Ivana Marková - The Dialogical Mind - Common Sense and Ethics (2016, Cambridge Univertisy Press)
Ivana Marková - The Dialogical Mind - Common Sense and Ethics (2016, Cambridge Univertisy Press)
Ivana Marková - The Dialogical Mind - Common Sense and Ethics (2016, Cambridge Univertisy Press)
Ivana Marková
University of Stirling, UK
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107002555
© Cambridge University Press 2016
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permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2016
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Marková, Ivana, author.
The dialogical mind : common sense and ethics / Ivana Marková.
Cambridge, United Kingdom : Cambridge University Press, 2016.
LCCN 2016017598 | ISBN 9781107002555 (hardback)
LCSH: Knowledge, Sociology of. | Social epistemology. | Social
representations. | Communication – Social aspects. | Dialogue analysis. |
Psycholinguistics. | BISAC: PSYCHOLOGY / Social Psychology.
LCC HM651 .M366 2016 | DDC 306.4/2–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016017598
ISBN 978-1-107-00255-5 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication
and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
Nechápu vesmír jako pevné body hvězd, ale jako víření kosmických
těles, hmotu pak jako víření atomů a jako vztahy sil. V obrazech se
snažím vyjádřit vnitřní dynamickou skutečnost kolem nás, nejsou
tedy něco abstraktního a nereálného, i když tak snad povrchnímu
pozorovateli na první pohled připadají.
[I do not conceive the universe as fixed points of stars but rather as
a swirling of cosmic bodies, with mass consisting of a swirling of
atoms and the interrelationship of forces. In my paintings I try to
express the inner dynamic reality around us. My paintings are
therefore not of something abstract or unreal even if at first glance
they might appear thus to a superficial observer.]
Jan Špála, about his painting Dobrodružství poznávání
[The adventure of knowing] 1968.
Contents
Introduction 1
References 215
Index 242
vii
Figures
viii
1
The Self–Other(s) or the Ego–Alter are fundamental theoretical constructs in this book.
Therefore, throughout this book, whenever I use these terms in capitals, I am referring to the
interdependent relations between the Self and Other(s) or the Ego and Alter. If these terms appear
in quotations in which capitals were not used, I stick to the original small letters. Equally I use
small letters if I do not refer to these terms as theoretical constructs.
ix
thought, language and action. After a long reflection I have attempted to clarify
and develop links between these two approaches and I have discussed these
issues in Dialogicality and Social Representations (2003a). The end of com-
munism in Central and Eastern Europe, and the study of problems involving
people with communication disabilities, led me to examine empirically,
together with my colleagues, dialogical and ethical features of daily thinking.
These issues form the basis for my main argument in The Dialogical Mind:
Common Sense and Ethics. Epistemology of daily thought, language and action
does not stem from ‘neutral’ information processing of the individual but from
the ethics of dialogicality. With hindsight, I see that in my three books I have
intuitively followed the same problem: a continuous struggle to understand the
interdependence between the Self and Others in thought, language and action in
their historical and cultural perspectives.
I learnt a great deal about dialogicality from my colleagues involved with the
care of, and research into, congenital deafblindness. I would like to thank the
following persons in the working group for the Deafblind International
Network on Communication and Congenital Deafblindness: Marlene
Daelman, Paul Hart, Marleen Janssen, Flemming Ask Larsen, Anne Nafstad,
Inger Rødbroe, Jacques Souriau and Ton Visser. In addition, Franck Bearteu
and Gunnar Vege as well as other students provided very interesting insights
into deafblindness. I thank Signo Kompetansesenter in Oslo for giving me
permission to reprint photographs (Figures 7.1 and 7.2) and to refer to materials
based on the DVD Traces. I also thank Ingerid’s family for permission to use
materials from Gunnar Vege’s research. Gunnar Vege gave me permission to
reprint long quotations from his MSc thesis; he also drew my attention to an
issue I missed.
A study group on common sense initiated by Martin Bauer and myself at the
London School of Economics and Political Science has provided opportunities
for discussions of common sense and science with Jorge Jesuino, Helene Joffe,
Sandra Jovchelovitch, Nikos Kalampalikis, Cliodhna O’Connor, Chris Tennant
and others.
I presented some aspects of this book at conferences in London, Zurich, San
Paulo, Evora, Louvain, Neuchâtel, Naples and Helsinki, and in lectures to
postgraduate students at the London School of Economics and Political
Science.
I wish to thank Dr I. S. Marková for reading twice the whole text; she drew
my attention to theoretical inconsistencies, structural imbalances and lack of
clarity; she corrected my English and provided some references. Of course, any
remaining errors are my own responsibility. I am also grateful to Alex
Gillespie, who read the whole manuscript and suggested typographical changes
and corrections. I discussed many issues with Per Linell, who drew my atten-
tion to issues in the book that could be misunderstood.
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2 Introduction
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Introduction 3
offer to dialogism. What matters here is the division between monologism and
dialogism. Linell characterises monologism as information processing theories
of cognition, which conceive communication as transfer of messages from
sender to receiver. Monologism further includes conceptions of language as
consisting of static signs and fixed meanings, while contexts are viewed as
external to language and language use, thinking and communication (Linell,
2009, p. 36). Providing a deep analysis of these issues, Linell’s perspective
implies that if a theory cannot be characterised as monological in the terms he
proposes, it can offer, both theoretically and empirically, something to dialo-
gical approaches.
At the other pole of this wide concept of dialogism are contemporary
approaches in the French dialogical linguistics, building on and developing
Bakhtin’s ideas. Applying a dialogical approach in grammar, these dialogical
linguists analyse utterances and discourse. For example, they make a linguistic
distinction between locutor and enunciator (Bres, 1998; 1999; Bres and Verine,
2002; Salazar Orvig, 2005; Vion, 1998; 2001), that is, between the one who
utters ‘I’ and the one who presents the point of view of others, respectively.
Through the use of various grammatical structures such as modalisations,
positioning, deontic concepts and other means, speakers can take distance
from, or closeness to, what they are actually stating (Salazar Orvig, 2005;
Salazar Orvig and Grossen, 2008). But even within these linguistically based
approaches there are vast differences. For example, while Bres and his collea-
gues stick to the grammatical analysis of utterances, Salazar Orvig and Grossen
combine dialogical linguistics with the analysis of social psychological phe-
nomena such as trust (e.g. Grossen and Salazar Orvig, 2014), and with ther-
apeutic and clinical practices (Grossen and Salazar Orvig, 2011).
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4 Introduction
many domains of human sciences: ‘One only has to think of social psychol-
ogy’ (Gadamer, 1975, p. 4). This approach also assumes that social phenom-
ena should be treated as ahistorical and a cultural. Studies of society, just like
studies of nature, must be repeatable; repeatability defines their scientific
reliability. Above all, confidence in the power of science has been related to
the view that on its historical journey, humankind will shake off irrational
ways of thinking, myth and superstitious beliefs, and will progress towards
rationality: logos will substitute mythos (Chapter 1). The British philosopher
Bertrand Russell expressed his confidence in the power of sciences by stating
that, one day, they will develop ‘a mathematics of human behaviour as precise
as the mathematics of machines’ (Russell, 1956, p. 142).
The second tendency that seems to have encouraged the ‘dialogical turn’ has
been the reaction against the technological dominance invading all areas of
human life. It places emphasis on efficiency, markets and money, and on
quantification of phenomena such as life-satisfaction, feelings of injustice or
trusting others. Within this trend, technological advancements in neuroscience,
physiology and medical sciences have brought about a powerful influence on
technicisation and bureaucratisation of social and human sciences. Anonymity
of numbers, hiding behind the façade of precision and giving bureaucratisation
a scientific appearance, has become offensive to those who insist on the
uniqueness and wholeness of humans.
In contrast to perspectives fragmenting individuals into elements and
studying detached cognition, ‘neutral’ and ‘objective’ knowledge, dialogical
approaches focus on interaction and interdependencies among the Self and
Others, and on their engaged experience, knowledge and communication in
ordinary life.
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Introduction 5
that is, common sense as a vital feature of social interaction and communication
underlain by the ethics of the Self–Other. I have argued elsewhere that the
Self–Other interdependence is the basic thema of common sense in social
interaction (Marková, 2003a). Originally, thema and themata were defined as
historically based preconceptions in science, as dyadic oppositions such as
atoms versus continua, analysis versus synthesis or simplicity versus complex-
ity (Holton, 1975). Holton argued that such dyadic oppositions in science
explain the formation of traditions in specific schools of thought in physics.
However, not only scientific thinking but also daily thinking is underlain by
dyadic oppositions. Humans understand their relationships as well as daily
events as good or bad, moral or immoral, just or unjust, and so forth. Such
themata are historically and culturally established as the basis of common
sense. They can be implicit in daily thinking and perpetuate themselves in
and through socialisation across traditions and cultures (for a discussion of
themata see Marková, 2003a; Moscovici and Vignaux, 1994/2000). During
socialisation the child learns quite naturally to distinguish between moral and
immoral conduct, whom to trust and whom not to trust. In human societies,
such themata are part of implicitly adopted common sense; they appear vital for
survival and for the extension of life. For example, it is essential to humanity
that people treat each other with dignity, that they have choices with respect to
their activities, style of life, that they distinguish between what is good for them
and what to avoid. This assumption, to which I shall keep returning throughout
the book, contrasts common sense embedded in dialogical thinking with
thinking that is founded solely on the mental capacities of the individual.
Those who adopt this latter perspective, usually attribute thinking of the
individual with the capacity for being ‘objective’ or ‘rational’.
Ethics and morality are fundamental concepts of philosophies, human and
social sciences as well as of professional and daily life. Often used interchange-
ably, ethics and morality mostly refer to an individual’s duties to think and act
morally. These duties are commonly derived from universal imperatives that
apply to all humans capable of rational thinking. These universal imperatives
are normative and prescriptive. They are customarily related to the idea that
humans are equipped with the inborn intuitive capacity to directly apprehend
what is good and what is morally reprehensible, and to what ought and ought
not to be done in a given situation. In Western philosophies, ideas focusing on
universal rationality have been maintained throughout history from ancient
Greek philosophy to Immanuel Kant and to contemporary intuitive ethics and
morality. In other words, according to this position, each human is born with the
capacity to apprehend basic moral imperatives due to his/her individual
rationality.
While acknowledging that each individual is capable of ethical and moral
judgement, I presuppose that this capacity does not arise in the mind of a sole
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6 Introduction
individual due to his/her innate cognitive rationality, but that the nature of this
capacity is dialogical. It has been acquired throughout the historical and
cultural development of human species as humans. Therefore, ethics discussed
in this book is not based on individual rationality, but on dialogical rationality.
It is of vital importance to acknowledge that when referring to individual and
dialogical rationality we are dealing with two different forms of thought which
determine the kinds of questions we pose about humans and their mental
capacities. The concepts of individual rationality and of dialogical rationality
have fundamental implications for questions about the nature of language,
thinking and knowing, about the individual and social action, and about ethics
and morality.
The concept of dialogically based ethics has been firmly established both in
theoretical and empirical studies. Philosophically and theoretically, the ethics
based on the interdependence between the Self and Other(s) as an ontological
(existential) point of departure can be traced to the eighteenth-century philo-
sopher Giambattista Vico (Chapter 2) and then to the ethical thought of German
dialogical philosophies (Chapter 4). Empirically, during the last sixty years
there has been an abundance of psychological studies into the very early life of
infants on face recognition, imitation, communication, interactional rhythm
and recognition of voices by neonates. These studies provide evidence for rich
capacities for social interaction with which the neonate is endowed at birth.
Research literature has shown that infants relate to a human face immediately
after birth. In his classic study on pattern recognition in infants Fantz (1963)
stated that although the mechanism underlying infants’ preferences for faces
over other objects is not known, this fact should facilitate the development of
social responsiveness, because ‘what is responded to must first be attended to’
(Fantz, 1963, p. 297; see also a comprehensive review on the selective attention
to faces in infants by Otsuka, 2014).
A response to a human face is not ‘disengaged’, ‘neutral’ or ‘objective’ but
the human face obliges the Self and Other to get involved in a dialogical action
(see Part II of this book). A dialogical action arising from the dialogical
capacities of the mind to engage with the Other ranges from unconscious social
activities transmitted by tradition and common sense to self-reflective social
interactions. It affirms that humans act in order to promote what they consider
as good, just and worthwhile, even if what some consider as good, just and
worthwhile, others judge as misery, injustice, worthlessness and even terror.
Whatever the meaning of good, just and worthwhile, ethics based on the
dialogical capacities of the mind and on dialogical action is about the fulfilment
of living (Taylor, 2011). It was Paul Ricoeur who emphasised the idea of ethics
as ‘good life’. He argued for the priority of ethics, that is, of the Self’s search for
the ‘good life’ with Others and with institutions based on justice, over what is
habitually called normative morality. Normative morality, while indispensable
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Introduction 7
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Part I
‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking
and knowing
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10 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
evidence showing that humans never cast off mythical thinking and irration-
ality (Chapter 1).
Despite vastly diverse views of professionals and lay citizens on these two
kinds of thinking and knowing, the belief in their reality has not diminished.
Both kinds of thinking and knowing and their various combinations are present
in the ways our life experiences are organised and the means by which knowl-
edge is acquired. The view that scientific thinking, whatever it may mean, is
‘superior’ to all other kinds of thinking not only endures but dominates most
areas of contemporary life, including education, politics, economy as well as
human and social sciences.
Human and social sciences came to their being in the late eighteenth century
and during the nineteenth century, when they gradually separated themselves
from philosophy and natural sciences. They created new disciplines like
anthropology, sociology and psychology and their sub-disciplines. Scholarly
fields never emerge in a vacuum but are part of the social, political and
economic conditions of the time. Treatises of the history of new breakup
disciplines like anthropology and sociology refer to the political climate, in
particular in Germany and surrounding Central European countries. Since the
eighteenth century, debates for and against the formation of modern nations
took place, and studies of their languages, communities and their histories, as
well as the collective spirit of people, were widely discussed (e.g. Diriwächter,
2012; Jahoda, 1982; 2007; Klautke, 2010). Interests in these issues were
subsumed under names like the ‘spirit of the folk’, ‘social psychology’ and
‘Völkerpsychologie’, among others. One of the leaders of these movements,
Johann Gottfried von Herder promoted the idea of Volkgeist (‘spirit of the
folk’) and Volk poetry, and of beliefs and myths in diverse cultures. He argued
that Volk poetry was the only true poetry that epitomised the standard of
a language (Herder, 1877–1913/1967, IX, p. 529). According to Herder, each
nation must be understood on its own premises; thus, the conduct of peoples
should be explained in terms of their cultures rather than through imposing
criteria of other times and other nations. One needs to empathise with other
nations’ perspectives in order to understand them. Herder presupposed that
languages are forms of self-expression of peoples and that they develop in
intimate relations with the feeling of nationality. Thus, Herder expressed the
perspective that had been already advanced half a century earlier by
Giambatistta Vico (see Chapter 2).
The beginnings of social anthropology, social psychology and ethnology were
intermingled (Jahoda, 1982), and they pre-dated Wilhelm Wundt’s ten volumes
of Völkerpsychologie, published during the years 1900–1920. Wundt is known as
the father of experimental psychology, although he was emphatic that his
Völkerpsychologie, often translated as ‘social psychology’ (Greenwood, 2004),
was an important counterpart of experimental psychology. He recognised that
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‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing 11
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12 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing 13
polarised positions. On the one hand, social psychology cannot avoid studying
citizens’ daily thinking, attitudes expressed in ordinary language, acting and
feeling – therefore, it must pay at least some attention to common sense. On the
other hand, from its origin, social psychology has aspired to achieve the status of
a science, and therefore the study of common sense is a kind of embarrassment.
Therefore, social psychology seeks a rupture between science and common sense
and so to widen the epistemic gap between them. Serge Moscovici’s theory of
social representations is the only social psychological theory that is explicitly
based on common sense and socially shared knowledge.
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1 From mythos and irrationality towards logos
and rationality
15
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16 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
called him an imitator who copied images of virtue, but he could never reach
the truth of God. Equally, a painter makes images of things about which he
knows nothing and he is admired by those who know even less than he does.
Poets and painters make images, but they know nothing of real existences, only
of appearances.
In contrast to Plato, Aristotle thought that widely held beliefs, theories,
stories and opinions of the public (endoxa) carried rational insights, even if
some of them belonged to mythos rather than to logos. While he took a polemic
approach to mythologies, Aristotle recognised the significance of myth
(Johansen, 1999) and acknowledged that myth had the same explanatory
intentions as had science and that therefore one cannot simply reject mythol-
ogies as irrational. Concerning imagination, Aristotle placed it between the
capacity to perceive and the capacity to think and stated that therefore imagina-
tion could facilitate the transformation of sensory impressions into thoughts.
A casual inspection of the literature on the history of ideas shows that the
belief that ‘mythic imagining and logical thinking are contraries’ (Nestle, 1942,
p. 1) has always been widespread. In his influential book on ancient Greek
thinking entitled Vom Mythos zum Logos, Nestle characterised mythical ima-
gining as involuntary and as based on unconscious processes. Throughout the
history of thought, this idea has been commonly accepted (cf. Cassirer, 1946,
p. 282). Nestle thought that, in contrast to mythos, logical thinking is conscious
and conceptual. Giving numerous examples from ancient Greece, Nestle
pointed to evidence that humans, on their road towards logos, have gradually
replaced mythical thinking by rational reasoning.
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 17
with rationality, arguing that the philosophical vocabulary is often no more than
a superficial mask hiding unconscious and irrational modes of thought. He
warns that the danger begins when humans believe that they have left behind all
mythical thinking and they rely solely on scientific methods based on observa-
tion and logical inference: ‘[t]he unconscious retention of inherited and irra-
tional modes of thought, cloaked in the vocabulary of reason, then becomes an
obstacle, rather than aid, to the pursuit of truth’. Equally, Glenn Most (1999)
argues that despite rationalisation in the history of humankind, the path from
mythos to logos is often complemented by that from logos to mythos.
The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century, as well as the trends that
followed, was marked by the conviction that the development of sciences
would dispel the irrational thinking of the public. The growth of the sciences
of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries influenced literature, art and public
imagination (Levine, 1993). Sciences had a profound effect on public educa-
tion, but they did not eradicate myth. Indeed, there is evidence that the creation,
invention and reinvention of myths in modernity form a powerful force in
human thought and that the scientific progress itself often contributes to the
creation of myths. Gillian Beer (1993) specifically refers to the discoveries in
solar physics and their influence on Victorian society, noting that the public
reinvented old myths about the forthcoming death of the sun. Physical sciences
also influenced the general public indirectly, through the media of art and
literature. Scientific findings encouraged the poetic imagination of Coleridge,
Yeats, and Emerson and subsequently stirred the phantasy of the public (Beer,
1993). The discovery of X-rays at the end of the nineteenth century inspired
artists’ and the public’s fantasies about the invisible and extrasensory world and
stimulated ideas of the occult, like images of immortality or of the imminent
death of the universe (Marková, 2003a). In this vein, Virginia Woolf was
preoccupied with the persistent question ‘what is meant by reality?’ She tried
to answer this by using ideas derived from the theory of relativity and quantum
physics.
A recent volume on Mythical Thinking and Social Representations, which
relates ideas from anthropology and the theory of social representations
(Paredes and Jodelet, 2009), shows that mythical thinking continues to be
present in daily life. It permeates everyday reasoning and daily practices, in
which ancient myths about gods and humans, justice and injustice, and ‘we’
and ‘them’ have been reactivated, and myths have been transformed into the
search for contemporary cultural and political identities. The authors of this
volume show that the formation and transformation of myths also facilitate
understanding and interpretations of events or objects in social life and in social
relations.
The mixture of myth and reason, however, is not only a feature of the
thinking of ordinary citizens and scientific popularisers; scientists too, whether
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18 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 19
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20 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
In order to make this point more concrete, let us consider two examples of
a complex merging of logos and mythos in recent history and in contemporary
science. The first example revolutionised human thought and action and pro-
mised Heaven on Earth but failed to deliver even the slightest form of antici-
pated outcomes. The second example attempts to scientify complex human
social phenomena by reducing them to physiology or by localising them in
brain cells.
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 21
1.1.2.2 Nikolai Berdyaev on the Russian soul Among the first analysts of the
mixture of science and religion in the Soviet form of Marxism was the Russian
religious and political philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev (1931). He focused on the
dichotomy between a strong emphasis on the Marxist science – or the ‘prole-
tarian science’ (see Chapter 3) – and at the same time on the use of symbolism,
ceremonies and rituals that arose from the Orthodox Church. The fundamental
feature of the Russian intellectual and literary history was Nihilism, which, in
its Russian form, preoccupied itself with human suffering and injustice.
Nihilism was steered by the consciousness of guilt, contrition, feelings of
offence from others, and of oppression and serfdom, and it called for a total
restructuring of the society. As Berdyaev notes, these feelings became incar-
nated in the works of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy and Turgenev, among others. All
this paved the way to the intermingling of religious issues with social ones and
to a specific form of the idea of Russian socialism which, Berdyaev comments,
‘was not a political but a religious question’ (Berdyaev, 1931, p. 6). Socialism,
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22 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 23
a complete economic and political collapse formed the basic nourishment for
racism. He commented that while myth had been usually described as an
unconscious process of imagination, racism in Germany was a planned strategy
using the magical power of language and charging words with new meanings
and creating new rituals. Just like Marxism attributed a scientific status to the
myth of the Communist Party, its leaders and the concept of class, the Nazi
Party attributed a scientific status to the faith in ‘superiority’ of one race over
another. Voegelin commented that Nazism manufactured, quite arbitrarily, the
idea of ‘superior’ characteristics that were granted to the ‘Nordic race’. Among
these were ‘creative mental powers, high intelligence, outstanding character
traits, steadiness of will and caring foresight, self-control, pursuit of objective
goals over the long term as well as a talent for technology and mastering of
nature, love for the sea . . . aristocratic reserve, honesty, sincerity’ (Voegelin,
1933/1997, p. 85).
In aiming at the restructuring of society and transforming the world, both
totalitarian systems, that is, Nazism and Communism, used politics, daily life,
culture and all forms of art to these ends. Communist ideology promised to
end the injustice between the rich and the poor; it created the myth of the
construction of ‘a new man’ that was the necessary condition for the glorious
vision of Heaven on Earth. Nazism, in contrast, created the myth of a ‘pure
race’ and the vision of a nation and of national consciousness. In analysing
these issues, Voegelin (1933/1997, p. 149) refers to the German philosopher
of the nineteenth century Fridrich von Schelling, who studied the origin of
myth in the creation of community. Schelling thought that myth does not arise
within a people but that, instead, a people emerge from its myth: ‘A people’s
or nation’s ground of being . . . and its unity is its myth’ (Voegelin, 1933/1997,
p. 149). Voegelin comments that it is myth that determines the history of
a nation by creating ‘a community of consciousness’, ‘a common world
perspective’ and ‘a shared mythology’. The resources that create such mix-
tures of logos and mythos usually do not require any reflection or analysis on
the part of the devotee; commitment to the dogma and to the leaders creating
the dogma seems to be the necessary and sufficient conditions for the con-
struction of myths.
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24 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
seeing itself as one of the sciences that would make significant contributions
to the understanding of complex social phenomena and social activities
through brain functional behaviour. The main aim of functional brain imaging
is focused on the identification of specific regions/neuronal systems in the
brain and their temporal relationships with the performance of well-designed
tasks. The end result is a detailed picture of the processing architecture of
brain networks. Such scientific programmes have fuelled the imagination of
social psychologists. One of the first topics that drew the attention of social
psychologists to study brain activities was political behaviour. A special issue
on social neuroscience and political psychology in the journal of Political
Psychology, published in 2003, attempted to fulfil these aims. Social neuros-
cientists Albertson and Brehm (2003, p. 766) maintain that they did not study
‘political attitudes in the brain so much as what kinds of political stimuli
activate which systems’ in people who are and who are not politically
sophisticated.
Some dialogical researchers did not lag behind. For example, Lewis (2002,
p. 178) speculates ‘how a dialogical self might actually be housed in a
dialogical brain’. Lewis attempts to model an internal monologue, hypothe-
sising that it forms the basis of a dialogical Self. The model assumes a link
between an attention system in the orbitofrontal cortex and between asso-
ciated affective and premotor systems in the brain. Any internal monologue
has a dialogical character because I-positions await responses from others;
from a neural perspective, the brain has the capacity to switch rapidly
between subjective positions, and this is supposed to be similar to dialogical
exchanges. This means, Lewis (2002, p. 187) concludes, that ‘the vitality and
creativity of internal dialogues can be squared with the constraints of biolo-
gical realism’.
Prejudice and discrimination have become important topics of study in social
neuroscience and they have had a profound effect on media reports (O’Connor
and Joffe, 2014; 2015; O’Connor, Rees and Joffe, 2012). In her article
‘On prejudice & the brain’, Fiske (2007) argues that learning about uncon-
scious prejudices which culture puts in the human brain opens up the road
towards reducing them. How can a social psychologist reduce prejudices? First,
one needs to understand how prejudices reveal themselves: ‘Within a moment
of observing the photograph of an apparently homeless man, people’s brains set
off a sequence of reactions characteristic of disgust and avoidance’ (Fiske,
2007, p. 157). The psychologist can correlate impulses in the brain with certain
prejudices, and getting information about this is the first step to reducing
prejudice: ‘If we recognize prejudice’s subtle yet inexorable pressures, we
can learn to moderate even unconscious prejudice . . . And this is the substance
of social science married to neuroscience’ (Fiske, 2007, p. 159). Ideas like
these capture the attention of the media and of institutions struggling for racial
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 25
Scientists discover brain’s ‘misery molecule’ Can brain scans explain crime?
which affects stress, anxiety and
depression Brain shape ‘shows political allegiance’
The clue to Breivik’s cruelty lies
in his brain Racism is ‘hardwired’ into the
human brain – and people can be
Neuroscience could mean solidiers prejudiced without knowing it
controlling weapons with minds
Rioters may have ‘lower levels’ So THAT’S why you can’t resist those new
of brain chemical that keeps shoes: scientists discover emotion and
impulsive behaviour under value are handled by the same part of the
control brain
Did your brain make you do it? Can neuroscience challenge Roe V. Wade?
Where evil lurks: neurologist discovers Bankers and the neuroscience of greed
‘dark patch’ inside the brains of killers and
rapists The brain on love
Neuroscience, free will and determinism: ‘I’m just a
machine’ ‘Neuromarketing’: can science predict what we’ll buy?
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26 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 27
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28 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
rational (Morgan, 2004). However, as we have noted, mythos and logos are
often intertwined; therefore, irrationality and rationality underlying mythos and
logos, too, are intermingled. Yet, despite some interchangeability between
these pairs, that is, mythos and logos, and irrationality and rationality, there
are differences in connotations.
First, while mythos has not been always evaluated negatively and has some-
times been considered as complementary to logos, one can hardly ever find
contexts in which irrationality would be judged positively. To say about some-
one that he/she is irrational always amounts to condemnation, or at least it
implies the devaluation of that person’s thought or behaviour. In other words,
irrational thought and behaviour are always ‘inferior’, while rational thought
and behaviour are ‘superior’.
Second, despite the fact that mythos and logos intermingle, and that the
former is associated with irrationality and the latter with rationality, there is,
nevertheless, at least some agreement as to the criteria that make these forms of
thought different from one another. In contrast, the notions ‘rationality’ and
‘irrationality’ are used in so many contradictory and heterogeneous ways that it
is hardly possible to determine principles that would separate one from the
other.
Forms of rational and irrational thought and behaviour pertain to individuals,
as well as groups, masses and even societies. Notions of ‘irrationality’ and
‘rationality’ are used both in daily language and in the human and social
sciences. One even describes scholarly disciplines as rational and irrational
(e.g. Zafirovski, 2005). What some people call ‘rational’, others may call
‘irrational’. And yet despite heterogeneous and even incompatible usages,
‘irrational’ is bad, while ‘rational’ is good. Let us consider some of the issues
accompanying these heterogeneities.
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 29
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30 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
from the thinking Self. Ernst Gellner (1998, p. 3) characterised this view by
saying that ‘[W]e discover truth alone, we err in groups’. The pathological
effect of groups, the work of the collectivity and of crowds, where rational
individuals turn themselves into irrational beings, preoccupied social scientists
like Le Bon, Ortega y Gasset or McDougall. Being captivated by unreason in
crowds, by influences of charismatic leaders, mass hypnosis and the collective
unconscious and impulsiveness of the mob, the individual loses his/her capa-
city to make judgements and to think rationally.
Gustav Ichheiser (1968) finds that Sigmund Freud and Max Weber were
inheritors of both rationalism and irrationalism. As regards Sigmund Freud,
Ichheiser notes, he is a follower of rationalistic Enlightenment as well as
a successor of irrational philosophers like Schopenhauer. As for Max Weber
(1968), who developed one of the most elaborated versions of a formal ratio-
nalistic system of economy and social organisation, he argued that ascetic
Protestantism led to the rational effort to achieve economic prosperity. At the
same time, Weber was convinced that rationalism also involved unavoidable
elements of irrationality due to the conflict of different rationalities in modern
culture (Gronow, 1988). Accordingly, the rationalistic system of economy
cannot escape irrationality.
Ichheiser further notes that societies tend to esteem certain activities, goals,
aspirations and values as more or less rational. The present society worships
above all ‘material welfare, technological progress and enlightened “self-
interest”’ (Ichheiser, 1968, p. 100), while other preferences and values are
considered as less rational or even irrational. Ichheiser’s diagnosis corresponds
to the way in which Ernest Gellner (1992, pp. 136–137) characterises rationality
as methodically augmenting cognitive and financial capital and turning profits
into pleasure, power or status. This Weberian outlook on achieving economic
prosperity in and through rationalisation contrasts with Ichheiser’s (1968, p. 100)
‘higher, deeper, subtle, intangible, purely cultural-spiritual values’ which in
modern society have come to be evaluated as not quite rational.
This little catalogue of irrationalities serves no more than as an example of a
range of meanings of ‘irrationality’, and it should not be considered as exhaus-
tive. We can conclude that like many other human attributes, for example ‘trust’
and ‘distrust’, ‘morality’ and ‘immorality’ and so ‘rationality’ and ‘irration-
ality’ are relational terms; this means that one is defined in terms of the other.
When making a judgement about an action as rational, one is also making
a judgement as to what is considered irrational.
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 31
intermingled with the pre-scientific activities of the time. One can hardly
expect they would suddenly disappear with the rise of modern science and
technological advances in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Even scien-
tists of the seventeenth century, like Johannes Kepler or Galileo Galilei, were
involved in what, today, would be called irrational enterprises, such as
astrology. But the historian John North remarked on Kepler that ‘had he not
been an astrologer he would very probably have failed to produce his planetary
astronomy in the form we have it’ (North, 2008, p. 345). Both Tycho Brahe and
Isaac Newton were interested in alchemy. Commenting on Newton’s achieve-
ments, Keynes (1947, p. 27) noted that ‘Newton was not the first of the age of
reason. He was the last of the magicians [. . .] the last great mind which looked
out on the visible and intellectual world with the same eyes as those who began
to build our intellectual inheritance rather less than 10,000 years ago.’
Nevertheless, in his treatise of Mystery and Philosophy, Michael Foster
(1957, p. 53) observes that in contrast to the Greek pre-science, modern science
‘does not end in wonder but in the expansion of wonder’. Natural sciences not
only progressed in making scientific discoveries in physics, chemistry or
biology but also developed terminology in a univocal language. Science has
become universally communicable in the scientific community; it established
new methods, and postulated a limited number of laws and concepts, thus
enhancing its general comprehension (Campbell, 2007, p. 10).
Since the seventeenth century, Blaise Pascal’s (1670/1995) concepts of the
‘spirit of geometry’ (l’esprit de geometrie) and the ‘spirit of finesse’ (l’esprit de
finesse) instigated new ideas, leading to two kinds of scholarship. The former,
l’esprit de geometrie, inspired the development of scientific knowledge and
required a rational, systematic and rigorous thought. The latter, l’esprit de
finesse, referred to intuitive and creative features of the mind. Later on l’esprit
de finesse became associated with irrationality.
The Age of Reason or Enlightenment of the eighteenth century pursued the
belief in the growth of universal rationality and the logical capacities of
humans. The rapidly developing science, ruled by Blaise Pascal’s ‘spirit of
geometry’, based on the mechanistic principles of Newtonian physics,
became the leading power of rational thought and technological innovations.
It enabled advancements in astronomy, chemistry and biology. Despite being
intermingled with astrology and alchemy in their beginnings, natural sciences
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, nevertheless, started their careers
as ‘rational’ disciplines aiming to discover the truth about the world and the
universe.
In contrast, social sciences originated in the eighteenth century. Their begin-
nings can be traced to the study of social phenomena such as nationalism,
religion, myth and beliefs, communities and thus to Pascal’s notion of intuition,
or the spirit of finesse. Therefore, as Serge Moscovici (1988/1993) remarks,
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32 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 33
seeking refuge in simple forms of life in the past. It was the modernity of the
Enlightenment that placed emphasis on rationality which, Weber claimed,
brought about the possibility for people to live freely as they do in an advanced
society (Weber, 1968). This is why he called the Enlightenment ‘the Ages of the
Rights of Man’.
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34 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 35
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36 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
while at the same time searching for possible relations between them, others
propose a total reconceptualisation of rationality, grounding it in alternative
epistemologies.
Shweder (1990, pp. 33–35), who is critical of universalism based on fixed
and abstract ideas of the psychic unity of humankind, proposes a dialectic
concept of ‘thinking through others’. This concept includes intentionality,
reconstruction of the Self and Others in and through transformation of beliefs,
desires, and practices and thereby encouraging ‘an open-ended self-reflexive
dialogic turn of mind’. According to Shweder, cultural psychology explores
dyadic relations between the Self and Others, subject and object, psyche and
culture, figure and ground, practitioner and practice, among others. These
dyads are dynamically and dialectically interconnected because they make up
each other (Shweder, 1990, p. 1).
Like phenomenologists (Chapters 3 and 4), Shweder insists that humans are
intentional and intentionality is the essential feature of the sociocultural envir-
onment. The intentional world is real, factual and forceful, but it exists only if it
is inhabited by people who have emotions, beliefs, desires and who represent
the world around them.
Roy Harris (2009), too, rejects the existing conceptions of rationality,
arguing that they are a continuation of Aristotle’s static and rigid syllogistic
philosophy. He maintains that human rationality is a product of sign-making
and that sign-making is not a unique process but involves an integration of
human activities that take place in daily human communication. All meanings
in circulation are profoundly contextualised and thus Harris’s integrational
approach embraces various levels and modes of semiosis, ranging from oral,
written, gestural to others. In integrational semiology, rationality is central to
the creative process of sign-making and is connected with social relations and
with social organisation of communities (Harris, 2009, p. 170).
Finally, Rosa and Valsiner (2007) reconceptualise rationality in terms of
human agency, intentionality and ethics. Cultures are no longer isolated in their
geographical ghettos. The contemporary world of societies is opened to other
cultures; it is the world of uncertainties which moves cultures and individuals
in different directions. These movements require making choices based on
evaluations of possible consequences for the Self and Others. In such situa-
tions, the authors argue, humans are constantly pushed towards making judge-
ments between ethical and unethical acts and towards choosing actions to
confront the ambiguities of life. It would be totally inadequate to conceive of
reason as the private domain of the individual. Rather, reason must be nego-
tiated in the world of ambiguities and uncertainties where individuals, groups
and cultures have become interdependent and interfering with one another
(Rosa and Valsiner, 2007, p. 697). In these confrontations, interdependence
between humans and their sociocultural environments transcends not only
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From mythos and irrationality towards logos and rationality 37
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38 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
who reverse the order of the natural development of the brain and the creation
of a Golem (a computer). For them, it is the Golem which comes first, and the
human brain which created the Golem comes second. In other words,
a cognitive psychologist may express her excitement by saying (or writing)
that she can understand the brain, and even the mind (a cognitive psychologist
often uses a term ‘mind/brain’), as a kind of a computer (a Golem).
Finally, we may note that for the topmost scientists of the twentieth century,
it may not be the search for the truth that comes first but the search for beauty.
For example, Zee (2007) refers to Einstein’s search for beauty in equations
because they appeal to his aesthetic sense: the truth will come later. Zee
maintains throughout his book that despite general beliefs that physics is
a precise and predictive science, it is aesthetics that drives contemporary
physics in its search for symmetry and simplicity which physicists find in
Nature and its designs.
1.4 Conclusion
Throughout this chapter, I referred to attempts to separate, in different histor-
ical and cultural periods, ‘inferior’ and ‘superior’ thinking and knowing, and to
difficulties in maintaining such a separation or even in fixing boundaries
between them. Some scholars, such as Aristotle and Jacob, argued that scien-
tific and mythical reasoning fulfil, at least to some degree, similar functions:
they both aim at explaining fundamental questions about the universe, origin of
matter and life; they are both based on imagination, representations of the
world; and they explore powers that rule it.
Although the categories of mythos and logos have created controversies
since ancient Greece, they have been maintained throughout centuries, together
with the conviction that on its road towards progress humankind will shed off
irrational beliefs and myths. However, today, the mixture of myth and science
still characterises the thinking of ordinary citizens, scientific popularisers and
political ideologists. It may even permeate thinking of scientists who, whether
with or without awareness, are prone to propagating ‘scientific myths’. But
search for coherence takes different paths; for scientists like Einstein or Wiener,
boundaries between different kinds of knowing like science, religion, ethics
and aesthetics are not rigid but totally fluid and open towards creative and
imaginative thought.
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2 Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense
Another pair of terms referring to ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and know-
ing is science versus common sense. Casual inspection of an enormous amount
of literature on common sense in its historical, philosophical and social scien-
tific perspectives shows that common sense has been a concept of enduring
importance and interest. Some past meanings of common sense have little to do
with meanings as they are understood today, while others have remained in use
over centuries either in daily speech or in specialist languages. For example,
Aristotle’s meaning of common sense referred to a specific perceptual capacity
that integrates together all five senses of perception in living organisms, that is,
in humans and animals (Gregoric, 2007, p. vii). Aristotelian assumptions of
common sense based on sensation still prevail in some relatively recent
approaches, for example, in Meyerson (1908/1930). Other common-sense
perceptual approaches, for example, phenomenology (Chapter 3), are no longer
based on Aristotelian assumptions. Likewise, notions referring to common
sense have kept changing throughout history, and meanings of the term ‘com-
mon sense’ in different languages are manifold.
39
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40 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
to him, this process of sharpening concepts will increase the gap between
scientific language and ordinary language. Scientific language will increase
the understanding of concepts like the ‘hydrogen atom’, and so it will distance
itself from common-sense words and their understanding, such as ‘a desk’,
‘London’ or ‘heavens’ (Chomsky, 2000, p. 24). In contrast, other approaches
view common sense as an analogue of scientific thinking (e.g. Gopnik and
Meltzoff, 1997; Gruber, 1974). According to these latter approaches, cognitive
and creative processes that underlie scientific and common-sense thinking
develop from the same intellectual resources. Both scientific and common-
sense thinking are subjected to pressures from society if they do not conform to
conventional patterns of thought; they must cope with these pressures in order
to preserve and endorse their originality.
If we turn to the notion of ‘common sense’ as it is used in everyday talk,
politics or economics, we find that it is not usually defined, but assumed to be
self-evident. Van Holthoon and Olson (1987, p. 1) remark that common sense is
like sanity; we recognise it immediately without reflection and cannot be without
it, although no amount of explanation makes clear what it stands for. But what
does it mean for something to be ‘self-evident’? The authors indicate that one can
recognise and make judgements about something as self-evident either on the
basis of perception or on the basis of knowledge or experience that is required to
cope with daily problems. Van Holthoon (1987, p. 99) suggests that the capacity
to make judgements of self-evident events on the basis of perception is transcul-
tural. It means that this capacity is not affected by any cultural, political or
religious variations. All people own the capacity of making judgements of self-
evident events on the basis of perception although they differ with respect to the
degree to which they possess this capacity. In contrast, making judgements on the
basis of knowledge or experience is not easy to specify because the body of
knowledge that humans have is not stable over time. What belongs to the body of
common knowledge today will surely change together with the growth of under-
standing and with political and social circumstances. Such changes are bound to
affect what is and what is not meant by common sense.
Self-evidence can also refer to certain uniformities in life that produce
similar experiences in all humans (e.g. Husserl, 1936/1970; Lindenberg,
1987; Vico, 1744/1948). These experiences could be
• of a physical nature, for example, experiences of the weather, tide, weight,
qualities of materials such as hardness, softness or resistance
• of a biological nature such as birth, growth and death, pain, the need for food,
sleep and rest
• uniformities produced in and through dialogical interactions and relationships,
such as the fear of unknown others and the love of family and of friends.
Different cultures reflect on such uniformities in their specific ways and have
numerous words to express regularities of life experiences and of relationships.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 41
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42 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
1982). If I understand this correctly, these two latter kinds of ideas, that is,
adventitious and factitious, belong to what Descartes referred to as sens
commun, and it is these ideas that often deceive us. Thus although he was
critical of Aristotelian philosophy, Descartes adopted the Aristotelian view
that common sense (sens commun) comes from senses. However, Descartes
distrusted sensorial evidence because he believed that senses sometimes
deceived him; it was apparent to him that we evaluate qualities like weight
or colour only in relation to the way we sense them. For example, we sense
something as heavy in relation to something that is lighter; however, the same
thing can be sensed as light in relation to something that is perceived as
heavier. Therefore, he thought that it was ‘wiser not to trust entirely to any
thing by which we have once been deceived’ (Descartes, 1641/1955, p. 145).
Since common sense (sens commun) is based on evidence of the senses, it
cannot be taken as a criterion of truth.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 43
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44 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 45
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46 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
so mixes its own nature with the nature of things, which it distorts’ (Bacon,
1620/2007, book 1, aphorism 41). Since the mind has such misleading effects,
Bacon highlighted, instead, the role of invention, practical and empirical know-
ing and the advancement of learning. He was not a scientist and his work and his
writings were full of mistakes and contradictions (see e.g. Durant, 1933).
Nevertheless, Bacon had a tremendous influence on European thought. The
Royal Society of London, which was founded in 1660, more than three decades
after his death, was influenced by Bacon’s vision of new science and by his ideas
of discovery, knowledge and the advancement of learning.
Bacon’s thoughts became very influential during the French Enlightenment.
Voltaire and in particular the creators of Encyclopedia, d’Alembert and Diderot
celebrated the immortal Chancellor Bacon as an extraordinary genius. In the
Preliminary Discourse to the Encyclopedia, they regarded him as the most
important and the most universal philosopher of his time (d’Alembert, 1751/
1995). Among other things, the Encyclopaedists were inspired by Bacon’s
division of sciences, by the immense catalogue of things that, as Bacon
suggested, remained to be discovered. He also invited scholars to study and
perfect the arts. By arts, Bacon, just like others of his time, meant any activity
which involved techniques or required skills. The Encyclopaedists declared
that in developing their tree of knowledge they were guided principally by
Chancellor Bacon’s encyclopaedic tree (d’Alembert, 1751/1995, p. 76).
Bacon’s emphasis on invention, practical and empirical knowing was very
different from Cartesian scepticism. Bacon distrusted scepticism, emphasised
doing things and experiencing events. His ideas had a great impact on diverse
philosophies such as positivism and pragmatism (Chapter 3). Above all, he had
influence on Giambattista Vico, the scholar of common sense.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 47
thought that the task of legal education was to teach students to speak well in
the law courts. Vico drew a great deal on Greek and Roman traditions of
jurisprudence. Adopting to some extent the Stoic meaning of common sense,
Vico viewed ‘common sense’ as a rhetorical and social term. The notion of
‘rhetoric’ had for Vico a different meaning than it has today. Like Cicero, for
Vico, common sense was inseparable from moral conduct, and it was accom-
panied by rhetorical speaking and thinking (Bayer, 2008, p. 1139). In her
analysis of Vico’s common sense in rhetoric Bayer reminds us that rhetoric in
ancient Greece, as well as in Vico’s conception, was a feature of civil wisdom;
justice was a universal concept, and the law and public court speeches aimed at
achieving self-knowledge (Bayer, 2008, p. 1154). Since justice was considered
to be an ultimate and universal virtue, it was tied to wisdom as the knowledge of
human and divine matters. In contrast, today, rhetoric is conceived as the power
of words to persuade and appeal to emotions. Since contemporary society is
concerned with preserving law and order, rhetoric has become an instrument of
social order. Therefore, while the concept of justice in ancient law and in Vico’s
conception was a universal and stood above any society or conditions, social
justice as practised today is not a universal. It is a claim to the right or rights of
particular persons or classes (Bayer, 2008, p. 1154). This is why both Vico’s
‘universal justice’ and rhetoric essentially differ from today’s concepts of
‘social justice’ and rhetoric. They serve different purposes.
Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, moved from England
to Naples in 1711 because his health had declined and the Italian weather suited
him. He already had contacts with a number of Neapolitan intellectuals (on
Shaftesbury, see the study by Billig, 2008). Shaftesbury (1711/1999) published
his main book titled Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times in
1711, but the important chapter on sensus communis had already been pub-
lished in 1709. He died in Naples in 1713 and was buried there. Although both
Vico and Shaftesbury made revolutionary advancements in the study of com-
mon sense, they did not refer to one another; however, the scholars of the period
have little doubt that Vico and Shaftesbury met, or, at least, that they knew of
one another. Shaftesbury’s common sense, too, was a rhetorical and social
notion derived from Stoic philosophy. It was concerned with acting in a decent
manner and with the sense of public spirit, so that society could function well.
As the argument goes, Shaftesbury was interested in common sense before
Vico and Vico could have been influenced by him (e.g. Billig, 2008, pp. 94–95).
The main similarity between their perspectives is the focus on the social nature
of common sense and the role of language. Shaftesbury’s social approach
stemmed from the critique of John Locke’s individualistic and mechanistic
philosophy; Vico’s approach was motivated by a vigorous critique of René
Descartes. For both Vico and Shaftesbury, poetic language, metaphor and irony
strongly contrasted with the logistic approach to language.
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48 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
2.2.2.1 Common sense arises from action in creating history While not
rejecting the importance of perception in the formation of common sense,
according to Vico, common sense arises in and through the process in which
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 49
humans have created their own history (Vico, 1744/1948). He linked common
sense with ingenium (see later), imagination and action. Vico characterised
common sense as ‘judgement without reflection, shared by an entire class,
an entire people, an entire nation, or the whole human race’ (Vico, 1744/1948,
§ 142). He argued that it originates from people who are unknown to each
other, but because humans produce ‘uniform ideas’ based on ‘underlying
agreements’, there must be a common ground of truth in them. This recalls the
suggestion discussed earlier that certain uniformities in life, for example,
physical, biological or social, produce similar experiences in all humans.
These uniform and regularly repeated experiences become fixed in the human
mind and in activities; stabilised over generations, they provide resources for
common-sense knowledge. Therefore, common sense is not a set of consciously
formed empirical beliefs or intellectual concerns. Neither does the ground of
truth come from the innate cognitive capacity of the individual. Instead it comes
from humans who share common uniformities in life over generations. But
sharing common uniformities is not a passive experiencing of regularities and
repetitions: common uniformities arise from actively created ‘underlying agree-
ments’. Human beings create their common senses by humanising nature in and
through actions, by establishing communities, social institutions, traditions and
political organisations. Vico also conceived that ethical and moral norms are part
of ‘underlying agreements’ of common sense of communities and nations (Vico,
1744/1948, § 145). They are transmitted over generations in and through lan-
guage and communication. Communication need not be verbal; symbolic ges-
tures are understood by members of the community because they grasp, as Vico
often repeats, their ‘needs and utilities’. The construction of laws, rules and
customs and the development of institutions are greatly accelerated by language
serving the needs and utilities of communities.
‘Underlying agreements’ are specific to each nation which follows its own
rules. They give rise to specific ways of acting and transmit these throughout
history. As a result, common sense becomes routinised. ‘Underlying agree-
ments’ that underlie common sense have therefore meanings only if they are
considered in the historical analysis of ideas in which humans have created
themselves. Common sense steers unconscious and conscious activities, inter-
actions and the use of language in communities. Nations speak diverse lan-
guages and make different choices and judgements to satisfy their needs and
utilities (Vico, 1744/1948, § 145).
In sum, common sense is inextricably linked with action. It serves peoples’
needs and utilities; people are agents who satisfy their needs by inventing tools
and creating symbols. Vico’s historical approach, showing that in creating their
history humans also change their consciousness and attain knowledge of
themselves, became important to Karl Marx who referred to Vico’s views in
Das Kapital.
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50 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
2.2.2.2 Certainty and truth Vico took a critical view of Descartes’ method of
the search for truth and of his concept of rationality. Above all, he objected to
Descartes’ concept of certainty. Descartes’ method was based on doubting
everything except the individual’s Cogito; the individual’s capacity for thinking
in terms of clear and distinct ideas was the only certainty humans had. Vico
argued that Descartes’ notion of certainty is dubious: it is highly subjective,
because it comes only from the analytical power of the individual (Vico, 1709/
1965). In other words, Descartes derived the logically grounded theory of
knowledge from a psychological basis; therefore, Vico thought that Descartes’
clear and distinct ideas were no more than sheer speculation. They appear to be
real, but they are mental constructions and therefore, they are arbitrary and
unreal. The world in which humans live is complex; it does not consist of
lines, numbers and algebraic signs. Grandiose words like ‘demonstration’, ‘self-
evidence’ and ‘demonstrated truths’ that denigrate probable phenomena have
nothing to do with the complex human world (Vico, 1972, p. 458).
While Vico’s sensus communis does involve perception, it is not a purely
perceptual capacity. As already pointed out, for Vico, perception, human needs
and utilities are interdependent and their relation is a process and product of
history. Humans make their choices in an insecure world and so their choices,
too, are unsure. What makes them dependable is common sense. Common sense
is vital to Vico’s distinction between certain and true phenomena. While for
Descartes absolute certainty and absolute truth lie with the individual’s thinking,
which is the only source of indubitable truth, for Vico, absolute truth lies with
human action – with verum factum. Vico fully explained his concept of verum
factum in his early book On the Most Ancient Wisdom of the Italians (Vico, 1710/
2010). The proof that something is true lies entirely in the fact that humans make
it. And humans can make something because they imagine how that thing may
look. So, verum factum goes far beyond perception: it is imaginative and
inventive. This is where Vico comes to the idea of common sense. Humans do
not passively digest underlying agreements; rather, they form common sense
foundations by triggering the capacity to make and invent things and to acquire
knowledge of the world in and through action. Perhaps it is here that we find the
echo of technological advancements in the scientific revolution as well as of
Bacon’s emphasis on practice and inventions. For Latins, Vico says, verum, the
true, and factum, the made, are exchangeable or convertible. After all, as Aliotta
(Gianturco, 1990, p. xliii) commented, this principle had proven extremely
important in Vico’s time in school education, where learners should search for
truth actively in constructing knowledge, rather than passively adopting knowl-
edge from what is given to them by teachers. Vico insists on the distinction
between truth and certainty and elaborates it in his main writings as follows.
Truth (verum) concerns only human actions. Only what humans create, for
example, laws, mathematics, customs, language, and their own history, can be
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 51
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52 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 53
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54 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
and imagination. Humans uncover and make their world in and through
reflection and self-reflection.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 55
spoke about two kinds of conceits resulting from the ahistorical evaluation of
others. First is the conceit of nations, which means that each nation develops its
own image of being better than other nations and so it distorts historical reality.
The second conceit is that of scholars and it is even more important. If
historians are not familiar with the point of view which they evaluate, they
tend to take as a criterion of judgement their own nation; equally, they have
a tendency to believe that contemporary knowledge is all that can be known and
so they take an ahistorical perspective when evaluating others. Vico thought
that it was surprising that philosophers spent so much energy in trying to
explain the world of nature which, he believed, would remain largely unknow-
able because it was created by God (see above). In contrast, philosophers have
neglected the study of the history of civilisations and nations despite the fact
that this is precisely where they could learn, since the social world is the world
that humans have created (Vico, 1744/1948, § 331).
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56 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
of ideas that come from a natural and eternal experience common to all
mankind. Equally, when people cannot scientifically explain properties of
objects, they use analogies, like ‘the magnet has an occult sympathy for the
iron’ (Vico, 1744/1948, § 377) or the ‘magnet loves the iron’ (Vico, 1744/1948,
§ 180). Vico argued that language was representative from its very beginnings,
whether in the form of poetry, or hieroglyphs or signs of whatever kinds. It used
diverse and rich means in order to express ‘vivid representations, images,
similes, comparisons, metaphors, circumlocutions’ (Vico, 1744/1948, § 456)
as well as phrases and descriptions to explain things by their natural properties.
In other words, language enables humans to carry out infinite activities and
therefore, verum factum referred not only to making things, but also to making
things with language.
Vico’s cultural history, focusing on ways of life of different nations, cultures
and societies, and on their heterogeneity, too, is underlain by language. Nations
develop their specific languages and this is what affects their ingenium. Vico
expresses his conviction of the primacy of language over ingenium when he
refers to the contemporary debate concerning ‘the genius of language’ that took
place between Italian and French writers. In the often repeated quote Vico
claims that it is ‘genius that is a product of language, not language of genius’
(Vico, 1709/1965, p. 40). In this claim he clearly states that it is language that
shapes ingenium in the formation of images and knowledge. Different lan-
guages affect ingenium in various ways. This is why such tremendous
differences can be identified between the French and Italian. In French we
can recognise the subtlety of the intellectual power of abstract analysis that is
stripped of images and is reduced to pure deduction and rationality. Italian
language, on the other hand, is directed towards evoking images and paying
attention to metaphors. Vico argued that the ingenium of Italians also led to
superiority in arts, paintings, architecture and music.
Just like truth arises from human action (verum factum), so it arises from the
inventive power of language. It is in and through language that humans have
created the world in which they live, as well as their own history. The power of
language likens humans to God. Vico specifically considers the power of naming,
through which the social nature of language becomes transparent. God creates
things but a man creates names. To name something or someone, one needs
others to recognise it. Otherwise there would be no point in naming. Naming is
for the Self as well as for Others: it is a collective activity. Naming creates the
social reality of humans. For example, when Vico studied the need to establish
the assurance of ownership, he related it to the invention of names (Vico, 1744/
1948, § 483). Giving a name to something meant to relate that thing to oneself.
It was like drawing up the boundaries between what is mine and what is not mine.
Only if others accept the name I suggest for a particular thing, its meaning
becomes a common property on which the community can act.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 57
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58 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 59
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60 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
1764/1801, p. 135). For example, pain is not only a sensation but also the
belief that I have pain; perception of a tree is not only a simple apprehension
of the tree but it also involves the belief or judgement that the tree exists, that
it has properties like shape, size, and so on. These perceptions and judgements
are part of the natural provision of understanding. They guide us in everyday
life where the pure faculty of reasoning would leave us in the dark (Reid,
1764/1801, p. 135). In contrast, according to Vico, common sense comes
from the capacity of humans to create their world in history and culture, and to
relate experiences from senses to needs and utilities. Therefore, common
sense goes far beyond pure sensory experience. While Vico was critical of
Descartes’ method, Reid attacked John Locke’s theory of ideas and Hume’s
scepticism.
2.3.1.2 Common sense comes from ‘the first principles’ In An Inquiry Reid
presents his epistemology of common sense which he combines with explora-
tions of language. He analyses at length each of the five senses, their relations
with language, and the ways in which senses are employed in obtaining knowl-
edge about the world. Again and again he argues that common sense is essential
to our natural constitution; it is the first principle that we must take for granted.
Our minds are directly related to the external world and we directly experience
the world around us; generally, our common sense guides us correctly in our
experience. As this is part of our natural constitution against which we can do
nothing (Reid, 1764/1801, p. 44), it is irresistible. Therefore, the testimony of
common sense must be presupposed; it comes from ‘the first principles’ and
reason can neither make nor destroy these. The first principles are axioms or
definitions from which the mind starts. Reid argues his points by presenting
a number of examples: a mathematician cannot prove the truth of his axioms,
because they are taken for granted as the points of departure; equally, we cannot
prove the existence of our minds, thoughts or sensations, because their existence
is presupposed; a witness cannot prove anything without taking for granted his
memory; and, finally, a natural philosopher takes for granted the uniformity of
nature in order to prove something (Reid, 1764/1801, p. 44). All such beliefs
come ‘from the mint of nature’. While a sceptic is inclined to trust reason and
distrust perception of objects, Reid argues that the faculty of reason and of
perception comes from the same workshop and from the same craftsman
(Reid, 1764/1801, p. 102) and neither of them has more credibility than the other.
The philosophy of Thomas Reid and his book on An Inquiry was very
influential both in the United Kingdom and abroad, particularly in post-
revolutionary France and in North America. Common sense philosophy
became a prominent feature both in positivism and in pragmatism. In the
United Kingdom, Reid’s common sense ideas influenced the moral philoso-
phy of Henry Sidgwick and G. E. Moore.
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Towards Giambattista Vico’s common sense 61
2.4 Conclusion
Just like fashions, ideas rise to summits and subsequently fall. Alternatively, they
travel with humans in time changing their guises in new socio-historical circum-
stances so that we no longer recognise their original features. In his introductory
remarks to Vico and Contemporary thought (Tagliacozzo, Mooney and Verene,
1980) Tagliacozzo warns about the way in which contemporary scholars refer
to Vico. He emphasises that Vico’s ideas had no influence until the nineteenth
century and therefore, it is misleading and ‘possibly unfair’ to call him a
‘forerunner’ of contemporary disciplines. It would be more appropriate,
Tagliacozzo argues, to call Vico ‘a pioneer of things to come’ (Tagliacozzo,
1980, p. 3). There are of course parallels between Vico’s ideas and contemporary
scholarship, Tagliacozzo notes, but such resemblances could be purely coinci-
dental. While Tagliacozzo acknowledges the indirect influence of Vico on future
generations of scholars, he remarks that this reminds one of a game of Chinese
whispers when ideas get distorted as they are passed on. If one insists on a direct
influence of Vico, there is the danger that his original ideas would be distorted
and this would damage the understanding of Vico’s original work. Specifically,
Tagliacozzo refers to similarities between some views of Humboldt’s linguistics
and of Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology.
The question is not whether a contemporary scholar misinterprets this or that
aspect of Vico’s ideas. If we find traces of his ideas in the creators idea of the
dialogical mind ranging from Herder, Hamann, Humboldt, through to Cassirer,
Bakhtin and Moscovici among others, this shows the originality and foresight of
Vico’s oeuvre as a whole. It shows that already in the early eighteenth century he
anticipated the Zeitgeist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and in parti-
cular, the fact that natural and human sciences are of a different kind.
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3 Common sense in humanities
and social sciences
New political movements and the economic expansion in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries favoured advances in technology, industry and practical
skills. They gave rise to novel ideologies and philosophies both in Europe and
in North America. The expanding industry, which emphasised practical skills
and inductive methods, suggested much earlier by Francis Bacon, created
a fertile soil for the development of new ideas on common-sense thinking.
Among those, ideas proposed by the 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, and in some cases
even by Giambattista Vico (Chapter 2), came to the fore. They became
absorbed into, and were transformed by, new movements, and so they con-
tributed to the emergence of schools of thought that accentuated common-sense
approaches.
62
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 63
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64 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 65
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66 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 67
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68 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 69
stages of his work, ranging from The Quest for Certainty, Logic: The Theory of
Inquiry (Dewey, 1929) to one of his last pieces ‘Common sense and science:
their respective frames of reference’ (Dewey, 1948). For Dewey, both science
and common sense are transactions: they both must be conceived as interac-
tions between human agents and their environment. Knowledge, whether
common sense or scientific, is not a system of facts but an expression of
this interaction between organism and environment. Dewey viewed common
sense as a valid area of knowledge providing guidance in everyday life.
Common sense enables the grasp of reality, and tests the validity of philoso-
phical and scientific approaches. Dewey’s problem was to find a method that
would integrate knowledge of common-sense objects and scientific objects,
and scientific judgements and value judgements (Kennedy, 1954, p. 315).
However, while acknowledging the value and necessity of common sense,
Dewey also argued that because of the inadequacies of common sense,
humans favoured scientific knowledge and its development.
Having been influenced by pragmatist scholars, the English philosopher
Alfred North Whitehead continued their tradition of insisting that philosophy
should be relevant to practical purposes, and that science is rooted in common
sense. Whitehead conceived nature as holistic, this position being reminiscent
of the German romantic Naturphilosophie of the nineteenth century. He
insisted (Whitehead, 1919, p. vii) that he was concerned only with nature as
an object of perceptual knowledge and not conjectures about the knower and
the known. Thus he wished to separate his natural philosophy from metaphy-
sical speculations.
Whitehead called his approach ‘a process philosophy’, and this was best
expressed in his Process and Reality (Whitehead, 1929/1979), which placed
emphasis on the process of change and on becoming. Science arises from the
refinement, corrections and adaptations of common sense. In discussing ways
in which different fields of inquiry searched for conciliation with one another,
he referred to the constant interaction between specialism and common sense
(e.g. Whitehead, 1929/1979, p. 17). By the welding of imagination and com-
mon sense, philosophy can play a part in specialist sciences. In this way
philosophy could contribute to the systematisation of civilised thought and
delve into the infinite possibilities offered by nature.
The French philosopher Emile Meyerson, too, held the view that science is
a prolongation of common sense. Processes of common sense arise from
sensations, and they form an ontological basis for science (Meyerson, 1908/
1930, p. 354; 1931, p. 84). The difference between science and common sense
is that concepts of common sense are produced unconsciously. Otherwise, the
processes of common sense are analogous to scientific processes and common
sense is an integral part of science. The more quickly common sense modifies,
the more quickly science develops (Meyerson, 1931, p. 162). Fruteau De
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70 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
Laclos (2011, pp. 9–11) maintains that Meyerson was indifferent to ‘truth’ and
‘falsity’ and that, therefore, his approach based on continuity between common
sense and scientific knowledge did not fit within the French definition of
epistemology. As already noted, French epistemology was largely based on
the ‘epistemological rupture’ between common sense and science.
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 71
world of objects, common sense is also the world of people’s relations as they
take place in a community; therefore, it forms the basis of institutions (Smith,
1995). As it is passed down from generation to generation, common sense is
remarkably stable.
So how does Husserl view the transition from common sense to science?
Above all, he considers common sense to be holistic and all the capacities of the
mind like perception, judgement, thought, etc. as well as actions, to be inter-
dependent. The ways, in which common sense transforms into scientific think-
ing, depend on the kind of activities in which the individual is involved, for
example, whether in building bridges, cooking or doing something else (Smith,
1995, p. 417). Following from this, the capacities of the mind that are directed
towards objects are intertwined with these objects in relational networks; as
features of these capacities change during the individual’s activities, so features
of objects that are part of these dynamic networks change too. This relational
perspective based on the individual’s orientation towards the object of which
the individual is conscious is underlain by intentionality (Husserl, 1936/1970,
p. 85). The nature of the individual’s intentionality is such that the perception of
objects is both as ‘having-something-itself [Selbsthaben] and at the same time
having-something-in-advance [Vor-haben], meaning-something-in-advance
[Vor-meinen]’ (Husserl, 1936/1970, p. 51). This indicates that perception is
not only orientated towards the present but also towards the future. Common
sense objects manifest regularities: they behave typically and are predictable.
However, Husserl adds to this that predictions of the life-world or common
sense are arbitrary, or ‘artless’. This is what distinguishes common sense from
science where predictions are methodical. According to Husserl (1936/1970,
p. 51), everything in human life rests on prediction or, as he puts it, on
induction. Science emerged from pre-scientific everyday sense-experience in
the mathematisation of nature in Galilean physics. In and through methodical
objectification of pre-given intuitions, physics arrived at general laws of nature
and mathematical formulae (Husserl, 1936/1970, pp. 37–43). Scientific pre-
diction, Husserl notes, ‘infinitely surpasses the accomplishment of everyday
prediction’ (Husserl, 1936/1970, p. 51).
In contrast to common sense, the world of science continuously changes and
develops. Barry Smith (1995, pp. 418–419) explains the difference between the
world of physicalistic objects of science and the world of common sense by
presenting their contrasts: physicalistic things are ruled by causality while
common sense, in addition to causality, is intentional and motivated; the
world of physicalistic things, in contrast to the world of common sense, is
not concerned with values, beauty, usefulness, the Church, the State and with
anything that is practical. Sciences built up their theories logically from a few
foundational concepts and axioms (Smith, 1995, p. 418) which unambiguously
determine the whole domain of research. Common-sense knowledge uses
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72 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
a large number of vague rather than exact concepts. They are concepts of the
here-and-now, which humans apprehend by sensory intuition. These concepts
are related to one another as holistically dependent networks, rather than as
systematically and hierarchically arranged systems. They cannot be fully
explored or grasped by laws or axioms.
The causality of nature as conceived by the natural sciences goes hand in
hand with the exact prediction. In contrast to this, common-sense causality
cannot be determined and therefore exact predictions are not applicable.
Physicalistic sciences are deprived of intuitive and affective richness; physical
objects have no individuality. In contrast, human sciences are dependent ‘on the
world of common sense – on acts and on the “normal” surrounding world of
persons, objects for use, etc.’ (Smith, 1995, p. 426).
Husserl’s ideas on common sense and science were taken up in phenomen-
ological sociology, in particular by Alfred Schütz and Thomas Luckmann. For
Schütz (1953) and for Luckmann (1987), all knowledge is constructed, whether
scientific or common sense; there are no simple facts in social reality, but
humans interpret (construct, represent) all phenomena they experience.
According to Schütz’s perspective, all scientific constructs supersede common-
sense constructs, whether in natural or in social sciences (Schütz, 1953, p. 3).
However, the character of constructs in these two domains is different. Schütz
argues that while constructs in natural sciences are chosen by the researcher on
the basis of their relevance, constructs in social sciences are already pre-
interpreted by the common sense of humans who live in their social reality.
In contrasting science with common sense, Luckmann (1987), like Husserl,
refers to science as specialist knowledge while common sense pertains to
general knowledge of everyday life. In posing the question about the functions
of common sense and specialised knowledge Luckmann (1987, pp. 193–194)
maintains that common-sense knowledge must cope with all subjectively
relevant daily situations and must orientate the individual towards the manage-
ment of all problems of daily life. In contrast, specialised knowledge constructs
abstract realities and neglects the subjective aspects of the individual’s life.
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 73
sense more positively, giving it a more central role. Unfortunately, the authors’
optimism was not upheld. Disputes about common sense soon reappeared and
have persisted ever since. Just as in philosophy and social science, different
positions on epistemological rupture and continuity between common sense
and science dominate the disputes. Radu Bogdan (1991), in his edited volume
on Mind and Common Sense, selected essays of authors who are sympathetic or
opposed to common sense as well as of those who take a more or less neutral
position but who suggest, nevertheless, that common sense should be studied
empirically. All of the researchers pose questions, such as whether common
sense is a body of analytic knowledge, or a strategy, a practice or a theory.
Due to the heterogeneous nature of social psychology, disputes about science
and common sense take different forms. On the one hand, since the subject
matter of social psychology is the study and understanding of mental processes
and behaviour of humans, a focus on common sense is unavoidable, because it
forms a considerable part of thoughts, activities and communication in daily
life. On the other hand, social psychology, since its origin, has aspired to
achieve a scientific status. Therefore, the study of common-sense thinking
and behaviour has been causing uneasiness, since focusing on common sense
does not make the discipline ‘scientific’. True, common sense can be ‘scienti-
fied’ (see Section 3.3.1) but – does this improve the image of our discipline?
There is a dilemma: If a discipline aims to be a science, and if subjects of that
discipline are humans whose thinking and actions are embedded in common
sense, what role could – or should – common sense play in that discipline?
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74 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
explicit. He thought that it was paradoxical that the natural, intuitive and
common-sense capacity of humans to grasp social relations had not been
studied in any scientific manner. He argued that the study of common-sense
psychology is valuable for the scientific understanding of social perception in
two ways. First, common-sense psychology guides our behaviour towards
other people and predicts their future activities with respect to our selves.
Therefore, common-sense psychology needs to be taken seriously, whether or
not our beliefs will prove to be correct. It is our beliefs that explain our actions
and expectations. Second, Heider commented on the mistrust of many psychol-
ogists towards ordinary behaviours and unreflected upon responses, and on
their suspicion of the chaotic and distorted perspectives of ‘non-science’.
In contrast to the mistrust of his colleagues, Heider defended the perspective
that scientific psychology has to learn a lot from common-sense psychology
and should not ignore it. Just as common sense contains wrong ideas, it also
carries many truths and therefore, it is of value to scientific psychology. He
notes that if one looks at the history of science, one also finds many wrong
ideas, contradictions and errors which, in time, become corrected. In other
words, common sense will lead social psychologists to science.
Jan Smedslund’s work on the structure of common sense represents another
attempt to revive common sense in psychology (Smedslund, 1997). Smedslund
follows Heider’s ideas on common sense, but he develops them into an original
conception, which he calls ‘the psychologic’. The aim of the psychologic is to
construct a conceptual framework for scientific psychology. This framework
uses folk psychology as a point of departure. Smedslund (1999a) argues that the
empiricist tradition in psychology views common sense in terms of predictions
and explanations given by lay persons, and in testing and comparing them with
those used in scientific theories. This procedure distances itself from common
sense, because it views it merely as a prescientific point of departure for
academic and professional psychology. Smedslund proposes, instead, that
common-sense psychology is based on consensually self-evident propositions,
that is, on propositions that everybody takes for granted and everybody
believes that others take them for granted. These self-evident propositions are
characterised by semantic constraints that exist in all languages. Smedslund
(1999a, p. 4) explains that ‘the psychologic’ is concerned with the under-
standing of the implicit calculus that is built into ordinary language
(Smedslund, 1999b), enabling language users to predict and understand actions
of each other.
Smedslund’s conception of ‘the psychologic’ inspired comments and cri-
tiques from the empiricists as well as from adversaries of empiricism. Not
surprisingly, the former reject Smedslund’s project arguing that scientific
psychology does not need to study folk narratives. Fletcher and Copeland
(1999, p. 25) emphasise the ‘primacy of science and scientific method’ over
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 75
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76 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
shows that in pre-modern societies, clan membership was essential for the
preservation of solidarity, while strangers were mistrusted. If experimental
social psychologists were aware of anthropology and history, they would
realise that testing this hypothesis in the laboratory is a futile exercise given
what is already known about group relations.
The fact that today so many social psychologists test common sense suggests
that common sense has attained some importance. Making common-sense
predictions, proposing hypotheses about common sense and using new termi-
nology will supposedly provide social psychology with a scientific cloak. For
example, the ‘contact hypothesis’ states that prejudice against ‘out-groups’ can
be reduced by increased social contact among members of groups and so it can
diminish ‘dehumanisation’ or ‘infra-humanisation’. Grim et al. (2004, p. 244)
comment that the ‘hypothesis is simple and accords with common sense; it is
understandable that it underlies a number of social policies, its most famous
association being the desegregation of U.S. public schools.’ These authors
further observe that social psychological support for the contact hypothesis
comes from laboratories, surveys and field studies. A variety of research
findings attempt to explain this common-sense hypothesis, its ethical implica-
tions and mechanisms including neural processing underlying face recognition
of own and other race groups (Phelps and Thomas, 2003). Interestingly, these
studies, while acknowledging that common-sense thinking guides everybody’s
life conduct, nevertheless, follow the trend of translating common sense into
scientific knowledge by using ‘scientific methods’. They presuppose that while
common sense is an arbitrary form of thinking, the researcher, using ‘scientific
procedures’, may turn it into a systematic and scientific form of thinking.
Perhaps one of the clearest expositions of the anti common-sense perspective
is the account of one of the leading social psychologists in the United States,
John Cacioppo (2004). He starts from the claim that the theory in personality
and social psychology is based on the systematic data collection and repeat-
ability of results and indeed that this ‘distinguishes scientific theory from
pseudoscience and religion’. A strong empirical basis and testing unique
predictions characterise ‘the towering theories in the field’ (Cacioppo, 2004,
p. 114). From this position Cacioppo arrives at the claim that common sense,
which lacks in systematic analysis and confirmatory reasoning, cannot form the
foundation of a scientific theory about everyday life. And moreover, what is
valued is ‘a theory that makes nonobvious predictions, that illuminates flaws in
social reasoning and interactions, that illustrates not only the inadequacy but
the idiocy of common sense’ (Cacioppo, 2004, p. 116, my emphasis).
Cacioppo and other experimentalists treat common sense as a theory of
social behaviour. And as a theory of social behaviour, Cacioppo (2004) argues
that common sense is inadequate. Specifically, he states that common-sense
beliefs ‘might serve as data, to be evaluated based on variations across
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 77
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78 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
as a structured science with plans, genealogy and selected authors who gave the
discipline precise directions. He thought that it would be a mistake to see social
psychology as a specialty that was trying to reduce uncertainties and insecu-
rities within its field. He was convinced that social psychology had its speci-
ficity and autonomy as a social area of interest. It was doubly orientated with
respect to several kinds of dyadic micro-social and macro-social relations in
tension (Faucheux and Moscovici, 1962) such as individuals and groups,
personality and culture, psychology and sociology, among others. As a hybrid
discipline in continuous movement, social psychology has to cope with ten-
sions produced by these dyadic relations. Indeed, the study of these tensions
constitutes the challenge and specificity of social psychology. Moscovici
pursued these tensions during his career attempting to build social psychology
as an international social science through UNESCO (Moscovici and Marková,
2006), in his theoretical and empirical work, and in particular in the theories of
social representations and of minority innovations. The study of these tensions
also dominated his work in the ecological movement and in the history and
philosophy of science.
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 79
(Moscovici, 2003). Moscovici observed that lay people were interested in this
topic because they perceived similarities between Freud’s psychoanalysis and
various kinds of their daily experiences. For example, they perceived resem-
blances between a religious confession and a psychoanalytic interview; or
between their attempts to forget unpleasant experiences and the therapist’s
insight into their problems (Moscovici, 1961; 1976/2008). More generally, in
the early 1950s, discourses of the public in France were saturated with images,
views and lay knowledge of psychoanalysis and all this made psychoanalysis
a highly suitable topic for the study of social representations.
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80 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 81
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82 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 83
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84 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
3.5 Conclusion
In his editorial in the journal Public Understanding of Science, dedicated to
studying relations between science and society, Martin Bauer (2009) refers to
three types of attitudes to common sense apparent in the articles published in
the journal. To my mind, these types summarise well the issues discussed in this
chapter. One type of attitude is in the ‘tradition of debunking’ common sense.
Common sense is viewed as ‘the place of superstitions, half-knowledge,
complete and utter ignorance, misunderstanding and mumbo-jumbo, and viru-
lent memes that give rise to antiscience’ (Bauer, 2009, p. 379). This type seems
to correspond to the epistemological rupture between science and common
sense. The second kind of attitude attempts to repair deluded or ignorant
common sense and makes it the ‘target of interventions’. Such contributions
highlight public images and attempt to change people’s views in order to
promote science and new technology, in particular among the young. This
type appears to correspond to the idea of continuity between common sense and
science and to the perspective of scientification of common sense. Finally, the
third kind of attitude views common sense as a resource of knowledge; it
is embedded in tradition and culture and it manifests itself in and through
social representations enriching and innovating the understanding of social
phenomena. This attitude is embodied in the theory of social representations
and heterogeneous forms of knowledge (on pluralities of knowledge see
1
When I refer to Moscovici’s epistemology, I call it ‘interactional epistemology’ because his point
of departure was interaction between the Ego–Alter rather than duality of the Ego and the Alter.
When I refer to my dialogical approach, I use the term ‘dialogical epistemology’ (cf. Part II of
this book). There is no fundamental difference between Moscovici’s and my concepts of the
Ego–Alter and the Ego–Alter–Object. In building on these concepts I am further developing their
dialogical qualities and suggest their theoretical and practical implications.
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Common sense in humanities and social sciences 85
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Conclusion to Part I
Part I of this book provides abundant examples of two kinds of thinking and
knowing that, throughout European history, have been known as logos and
mythos, rationality and irrationality, and science and common sense, among
many other dichotomic expressions. The former term within these dichotomies
refers to a more valued kind of thinking and knowing than the latter term. This
evaluation has been associated with the belief that throughout history, human-
kind progresses from mythos, irrationality and non-scientific thinking to logos,
rationality and scientific thinking.
86
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Conclusion to Part I 87
final, but provisional and plausible; it would be wrong to set rigorous proofs of
heuristics. In a chapter on ‘Two incidents’, Pólya (1984, pp. 165–168) illus-
trates an occurrence in his creative process by referring to vivid mathematical
dreams that he used to have as a young man. Although these dreams were
illusory, in one case a proof that he saw in a dream was confirmed to be
conclusive. Such mathematical dreams occurred less often as he grew older
but when, after a long interruption, he had a mathematical dream, he repro-
duced notes in the morning to find that the expression he saw in the dream was
correct. For him, mathematics has two faces. When it is presented in a finished
form, it appears as a purely demonstrative science. In reality, however, the
creative work of the mathematician resembles the creative work of the natur-
alist: observation, analogy, and conjectural generalisations, or mere guesses: ‘a
mathematical theorem must be guessed before it is proved. The idea of a
demonstration must be guessed before the details are carried through’ (Pólya,
1984, p. 512).
Albert Einstein, too, comments that the scientist cannot afford to carry out
his striving for systematic epistemology too far. While he accepts the impor-
tance of epistemological analysis, the facts of experience of external conditions
prevent him from fidelity to a single epistemology. Talking about himself,
Einstein states that such a scientist
therefore must appear to the systematic epistemologist as a type of unscrupulous
opportunist: he appears as realist insofar as he seeks to describe a world independent
of the acts of perception; as idealist insofar as he looks upon the concepts and theories as
free inventions of the human spirit (not logically derivable from what is empirically
given); as positivist insofar as he considers his concepts and theories justified only to the
extent to which they furnish a logical representation of relations among sensory
experiences. He may even appear as Platonist or Pythagorean insofar as he considers
the viewpoint of logical simplicity as an indispensable and effective tool of his research.
(Einstein, 1949, pp. 683–684)
Einstein was convinced that scientific concepts are not extracted by logical
abstraction. Concepts are free inventions of the human mind: ‘[s]cience forces
us to create new ideas, new theories. Their aim is to break down the wall of
contradictions which frequently blocks the way of scientific progress’ (Einstein
and Infeld, 1938/1961, p. 264). The growth of science is characterised by
paradoxes, by the postulation of new problems and by invention.
Giambattista Vico’s common sense. It was the growth of science and technol-
ogy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that brought explicitly to atten-
tion the relationship between science and common sense. Critique of the
Cartesian method and of certainty based on the Cogito of the individual led
Giambattista Vico to develop a broad epistemological basis of common sense
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88 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
Science and common sense. Throughout history and up to the present, the
relation between science and common sense takes several forms, for example:
• If science is systematic, neutral and objective, and common sense is
unsystematic, based on emotions and imagination, then these different
kinds of knowing cannot be harmonised. There is an epistemological
rupture between them. Common sense and science have nothing in
common: and even more, common sense is ‘an idiocy’ from which
humankind should be diverted. I discussed examples of this attitude in
the history of French social science and in contemporary experimental
social psychology.
• According to another perspective common sense and science form a
continuum: pre-scientific concepts of common sense and of sense-
experience transform, in and through the progress in science, into
scientific concepts. As science and technology modify one another, so
faulty and ignorant common sense becomes ‘scientified’ or it comple-
ments scientific progress in practical interventions. The position of
pragmatism, phenomenology and of some social psychological
approaches corroborate this attitude.
• The third kind of perspective regards common sense as being embedded in
history, tradition and culture. All humans have the capacity to make
judgements of self-evident events which refer to certain uniform experi-
ences in life, producing similar experiences. Some of these uniform phy-
sical and biological experiences – or common sense experiences – can be
associated with the emergence of natural sciences, for example, experi-
ence of weather, tide or qualities of materials. Uniformities of social,
interactional and dialogical nature are associated with moral and ethical
judgements about humans. They have led to common-sense relational
concepts such as good/bad, pleasant/unpleasant, trustworthy/fraudulent,
among others. The interdependence between the Self–Others in its
historical and cultural embededness has become the basis of the theory
of social representations. As a theory of social knowledge, the theory
of social representations is based on the epistemological unit the
Self–Other–Object.
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Conclusion to Part I 89
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90 ‘Superior’ and ‘inferior’ thinking and knowing
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Part II
Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
and of professional practices
The dialogical mind is the mind in interaction with others, that is, with
individuals, groups, institutions, cultures, and with the past, present and
future. This basic claim is not specific to dialogicality as epistemology of
daily life but it is the basic presupposition of interactional epistemologies.
Here I am using the term ‘interactional epistemologies’ in opposition to
‘non-interactional epistemologies’. This opposition is based on the ways
these epistemologies treat the relation between two kinds of entities, that
is, the knower (subject) and the known (object of knowledge). This funda-
mental distinction is important both theoretically and methodologically
(Chapter 7).
Non-interactional epistemologies presuppose two kinds of entities, that is,
knowers (subjects, individuals) and the external and ‘objective’ world
(objects) that are strictly independent from one another (Marková, 2003a).
This presupposition has traditionally, at least since the seventeenth century,
concerned the following question: how does the individual knower acquire
knowledge of the external world? Over several centuries various attempts
have been made to provide answers to the fundamental problem of knowl-
edge, including the doubt of Descartes, Lockean mental representations,
Kantian things-in-themselves, and so on. Non-interactional epistemologies
assume that the individual acquires knowledge about the external world through
unbiased observation and the recording of facts (e.g. Hempel, 1966; Popper,
1979; Musgrave, 1993).
In interactional epistemologies, subjects or entities (e.g. knowers, indivi-
duals, elements, organisms) and objects that environ them (e.g. the known,
contexts, Umwelt, environments) form irreducible ontological, that is, existen-
tial, units. This implies that it would be meaningless to pose questions about the
former component, for example, the organism, without considering at the same
time the latter, for example, its environment: in contrast to non-interactional
epistemologies, in interactional epistemologies the two components are inter-
dependent in and through interaction. Other than that, each interactional epis-
temology has its own specific features.
91
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92 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life 93
Uexküll, 1934/1957; Valsiner and Lescak, 2009). This concept stipulates that
each organism or subject (animal, human) selects stimuli which are signifi-
cant for its existence in its surroundings (Objects), in order to construct its
Umwelt. Relations between the subject and object form a functional cycle
(Uexküll, 1934/1957, pp. 10–11). The concept of Umwelt implies that all
animals, ranging from the simplest to the most complex, are uniquely fitted
into their exclusive worlds which are specific to them and to nobody else.
This principle applies equally to non-human species as well as to humans.
Humans, however, live in symbolic and cultural environments (Wagoner,
2010; Zittoun, 2010) and have the capacity to extensively pre-plan and
predict their futures (Valsiner and Lescak, 2009, p. 47). Uexküll’s theory
became very influential in the study of signs, meanings and semiotics.
• Phenomenology (Chapter 3) provides yet another example of interactional and
holistic epistemology. It describes the experience of humans in their life-
worlds and it attempts to capture relevant objects in and through different
structures of consciousness and their contents. Human consciousness is inten-
tional and it directs humans towards objects and persons in the life-world.
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94 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
The Self interprets norms and rules, selects specific meanings and attempts to
change them. To that extent the Self and the institutionally and traditionally
established Others form an interdependent relationship.
Here I come to the crucial point. Part II of this book is concerned with common
sense arising in and through dialogical interactions and the interdependence of
the Self–Other. Therefore, I am not concerned here with common sense arising in
and through physical and biological uniformities (see Chapter 2, pp. 71–72).
I consider the Self–Other interdependence as the basic thema of common sense
(see p. 5). Common sense is a dialogical sense which is historically established in
and through the ethical nature of the Self–Other. The ethics of common sense
also infuses other forms of socially shared knowledge.
It is from the interdependence of the Self–Other(s) (or the Ego–Alter) that
all fundamental features of dialogical epistemology are derived. Some of
these features form the very foundations of dialogical epistemology, and I
shall refer to them as axioms. All axioms have their origins in themata, that is,
in dyadic oppositions rooted in the common sense of dialogical interactions.
Axioms are presuppositions that define dialogical epistemology; one cannot
speak about dialogical epistemology without the acceptance of these axioms.
Without claiming that they are necessarily exhaustive, I shall discuss the
following dialogical axioms, all of them derived from the philosophies of
dialogism (Chapter 4):
• the Ego–Alter as an irreducible ethical and ontological unit
• the Ego–Alter–Object as an irreducible ethical and epistemological unit
• the Ego–Alter and the Ego–Alter–Object as being interdependent in terms of
dialogical thinking (imagination, multivoicedness or heteroglossia, intersub-
jectivity, the search for social recognition, trust and responsibility), dialogi-
cal communication and dialogical action.
However, in their attempts to solve concrete problems, researchers and
professionals do not rely solely on dialogical axioms. In the study of con-
crete problems, more specific concepts are required. For example, a profes-
sional may wish to explore the resilience of people with deafblindness,
social representations of authority in schools or patients’ satisfaction with
a particular health service practice. I regard resilience, authority or satisfac-
tion as dialogical concepts. In other words, while these concepts are not
axioms, they are derived from, or could be considered as extensions of,
dialogical axioms. For instance, in order to understand the meaning of
resilience in a specific problem, the researcher considers the quality of the
Self–Other(s) interdependence, features of collaborative intersubjective
thinking and so on. Or in order to understand the meaning of authority, the
dialogical researcher builds on axioms such as trust, responsibility, inter-
subjectivity and so on. Part II of this book is concerned above all with
dialogical axioms as foundations of dialogical epistemology. However, it
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Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life 95
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4 Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations
97
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98 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 99
the Right to this or that? In order to answer this question, Fichte developed the
argument that the Self and the Other are interdependent and that one cannot
exist without the other. To understand how ‘natural right’ comes about, we need
the concept of the Self. And to become the Self, the individual requires the
existence of other humans and of the community. Therefore, in Fichte’s con-
ception, the Self is defined through the Other and this implies the meaning of
intersubjectivity: one can be a free being only in and through interaction with
others: ‘The human being . . . becomes a human being only among human
beings’ (Fichte, 2000, p. 37). Moreover, ‘only free, reciprocal interaction by
means of concepts and in accordance with concepts, only the giving and
receiving of knowledge, is the distinctive character of humanity’, and this is
what marks humans as human beings (Fichte, 2000, p. 38). All this entails that
relationships to other free subjects are essential for one’s own subjectivity.
Fichte repeatedly insisted on the point that one needs to be socially recognised
by Others and that, reciprocally, one must recognise Others in order to be a free
being (Fichte, 2000, pp. 39, 48). However, in order to be free, the Self must also
recognise the possibilities and limits of freedom. The principle of having Right
presupposes that individuals must restrict their own freedom and their actions
in order to accommodate the freedom and actions of Others. Rights could not
exist if humans disobeyed this principle (Fichte, 2000, p. 102). Here we have
a form of dialogical thinking based on intersubjectivity and social recognition
and on reciprocity of the Self and Others. This kind of reciprocity which is the
foundation of Fichte’s ethics of intersubjectivity totally overturned the meaning
of Kantian morality: ethics is a mutually recognised relation between the Self
and Others who acknowledge and act upon their reciprocity.
In his youth Fichte was a Kantian philosopher and he developed his ideas on
the Self and Others only later in life. It was Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
who took Fichte’s ideas on social recognition much further. In contrast to
Fichte, Hegel was a social philosopher from early on. He was only eight
years junior to Fichte, but he associated himself with the younger generation
which was captivated by the revolutionary ideas opposing the rationalism of the
Enlightenment. The German movement of the youth known as Sturm und
Drang (Storm and Stress) was strongly influenced by the French revolution
and its new ideas, as well as by the suffering it brought about. This movement
of the German youth conceived humans as ‘expressive unities’ of reason and
sentiment or ‘reason and heart’ (Taylor, 1975, p. 59).
Such influences, as well as the ideas of Hegel’s predecessors such as
Spinoza, Rousseau, Herder and Schelling, among others, led Hegel directly
to view humans as social and self- and other-conscious beings. Human self-
consciousness and the relations of the Self and Others became some of the
central tenets expressed in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (1807/1977). He
(Hegel, 1807/1977, p. 110) proclaimed the mutuality of interdependent
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100 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 101
1
In his book on the struggle for social recognition, Honneth (1992) develops Hegel’s levels of
intersubjectivity in social psychological terms, particularly with reference to George Herbert Mead.
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102 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
anthropologists with primitive groups, he would have recognised that his pre-
contract men would have possessed an organised group of social habits out of
which indeed governmental institutions were to arise . . .’ (Mead, 1915, p. 148).
Without having evidence about life in early societies one cannot assume that
close interpersonal interactions were developed first and that later on people
organised themselves into groups. Rather, one can suggest that various forms of
interactions develop simultaneously, through ‘the circle returning within
itself’, in and through deepening as well as breaking relationships of different
kinds, rather than through a linear hierarchy. The term ‘level’, suggesting
a hierarchical development from interpersonal to community and institutional
relations does not capture the idea of Hegel’s dialectic.
2
Here we have an echo of Fichte’s concept of Right (mentioned earlier). We find the same example
in George Herbert Mead’s (1915) analysis of the right to property.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 103
other evils created in society. Thus, Hegel points out, when we speak about
rights, we do not mean just civil rights but also morality and ethics in the course
of the world history (Hegel, 1821/2001, p. 51). Here we see that Hegel not only
developed the concept of intersubjectivity and social recognition: he brought
into philosophy historicism and dialectic. His concept of social recognition or
intersubjectivity develops in its pluralities throughout a dynamic and historical
process.
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104 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
3
Zittoun (2014b, p. 100) notes that ‘the inherent dialogicality of humans, as an epistemic and
ethical stance’ goes back to Talmud and that this is rarely mentioned in the literature on
dialogism.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 105
except within an international society’ (Mead, 2011, p. 287). We can find ideas
relating to different forms of intersubjectivity also in other scholars of
American pragmatism who were influenced by Hegelian thought and by the
common-sense ideas of John Stuart Mill (Chapter 3).
Mikhail Bakhtin, on the other hand, was not keen on Hegelian dialectics
which he found abstract and he accused Hegel of monologism. He was well
acquainted with Hermann Cohen’s work and with the work of others associated
with the Marburg Neo-Kantian School. Accordingly, Bakhtin’s concept of
intersubjectivity places emphasis on trust and responsibility in communication,
which forbids living with an ‘alibi’ (Bakhtin, 1993; Chapters 5 and 6). Bakhtin
introduced the term ‘non-alibi in being’ by which he meant that one cannot
escape responsibility for acting by pretending to have been elsewhere, and by
creating ambiguity around oneself.
Not surprisingly, contemporary students of dialogism often comment on
similarities between the views of the Self, Other, intersubjectivity and dialogue
in the works of William James, George Herbert Mead, Lev Vygotsky, James
Mark Baldwin and Mikhail Bakhtin. They compare and contrast their perspec-
tives, wondering whether those scholars personally met one another, whether
they knew of one another’s work, and who might have influenced whom.
It seems reasonable to raise questions about their similarities and differences.
But any attempts to answer these questions without paying attention to histor-
ical issues from which these similarities and differences arise would be little
more than trivial exercises. This is why some researchers warn against making
quick leaps in these comparisons noting that despite considerable similarities,
there are also substantial differences such as between Bakhtin’s dialogism and
the pragmatists’ concepts of the Self and dialogue (e.g. Taylor, 1991; Barresi,
2002). For example, Matusov (2011) speaks about irreconcilable differences
between Vygotsky and Bakhtin, precisely because Vygotsky was Hegelian and
Marxian while Bakhtin was inspired by the Neo-Kantian Marburg School.
In contrast to Vygotsky, Bakhtin based his work on heteroglossia and diver-
gences between the Self and Other.
As Matusov (2011) points out, such comparisons among scholars make good
sense if we adopt a broad perspective that separates these dialogical thinkers
from those who study information-processing approaches. In relation to such
wide contrasts such as dialogism and information processing, the differences
between, say, James and Bakhtin, seem to be trivial. On the other hand,
although there may not be basic contradictions between James and Bakhtin,
these scholars deal with different issues leading them to study different kinds of
problems. Superficial and terminological similarities could be misleading and
of questionable help to dialogically orientated professionals (Chapter 7).
Let us remind ourselves that the philosophies of dialogism studied the Self
and Other(s) (the Ego–Alter) not only as an interpersonal interaction but also as
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106 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
4
The ontological interdependence of the Ego–Alter and some features of the epistemological
interdependence of the Ego–Alter–Object were discussed in my previous book Dialogicality and
Social Representations (Marková, 2003a). I am repeating them here for completeness because
they form the basis of further discussion in this book.
In all my previous publications (e.g. Marková, 2003a; 2003b; in press) I always conceived
intersubjectivity and social recognition not as identical but as mutually interdependent phenomena,
with intersubjectivity directed at the understanding between the Ego–Alter, and social recognition
as a strife for mutual acknowledgement of the Ego–Alter. Since in concrete life situations these two
phenomena are always in tension, I shall continue referring to these phenomena as mutually
interrelated but not as identical in the sense of Fichte and Hegel. This terminological difference,
however, is of no substance. After all, Fichte and Hegel did not use the term ‘intersubjectivity’
when they spoke about social recognition, but the concept of intersubjectivity clearly was present in
their work, as Williams (1992; 1997) and Neuhouser (2000) noted.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 107
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108 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
sphere and the self-governing of people. In and through the social imaginary
these new fields have developed as self-reflective and other-reflective social
practices. In their attempts to understand the Self and Others, modern humans
construct their images about one another; even the Slave in Hegel’s parable (see
Section 4.1.1; also Section 4.2.1.2) was imagining how to attain recognition
from his Master! Imagination is vital to interpersonal relations. Speakers
complement their partial knowledge by imagining what the Other could be
like and what to expect from him/her. Words often convey images that are
moving and changing over time and thus imagination has an important sym-
bolic and spiritual role. Selves imagine what it would be like to be the Other
(Gillespie, 2005; 2006; Mead, 1934). Dialogical imagination, therefore, is an
axiom of dialogical epistemology to which we shall keep returning throughout
Part II of this book.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 109
Minority-
I-you I-MySpace,
majority
Facebook
I-inner alter
(inner speech} Ego–Alter
interdependencies I-
culture
Group-
another
group
I-family
I-organisation
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110 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
4.2.1.1 Ethics of the mutuality of the Ego–Alter Already in his early works
like Art and Answerability (Bakhtin, 1919/1990) and Towards the Philosophy
of the Act (Bakhtin, 1993) Mikhail Bakhtin adopted the ontology of dialogism
arguing that the integrity of the Self arises in and through the development of
the Self’s ethical obligations with respect to Others. In dialogical interaction
there is no possibility of the Self’s escape from responding to the Other. Even
no response is a response. There is no possibility of remaining ‘neutral’.
In interaction humans evaluate one another taking into account others’ and
their own perspectives; they watch for Others’ reflections of their own images
and they create images of Others on the basis of their life experiences; they
anticipate Others’ actions and they act on the basis of these anticipations
(Bakhtin, 1919/1990, pp. 15–16). Activity, therefore is never neutral, but is
ethical.
But how should we understand Bakhtin’s notion of activity? It is not an
activity of a ‘speaking individuum’ (Bakhtin, 1981, p. 270, Bakhtin’s emphasis)
5
There is a growing interest in social sciences in the study of ‘otherness’, ‘alterity’, ‘autrui’, etc.;
the ‘other’ is referred to in various ways such as ‘strange’, ‘alien’, ‘different from me’, ‘same as
me’, ‘mystery’, ‘known unknown’, etc. These terms already indicate that not only the ‘Other’
and ‘Others’ are in the centre of interest but also that there is an enormous number of ways in
which the ‘otherness’ can be theorised about and brought into practice (see e.g. Gillespie; 2006;
Jovchelovitch, 2007; Rochat, 2009; Simão and Valsiner, 2007; Zittoun et al., 2013).
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 111
but of the speaker expecting a response from the addressee: it is a living social
interaction. All activity is ‘living’ in its environment and Bakhtin overused the
adjective ‘living’ to make his point. For example, in Discourse in the Novel
(Bakhtin, 1981), there is a ‘living discourse’ (pp. 259, 279), a ‘living hetero-
glossia’ (p. 272), a ‘living, tension-filled interaction’ (p. 279), a ‘living rejoinder’
(p. 279), a ‘living conversation’ (p. 280), ‘living experiences’ (p. 286), a ‘living
concrete environment’ (p. 288) – and one could continue listing Bakhtin’s
‘living’ adjectives. Relations between the Selves, Others and Objects are inter-
active. In discussing dialogical interactions Bakhtin rejected the idea of a passive
relation between the Self and the Object of knowledge, according to which the
Object of knowledge is externally pre-given as, say, in the theory of John Locke.
Instead, Bakhtin argued that the relation between the Self and an Object in the
external world is productive and creative. As he said, it is our relationship to the
Object that determines an Object and its structure, it is not the other way round
(Bakhtin, 1919/1990, p. 5).
We can follow Charles Taylor (1991) in his argument that the full integration
of the Self and Other in a dialogical action is filled with a ‘radical reflexivity’,
that is, the capacity to reflect both on oneself, for example, on one’s health and
also on one’s subjective experience and, importantly, on one’s own thoughts.
Radical reflexivity contrasts with the classic notion of co-ordination of move-
ments, such as, for example, when one person throws the ball and the other
person catches it. While the latter kind of action is based on joint intentionality
and joint attention (e.g. Tomasello, 2014), such action is no more than an
‘exchange’ of gestures based on perspective-taking or taking the attitude of
the other. Humans constitute themselves in dialogue that is multivoiced and not
monological. Under no circumstances can a single-voiced exchange of gestures
or of co-operative actions do justice ‘to the dialogical nature of the self’
(Taylor, 1991, p. 314). In and through radical reflexivity humans constitute
their own Selves and other Selves not as neutral and disengaged but as ethical.
The accent on the ‘living’ activity and on interaction is also fundamental to the
dialogical ontology of Hans-Georg Gadamer. According to Gadamer, language
forms the basis of human existence. His dialogical ontology was most strongly
emphasised in his frequently repeated claim about the ‘being that can be under-
stood is language’ (e.g. Gadamer, 1975, p. 474; also 2007a, p. 162). And it is the
living dialogue that always stands behind our understanding of texts, works of art
and traditions. Living language underlies hermeneutics, that is, the theory and
practice of interpretation. Understanding and interpretation of language can be
achieved only through living in culture, history and tradition, and in the socially
shared thinking and communication with others. Language is vital for sustaining
the community (Gadamer, 2007a, pp. 157–158).
In a number of his essays Gadamer pays a great deal of attention to the
structure of conversation because it is here that the relation between the Self
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112 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
and Others comes to the fore; it is based on questions and answers (Gadamer,
2007d, p. 392). Conversation, to him, provides a special kind of interdepen-
dence between the Self and Other, because asking questions requires answers
and so this implies ethical obligations of the dialogical participants. Gadamer
argues that the art of conversation consists in balancing asking questions and
providing answers. This means, he argues, that every statement ‘has to be seen
as a response to a question, and that the only way to understand a statement is to
get hold of the question to which its statement is an answer’ (Gadamer, 2007c,
p. 241). In posing questions the participant structures the conversation; the
participant, who poses questions, has the privilege of giving direction to the
content of the topic. Questions open the space for the Other, and so they give
the Other an opportunity for developing the content of speech. This openness
also renders possible the unpredictability of a response (Gadamer, 2007d,
p. 382). One could say that openness also allows for the possibility of infinity
in conversation as well as for the creation of possible meanings (see also
Bakhtin, 1984a; 1984b; Levinas, 1961/1969). Just as an interpersonal dialogue
is potentially infinite, so does an internal dialogue, that is, an imagined dialogue
with Others or with the Self, provide for continuous creativity of the dialogical
mind in experiencing the world (Gadamer, 1975, p. 493).
Ragnar Rommetveit’s concept of the ethics of mutuality in interaction, too,
constitutes the foundation of dialogue. The speaker and listener respond to one
another on each other’s premises and this activity arises from the participants’
‘shared ontological pre-conditions’ (Rommetveit, 1974, p. 74). Rommetveit
speaks about the mutual obligations of participants in terms of contracts.
Contracts refer to the taken-for-granted expectations of the speaker that the
listener will respond to his/her message. Mutual interactions, therefore, are not
surprising. They are implicitly expected. It would be a lack of response that
would astonish participants in communication. Contracts intersubjectively bind
speakers to fulfil normative, socially and institutionally established practices.
4.2.1.2 Ethics of the autonomy of the Ego–Alter The ethics of mutual inter-
dependence of the Ego–Alter is inextricably interrelated with the mutuality of
acknowledging each other’s freedom. This means that each party treats the Other
as an autonomous being who thinks, makes decisions and acts according to
his/her own will – or as we shall see later – treats the Other as being epistemically
responsible (Chapter 6). The Self and Other enrich one another in and through
their own ways of thinking or speaking in their own styles (Holton, 1973, p. 118)
and in presenting their own perspectives. This may involve tension and conflict
arising from the presentation of controversial points of view, but the struggle of
diverse points of view facilitates the continuation of the dynamics of the Self and
Other. One cannot talk about social recognition if any coercion, rather than
negotiation, takes place. This has a number of implications.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 113
6
For more on this issue see Marková (2003a, pp. 103–104); for a broader discussion of subject-
other isolation, fusion, separation and on the implications of these, see Simão and Valsiner (2007,
pp. 394–396).
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114 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
where Bakhtin’s analysis takes place on several levels. To start with, the hero
internally imagines the dialogue with Others and their responses to him. He
then tells them what they imagine. Finally, he tells them that their imagination
(which is his own imagination of their thoughts) does not matter to him. The
hero continues to reveal his imaginations of the Others’ responses in order to
reject them. These anticipations, Bakhtin points out, form a vicious circle.
The hero would like to be independent from Others’ judgements of himself,
but he cannot get his independence because ‘he fears that the other might think
that he fears that other’s opinion . . . with his refutation, he confirms precisely
what he wishes to refute, and he knows it’ (Bakhtin, 1984a, p. 229).
Dialogical imagination is even more focused in Bakhtin’s analysis of
Dostoyevsky’s confessors. These anti-heroes, who committed crimes against
humanity, need the Other to confess in order to relieve their conscience. But
these confessions are complex dialogical phenomena. The confessor necessi-
tates the Other not only to tell his/her sins but he/she also demands acknowl-
edgement from the Other that he/she, who is the sinner, is a worthy human
being. One of the strategies of coping is the confessor’s simultaneous use of
openings with multiple possibilities of interpretation. For example, saying
‘I am a sick man . . . I am a spiteful man. I am an unpleasant man’ (Bakhtin,
1984a, p. 228) may give an impression that the confessor states a final truth
with a transparent meaning. However, dialogically speaking, an utterance can
never stand on its own: it is always directed at the Other. It requires and
anticipates a response from the Other and so the utterance ‘I am a sick man’
could only have a fictive final meaning; instead, it awaits either acceptance or
refutation of its meaning from the recipient.
In confessing a crime, Dostoyevsky’s anti-heroes often present themselves
as nasty as possible, exaggerating their crimes to the extreme, making their
discourse cynically objective in the hope that the recipient will deny the
confessor’s guilt: ‘I am no longer the hero to you now that I tried to appear
before, but simply a nasty person, a scoundrel [. . .] I am very glad that you see
through me. Is it nasty for you to hear my foul moans? Well, let it be nasty’
(Bakhtin, 1984a, pp. 231–232). By condemning himself and repenting, the
confessor could be trying to indirectly provoke the listener to rejecting the
confessor’s guilt and instead, to praise and acknowledge him/her as a worthy
human being. At the same time, however, the confessor leaves open the
possibility for the case that the listener might agree with his/her self-
condemnation. Dostoyevsky’s characters, who confess to a crime, concurrently
despise and reject those who agree with their condemnation. Such extreme and
acute dialogicality shows an extraordinary dependence on, and orientation of
the Self towards the Other, and at the same time, an intense animosity and
rejection of the Other’s evaluation and judgement, should it prove to be
undesirable. The ‘radical reflexivity’ involved in the deep personal meaning
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 115
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116 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 117
Strong commitment to
Object Object
4.2.2.2 Asymmetric commitment of the Self to the Other and to the Object
of knowledge Let us represent a schema of different commitments within the
dialogical triangle Ego–Alter–Object. In Figure 4.2, a strong commitment is
expressed by full arrows while a weak commitment is represented by dashed
arrows. In the left-hand side of Figure 4.2 we can see a schematic presentation
of a weak commitment between the Ego and Alter and a strong commitment
between the Ego and Object. The right-hand side represents a weak commit-
ment between the Ego and Object and a strong commitment between the Ego
and Alter.
Let us consider some concrete examples to illustrate these different kinds of
commitment.
Concerning the strong commitment to the Object of knowledge, what first
may come to mind, could be cases of scientists who during the course of
European history pursued their ideas in societies in which the religious
dogma dictated what was allowed to be the ‘truth’ and ‘correct beliefs’.
Moreover, these scientists’ own ideas went, in many cases, against their own
religious convictions and so they struggled not only with the external pressure
but also with their own religious beliefs. Fear of persecution drove the philo-
sopher Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century to regret that his personal troubles
and fourteen years of imprisonment were caused by his ‘love of science’
(Brooks, 1933, p. 155). In 1600, Giordano Bruno was burnt to death for his
cosmological beliefs that went far beyond Copernicus’s heliocentric views.
Thirty years after that, Galileo Galilei submitted himself to the powerful
Alter of the inquisition under the threat of torture and death at the stake like
Bruno. At the age of seventy he renounced his conviction that the earth
rotates round the Sun: ‘I Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being
a prisoner and on my knees . . . abjure, curse and detest the error and the
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118 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
heresy of the movement of the earth’ (quoted by Guillen, 1995, p. 38). While
this saved his life, he was kept under home arrest until he died eight years
later. At the same time during the scientific revolution of the seventeenth
century, the mathematician and astronomer Johannes Kepler found it
difficult to resolve the conflict between his personal knowledge (the Ego)
and the religious dogma (the Alter) with respect to the movement of planets
(the Object). He finally coped with the problem by upholding his own
discovery while accommodating a part of the religious dogma. Even in the
nineteenth century, Charles Darwin feared persecution for his ideas on
evolution, and at the same time he experienced conflicts with his own
religious beliefs. In deepening his knowledge and amassing an increasing
evidence for his theory of evolution, he gradually departed from the gener-
ally accepted doctrine of God as the creator of the organic world (Marková,
2003a, p. 2).
Let us now consider a different kind of example, the case where commitment
of the Ego to the Alter is much stronger than that of the Ego to the Object of
knowledge. Such a situation can be represented by the mystique of and incon-
testable faith in the Communist Party (the Other) of revolutionary Bolsheviks
in the Soviet Union during the 1920s and 1930s (Chapter 1). Numerous cases of
the absolute faith held in the Party disregarding any critical analysis of the
Object of its strategies, are documented in historical treatises of the Soviet
Union as well as those described in novels. Expressions of faith in the Party as
an incarnation of history were quite common particularly in the early history of
the Soviet regime. For example, in 1935 Nikolai Bukharin, very soon after he
had denounced Stalin’s ‘insane ambition’ (Conquest, 1990, p. 112), was asked
why those who opposed Stalin, nevertheless, had surrendered to him. His
response to this was simple: ‘You don’t understand . . . It is not him we trust
but the man in whom the Party has reposed its confidence. It just so happened
that he has become a sort of symbol of the Party . . .’ (Abramovitch, 1962,
p. 416). In 1936, one year before his arrest, Bukharin again expressed his faith
in the Party. He talked about the difficulties of adjusting to the political
situation. However, ‘one is saved by a faith that development is always going
forward. If one leans out of the stream, one is ejected completely . . . the stream
goes through the most difficult places . . . And the people grow, become
stronger in it, and they build a new society’ (Conquest, 1990, p. 112).
Arthur Koestler’s (1940/2005) Darkness in Noon makes this point even
more clearly. The hero of this novel, Rubashov, talks about the historical role
of the Party; history, according to him, makes no mistakes. It flows without
error towards its goal: ‘At every bend in her course she leaves the mud which
she carries and the corpses of the drowned. History knows her way. She makes
no mistakes. He who has not absolute faith in History does not belong in the
Party’s ranks’ (Koestler, 1940/2005, p. 41).
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 119
Lastly, let us mention the effect of the powerful Other on the Self using the
mass media as an example. Studies of social representations of illnesses show
that even if individuals have a good medical knowledge about the transmission
of the HIV virus (Marková and Wilkie, 1987), their behaviour towards those
infected by the virus may be, nevertheless, guided more strongly by their real or
imagined Ego–Alter relations. Our research in the 1980s during the HIV/AIDS
epidemic has shown that patients with haemophilia, and in particular those with
severe haemophilia, had good knowledge of HIV/AIDS. By good knowledge
we meant knowledge about the cause of HIV infection, spread of HIV, Self- and
Other-protection and various medical issues that were known at the time
(Marková, 1992). Nevertheless, our research has shown that patients’ conduct
was guided not by their knowledge of HIV, but by their images of Others’
representations of haemophilia and HIV/AIDS – and these representations
had a direct effect on their interactions with Others. Our respondents
explained that their own emotions as well as the attitudes of other people
and the publicity portrayed by the mass media increased their feelings of
being at risk of HIV/AIDS (Marková et al., 1990).
Pedrinho Guareschi (2006) analyses the power of the mass media in Brazil
which, disrespecting the diversity of humans, tends to homogenise their
effect on multitudes of people. He reminds that the media do not provide
listeners with any opportunity to respond to messages portrayed on television
screens or broadcasted by the radio. Voices of Others do not count in this
‘communication’ – and therefore, communication of the media is non-
dialogical. Democracy and ethics require that humans listen and respond to
one another and that this mutuality counts as ethical conscience. Guareschi
raises a fundamental question for the media; listeners should not be pre-
vented from responding; in the construction of citizenship and democracy it
is important that the mass media change their present practices in Brazil.
They should acknowledge that humans are dialogical and unique beings.
He insists that only those who participate with their voices can be fully
acknowledged as human beings. In order to recognise the Other as a human
means you enter with him/her into a dialogue. Guareschi concludes that
dialogicality counts as the morality of existence.
Finally, let us note that the Self’s commitment to knowledge and to Others is
not of a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ kind, but that it may range from high to low commitment.
Referring to such cases, Moscovici (1993) distinguished between resistible and
irresistible beliefs. Resistible beliefs concern phenomena about which we learn
from Others through instruction, for example, ‘the Earth is not flat’ or ‘some
illnesses are caused by viruses’. Such beliefs can be changed through new
learning, and humans can suspend or abandon them when necessary. When
such beliefs become ‘untrue’ due to new knowledge, the Ego can transform
them as required into new ‘true’ beliefs. In this case we can say that humans
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120 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
possess rational beliefs or knowledge just like they possess other kinds of
things. If they do not need them, either because they are no longer relevant or
because they are replaced by new beliefs, humans can dispose of them.
Moscovici calls them ‘resistible’, because the mind can accept, reject or resist
them in one way or another. However, it is the other kind of beliefs, the
‘irresistible’ ones, which are not in our possession. On the contrary, they
possess us: they ‘are like perceptual illusions: we are not at liberty to dismiss
them, to have them or correct them if need be’ (Moscovici, 1993, p. 50). For
example, collective memories, ceremonies or political convictions could be so
deeply grounded in our thoughts, whether consciously or unconsciously, that
we cannot dismiss them by means of rational arguments; they are independent
of reasoning. It has been well documented that political convictions are con-
nected with creating myths. The collapse of the Soviet bloc which resulted
in the re-emergence of post-Soviet republics was marked by reinventing the
past, by creating new symbols, and by the return of old myths. For example,
Baltic States, in designing their new banknotes, chose symbols that repre-
sented preferred values of these newly created free nations (Mathias, 2008).
Distinctive collective memories that were concealed over long periods of
time functioned like irresistible beliefs. They were not publicly verbalised
during the Soviet regime, but the collapse of the Soviet bloc brought them to
the fore, just like the national flags that were hidden in citizens’ homes, and
the national songs that were buried in citizens’ memories. Symbolic figures
became portrayed on new banknotes expressing and reinterpreting old
narratives.
Wertsch and Batiashvili (2012) show how collective memories invigorate
selective interpretations and reinterpretations of the nation’s past and justify
citizens’ actions and images of the future. The authors portray Georgian
narratives of the past that widely differ from those of Russian tales.
Georgians search for the meaning of their nation that stems from the past
myths and that continues in their struggle to protect their sovereign territory
in South Ossetia. In contrast, Russians understand their past as a series of
unjustified invasions of their territories, whether in the Middle Ages by
Teutons or much later on by Napoleon and Hitler. Recall of the past can
give rise to contemporary conflicts through narrative templates and deep
memories that these templates mediate. Such publicly shared myths in
Georgia, on the one hand, and in Russia, on the other, accompanied by
powerful images of the past, cannot be easily reconciled.
These examples show that in daily thinking different kinds of knowing and
imagining interact with one another, and that communication is never ‘neutral’
information processing, but is always evaluative and judgemental. It is filled
with tensions in understanding and emotions, in trust and distrust, and in taking
and avoiding responsibility.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 121
4.2.2.3 Asymmetric commitment of the Self to the Other and to the Object
of desire In the epistemological triangle the Self and Other mutually con-
struct, though asymmetrically, the Object of knowledge. Priorities given to the
Object of knowledge or to the Other rise and fall in relation to social, historical
and personal circumstances of the Self.
The anthropologist Louis Dumont (1977; 1986) explored the triangular rela-
tions between the Ego–Alter–Object in a different way. Dumont’s point of
departure was the study of the concept of the individual and of the phenomenon
of individualism throughout history starting with Judaeo-Christian heritage up to
the present. He put forward an idea that there are two perspectives in societies,
individualism and holism. Individualism that existed in traditional Christian
societies was subordinated to holism. By this Dumont meant that relations
between people were more highly valued than relations between people and
things. The expanding market during the last three centuries gave rise to a new
discipline of economics in which money obtained a new meaning: the developing
businesses transformed the traditional form of individualism. Economics devel-
oped as a new discipline associated with marketing, and it produced a modern
kind of individualism, which is driven by the relations between the Self and the
Thing. In many cases the desire for a Thing as a material or symbolic object has
replaced the Object of knowledge in the triangular relation of the
Ego–Alter–Object. And although the modern individual cannot get rid of the
Ego–Alter interdependence, he/she is behaving as if that were possible, or at least,
he/she is subordinating the Ego–Alter relations to those of the Ego–Thing.
Dumont argues that a non-social individual, proclaiming his/her autonomy, free-
dom and the choice of personal values, is a feature of modern society, charac-
terised by economic growth, technology and greed. The growth of economy and
of technology has become the driving force between the Self and Thing as a new
morality. Imagination that in the epistemological triangle of Ego–Alter–Object
was directed at knowledge, innovation and interpersonal relations, has now
become fixed on Things as values. In these cases, the epistemological triangle
has been replaced by a consumerist triangle. The consumerist triangle may give
an impression that interobjectivity has priority over intersubjectivity. Yet a Thing
as Object of desire has a symbolic value and a symbolic value is a social value.
AThing becomes an Object of desire not because of its intrinsic value but because
it is a value for Others (Marková, 1982). Analysing the nature of desires, Kojève
(1969) maintained that desiring Objects that Others have, that is, social desires,
plays such a vital role in human life because they have a symbolic value:
Thus an object perfectly useless from the biological point of view (such as a medal, or
the enemy’s flag) can be desired because it is the object of others’ desires. Such a Desire
can only be a human Desire, and human reality, as distinguished from animal reality, is
created only by action that satisfies such Desires: human history is the history of desired
Desires. (Kojève, 1969, p. 6)
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122 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Ego Alter
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 123
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124 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Others may enhance the Self’s esteem and the feeling of being socially
recognised.
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Ethics of the Ego–Alter–Object relations 125
different kinds of common sense dominate in different subgroups at the same time,
and may follow different paths over time (see also Jovchelovitch, 2007; 2008).
In her exploration of learning as a social process, and focusing specifically
on epistemic trust (Chapter 5) in education, Zittoun (2014a) argues that the
didactic triangle the Learner–Other–Object of knowledge that was developed
by Houssaye (2000) requires further development and extension. Specifically,
and with her focus on semiotic mediation, Zittoun maintains that in addition
to interacting with the teacher about the Object of knowledge, the Learner is
also engaged in an inner dialogue with him-/herself about the Object of
knowledge. It is necessary to distinguish between what the Learner already
knows about the Object of knowledge and between the Object of knowledge
to which he/she is exposed (Figure 4.6).Therefore, the Learner’s inner dialo-
gue with the Object proceeds along two lines.
One line of the inner dialogue arises from the Learner’s previous knowledge
and experience, that is, from the ‘personal culture’, drawing on memory, past
experiences and associations. The other line of the inner dialogue arises from
formal modes of learning to which the Learner is exposed, that is, from what is
socially and culturally acknowledged as knowledge. As Zittoun maintains, the
process of knowing involves internalisation, reorganisation of previous knowledge
and the construction of new knowledge. The Learner establishes relations with the
Object of knowledge in and through choosing cultural and intellectual elements
with which he/she is confronted. This is why Zittoun’s semiotic mediation
(Figure 4.6) necessitates expanding the original didactic Learner–Other–Object
triangle into a prism, in which the Object is captivated by the ‘personal culture’
(i.e. sense of cultural element for person) and by the socially and culturally (i.e.
cultural element = formal mode of learning) acknowledged lines of thought.
The examples of the Toblerone model and of the semiotic prism show that in
order to solve concrete problems, Bauer and Gaskell, and Zittoun expanded the
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126 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Cultural element
Sense of cultural
element for person
Person Other
Frame
4.4 Conclusion
This chapter has been concerned with axioms and concepts of dialogical
epistemology derived from the Ego–Alter interdependence. This interdepen-
dence is always about something, that is, about objects or events, or about
reflections on the Self’s and the Other(s)’ thoughts, imaginations and actions.
I have referred to triangular relations between the Ego–Alter–Object in two
ways. First, following Serge Moscovici’s ideas, there is a triangular relation
between the Ego–Alter–Object of knowledge. Second, following the ideas of
the anthropologist Louis Dumont, I have introduced the consumerist triadic
relation the Ego–Alter–Thing of desire. Ethics in these two kinds of triangle
follows different routes. In the former case, ethical relations between the
Ego–Alter stem directly from intersubjectivity and the search for social recog-
nition as the primary ontological relations. In the latter case, the ethical rela-
tions between the Ego–Alter are masked by the apparent priority given to the
relation between the Self and the Thing of desire. In this case, the Ego’s search
for social recognition, which superficially appears as craving for the Thing of
desire, is in fact the desire for the desire of the Other’s desire. In other words,
obtaining Objects of Others provides the Self with a social status and thus, with
illusory social recognition.
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5 Epistemic trust
1
‘Trust’ and ‘epistemic trust’ have heterogeneous and multifaceted meanings. The notion ‘epis-
temic trust’ is not specific to dialogical epistemology and it has been used in human and social
sciences for some time. Inevitably, it has acquired different meanings according to the rationale
for researchers’ objectives in their respective domains. Some meanings are derived from analytic
philosophy, others from phenomenology or from problems arising in testimonies; some are based
on the cognition of the individual, some refer to epistemic trust of others. For example, Daukas
(2006) is concerned with the question of epistemic trustworthiness of an agent. She analyses
preconditions that an agent must fulfil in order to be worthy of trust by the other; this has
implications for the relations between moral character and social practices. According to
Allwood (2014) epistemic trust is a strong simplifier and facilitator in communication; the
individual relies on the optimal behaviour of the trusted and on what is trusted, and so this
helps humans to comprehend the world. Wilholt (2013) is preoccupied with epistemic trust
among scientists in relation to one another’s work. Some of these meanings show similarities
with epistemic trust in dialogical epistemology, others are totally divergent. However, while
these issues are of some interest, I shall not discuss them in this book.
127
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128 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 129
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130 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 131
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132 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 133
occasion. Thus I may distrust a bank manager as a person but I may trust his/her
statement concerning a specific issue. Different kinds of epistemic trust are
important in accounts of testimony (Moran, 2005) while the genealogy of
epistemic trust/distrust reveals differences in relation to friends and strangers
(Faulkner, 2007).
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134 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
build up in conversation, and on the other hand, speakers and listeners are in
many ways impenetrable. How do these opposite features make communica-
tion possible? With these complexities in mind, Gadamer asks what, finally, is
the nature of language: ‘Is it a bridge built of things that are the same for each
self over which one communicates with the other over the flowing stream of
otherness? Or is it a barrier that limits our giving up of our selves . . . and that
cuts us off from the possibility of ever completely expressing ourselves and
communicating with others?’ (Gadamer, 2007a, p. 164). Gadamer concludes
that if the nature of language is communicability of perspectives, then we must
assume that building bridges between the Self and the Other is fundamental to
this process (see also Voloshinov, 1929/1973, p. 86). This does not mean,
however, that one can trust all speech and all texts. There is a difference
between genuine and non-genuine texts. The latter texts take forms of anti-
texts (e.g. jokes, irony), pseudotexts (e.g. rhetorical fillers, texts empty of
content) and pre-texts, which hide the true meaning (e.g. ideological expres-
sions, neurotic masking of the meaning) (Gadamer, 2007a, pp. 176–178).
Gadamer concludes that these instances are examples of what the French
philosopher Paul Ricoeur (see next paragraph) calls the ‘hermeneutics of
suspicion’. Nevertheless, in Gadamer’s view these are exceptional cases and
it would be a mistake to privilege such instances that distort communication
and treat them as typical in ordinary situations of textual interpretation. He
thinks that all forms of interpretation are forms of overcoming an awareness of
suspicion (Gadamer, 1984).
Paul Ricoeur, like Gadamer, presupposed that language forms the essence of
humanity. But in contrast to Gadamer, for whom language is above all the
means of dialogical communication, Ricoeur’s point of departure is the indi-
vidual’s capacity for reflection and self-consciousness. Self-reflection is the
basic function of language. Ricoeur was critical of Descartes’ perspective,
according to which the immediate consciousness provides the certainty of
knowledge. Descartes considers the Cogito, that is, ‘I think therefore I am’,
as certainty, says Ricouer, but this certainty does not constitute true self-
knowledge (Ricoeur, 1969/1974, p. 101); it is only the first step towards it. In
order to become true self-knowledge, this immediate truth must be mediated
by the means that objectify it like ‘the ideas, actions, works, institutions and
monuments’ (Ricoeur, 1969/1974, p. 43). Only in and through the process of
self-reflection can the individual interpret and understand language. In con-
trast to Descartes, Ricoeur rejects the idea of self-consciousness as something
direct and immediate. Direct and immediate self-consciousness is no more
than a ‘false consciousness’ (Ricoeur, 1969/1974, p. 148) or ‘illusory Cogito’
(Ricoeur, 1969/1974, p. 243). It hides behind unconscious and symbolically
constituted cultural traditions and concrete events. Symbols have multiple
meanings and therefore, Ricoeur argues that language expresses something
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136 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Self’s temporality which arises only in and through Others. He clarifies both
issues in Oneself as Another. Concerning the meaning of selfhood, Ricoeur
states that the title of his book elucidates this position: ‘Oneself as Another
suggests from the outset that the selfhood of oneself implies otherness to
such an intimate degree that one cannot be thought of without the other, that
instead one passes into the other, as we might say in Hegelian terms’ (Ricoeur,
1990/1992, p. 3). For Ricoeur, the dialectic of movement between opposites is a
returning feature of his thought; the unfolding of the dialectic between the Self
and Other, which is vital to his hermeneutics, is one of many examples of his
dialectical thinking. For example, in his earlier work Ricoeur dialectically
contrasted the hermeneutics of suspicion with faith. He explained that faith is
not an immediate consciousness, that is, a ‘false consciousness’, but that
reflective faith arises in and through contemplation and criticism (Ricoeur,
1965/1970, p. 28).
Concerning the other feature in the title Oneself as Another, that is,
temporality, Ricoeur proposed that by having the capacity of reflection
upon one’s own Self, the Self’s identity is constituted through the dialectic
of two components. He called the first one ‘idem-identity’, that is, the Self’s
permanence in time. The second component is the capacity of the Self to
change, that is, to be an agent. This second component Ricoeur calls ‘ipse-
identity’, and it provides the Self with the experience of temporality or
narrativity. These two kinds of the Self’s identity, sameness (‘idem’) and
selfhood (‘ipse’), are in dialectical opposition (Ricoeur, 1990/1992, pp. 18,
21). According to Ricoeur’s conception, the selfhood is always related to the
Other and human agency is most fully developed in ethics and morality. Here
we see again that human agency is not ‘neutral’; it is ethical. It is evaluative of
the Self and of Others and it is responsive to Others (Ricoeur, 1990/1992,
pp. 165–168). Ricoeur introduces here the idea of ethics as ‘good life’.
Although in moral philosophy, the two notions ‘morality’ and ‘ethics’ are
often, though not always, used in an undifferentiated manner, Ricoeur makes
an important distinction between these notions. He establishes the priority of
ethics, that is, the Self’s aim of achieving the ‘good life’ with Others and with
truthful institutions (Ricoeur, 1990/1992, p. 172), over the normative concept
of obligations, that is, over prescriptions about what ‘ought’ to be done.
Ethical action involves humans in searching for what they think is good and
worthwhile for them, and in avoiding what they think will harm them.
Therefore, humans are engaged with their world in and through a wide
domain of the dialectic of acting and suffering. The Self attests the trust
that he/she has power to speak, to do things, to recognise oneself in one’s
narrative and to undergo various experiences including suffering. Ethics of
the Self is the ethics of ordinary life by means of which the Self aspires to
increase the fullness of being, relieving suffering and fostering prosperity.
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Epistemic trust 137
Humans make decisions about life-important issues that involve trust and
distrust; they imagine good and bad things and they take and avoid respon-
sibilities. In their search for what they think is good for them, mutual
recognition of one another plays a major role not only in ordinary life, but
also in politics and economy (Ricoeur, 2004/2005). Yet let us recall that the
concept of ‘good life’ is relational and that, as noted at the beginning of this
book, what some consider as good, just and worthwhile, others may call
misery, injustice, and even terror.
Ricoeur’s perspective on ethics in terms of the mutuality of the Self-Other
recognition corroborates that of Giambattista Vico (see Chapter 2), for whom
ethics was a fundamental feature of common sense based on the uniqueness of
humans, and not on systematised rules of a general and objective science of
morality. Ricoeur does not reject morality based on norms and obligations;
indeed, morality constitutes a legitimate and indispensable part in the actuali-
sation of ethical aims. However, according to Ricoeur’s hypothesis, ethics has
priority over morality and morality is thus subsumed under ethics (Ricoeur,
1990/1992, p. 170).
If we turn to Mikhail Bakhtin, regardless his preoccupations with contra-
dictions (e.g. Bakhtin, 1984a, p. 176) in language, and notwithstanding his
insistence on dialogical heterogeneities, Bakhtin trusted language totally
(Emerson, 2002). Despite living in an unjust world of the Soviet regime that
offered Bakhtin no reasonableness and no rewards, for Bakhtin, the individual
could live by his/her ideals and even make these ideals realistic and practical.
Although events in the external world were unjust, could not be trusted, and
provided no benefit for the individual, each individual could choose ‘a coherent
response to an event. In a word, it is this individual freedom over the response
that the ideal facilitates’ (Emerson, 2002, p. 23). Since Bakhtin had no faith in
the insecure world in which he lived, dialogical competencies such as trust and
responsibility were crucial for his existence.
Epistemic trust as a common ground for understanding and interpretation
in all forms that are discussed in this section is presented as a dialogical or
dialectic movement2 transforming relations between Selves and Others in
their search for intersubjectivity and for social recognition. This dialogical
or dialectic movement is based on the implicit presupposition of the Self and
Other that they live in a shared social world which underlies their ethical
aspirations for good and worthwhile living in and through life practices.
2
I discussed the differences between dialogicality and dialectic in Dialogicality and Social
Representations (2003a). In the present context this difference is not important because both in
dialectic and dialogicality the focus is on the dynamic of passing through and overcoming
oppositions between contradictory poles rather than on conceptual differences between these
two processes.
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138 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 139
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140 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 141
and doctrine. Examples of such leaders are Moses, Socrates, Gandhi, Marx or
Lenin. These leaders enchant their followers by the passion of conviction;
they propagate their ideas for the sake of these ideas rather than for the sake of
their own personalities. Thus we may say that these leaders influence masses
by the authority of their ideas. The second kind of leader, the totemic leader, is
represented by persons such as Stalin, Hitler, Napoleon or Mao. The doctrine
that these leaders spread is attached to them as individuals and they build a
cult around their personalities. Their charisma is tied to them as individuals
and they represent the symbol or the totem. Totemic leaders present them-
selves as ‘personal saviours of the masses’ (Moscovici, 1988/1993, p. 226).
These leaders have the political and the State power to destroy their oppo-
nents. They also create myth around themselves by claims that they can lead
masses out of crisis, arousing, at the same time, collective emotions that are
accompanied effectively by songs, marches and dances. Despite making a
theoretical distinction between Mosaic and totemic leaders, in practice,
authority and power can hardly be separated. Hypnotised by the authority
of a charismatic leader, the Self or the group may also view such leader as
powerful. In individuals’, groups’ and masses’ attempts to intersubjectively
share experiences with the leader and to identify with him/her, both authority
and power become intermingled. In practice, both charisma and power may
instigate group belongingness and social identification, which may imply that
the Self includes Others as part of his/her own Self. In this case the Self
considers him/herself as representing, or as belonging to, the group or
organisation in question (De Cremer and van Knippenberg, 2002). Such
intersubjective attempts to identify oneself with the authority and power
can lead humans on the road towards obedience and to renouncing their
agency and responsibility on the one hand, or to fanatic radicalisation, and
the loss of control over one’s judgement on the other hand.
But whether or not authority and power can be clearly differentiated in
practice, it is important to bear in mind that conceptually, they concern diverse
relations between the Self and Others. Power represents the Self–Other rela-
tions as I versus It, in which the Self exercises his/her force over the Other,
manipulating him/her and thus degrading the Other to a thing, to It. In contrast,
epistemic authority is a dialogical and symbolic relation between the I and You.
It is voluntary and it is based on the Self’s recognition of the Other’s supre-
macy, which could be intellectual, moral and otherwise.
5.2.1.2 The crisis of epistemic authority Since the time that Kojève wrote
his treatise, the amount of literature on authority has increased enormously
focusing on the examination of authority as a legal, political, historical and
educational phenomenon (e.g. Arendt, 1977a; Gordon, 1999; Nisbet, 1966;
Sennett, 1980; Wynne 1985). Ever since the late nineteen sixties and seventies,
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142 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
the scrutiny of the State establishments and private institutions led to protests in
various social strata against the old order of ‘authority’, which was often
conceived as a one-sided power, rather than as a voluntary recognition of
mutual trust. The growing democratisation of institutions in the post-War
world and liberalisation, for example, in education, politics, health and ther-
apeutic services, has encouraged the idea of an independent Self placing
emphasis on the rights of individuals and minority groups. This has been
accompanied by the demand for granting voices to citizens and for enabling
them to make their choices and decisions about matters that concerned them.
All this has undermined the status of the existing authorities and placed
emphasis on the rights of independent individuals and minority groups.
Relations of hierarchy in various spheres of social life have crumbled and
have become substituted by demands for equality and for autonomy of humans.
The idea that all humans are born with the capacity for rational thought and
judgement seems to have contributed to abandoning the epistemic authorities
of experts, for example, teachers, judges, policemen or politicians (Zagzebski,
2012).
The relations between the Self and Others have become particularly
strongly visible in professional services that were traditionally hierarchical,
such as teacher-pupil and doctor-patient. Trust in professionals and scientists
has eroded as suspicions concerning the hiding of knowledge about biologi-
cal risks, economy problems or ‘new deaths’ such as HIV/AIDS or
mad-cow disease (Lambert, 2005) became widespread. Control and forma-
lised accountability became viewed as a necessary contribution to democ-
racy, as a confidence-raising measure (e.g. Anderson and Dedrick, 1990),
and as a bureaucratic solution to the ‘legitimation crisis’ (Habermas, 1975).
Suspicion in advanced economic systems created the ‘audit society’ threa-
tening to turn into a ‘closed society’ (Power, 1999), although it is not known
whether auditing actually restores trust among professionals and clients
(Power, 2000). Suspicions of authority, for example, in doctor–patient com-
munication and in therapies, encouraged patients to make their own informed
choices about the kind of treatment they might wish to receive and the kind of
medication to which they will or will not consent. Such revolutionary
transformations have become apparent in all social relations that have been
historically hierarchical, such as those between parents and children,
between professionals and trainees and between experts and lay persons.
The struggle for social recognition was taken into the streets, and has
acquired a specific form: it was not a call for recognition of the Slave by
Masters; it was turned into a claim that there are no Slaves and no Masters
and that everybody is equal. Masters cannot be trusted with epistemic
authority because everybody was born equal and this also applies to episte-
mic issues.
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Epistemic trust 143
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144 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Symmetry
Sense of text for Sense of text for
teacher learner
Text
Teacher Learner
Asymmetry
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Epistemic trust 145
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146 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 147
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148 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
pointless if the author placed his/her creation into the drawer. The blog must be
seen and admired by Others.
Fame
Imaginary
Magic Power
Object of self-
satisfaction
Money
Ego Alter
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Epistemic trust 149
The breakdown of the dialogical triad may apply not only to the student but
also to the teacher. The teacher may attempt to involve him-/herself in
inauthentic communication with the student, whether attempting to deconstruct
authority as discussed earlier, or trying to obtain financial means for whatever
‘research’ is in fashion, which will lead to his/her personal promotion, and
otherwise. There could even be a mutual language game and pretend commu-
nication between educator and student. For example, both the educator and
student may play the servile game of professing the importance of journals with
‘high impact factors’ or of quoting pieces of work they do not respect, but
which will keep them in the club playing these games. At worst, they might
even interiorise these games and believe their own inauthentic communication
rather than admit the incoherence of their communication and activities.
Epistemic trust plays no role in these games; it is a game based on distrust
which, nevertheless, secures careers and promotions. This means that both the
teacher and student might submit themselves to servility knowing that the other
party is servile. In such non-communication or pretend communication, dialo-
gicality is reduced to the mutual recognition that both parties know that nobody
presents an authentic message and that all parties live an ‘alibi in being’
(Bakhtin, 1993). And this, too, may become a feature of the ‘new common
sense’ (Chapter 3), socially shared knowledge and joint action.
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150 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 151
5.3 Conclusion
In this chapter I have explored two basic and mutually overlapping forms of
epistemic trust/distrust. One form concerns the participants’ presupposition, or
the lack of it that they live in a temporarily shared social world comprising a
common ground for understanding and interpretation of their social reality. The
other form refers to the capacity and readiness of participants (or the lack of it)
to learn and accept knowledge and experience from one another. Let us con-
sider the most important characteristics of these two forms.
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152 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic trust 153
groups and therefore, the role of knowledge in learning turns ambiguous. The
concept of epistemic authority has become controversial and has been dis-
puted in politics, education, law, professional interactions, as well as in daily
life. Internet social networking presents an alternative to the traditional
epistemic authority. Scholars in media communication study both innovative
(formation of identity, self-actualisation) and harmful (risks, narcissistic self-
displays) features of media networking. Due to uncertainty and distrust in
modern education, the dialogical triangle Ego–Alter–Object often manifests
itself as a consumerist triangle, in which epistemic authority plays no role or
only a very small role. With her profound interest in political and social
phenomena, Hannah Arendt (1977a) pointed out that one should no longer
ask what authority is, but what authority was, because authority has disap-
peared from the modern world. According to her, tradition, religion and
authority are three concepts that are interconnected. Of these, authority,
more than others, secures stability. Although she viewed the crisis of author-
ity to be political in its origin, it has spread into other domains; it transformed
family relations and child-rearing practices. The question of epistemic trust
has become a societal issue.
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6 Epistemic responsibility
6.1 Responsibility
We may assume that the attribution of responsibility to the Self and Others,
such as praising and blaming, judging actions and interactions as good or bad
among other kinds of evaluations, are fundamental features of humanity.
Aristotle’s (1998) Nicomachean Ethics was probably the first philosophical
treatment of responsibility as part of his views on morality. We have seen that in
the dialogical philosophies of the nineteenth century (Chapter 4), the idea of
responsibility has been linked to concepts of freedom, will, the person and
selfhood. When accompanied by different adjectives, such as ‘causal’, ‘inten-
tional’, ‘legal’, ‘political’ and ‘moral’, the concept of responsibility displays its
heterogeneous nature and multifaceted meanings. In the broader context of
social science, discourses about responsibilities have become regular topics of
modernity. They show tremendous variability in their dynamic interdependen-
cies with societal phenomena of which they are part.
Discourses about responsibility are closely related to those about human
rights, particularly to the rights of minorities, alongside calls against discrimi-
nation of minorities. But further than that, the ‘rights mania’ has been viewed as
a phenomenon of the twentieth century (e.g. Donahue, 1990) continuing into
the present one. Consequently, balancing rights and responsibilities (O’Neill,
2002) has become an important requirement of civil society and democracy,
and this question has attracted public discussions. For example, how does one
distribute obligations and duties between citizens and institutions? How can
responsibilities of individuals, groups, collectives and associations be main-
tained in equilibrium with the demand for rights?
Yet rights and responsibilities are not always in opposition. Indeed, having
and accepting responsibilities can be viewed as one of the basic human rights.
This perspective was expressed in Czechoslovakia in the historical document
published in January 1977 and known as Charta 77. Charta 77 presented itself
as a non-political and free ‘open community of people of different convictions,
beliefs and professions who are all united by the will, both individually and
collectively, to observe that civil and human rights . . . are respected’ (Charta
154
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Epistemic responsibility 155
77, p. 12). One such basic right was responsibility, and Charta 77 insisted that
this deeply moral requirement must be attended to at both the individual and
collective levels.
Lack of responsibility of citizens in the past Soviet bloc led them to acquire
a mental state of ‘learned helplessness’ (Seligman, 1975). After the collapse of
the Soviet Union, one of the leading Russian psychologists Andrei Brushlinski
(1994) noted a general tendency of individuals not to feel responsible for their
actions. He thought that as a phenomenon that had been carried over from the
past Communist regime and controlled both personal and collective lives, it
gave individuals so few responsibilities that they interiorised an attitude of
learnt helplessness. One can recall in this context that a number of dissidents in
the past Soviet Union were attributed with diminished personal responsibility.
A psychiatric hospital during the Soviet regime became a place of sequestration
of dissidents (e.g. Grigorenko, 1982; Medvedev Z. A. and Medvedev R. A.,
1971) when, due to international pressure, it became too embarrassing for the
Soviet regime to keep dissidents in prison. Treating dissidents as mentally ill
rather than as criminals seemed to be, at least for a while, a more acceptable
manner of depriving them of personal freedom.
In the aftermath of the two totalitarian regimes in Europe, Nazism in 1945 and
Communism in 1989, the question of responsibility turned into an important
issue in public discourse. Not only did it refer to contemporary and future
responsibilities during the transition towards democracy but it also became
a burning question of coping with and understanding the past. How should
those be judged, who overtly or secretly supported the ancien régime, and were
responsible for the persecution and suffering of others? How should one counter-
balance revenge versus forgiveness, and accusations versus benevolence?
In social psychology, Fritz Heider (1958) conceived responsibility as a feature
of common sense, and particularly of what he called ‘a naïve analysis of action’.
He postulated five stages in common-sense analysis of responsibility according
to which the degree of responsibility for a particular event could be attributed in
various degrees to the human agent and to his/her environment. Some of these
stages parallel Piaget’s and Kohlberg’s study of the development of morality in
children as they pass from the stage of external responsibility based on the
judgement of damage they caused, to that of internal responsibility based on
their intentions. Heider’s proposals were important because they formulated
responsibility in terms of the interdependence between the person and his/her
environment. His naïve analysis of action included the question of ‘what ought to
be done’, that is, of obligations and duties, which are not dictated by a specific
other, but by the ‘superpersonal objective order’ (Heider, 1958, p. 219). Heider’s
concept of ‘the superpersonal objective order’, which could be viewed as
a parallel to George Herbert Mead’s ‘generalized other’ (1934), required humans
to achieve congruence between personal desires and objective order, and
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156 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
between justice and happiness. This would maintain and further extend the
‘supra-individual reality of value’ (Heider, 1958, p. 228). According to Heider,
the purpose of acting in order to maintain the ‘objective order’ was to achieve
harmony essential to life. For example, he viewed acting ‘beyond the call of
duty’ as acting for the objective order. Heider’s overall conception of action is
based on the interdependence between personal sentiments, desires and wishes,
on the one hand, and environmental forces, on the other.
Moral philosophy over centuries has been concerned with the systematic
analyses of right and wrong conduct, of justice, crime and benevolence.
These analyses tend to separate what ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ to be done,
and they defend criteria for what ‘ought’ and ‘ought not’ to be done against
other possibilities. In this sense, moral philosophy has been normative. From
the epistemological point of view, like science, moral philosophy has
involved analyses of disengaged, rigorous and homogeneous reasoning
(Taylor, 2011, p. 6).
Examples of the concepts of responsibility that I have just discussed show
that responsibility refers to legal, philosophical, political, economic and
personal meanings; they treat responsibility as a capacity based on reason;
they question whether an act in question should be classified as a crime or
whether it results from a mental disturbance; and whether diminished or
augmented responsibility could be due to external factors such as the envir-
onment, or to internal factors such as fear. Such examples hardly ever refer to
responsibility in social relations. As the philosopher John Lucas (1995,
pp. 235–236) explains, ‘It seems incongruous to talk about responsibility in
person relations. Responsibility is a cool virtue, giving reasons for what one
has done, and taking care that what one is going to do is rationally defensible.
Personal relations, on the other hand, are warm and emotional . . . whereas
responsibility, being concerned with reasons, deals with general features of
the case, not the unique particularity of the individual person’.
In contrast to this perspective of responsibility as a cool and rational virtue of
the individual, I shall explore the dialogically based epistemic responsibility,
which is derived from the ethical nature of the Ego–Alter relations.
1
The concept of epistemic responsibility (or ‘virtue epistemology’, or ‘intellectual epistemology’)
in philosophy and in the legal system is used with respect to holding beliefs and judging events
and their coherence. Greco and Turri (2013) use the adjectives ‘epistemic’, ‘cognitive’ and
‘intellectual’ synonymously. The field of epistemic responsibility is very broad and these authors
identify the nature and scope of intellectual virtues, questions that should be addressed, and
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Epistemic responsibility 157
nora: (shakes her head). You never loved me. You only thought how nice it was to
be in love with me.
helmer: But Nora, what’s this you are saying?
nora: It’s right, you know, Torvald. At home, Daddy used to tell me what he
thought, then I thought the same. And if I thought differently, I kept quiet
about it, because he wouldn’t have liked it. He used to call me his baby doll,
and he played with me as I used to play with my dolls. Then I came to live in
your house . . .
helmer: What way is that to talk about our marriage?
nora: (imperturbably) What I mean is: I passed out of Daddy’s hands into yours . . .
methods to be used. Although some of these issues could be relevant to epistemic responsibility
in dialogical epistemology, I shall refer to epistemic responsibility only in dialogical situations of
the Ego–Alter interdependence.
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158 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
2
In my view, Bakhtin’s appeal to the living world is sometimes over-interpreted as being too
closely associated with Husserl’s life-world (e.g. Eskin, 2000; also Bernard-Donals, 1994).
While certainly Bakhtin’s ‘living concrete environment’ (Bakhtin, e.g. 1981, p. 288) and
Husserl’s (1913/1962) ‘life-world’ belong to interactional epistemologies, they are based on
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Epistemic responsibility 159
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160 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
4
In Russian history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one example of a ‘samozvanets’
was the ‘false Dimitri’ in the Russian tsar family. Among Dostoyevsky’s characters, perhaps the
most impressive pretender was the anti-hero of the novel Demons, a mysterious person
Stavrogin. Stavrogin, overridden by guilt for his past crimes, confessed them to other persons
although he despised them and did not accept their judgement. However, he could not cope with
his guilt without dialogical encounters with others despite the fact that these encounters were for
him fearful (Bakhtin, 1984a, pp. 243–245).
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162 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
the Self is responsible for Others and for their freedom but that the Self is also
responsible for the responsibility of Others (Levinas, 1974/1998, p. 117).
Because ethics is the first principle of existence, it does not even raise the
question of whether we should care for Others or whether we have a duty to do
so. Humans do not choose to be responsible but responsibility for Others
precedes their own existence (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 114). This is why the
question of whether one ought to do something or not, which was raised, for
example, by Heider or by Bakhtin, is not Levinas’s question at all. This extreme
position with respect to asymmetry of responsibility also explains why, for
Levinas, trust is a redundant concept. Levinas is not at all concerned with trust
and he even states that because the Self has a total commitment to the respon-
sibility for Others, trust is no more than an idle issue (Levinas, 1974/1998,
p. 120). The Self is always responsible for Others whether trusting them or not.
The relation of the Self and the Other, and responsibility of the Self for the
Other, is highlighted above all in discourse. The ethics of dialogue pre-
conditions dialogue in the everyday sense of the word, that is, it precedes
the exchange of mutual dialogical contributions. In face-to-face dialogue the
Self cannot escape responsibility, because the human face is a speaking face
(Levinas, 1961/1969, e.g. p. 195), relating the participants in and through
speech and communication. Levinas states that the human face has the force
of immediacy; such an immediate relation is not reflective but it is an
unreflective sensibility. Unreflected sensibility is prior to any rational reflec-
tion: ‘it is not a blind reason and folly. It is prior to reason’ (Levinas, 1961/
1969, p. 138). The face is not something to observe but it is something that
commands the individual to engage with it (Levinas, 1974/1998, p. 97).
As Levinas puts it, ‘a face obsesses and shows itself’; it holds the individual
a hostage, because he/she must respond to a human face (Levinas, 1974/1998,
p. 158). Elsewhere Levinas concludes that ‘face to face is a final and irredu-
cible relation’. It is a unique relation and therefore it makes possible the
plurality of society (Levinas, 1961/1969, p. 291).
This perspective raises questions about what Levinas meant by demanding
so much from humans who experience injustice, wars, violence, distrust and
irresponsible activities from Others. To readers of Levinas’s texts, his ideas of
ethics and responsibility may appear as defying common sense in placing
such an extreme and one-sided responsibility on the Self. How can the Self
literally accept responsibility for the evil caused by Others, for the terrible
crimes of wars and terrorism? Some readers challenged Levinas’s ethics. For
example, if the face absolutely commands that one does not kill and does not
brutalise the Other, how can one explain atrocities of wars and terrorism
(Wright, Hughes and Ainley, 1988, p. 175)? Does it mean, these authors ask,
that humans either do not recognise the commandment, or that, despite its
recognition, they disobey the command?
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Epistemic responsibility 163
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164 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
This brings out a deeper meaning of Levinas’s claim that the Self is
infinitely responsible for the Other. There are Others who are perpetrators
and there are Others who are victims. The Self is responsible for both kinds
of Others, but in different ways. The Self must act against perpetrators in
the name of Justice and the Self must get engaged with the suffering of
Others.
Most of the time, however, humans do value their own life more than that
of the Other(s) and look after themselves rather than after Others. Yet despite
that, humans admire saintliness, that is, sacrificing the Self’s own life for that
of the Other(s). As Levinas (see Levinas in Wright, Hughes and Ainley,
1988, p. 173) states, saintliness is not an accomplishment: it is a value.
Humans celebrate those who sacrifice their lives in order to save Others,
whether in wars, terrorist attacks, earthquakes, rescuing illegal immigrants
from drowning, and from other disasters. Public ceremonies of remem-
brance, awards for bravery, monuments to unknown soldiers etc. all testify
to the celebration of this value. As an example, one can recall here remem-
brances, all over Europe, during the year 2014, of the heroes of the First
World War. The spectacular installation of 888,246 ceramic poppies at the
Tower of London represented all British military deaths during the
1914–1918 Great War (Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1 Tower of London with the display of 888,246 ceramic poppies
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Epistemic responsibility 165
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166 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic responsibility 167
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168 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
regime. Passivity, adaptation and compromises were the main ways of mud-
dling through the situation. Adopting the attitude that any attempt to change the
political situation would be in vain, and would only make their lives unbear-
able, the majority avoided responsibility for themselves and others.
For a minority of dissidents, responsibility for ‘living in truth’ and respon-
sibility for the welfare of their families were in conflict. As they decided that
their responsibility for ‘living in truth’ was their priority, they pursued it
despite the danger for themselves and their families. Václav Havel (1983/
1999), the dissident and a later President of Czechoslovakia and of the Czech
Republic, declared in the title of one of his essays that for dissidents, respon-
sibility was a fate. One of the main dissidents of that period, a historian
Jaroslav Mezník (2005) describes his relations with his daughter in a book
about his life during Communism. He had divorced his wife and his daughter
was living with her. Despite not living with him, his daughter was not even
allowed to attend the secondary education of her choice. Her life was ruined
by her father’s dissident activity and because of that she was not on speaking
terms with him for many years.
The Czech philosopher and dissident Jan Patočka, who died as a conse-
quence of long interrogation by the Communist police, was one of the initiators
of the protest movement Charta 77. Patočka called for the active protest of
citizens. He argued that the sense of the Charta 77 was the right of living in truth
and that this was the responsibility of each individual. Truth was not simply
a ‘theoretical question’ which could be attained by ‘objective methods’ and
which could be used by a person or institution (Patočka, 1977a/1990; 1977b/
1990). In its deepest sense, truth is an inner struggle of the individual for his/her
freedom of expression: it is a matter of authenticity. Patočka posed the ques-
tion: by defending the Charta 77, are we going to make the situation of society
worse? ‘Let us respond openly’, he argued, ‘so far any submission has never
ever led to improvement but only to deterioration of the situation. The greater
the fear and servility, the more the powerful dares and will dare’ to combat its
opponents [my translation] (Patočka, 1977b/1990, p. 39). Despite persecution
and the discomfort that it brought about (e.g. see Havel, 1985–1986/1999;
Mezník, 2005; Moscovici, 1979; Šimečka, 1984; Vaculík, 1983) dissidents
continued in their effort of living in truth. Much of the dissident literature
comments on dissidents’ relations with families, friends and acquaintances, on
their isolation and the marginalised status they created for themselves by being
dissidents. The only reward for that was the preservation of their dignity and
integrity. In the dissidents’ activities we can find a mixture of Bakhtin’s
perspective that there can be no ‘alibi in being’ as well as Levinas’s perspective
of taking responsibility for Others in defending freedom. The majority of
Others, however, swung between different responsibilities according to cir-
cumstances and the daily problems with which they had to cope.
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170 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
věra: but he [the traitor] has children and he has his fellow prisoner – so, he is
closer to you?
petr: I have discussed [with my grandfather] these matters with him many times.
There are people who have a lot of dignity and strong character. Simply, they
sacrifice all to what they believe in . . .
jitka: ‘If pressed, do you save your life or life of your co-prisoners?’
petr: ‘If pressed, do you prefer your own family or your co-prisoners?’
anna: It seems to me that all this is seeking an alibi. I think . . . that it is as . . .
I myself do not know what I would have done. I do not want to say that
I would have rushed into collaboration with KGB.
petr: The devil knows how we would have behaved. Like you, I also hope that
differently, but how do you know?
jirka: When I imagine myself in such a situation at that time, I would also take the
easiest way – true – I would not inform against my pals . . .
helena: There were many people who became communists only to save
themselves . . .
jan: Only because of that, to be allowed to go to University, that I would take it as
an extenuating circumstance . . . it was forbidden to intelligent people to get
to University so they became communists. My father was like that – so I take
it as an extenuating circumstance.
eva: No! One does not enter the Party only in order to obtain some advantages,
isn’t it? You must totally agree with the Party in order to become a member,
isn’t that so?
All focus groups invoked a moral conflict: was the traitor’s behaviour
justifiable considering that his choice was between his family and his fellow
prisoners?
The case discussed in focused groups presented a moral dilemma for which
there was no solution available in terms of general truths. The participants took
reflective attitudes on the whole case, raising questions, for example: What
have the media done about the case? What did the ancien régime mean to their
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Epistemic responsibility 171
parents and grandparents? The participants pointed out that they, themselves,
did not experience Communism, but that their parents and grandparents suf-
fered both during Nazism and Communism. Are there any circumstances that
allow the individual to kill another human being?
In discussing these dilemmas, the participants simultaneously expressed
different kinds of dialogical relations, such as
• the reference groups (e.g. ‘But we, who are all about eighteen years old, we
do not know what it was.’)
• moralities (e.g. ‘It is the question of moral responsibility or the question of
morality with respect to oneself.’)
• individual and collective memories (e.g. ‘My grandfather was a lawyer – He
has studied Law at Charles University – and he worked as a miner during
nineteen fifties; he had to move home eight times.’)
• commitments (e.g. ‘If I lived in the camp only because my father did not
become a member of the Party, I would consider my dead father to be an ideal
person, the best one who has ever lived.’)
• loyalties (e.g. ‘And clearly, each of us would betray someone who one does
not know and cause his death rather than the death of one’s own child, own
wife and own family.’).
These comments and reflections recall, on the one hand, Bakhtin’s and
Levinas’s concerns about the Self–Other responsibilities, but in daily experi-
ence of concrete and unique events; on the other hand, many other concerns
form part of the participants’ thoughts and reflections. For example, the ferocity
of the regime can wipe out dissident and protest movements. One may remem-
ber the so-called Heidrichiada, the period of dreadful persecutions of thousands
of Czech and Moravian people in 1941, after the assassination attempt on the
Nazi Reinhard Heidrich, the Acting Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia.
In the aftermath of Heidrich’s death brutal reprisals took place and any resis-
tance was crushed. During the most extreme Communist totalitarianism in the
1950s and early 1960s, to be a dissident meant death and therefore, at that time
any direct actions against the regime were exceptional. Dissidents could dis-
play a direct protest only during ‘normalisation’ when, while acutely suppres-
sing freedom, the regime no longer punished dissidents by sentencing them to
death.
Cristian Tileagă (2014) explored how epistemic responsibility was displayed
in public confessions of past Communist informers. His study takes us to
Romania where, like in other countries of the Soviet bloc, spying on others
and public distrust were fundamental features of daily life and social order.
Tileagă studied public confessions of those who, during the past Communist
totalitarianism, had been informers for the Romanian Communist Secret
Police. After the collapse of Communism, collaborators with the previous
regime were publicly accused of complicity and their names were openly
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172 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic responsibility 173
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174 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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Epistemic responsibility 175
The second kind of response was in the forefront of reports that were
prepared by Robert Francis (2013) (Queen’s Counsel), who chaired the public
inquiry of the case. Francis referred to the negative culture that developed in the
hospital and that tolerated poor standards and disengaged managerial and
leadership responsibilities. He concluded that this failure was partly due to
the staff’s focusing on reaching monetary targets rather than on giving care to
patients. Methods of evaluation of the service did not favour patients’ welfare
and avoided any responsibility for the high standards. Francis recommends
developing a common culture that puts patients first and that ensures transpar-
ency and safety, reporting of complaints, a statutory duty of candour on
providers and professional duty of candour on individuals. He also emphasises
the role of compassion and commitment from staff.
I have referred (Section 6.4.3) to Lois Shepherd’s (2003) views on
compassion. Although Shepherd considered compassion as inferior to
Levinas’s radical responsibility for the Other because it does not necessa-
rily lead to acting on behalf of the Other, compassion could be nevertheless
the beginning for instituting changes in a bureaucratic system. Compassion,
based on taking the perspective of the Other, compels the Self’s imagina-
tion of suffering of the Other. Imagining how the Other feels brings back
intersubjectivity of the Self–Other ethics and responsibility for the Other: if
I imagine how I would feel if I were in your situation, I would more likely
engage with you as a person. In that case, bureaucratic rules and criminal
charges would become redundant.
On a similar line of thought, the lack of dialogical imagination is associated
not only with the dehumanising of Others by reducing interaction among
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176 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
humans to rules and ‘effective systems’ but also with atrocities against human-
ity ranging from individual to collective murders. Unfortunately, this is what
we are facing all the time in a bureaucratised world. In his book on Poetic of
Imagining, Richard Kearney (1998, p. 232) refers to postmodern fiction in
which the murderer admits his unforgivable crime of not imagining what it was
for the victim to take away her life. The murderer comments on what was his
real crime: ‘Yes, that failure of imagination is my real crime, the one that made
the others possible . . . I could kill her because for me she was not alive.’
On human destruction on an unprecedented scale, Richard Kearney comments
on Claudio Magris’s book Danube, where he speaks about the lack of imagina-
tion by the Nazis and about the Holocaust. Specifically, with reference to
Eichmann he notes that ‘his lack of imagination had prevented him from seeing
the faces, the features, the expressions of real people behind the statistical lists
of victims’ (Kearney, 1998, pp. 232–233).
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Epistemic responsibility 177
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178 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
may warn them against such compromises? Again, the clash of epistemic
responsibilities dominates their lives and they may well decide ‘to sacrifice’
their conscience in order to get an immediate reward.
The dissident Czech philosopher Jan Patočka (1973a/1989) reminds us that
from ancient times humans have practised sacrifice. In ancient cultures and
ancient religions, humans, animals or artefacts were sacrificed in order to
appease the gods; the suffering of Jesus Christ has been represented as one
of the fundamental sacrifices for the redemption of humanity. Patočka
observed that a sacrifice in the true sense of the word presupposes a commit-
ment to something of a higher order, whether a god, an idea, truth or self-
integrity. He argued that a person makes a sacrifice for something where there
is an order of being, such as human versus object, or symbolic values versus
things of material desires. In discussing the dangers of technicisation in
science Patočka drew attention to the following paradox. On the one hand,
in a technicised or bureaucratised ‘iron cage’ institution, academics or pro-
fessionals who are acting according to their conscience, or by taking respon-
sibility for their actions, possibly sacrifice financial or other material rewards.
Bureaucracy has power to prevent promotions for non-compliance of a free
thinker, as well as to bestow promotions for compliance with rules. In making
a sacrifice by acting with conscience, one voluntarily gives something away
(career, money), but by doing so, one gains: one enriches one’s experience
and preserves self-respect and integrity. On the other hand, by submitting
oneself to bureaucratic rules as instruments that only pretend to be scientific is
not a sacrifice because the submission does not lead to any spiritual gain, only
to material gains, which are usually transient and unsatisfactory in the long
run. In these cases the experts, researchers and teachers sacrifice themselves,
or in the terminology of Patočka, they become sacrificial victims5 to these
practices by becoming instruments of bureaucracy themselves. This could
have at least two implications. First, if individuals have not totally lost ethical
values, then gaining material profits may be felt as a loss because they feel
frustration, anger, self-disrespect, guilt or shame or they search for excuses.
They are aware they have become instruments of this escalation of external
power and are fully conscious of the internal conflict they have created for
themselves. Another possibility is that individuals have closed themselves to
any spiritual values, and at least in the short term enjoy material profit for
which they betrayed their conscience. But following Patočka, a sacrifice for
a cause where there is no order in being, is not a sacrifice. If people submit
themselves to power without protest, they do not make a sacrifice, but they are
victims.
5
About the pun of the term ‘sacrificial victim’ see the translator’s note (Patočka, 1973a/1989,
p. 339).
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Epistemic responsibility 179
6.7 Conclusion
Epistemic responsibility is derived from the ethical nature of the Ego–Alter
relations and is one of the axioms of dialogical epistemology of daily living.
Like other dialogical axioms, it is relational. This is exemplified by
Rommetveit’s and Arendt’s cases, which show that both the assumed epis-
temic equality and inequality between the Self and Other can entail epistemic
responsibility or its denial. This is due to the nature of relational concepts
derived from axioms of dialogical epistemology. Relational concepts are
parts of holistic networks, in which oppositions, e. g. equality and inequality
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180 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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7 The dialogical mind in professional practices
181
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182 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 183
1
Jacques Souriau drew to my attention that more than thirty years later Diderot wrote an addition
to his letter in which he acknowledged his earlier errors concerning his views on the mental
capacities of blind people. Instead, he then described with admiration mental capacities of a blind
young woman who ‘with wonderful memory, and strength of mind as wonderful, what progress
she would have made in science if she had had a longer life’ (Diderot, 1749/1916, p. 157).
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184 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 185
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186 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 187
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188 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Figure 7.1 Dynamic relations between external dialogues and internal dialogues
Vege invites Ingerid to go out. Ingerid eagerly responds to the invitation. Vege,
in guiding Ingerid’s hands to reach for the rucksack, structured the beginning of
the narrative sequence. He describes what happened:
When reaching the rucksack Ingerid explores the rucksack in a tactile manner and then
(00:13) she moves her head away from the partner, and freezes the position of her head.
Her facial expression looks concentrated, she seems to hesitate, think. What cause
Ingerid think [sic]? A main aspect is that this scenario, just entered, is based on her
tactile bodily experienced perspective of the world. The partners share expressions in
a tactile dialogical manner, through touch, movements and bodily emotional expres-
sions. And the contextual elements are based on her previous life-experiences. (Vege,
2009, p. 70)
The rucksack is a contextual artefact that Ingerid already knows because it was
used previously during outings with Gunnar Vege and it always contained some
food, usually an orange. At 00:17 Ingerid’s
right hand leaves the hand of her partner, expresses a gesture with an ‘orange shaped
hand’ towards her cheek, and then smiles and laughs. It is possible, by observation of her
facial expressions, to suppose that the thinking process has a kind of a narrative
structure. It looks like the thinking is progressing towards an emotional state, a kind
of tension. (Vege, 2009, p. 70)
Vege observes Ingerid’s response. He comments on her expression to assure her
that he is attentive to her, and adds, using touch gestures ‘LIKE-YESTERDAY’
(00:22). Ingerid attends to Vege, who directs his body towards the rucksack and
signs to Ingerid: ‘FIRST-FEEL-OPEN-THE LID . . . COME – COME’ (00:29
and 00:33). Gunnar Vege described this situation:
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 189
When he has signed ‘OPEN-THE LID’, slowly and distinctly, her under lip moves
outwards. His movements towards and the touch of the rucksack are performed more as
questions than as a start of ‘opening the rucksack’. When touching the sack, he does not
open the top immediately. He starts to put focus on the next natural action to share;
opening the first buckle of the top. The partner pulls on the buckle as a question and
Ingerid smiles as both an expression showing that she understands his intention and
agrees. Her partner shares every small action by the use of tactile bodily expressions in
a distinct sequential manner. (Vege, 2009, p. 71)
Opening of the first buckle slows down the mutual action and creates an
irregular rhythm, which seems to affect Ingerid (00:51) as she moves
her right hand to the next buckle, and the other hand is ‘glued’ to the partner’s acting left
hand. Simultaneously she moves her head downwards and then further to the right, away
from her partner, like hesitating, thinking again. Her partner focuses on moving to
the second buckle. He stops and asks her what to do with this one. It seems like she is
able to reflect, and still be mentally aware of her partner’s action. She answers ‘OPEN’
by pulling on the buckle, and again freezes her head position a bit. Then she both smiles
and expresses the ‘orange shaped hand’-gesture towards her cheek (01:02). This internal
dialogue seems to consist of the same progression as the first one; from an intense state
of concentration towards a kind of a state of tension, and then when smiling and
expressing a gesture. The different elements in this inner dialogue again might be
supposed to be experienced in a kind of a narrative structure. (Vege, 2009, p. 71)
Vege maintains that the whole sequence shows joint attention of both partners,
correct attribution of the intentions of dialogical contributions, and builds up
the dialogical tension.
The video also captures Ingerid smiling. Sometimes she smiles momentarily,
sometimes this is barely noticeable, but sometimes the video shows a big smile.
For example, a big smile occurred when Gunnar was talking with Ingerid about
an orange. Figure 7.2 shows that occasion at time 01:10, when a big smile is
accompanied by a vocal sound, as happy.
7.1.1.4 Reconstructing shared experience One day Ingerid and Vege were
fishing for crabs and they were sharing emotions while feeling crabs moving in
their palms and then on a bare forearm (Souriau, Rødbroe and Janssen, 2008,
p. 23). These included sensations and movements of a crab crawling on arms
and hands, excitement of what happened on the arm and location of movements
of the crab on the body.
The following day Ingerid and Vege talked about their past shared experi-
ences, including the episode with the orange (see above). Souriau, Rødbroe and
Janssen (2008, pp. 32–33) describe the situation: ‘Suddenly, in the middle of
“The Orange” narrative, Ingerid stood up. She took a turn in the dialogue with
her left hand moving up the right arm, exactly as she had expressed the gesture
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190 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
Figure 7.2 A big smile accompanied by a vocal sound at time 01:10, as happy
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 191
to take the perspective of the person with CDB, to recreate the atmosphere of
joint experience and to provide space for Ingerid’s self-expression. As Souriau,
Rødbroe and Janssen (2008, p. 33) note, the traces of these experiences become
stabilised and manifest themselves as meaningful signs which the participants
share.
In conclusion, CDB lays bare the essential features of dialogical epistemol-
ogy by highlighting the unique capacities of the dialogical mind in the most
difficult conditions of communication and life experiences (Nafstad, 2015;
Souriau, 2001; 2013). The uniqueness of the Self–Other interdependence in
CDB is particularly discernible in Vege’s and Berteau’s research. They both
explain that it is because of the uniqueness of individuals involved in their
studies that the single case approach, to which we shall turn later, was vital for
success in their work.
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192 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
2
The transcript was made by Sarah Collins.
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 193
a: (nods)
.huhh funny
m: after
m: (smiling)
(pointing on board)
(vocalisation)
a: (laughing)
m: (smiles)
(pointing on board)
(vocalisation)
a: (smiling)
m: (smiles)
a: (tuts) went ho::me
m: aye
a: (nodding)
(tuts) I missed all the fun as if speaking to herself
m: (laughing)
a: what did you do eliciting the response from M
m: (pointing on board) (pointing on board)
(vocalisation) (vocalisation)
a: (smiles)
.
.
.
a: .hhh.hhh ye::s :tell me more eliciting response from M
m: (laughs)
m: (smiling) (pointing on board)
a: put hhh .hhh
m: (smiling) (pointing on board)
a: (smiles)
m: (knowingly)
a: a spi::de::r voicing M’s word
m: (looking on board) (laughs)
a: (looking on board) (laughs)
Mm I think I know what’s coming as if talking to herself
m: (pointing on board) (laughs) (laughs)
a: in::: (in tone of anticipation) voicing M’s utterance
m: (nods)
a: Judith::’s be:d!
m: (nods)
a: ((tuts)).hhhh (.) does she like spiders (serious tone) commenting on M’s message,
m: (shaking head) (pointing on board) which expresses dislike of spiders
(laughing) (vocalisation) in the culture they share
We can also note that the different voices that M is using to co-construct the
narrative with A refer to different kinds of shared knowledge: cultural (e.g. not
liking spiders), personal (e.g. appreciating emotional features of the story),
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194 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 195
invokes different voices but that diverse voices may converge and conflict with
one another. In the following example Grossen and Salazar Orvig show that
the therapist and the mother in the interview presented an absent voice of the
teacher and the reformulations of that voice in the actual discourse. In the
extract, in lines 1–3 the mother uses the term ‘brusque’ that had been first used
by the absent teacher. In the actual discourse it was reintroduced by the
therapist’s reformulation of the mother’s utterance in line 6 below, and then
addressing the child in line 93:
1 M: (. . .) the teacher also told me (. . .)
2 M: (. . .) he is quite brusque also in his- in his- in his
3 behaviours he’s a::
4 T: [a direct]
5 M: [a little bit] excited, a bit direct yeah yeah +
6 T: so he ı̓ s brusque and then it provokes reactions’
7 M: from the others’
8 M: yeah (T looks at Alain)
9 T: (to Alain) how do they react when you are brusque’
This example shows that the term ‘brusque’, which the mother used with
reference to the previous teacher’s discourse, was integrated into the therapist’s
discourse, but it did not show any enunciative position, that is, it did not
indicate who was epistemically responsible for the meaning expressed by
that term. However, the therapist’s expression ‘so he is brusque and then it
provokes reactions’ implicitly requires the mother to take a position with
respect to that expression. Lastly, the therapist addresses the child using the
term ‘brusque’ as if it was the therapist’s chosen term, while the reference to the
teacher is now completely lost.
In sum, the speaker may simultaneously take several positions, for example,
as an author of his/her utterance, as someone who responds to the interlocutor,
as someone who echoes an opinion of his/her parents or of a political party,
or as someone who is anxious about the opinion of his/her interlocutor.
The richness of styles, genres, as well as of stereotypes expressed in and
through the diversity of voices would not be possible if speakers did not rely
upon cultural, institutional, socially shared and common-sense knowledge.
3
Norms of transcription in the extract:
() Parentheses are used to give contextual information, such as laughter, telephone rings,
sigh, etc.
:: stretching of a sound
+ pause of a half-second
[. . .] a part of the turn has been cut for reasons of space restriction
− interruption
̓ indicates a falling intonation
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196 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 197
different ‘truths’ and none of them could count as a definite truth because they
were dealing with a process never to be completed (Bakhtin, 1981). Therefore,
rather than talking about a ‘secret’, the authors turned to the term ‘selective
disclosure’, which captured more fully the complexities of family communica-
tion as a multifaceted process in time, allowing for the creation of an open
dialogical space. Questions could be asked within that space which would
permit the voicing of certain issues while accepting that other issues could
not be exposed (Rober, Walravens and Versteynen, 2012, p. 538). The authors
conclude that selective disclosure takes place in one form or other in all
families and that it would not be correct to interpret selective disclosure as
a pathological response to revealing secrets. Rather than aiming at a total
disclosure, the therapist should facilitate a space for dialogical communication.
Another case study on revealing and concealing secrets was carried out by
Flåm and Haugstvedt (2013), who examined caregivers’ awareness of chil-
dren’s first signs of sexual abuse, circumstances facilitating and hindering such
awareness, and trust/distrust in relation to such circumstances. The disclosure
of a child’s signs in their study was largely determined by dialogical sensitivity
of the trusted caregivers to the child’s report leading to unveiling of the event,
in particular if that involved another trusted person. In such compromising
cases the child needed a great deal of encouragement from the adult. Without
such encouragement his/her answers did not lead to disclosure.
In contrast, when the trusted caregiver posed thoughtful questions and so
provided space for intersubjective understanding, the child used this opportu-
nity for disclosure. The difficulty of revealing such formidable secrets is due to
the fact that the child, abused by a trusted person like a parent or a neighbour,
might feel responsible for the abuse. The child might be frightened for possibly
causing harm to others, of not being taken seriously and so on. Moreover, the
adult might not be a good listener, might disbelieve the child and be altogether
lacking in dialogical sensitivity. Flåm and Haugstvedt (2013) provide numer-
ous instances showing the caregiver’s disregard for the child’s information, in
particular if the child is unable to speak directly about the incident and if he/she
uses indirect questions like: ‘Do I HAVE to go to uncle?’ or ‘Do I HAVE to
wash the dishes even though I get paid?’ The adult may interpret these ques-
tions as a temporary reluctance, unwillingness or laziness. The authors find that
in such cases the child does not repeat the request, and only after a long delay
new information comes out through other sources. They point out that normal-
ising the child’s request, correcting the child and not asking any further ques-
tion suppresses the child’s agency and stops him/her from pursuing a dialogue.
In contrast, the caretaker’s dialogical sensitivity provides opportunity for his/
her action. Flåm and Haugstvedt (2013) provide another example: Mother was
about to leave for a night shift and the daughter asks: ‘Is it YOU, mommy?
Do you HAVE to leave for work?’ Mother found the daughter’s voice strange
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198 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
and terrified and shortly found out that her husband was abusing their daughter.
The authors conclude that the adult’s open dialogical attunement provided
space for the mother’s recognition of the problem.
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 199
from the speaker and listener. During the dialogue the participants continuously
shift and transform meanings and therefore open the dialogue to new possibi-
lities of understanding. In a therapeutic team of the Open Dialogue Approach,
moreover, each member expresses his/her perspective, thus giving credence to
‘polyphonic’ relations (Bakhtin, 1984a). Finally, openness means that sessions
are not pre-planned, which allows for sharing of the emotional experience of
healing between the therapeutic team and the patient. Spontaneity of commu-
nication of the involved parties facilitates the creation and usage of new words
to express emotions more accurately using everyday language with which all
participants are familiar. Reflection generated in and through multivoiced
dialogue encourages the pursuit of detailed comments from each person in
the team. Most importantly, the patient experiences that he/she is worthy of
being listened to.
Being theoretically rooted in Bowlby’s concept of attachment rather than in
Bakhtin’s dialogism, Fonagy and his colleagues (e.g. Bateson and Fonagy,
2010; Fonagy and Allison, 2014) have developed the concept of mentalising,
that is, the capacity to understand Others’ and one’s own mental states and
activities (see also Chapter 5). Mentalising is a social process that facilitates the
individual to achieve a sense of being understood as a unique being: ‘Feeling
understood in therapy restores trust in learning from social experience (epis-
temic trust) but at the same time also serves to regenerate a capacity for social
understanding (mentalizing)’ (Fonagy and Allison, 2014, p. 378). Fonagy and
his colleagues study patients with borderline personality disorder. They pro-
pose that the therapeutic process proceeds along three communication systems.
The first system is based on the patient’s learning of the content relating to his/
her problem. In and through interaction with the therapist the patient examines
issues relating to his/her disorder, which enables mutual understanding of the
therapist and patient, and thereby the patient feels personally acknowledged by
the therapist. This is important in order to reduce the patient’s ‘epistemic
hypervigilance’, to generate epistemic openness and to facilitate the growth
of epistemic trust. The second communication system creates a change in the
quality of interpersonal communication. The patient is more open because the
therapist gives him/her the feeling of social recognition and shows willingness
to understand the patient’s perspective. The patient is ready to listen to the
therapist which leads to the development of a more trusting relationship.
As Fonagy and Allison (2014, p. 377) put it, in and through social interchanges
patients ‘experience themselves as an agent in the mind of their therapist – they
“find themselves in the mind of the therapist”’. The final communication
system concerns the re-emergence of social learning. Better understanding of
social situations through mentalising increases the patient’s capacity for
becoming aware of sensitive responses from others and of being understood.
This opens up the patient’s capacity for new learning in a broader context
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200 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
beyond the therapeutic sessions and enables the patient to form more inter-
personal relations with others. As the patient’s hypervigilance decreases,
his/her capacity for epistemic trust and social understanding increases beyond
the therapeutic session.
Originally, Fonagy and his colleagues developed the mentalising-based
therapy in order to understand and treat borderline personality disorder.
However, Fonagy emphasises that the principle of mentalising is embedded
in many other therapies. Mentalising may be the common factor in different
forms of therapy regardless of the modalities in which it takes place.
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 201
and dialogicality that could cope with the complexities and heterogeneities
of the dialogical mind. Some proposals attempt to create methods that would
be more dynamic than the traditional ones. For example, Lehman (2012)
proposes a dialogical sequence analysis in order to study clients’ utterances
in psychotherapy. Another proposal for a specific method, called Dialogical
Methods for Investigation of Happening of Change in family therapy,
is offered by Seikkula, Laitila and Rober (2012). Their method is based on
the categorisation and qualities of responsive dialogues and on the micro-
analysis of topical episodes. Salgado, Cunha and Bento (2013) provide an
extensive review of dialogical methods and draw attention to some progress
that has been achieved in the field. All the same, the authors are critical
of the limitations of dialogical methods, and in particular of their static
nature, and of the difficulties involved in bringing them in line with more
systematic research practices. These authors focus specifically on conceptua-
lising the Self and they propose a new micro-genetic method to study the
multiplicity of Self-positionings using the theoretical framework of the
Ego–Alter–Object.
Gillespie and Cornish (2014) attempt to avoid the rigidity of fixed proce-
dures by proposing an analysis of dialogue based on what they call ‘sensitis-
ing questions’. The meaning of utterances is dependent on the local contexts
in which they are expressed, and sensitising questions facilitate the interpre-
tation of dialogical utterances in their specific contexts. The authors are
inspired by Ragnar Rommetveit’s (1983) demonstration of multiple interpre-
tations of a single utterance ‘Mr. Smith is mowing the lawn’, which depend on
the context in which the utterance is expressed. Gillespie and Cornish’s
(2014) point of departure is the situated and intersubjective nature of utter-
ances. An utterance is always directed at someone and its meaning expresses
the relation between the participants and their local contexts. In order to
facilitate the interpretation of a single utterance the authors propose six
sensitising questions with sixteen sub-sections. Applying the tripartite dialo-
gical relation, the Ego (speaker 1 directing the message at someone)–Alter
(speaker 2 interpreting the message)–Object (relevant context), the authors
analyse in considerable detail all possible interpretations of the utterance.
By doing this they facilitate, rather than formalise, a method and make it
apposite to the assumptions of dialogism.
Most proposals presuppose that dialogical methods can be developed by
overcoming weaknesses of the existing empirical methods and in particular
by taking into consideration the multiplicity of Self-positions and by inter-
pretations of contexts in which dialogically based studies take place.
By attempting to devise dialogical methods, researchers refer to and consider
essential features of dialogicality, even if they do not succeed in applying
them completely.
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202 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 203
possession but instead they possess us: they constitute our ways of thinking
and seeing the world. In communication involving people with deafblindness,
the experienced professional or a carer sees instantaneously that communica-
tion between two persons is jointly co-created, or, in more difficult cases,
he/she presupposes the possibility of co-creation of communication. He/she
knows from experience that language and communication start and develop
from the interaction between the person with deafblindness and the carer.
Of course, one can always argue, as Descartes did, that perception can
deceive us. While this is true, humans always perceive and represent the
world around them from a particular perspective. One of the researchers and
carers for people with CDB, Paul Hart stated in a personal communication
how difficult it was for him to convince his colleagues in the Department of
Psychology. He showed them video-tapes involving carers and people with
CDB and he claimed that they were communicating. His colleagues said, ‘all
I see are people moving their hands about – I don’t see any communication
taking place’. The fact that Paul Hart saw communication rather than moving
hands was given by the fact that he saw the world from the perspective of
dialogical epistemology.
In sum, some humans view Others as cognitive beings or information
processors searching for ‘objective’ information. Some humans view Others
as dialogical and ethical beings. Since dialogical professionals and carers view
Others as dialogical and ethical beings, they directly see the communicative
interdependence of Selves–Others.
Equally, if the researcher presupposes the triangularity of the Ego–Alter–
Object, multivoicedness and so on, then he/she does not design a study to test
for the existence of these ‘givens’. If the dialogical researcher presupposes
that multivoicedness is a characteristic of human language, then he/she does
not design a test to prove that multivoicedness exists (e.g. Akkerman et al.,
2006) and does not devise a coding scheme to prove the existence of diverse
voices. Rather, presupposing multivoicedness, he/she studies forms and
qualities of multivoicedness in different conditions of a unique Self–Other
interdependence. Carers and researchers like Hart do not ask how to make
multivoicedness apparent in empirical data and what techniques can research-
ers use to empirically prove its existence. Instead, they see it as part of reality
like Mikhail Bakhtin when analysing Dostoyevsky’s novels. Bakhtin did
not pose the question whether multivoicedness exists. Presupposing it, he
showed its properties and specificities. Bakhtin presupposed that polyphony
(multivoicedness) and plurality of consciousnesses were the chief features
of Dostoyevsky’s novels, and he examined the ways by means of which
Dostoyevsky mastered his art. Bakhtin viewed the plurality of voices that
remain independent, autonomous and unfinished (Bakhtin, 1984a, e.g. pp. 6,
21, 284). Independent voices are in a constant tension, but they always remain
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204 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 205
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206 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
example, she found that villagers, who took part in her research, represented
mentally ill patients as having no affects and willpower. Gender and sex
relationships played no role in these villagers’ social representations expressed
in a verbal discourse. The researcher’s task is to search for those aspects of the
context that participants select or deselect, as well as for signs of those features
that are unconsciously present in participants’ social representations.
In the early twentieth century, Frederic Bartlett’s research methods, too,
were based on holistic assumptions about human actions. Wagoner (2015)
describes Bartlett’s methodological approach in terms of a number of presup-
positions, focusing on the following:
psychological qualities as superior to quantities
psychological control as preferable to physical control
human reactions should be treated in holistic manner
single case studies as preferable to group probabilities
types as preferable to trait differences
insight overrules prediction
theory-building should be systematic
thinking is preferable to the accumulation of facts
These Bartlett’s methodological presuppositions, based on holistic and
dynamic approach to human conduct, were in accord with other interactional
theories in the early years of the twentieth century. One could augment these
considerations by detailing methodological ideas in the classic studies of Jean
Piaget, Albert Michotte and others who made notable contributions to psycho-
logical knowledge based on single case studies and naturalistic observations.
Disputes about the appropriateness of inductive and single case studies in
psychology have persevered since the nineteenth century (for excellent reviews
of these issues, see Salvatore and Valsiner, 2010; Wagoner, 2015). However, it
was in the 1950s that Western social psychology conferred an ultimate scien-
tific label on the experimental method based on induction. As a result, methods
of invention and of the discovery of new phenomena turned into methods of
proving statistical relations between dependent and independent variables
(Moscovici and Marková, 2006, p. 257). In this situation, single case studies
based on the uniqueness of interdependent relations between subjects and
objects could play no scientific role. Not only the experimental method based
on induction defined the whole field of research in social psychology, but in
the aftermath of 1950s other kinds of methods lost respectability. The influ-
ential methodologist Donald Campbell (1975) remembered that time when
speaking about his own earlier thoughts about single case studies. He pointed
out that his earlier dogmatic view expressing the ‘caricature of single-case
study approach’ (Campbell, 1975, p. 179) was later corrected when he
changed his view about daily thinking, common sense and naturalistic obser-
vation. While common sense could misguide us, he maintained, ‘it is all that
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 207
we have. It is the only route to knowledge – noisy, fallible, and biased though
it be. We should be aware of its weaknesses, but must be willing to trust it’
(Campbell, 1975, p. 179).
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208 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
and therefore this issue, throughout the history of science and professional
disciplines, has been considered to be of vital importance.
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The dialogical mind in professional practices 209
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210 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
serve such purpose (Salvatore and Valsiner, 2010). Nevertheless, such studies
must show their ‘clear axiomatic stand’ (Valsiner, 2014, p. 156).
7.3 Conclusion
Dialogical professional practices discussed in this chapter are all based on the
Ego–Alter interdependence as an unbreakable ethical unit. All axioms dis-
cussed in these professional practices like intersubjectivity, the search for
social recognition, imagination, multivoicedness, epistemic trust and episte-
mic responsibility are derived from the Ego–Alter interdependence. In non-
problematic communication these axioms are present implicitly without
speakers even being aware of them. In contrast, in problematic communica-
tions like those involving people with deafblindness and with cerebral palsy,
these axioms must be explicitly negotiated and acknowledged for commu-
nication to take place.
Dialogical axioms lead to the development of dialogical concepts, such as
resilience and dignity (Nafstad, 2015), hyper-dialogue (Souriau, 2013), and
dialogised heteroglossia (Grossen and Salazar Orvig, 2011). Dialogical concepts
link together past and anticipated discourses. While the dialogical approach has
been effective in therapeutic practices, further challenges lie ahead. For example,
dialogical scholars have not yet started exploring communicative disorders that
appear to violate dialogicality, like autism, Asperger syndrome or pervasive
developmental speech disorders, and it is even unclear how questions about
these conditions could be raised. No doubt, such disorders will have to explore
the relations between the dialogical mind and the brain.
Finally, if one adopts dialogical epistemology, one poses professional and
research questions in terms of this epistemology. This implies that therapeutic
and research methods, too, are postulated in terms of this epistemology. This
further means that dialogical methods cannot be developed by improving tradi-
tional methods of non-dialogical epistemology by making them more dynamic,
less formal and otherwise. Instead, the point of departure of dialogical methods is
the Self-Other interdependence as an irreducible axiom. It appears that single
case studies are most apt to examine features of this interdependence in their
historical, cultural and social contexts. Generalisation is a persistent question
with respect to single-case studies. One can suggest that theoretical general-
isation showing ‘a clear axiomatic stand’ in a specific study is likely to have
implications for other studies based on the same axiomatic stand, but carried out
in different contexts.
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Conclusion to Part II
In this book I have proposed that dialogical epistemology is based on the ethical
nature of the Ego–Alter (Self–Other(s)) and the Ego–Alter–Object (Self–
Other–Object) interdependencies which have their roots in the culturally and
historically based common-sense themata.
211
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212 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
• The ethical nature of the Self–Other interdependence does not imply saintli-
ness of humans. Indeed, all humans experience and create evil, cruelty and
malpractices in daily living that they inflict on one another. They do this very
often in the name of the highest values of science, religion, beliefs of grace,
and political justice. Equally, humans experience examples of extraordinary
moral strength and sacrifice of the Self for Others. In referring to humans as
ethical beings I suggest that dialogical epistemology builds on the capacities
of humans
• to evaluate their own and Others’ thoughts and actions
• to imagine how Others think and evaluate the Self’s and Others’
thoughts and actions
• to aim at achieving the ‘good life’ with Others and in just institutions
(Ricoeur)
• to make choices and judgements concerning their own and Others’
capacities
• to form relations of trust and distrust as well as to break them
• to take and avoid responsibilities
• Epistemic trust and responsibility are vital axioms based on the Self-Other
relations. Communication could not take place if humans did not trust their
shared common ground and if they were not willing to attend to and learn
from others. Epistemic trust goes hand in hand with the Self’s epistemic
responsibilities for his/her actions in relation to Others. Epistemic respon-
sibility, as we have seen in examples from Bakhtin and Levinas, ranges
from symmetric to asymmetric; these forms can be conceived as
complementary.
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Conclusion to Part II 213
• Dialogical methods follow the idea of uniqueness and integrity, i.e. the
wholeness of humans. This implies that dialogical methods do not search
for generalisations leading to ‘universal truth’ and ‘universally valid knowl-
edge’ based on inductive approaches. Instead, dialogical methods build on
the idea of theoretical or analytic generalisation that is based on the idea of
the uniqueness and integrity of humans in single case studies.
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214 Dialogicality as epistemology of daily life
each interaction between the client/patient on the one hand, and the practi-
tioner or therapeutic team on the other hand. This is why theoretical
generalisation is particularly important in dialogical professional practices
like education, psychotherapy, and practices involving the care and/or cure
of, people with disorders of language and communication.
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Cambridge University Press
978-1-107-00255-5 — The Dialogical Mind
Ivana Marková
Index
More Information
Index
Arendt, Hannah, 139, 140, 141, 145, 153, 157, circle returning within itself, 101, 147
158, 179, 180, 215, 222 Cohen, Hermann, 103, 113
Aristotle, 16, 28, 36, 38, 39, 41, 45, 59, common sense, 4–5, 39–41, 206
140, 154 as bon sens, 41–42, 48
authority, 139–140, 167 as sens commun, 42
dialogical, 141, 145, 212 ethical nature, 57–58
epistemic, 138, 139, 144, 146, 152–153, 158 idiocy of, 76, 88
in education, 143–145 Kant, Immanuel, 58–59
power, 140–141, 144, 163 metaphor, 55
axioms of dialogical epistemology, 95, 106, pragmatism, 67–70
179, 190, 200, 214 Public Understanding of Science, 84–85
science, 64–66
Bachelard, Gaston, 65 Scottish School of, 59, 67, 68
Bacon, Francis, 45–46, 67 senses, 41–42
Bacon, Roger, 117 Toblerone model, 123
Bakhtin, Mikhail, 1, 3, 103, 104, 105, communication
110–111, 133 alibi in being, 149, 159
alibi in being, 149, 159, 168 cerebral palsy, 192–194
dialogical imagination, 113–115 co-creation of, 203
dialogism, 3, 105, 110 congenital deafblindness, 203
dialogised heteroglossia, 194 dialogical, 94, 103, 128, 134, 197, 211
fusing with the Other, 185 doctor-patient, 142
multivoicedness, 203–204 heterogeneous, 152, 159
non-alibi in being, 105 imaginary, 123
responsibility, 158–160, 180 multifaceted, 197
trusting language, 137 never neutral, 120
Baldwin, James Mark, 11, 104, 105, 216, 228 non-dialogical, 119
Benedict, Ruth, 22, 75, 101 non-problematic, 181, 210, 213
Berdyaev, Nikolai, 21–22 open dialogue, 198
Bergson, Henri, 32 parasocial, 124
Berlin, Isaiah, 53, 54, 213 pretend, 149
Brazil, 119 problematic, 210
Rio de Janeiro, 207 responsibility for, 159, 180
Bruno, Giordano, 44, 117 symbolic gestures, 49
bureaucratisation, 4, 12, 95, 172, 173, 179, 180 systems, 199–200
bystander, 166 trust and responsibility, 105, 212
uniqueness of, 179
Cartesian method. See Descartes, René with absent Others, 109
Cassirer, Ernst, 15, 22, 43 compassion, 166, 175
cerebral palsy, 192–194 Comte, Auguste, 63–64
Charlie Hebdo, 165 confession, 114, 115, 153, 171–172
Charta 77, 154, 168, 219, 233 dialogicality of, 95
242
Index 243
244 Index
Index 245
246 Index