Dialogue and enlightenment
pp. 43-53
in: Bo Göranzon, Magnus Florin (eds), Dialogue and technology, Berlin, Springer, 1991Abstract
Plato's dialogues found an influential interpreter in H.-G. Gadamer, who sees dialogue as a vehicle of truth, involving transformation. The Utopian character of Gadamer's thought has been questioned by J. Habermas, who submits "true" dialogue with "noncoercive communication" which can be described as a democratic decision-making process on commonsense grounds leads to consensus rather than to truth and knowledge. However, when this modern Philosophy of Enlightenment is compared with the literary dialogues of Diderot, the encyclopaedist, we become aware of an enormous gap: here, dialogue is the opposite of consensus. An alternative tradition of dialogue is found in the Jewish tradition, with a contemporary exponent in Emmanuel Levinas, who describes the relationship of the "I" to the "Other".
