Abstract
This chapter examines research concerned with elucidating the weaknesses of relying on overt rational argumentation and demonstrates why, particularly in highly polarized situations, dialogue should be used as a precursor or supplement to forms of civic discourse that privilege rational argumentation and persuasion. One of the reasons that dialogue is so crucial for establishing and fostering the sort of civic discourse necessary for democratic citizens is that it can be utilized to “improve the soil,” so to speak, by helping audiences be more receptive to one another and to want to listen to the other, and it can also address some of the implicit cognitive structures that hinder the formation of a just, equal, and pluralistic society. Civic dialogue can help attenuate some of the cognitive biases that frequently show up in explicit rational argumentation and make us more hostile toward and less receptive to arguments coming from our opponents.
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Notes
- 1.
See also Haidt (2012, chapter 4) for studies that show people’s penchant for rationalizing rather than acting rationally per se.
- 2.
Bohm’s thought that emphasizes the communal and shared nature of knowledge has much in common with more recent research on embodied cognition. See, for example, Durt, Fuchs, and Tewes (2017).
- 3.
He continues, “Reasons have very little to do with the causes of your belief… the real causes are rooted in your personal history…. We take the reasons people give for their beliefs much too seriously…. Even if we destroy their arguments, it wouldn’t change their beliefs” (Kahneman 2017, 39’).
- 4.
See Navajas et al. (2017) for research that shows the epistemic advantage of small group dialogue over not only individual reasoning but also the “wisdom of crowds.”
- 5.
See Boudry et al. (2015).
- 6.
See Kahneman (2011) and Haidt (2001, 2012). These more generalized accounts should be read as capturing the “family resemblances” as opposed to the sufficient features defining two distinct systems (Stanovich 1999). Few actually defend the claim that these two “systems” are entirely independent (Stanovich and Toplak 2012). See footnote 8 for challenges to this generalized account.
- 7.
While a few reject any sort of formulation of dual-process theory altogether (Melnikoff and Bargh 2018), there remains strong evidence for it (Pennycook et al. 2018) even among those who defend a parallel processing model (Trippas et al. 2017). The main crux of disagreement in cognitive processing theory concerns the ability to provide a sufficient account of which properties define these two processes. For example, some would reject speed as a defining feature, citing evidence that logic can also proceed quickly (Bago and De Neys 2017). One does not have to endorse a bifurcated model that stipulates two entirely discrete systems, however, in order to accept the fact that rational thought is not everything philosophers have thought it to be. In other words, whether one takes these two processes to occur at the same time or not, there is warrant for examining the role of autonomous thinking in polarized discourse.
- 8.
The second level, as Haidt and Björklund notes, is not reducible to emotion (2008, 200).
- 9.
As I have noted above, while recent deliberative theory offers a more nuanced perspective of what deliberation should look like, including criticisms of its earlier hyper-rationalistic approach, when one observes how “deliberation” in the public square is actually practiced (as witnessed by debates in the chambers of congress, on television, and in town hall meetings), one tends to see traditional forms of explicit argumentation being utilized.
- 10.
- 11.
Research from work as a co-principal investigator on a multi-institution grant (Sarrouf et al) does in fact suggest that dialogue can help cultivate intellectual humility and open-mindedness in college classroom settings. In the following chapter I discuss the relationship between “intellectual humility” and “open-mindedness,” and explore in more detail how civic dialogue can cultivate these virtues.
- 12.
“Uncertainty is a complex brain’s biggest challenge, and predictive coding evolved to help us reduce it” (Pollan 2018, 311), writes Michael Pollan drawing on the research of Robin Carhart-Harris et al. (2014). Along these lines, a question worth pondering is whether the increased polarization of politics might be a result of the increased information we are exposed to.
- 13.
NCDD.org contains stories of and resources for successful dialogues.
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Barthold, L.S. (2020). The Power of Dialogue. In: Overcoming Polarization in the Public Square. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45586-6_5
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