A Short Meditation on Explaining This Dialogical Stuff to Others

A short meditation on explaining ‘this dialogical stuff’ to others:

A CEO : I completely agree with you John. But how can I explain this stuff to my engineers? (Where this stuff is to do with the importance of our ‘being dialogical, and taking the time to listen, and to explore possibilities... hesitantly’)

My short answer: You can’t!

My longer answer: You can’t! But you can explain/describe it to people who have become engineers, or who have become accountants, or who have become one or another kind of professional. It can be done by reminding people of what is in fact already familiar to us all... and what, in fact, made it possible for them to be talked into their professional capabilities by those teaching them.

This is possible because everyone already knows, i.e., shares a way of judging, at some level:

$ how to speak and listen, how to use language; $ whether another person is speaking to them, or to someone else; $ whether someone is directing their attention to an aspect of their joint situation; $ whether someone is telling them of ‘its’ name or merely suggesting it to them; $ whether someone is requesting something of them, or ordering them to do it; $ whether someone is attending to their speech, or not; $ whether someone is telling of a fact or merely proposing a possibility; $ when someone has asked a question and is awaiting an answer; $ whether someone is genuinely answering one’s question, or is avoiding it in some way; $ whether one has deliberately or accidently insulted them; $ and so on; $ this list can be continued on for a few pages...

In other words, we all share in a way of judging as to what an otherwise indeterminate event — an unfolding movement of expressive activity — actually is. Indeed, Robert Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance paraphrases Phaedrus: “And what is good, Phardrus, and what is not good – need we ask anyone to tell us these things?” – In other words: there is much on our social lives together that we already just know in virtue of having grown up as a member of our social group... we don’t need to ask the opinion of expert others as to their nature... these things are not like judgements laid down in law books, not matters of opinion by elite authorities, but matters of ‘common sense’... like Amartya Sen’s focus on people’s sense of injustice – we know it when we see it. We don’t need to ask experts how to make these judgments; they are basic to our very being as human beings. As Wittgenstein (1953) remarks: “If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so...” (no.242, my itals). Some more examples:

$ greetings (can tell us how a person is feeling that day) $ apologies (can tell whether genuine or not) $ compliments ( ditto) $ disagreements (strong, weak) $ ego-trips..

$ many well-known, everyday noticings, many important everyday sensitivities...

$ this is not ‘back to basics’ but ‘back to beginnings’ $ a matter of ‘before-the-fact’ rather thna ‘after-the-fact’ understandings $ ‘our stuff’ depends upon these ‘taken-for-granted’ background, i.e., often unnoticed, judgments

Above, then, is perhaps a way into talking people into this kind of stuff.... as Wittgenstein (1969) puts it in “On Certainty,” these things are not certainties, but they more often that not “stand fast” for us in our meetings with the others around us... they are “hinges” or “pivots” around which are explorations can rotate... and we always have ways of further checking them out if we are still unsure...