Dialogue and World

Philosophy was born in the form of dialogue: in many cases the works of Plato are titled the Dialogues of Plato. Dialogue means that any understanding is dependent on a person talking to another person about something, some topic or issue. Yet talking to someone also includes the views of many others. To speak to someone about gravity includes Newton and other scientists as dialogical partners extending the discussion into a "poly-logical" depth. In this sense, each dialogical person is located in a field of "poly-centric" awareness, where each claim is limited by other claims and at the same time extended by others. Meanwhile a monologue is an assumption of a position which claims to be absolute and any contribution by others is a priori subsumed by such an absolute position. The latter "explains" everything that the other might say and thus deny the relevance of the other's awareness. In this case, there is only one, unsituated voice, silencing all others. In the essay there is an argument showing how monologue cannot maintain its position.