Rhetoric 100/Philosophy 131: Philosophies of Dialogue and the Interpersonal
"In Search of the Ideal"
Fall, 1999
Professor Allen Scult
The course will focus on the question: What is communication like when it's at its best, when we are most effectively utilizing our capacity as human beings to communicate? In Rhetoric and Communication, we often speak of communicating at the level of the "inter-personal" to identify foundational concepts, while we describe the ideal as "Dialogue." Though these terms come from different academic traditions and so reflect somedifferent ways of thinking and talking about things, I believe these different versions of the ideal can be brought into interesting and fruitful conversation, and so I have joined them together in this course. This "joining together" not only gives us a wide variety of perspectives from which to draw in our search for the ideal, but will also give us the opportunity to explore, better understand, and contrast various methodological approaches to the study of human communication.
In the course of our inquiry we will look at the nature of human communication as it affects our achieving that ideal with one another: What about that way we communicate impedes us from achieving the ideal? What facilitates it? What ways are open to us to "improve upon" the nature of human communication as it is "given" to us. We will focus especially on the relationship between self and other, for that is where the problems and possibilities of human communication are worked out. What is the "self"? What is the "other"? How might we negotiate a relationship between self and other that cares about the indentity and the integrity of each? Lastly, the philosophical notion of dialogue, especially as developed by Martin Buber, opens up the spiritual dimension of human being as part of our investigation: What role might Spirit, or the spiritual play in the realization of the ideal?
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR THE COURSE
| WEEK | TOPIC | ASSIGNMENT |
| 1 | Introduction | Stewart, "Introduction" |
| 2 | The transactional view of communication | F.D. Laing, "Experience" |
| 3 | Basic axioms of communication from the transactional view | W.B.J., "Axioms" |
| 4 | Listening interpersonally and dialogically | Stewart, Empathic and Dialogic Listening |
| 5 | Language and the Creation of Meaning | Rorty, "Contingency" |
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EXAM I (in-class) MIND-SELF-OTHER WHAT ARE THE POSSIBILITIES? TWO THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES |
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| 6 ,7,8 | Humanist Theories of Self and Relationship | Kelly"BeingAware"
Jourard, "Self Disclosure" Fromm, " Theory of Love" Tournier, "World. . . " Levinas, "Ethics" |
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Paper I |
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| 9,10 | Symbolic Interactionist Theory of Self and Relationship | G.H. Mead, "Basic Works"
Relationship E. Goffman, Alienation B. Johnson, "Process. . " |
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EXAM II (take-home) ON THE WAY TO DIALOGUE |
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| 11 | Preparing the Way | White, " A Way"
Kepnes " "I and Thou. . " |
| 12, 13, 14 | Martin Buber, I and Thou | |
| 15 | A Postscript | Buber and Rogers |
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PAPER II |
SOME ADVICE: The course has a heavy dose of theory, which, if understood, can profitably be translated into practice. In order to benefit optimally from the theory, it cannot be "perused," it must be studied. That means carefully reading the material before you come to class, making sure you understand it. With some essays that means reading material more than once. It also means copying over your notes after each class discussion into clear, comprehensible sentences while the material is still fresh in your mind. These behaviors are also likely to contribute to more satisfying results on the exams and papers.