52, 56, 57, 63, 76 Truth claim, 20, 63, 67, 70, 76, 77, 108, 112, 119 Truth value, 163

208 

INDEX

U Understand, 2, 7, 14, 15, 27, 28, 33, 35, 37, 39, 45, 46, 49, 51–54, 56, 57, 59, 62, 66, 68, 72n16, 73, 75–77, 81n1, 86, 87, 87n9, 89, 93, 99, 101, 107n30, 111–113, 118, 132, 135, 137, 139, 143, 164, 165, 169, 174 Understander, 51, 53, 57, 58, 62, 66, 67, 70, 73 Understanding, 2, 3, 5–7, 14, 18–20, 32, 36n17, 37, 44, 46, 49–79, 81–83, 85, 89, 90, 95, 97–102, 104, 107n30, 108–110, 112, 129, 130, 144, 165, 169, 170n13, 171, 174 See also Fore-structures of understanding; Pre-structures of understanding Universality, 68, 118 Us-versus-them thinking, 2, 3, 96, 115, 138 V Values, 4, 5, 7, 20, 72, 82, 85, 87, 91, 95, 98, 100n25, 101, 104, 109,

110, 112, 115–117, 129, 135–138, 140, 146, 149, 151, 163, 164, 173, 174, 178, 180 See also Shared values Vice, 28, 74, 106, 141, 156, 160, 167 See also Civic vice; Epistemic vice Violence, 1–3, 7–10, 9n20, 11n23, 18, 82, 85, 98, 108, 113, 114, 147, 172 Virtue/s, 20, 40, 66n14, 143, 143n12, 155–182 See also Civic virtue/s; Epistemic virtue/s; Hermeneutical virtue/s; Testimonial virtue/s Virtuous habits, 179 W Walzer, Michael, 89, 91 Warnke, Georgia, 5n14, 55n11, 58n12, 74 Work of art, 38, 64, 72n16 See also Art/work Y Young, Iris Marion, 4n11, 5n13