A dialog or dialogue is a reciprocal conversation between two or more persons. The etymological origins of the word (in Greek διά(diá,through) + λόγος(logos,word,speech) concepts like flowing-through meaning)] do not necessarily convey the way in which people have come to use the word, with some confusion between the prefix διά-(diá-,through) and the prefix δι-(di-, two) leading to the assumption that a dialog is necessarily between only two parties. For the movie from Francis Ford Coppola, see The Conversation. ... Not to be confused with Entomology, the study of insects. ...

Literary and philosophical genre

When reported or imitated in writing, "dialog" labels a form of literature used by the Greeks and Indians for purposes of rhetorical entertainment and instruction. This form has scarcely been modified since the days of its invention. Rhetoric (from Greek , rhêtôr, orator, teacher) is generally understood to be the art or technique of persuasion through the use of oral language and written language; however, this definition of rhetoric has been contested since rhetoric emerged as a field of study in Universities. ...

A literary dialog comprises a little drama without a theater, and with scarcely any change of scene. It can exhibit those qualities which La Fontaine applauded in the dialogs of Plato, namely vivacity, fidelity of tone, and accuracy in the opposition of opinions. It has long served writers who have something to censure or to impart, but who love to stand outside the pulpit, and to encourage others to pursue a train of thought which the author does not seem to do more than indicate. The dialog expresses and notes down the undulations of human thought so spontaneously that it almost escapes analysis. Commonly, records of the alleged actual words spoken by living or imaginary people and it appears in a dialogged format. One branch of this form of expressive documentation, the drama, depends upon dialog almost exclusively. Yet, in its technical sense, the word 'dialog' describes what the Greek philosophers invented, and what the noblest of them lifted to the extreme refinement of an art. Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... Jean de La Fontaine. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... For other uses of Ambo, see Ambo, Ethiopia, Kom Ombo, ambulance Ambo (band). ... Personification of thought (Greek Εννοια) in Celsus Library in Ephesos, Turkey Thought or thinking is a mental process which allows beings to model the world, and so to deal with it effectively according to their goals, plans, ends and desires. ... This article is 58 kilobytes or more in size. ... The Bath, a painting by Mary Cassatt (1844-1926). ...

Antiquity and the middle ages

In the east, the genre dates back to the Rigvedic dialog hymns and the Indian epic Mahabharata, while in the west, literary historians commonly suppose that Plato (c. 427 BC - c. 347 BC) introduced the systematic use of dialog as an independent literary form: they point to his earliest experiment with the genre in the Laches. The Platonic dialog, however, had its foundations in the mime, which the Sicilian poets Sophron and Epicharmus had cultivated half a century earlier. The works of these writers, which Plato admired and imitated, have not survived, but scholars imagine them as little plays usually presented with only two performers. The Mimes of Herodas give us some idea of ir scope. The ancient Sanskrit epics, the Ramayana and Mahabharata, laid the cornerstone for much of Hindu religion. ... Manuscript illustration of the Battle of Kurukshetra The (Devanagari: ) is one of the two major Sanskrit epics of ancient India, the other being the . ... Centuries: 6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC Decades: 470s BC 460s BC 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC - 420s BC - 410s BC 400s BC 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC Years: 432 BC 431 BC 430 BC 429 BC 428 BC - 427 BC - 426 BC 425 BC... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC - 340s BC - 330s BC 320s BC 310s BC 300s BC 290s BC 352 BC 351 BC 350 BC 349 BC 348 BC 347 BC 346 BC 345 BC 344... Sicily (Sicilia in Italian and Sicilian) is an autonomous region of Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, with an area of 25,708 km² (9,926 sq. ... Sophron, of Syracuse, writer of mimes, flourished about 430 BC. He was the author of prose dialogues in the Doric dialect, containing both male and female characters, some serious, others humorous in style, and depicting scenes from the daily life of the Sicilian Greeks. ... Epicharmus (c. ... Herodas (Greek: ), or Herondas (the name is spelt differently in the few places where he is mentioned), Greek poet, the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written under the Alexandrian empire in the 3rd century BC. Apart from the intrinsic merit of these pieces, they are interesting in...

Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. He must have begun this about the year 405 BC, and by 399 he had brought the dialog to its highest perfection, especially in the cycle directly inspired by the death of Socrates. All his philosophical writings, except the Apology, use this form. As the greatest of all masters of Greek prose style, Plato lifted his favorite instrument, the dialog, to its highest splendor, and to this day he remains by far its most distinguished proficient. In logic, an argument is an attempt to demonstrate the truth of an assertion called a conclusion, based on the truth of a set of assertions called premises. ... Centuries: 6th century BC - 5th century BC - 4th century BC Decades: 450s BC 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC - 400s BC - 390s BC 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC Years: 410 BC 409 BC 408 BC 407 BC 406 BC - 405 BC - 404 BC 403 BC... Centuries: 5th century BC - 4th century BC - 3rd century BC Decades: 440s BC 430s BC 420s BC 410s BC 400s BC - 390s BC - 380s BC 370s BC 360s BC 350s BC 340s BC Years: 404 BC 403 BC 402 BC 401 BC 400 BC - 399 BC - 398 BC 397 BC... Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized as , Sǒcratēs; circa 470–399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... The Apology is Platos version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities. ...

Following Plato, the dialog became one major literary genre in antiquity, and there are several examples both in Latin and Greek. Soon after Plato, Xenophon wrote his own Symposium, Aristotle is said to have written several philosophical dialogs in Plato's style (none of which have survived), and later most of the Hellenistic schools had their own dialog. Cicero wrote some very important works in this genre, such as Orator, Res Publica, and the lost Hortensius (the latter cited by Augustine in the Confessions as the work which instilled in him his lifelong love of philosophy). Xenophon, Greek historian Xenophon (In Greek , c. ... Cicero at about age 60, from an ancient marble bust Marcus Tullius Cicero (IPA:Classical Latin pronunciation: , usually pronounced in English; January 3, 106 BC – December 7, 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher, widely considered one of Romes greatest orators and prose stylists. ... St. ... Confessions is the name of a series of thirteen autobiographical books by St. ...

In the 2nd century CE. Lucian of Samosata achieved a brilliant success with his ironic dialogs Of the Gods, Of the Dead, Of Love and Of the Courtesans. In some of them he attacks superstition and philosophical error with the sharpness of his wit; in others he merely paints scenes of modern life. The 2nd century is the period from 101 - 200 in accordance with the Julian calendar in the Christian Era. ... Lucian of Samosata (c. ... The number 13 is often avoided in public buildings, also floors, doors and this Santa Anita Park horse stall. ...

The dialog was frequently used by early Christian writers, such as Justin, Origen and Augustine, and a particularly notable dialog from late antiquity is Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy. The genre survived up through the early scholastic period, with Peter Abelard composing his Dialog with a Jew, a Christian and a Philosopher in the early 12th century CE, but later, in the wake of the powerful influence of writings by Bonaventure and Thomas Aquinas, the scholastic tradition adopted the more formal and concise genre of the summa, which largely superseding the dialog as philosophical format. Justin may refer to: Justin (name), a common given name Junianus Justinus, a 3rd century Roman historian Justin I (c. ... Origen (Greek: Ōrigénēs, 185–ca. ... Boethius teaching his students (initial from a 1385 Italian manuscript of the Consolation of Philosophy) Boethius redirects here. ... This early printed book has many hand-painted illustrations depicting Lady Philosophy and scenes of daily life in fifteenth-century Ghent (1485) Consolation of Philosophy (Latin: Consolatio Philosophiae) is a philosophical work by Boethius written in about the year 524 AD. It has been described as the single most important... Abaelardus and Heloïse surprised by Master Fulbert, by Romanticist painter Jean Vignaud (1819) Pierre Abélard (in English, Peter Abelard) or Abailard (1079 – April 21, 1142) was a French scholastic philosopher and logician. ... (11th century - 12th century - 13th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 12th century was that century which lasted from 1101 to 1200. ... Saint Bonaventura, John of Fidanza, Franciscan theologian, was born in 1221 at Bagnarea in Tuscany. ... Saint Thomas Aquinas [Thomas of Aquin, or Aquino] (c. ...

The modern period to the present

Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian’s most famous collection; both Fontenelle (1683) and Fénelon (1712) prepared Dialogues des morts ("Dialogs of the Dead"). Contemporaneously, in 1688, the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche published his Dialogs on Metaphysics and Religion, thus contributing to the genre's revival in philosophic circles. In English non-dramatic literature the dialog did not see extensive use until Berkeley employed it, in 1713, for his Platonic treatise, Three Dialogs between Hylas and Philonous. Landor’s Imaginary Conversations (1821-1828) formed the most famous English example of dialog in the 19th century, although the dialogs of Sir Arthur Helps also claim attention. For other uses of Fontenelle, see Fontenelle (disambiguation). ... Events June 6 - The Ashmolean Museum opens as the worlds first university museum. ... François de Salignac de la Mothe, more commonly known as François Fénelon (1651 - 1715), was a French Roman Catholic theologian, poet and writer. ... // Events Treaty of Aargau signed between Catholic and Protestants. ... Nicolas Malebranche. ... George Berkeley (IPA: ) (12 March 1685 – 14 January 1753), also known as Bishop Berkeley, was an influential Irish philosopher whose primary philosophical achievement is the advancement of a theory dubbed immaterialism by Berkeley himself (also later called subjective idealism). This theory, summed up in his dictum, Esse est percipi (To... // Events April 11 - War of the Spanish Succession: Treaty of Utrecht June 23 - French residents of Acadia given one year to declare allegiance to Britain or leave Nova Scotia Canada first Orrery built by George Graham Ongoing events Great Northern War (1700-1721) War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1713... Walter Savage Landor (January 30, 1775 - September 17, 1864), English writer, eldest son of Walter Landor and his wife Elizabeth Savage, was born at Warwick. ... The coronation banquet for George IV 1821 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... 1828 was a leap year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Alternative meaning: Nineteenth Century (periodical) (18th century — 19th century — 20th century — more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 19th century was that century which lasted from 1801-1900 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar. ... Sir Arthur Helps (July 10, 1813–March 7, 1875), English writer and dean of the Privy Council, youngest son of Thomas Helps, a London merchant, was born near London. ...

In Germany, Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799. In Spanish literature, the Dialogs of Valdés (1528) and those on Painting (1633) by Vincenzo Carducci are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogs, following Plato's model, include Torquato Tasso (1586), Galileo (1632), Galiani (1770), Leopardi (1825), and a host of others. Christoph Martin Wieland (September 5, 1733 _ January 20, 1813), was a German poet and writer. ... 1780 was a leap year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... 1799 was a common year starting on Tuesday (see link for calendar). ... Juan de Valdés (c. ... Events June 19 - Battle of Landriano - A French army in Italy under Marshal St. ... Events February 13 - Galileo Galilei arrives in Rome for his trial before the Inquisition. ... Vincenzo Carducci (1568-1638), was born in Florence, and was trained as a painter by Bartolommeo, whom he followed to Madrid. ... Torquato Tasso (March 11, 1544 – April 25, 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, best known for his poem La Gerusalemme liberata (Jerusalem Delivered; 1575), in which he describes the imaginary combats between Christians and Muslims at the end of the First Crusade, during the siege of Jerusalem. ... 1586 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. ... KDFSAJFKASJDKFJASDKLJFDKLASJFLKJASKLFJLAKSJFLKSJALFKJSKLJFto the Sun-centered solar system which Galileo supported. ... See also: 1632 (novel) Events February 22 - Galileos Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems is published July 23 - 300 colonists for New France depart Dieppe November 8 - Wladyslaw IV Waza elected king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth after Zygmunt III Waza death November 16 - Battle of Lützen... Ferdinando Galiani (December 2, 1728 - October 30, 1787) was an Italian economist. ... Battle of Chesma, by Ivan Aivazovsky. ... Giacomo Leopardi, Count (June 29, 1798 – June 14, 1837) is generally considered, along with such figures as Dante, Ariosto and Tasso, to be among Italys greatest poets and one of its greatest thinkers. ... Opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway 1825 (MDCCCXXV) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ...

More recently, the French returned to the original application of dialog. The inventions of "Gyp", of Henri Lavedan, and of others, tell a mundane anecdote wittily and maliciously in conversation, would probably present a close analogy to the lost mimes of the early Sicilian poets. This kind of dialog also appeared in English, exemplified by Anstey Guthrie, but these dialogs seem to have found less of a popular following among the English than their counterparts written by French authors. Gyp may either be A slang term (see Gyp (slang), or The pen name of Sibylle Gabrielle Marie Antoinette Riqueti de Mirabeau, Comtesse de Martel de Janville This is a disambiguation page, a list of pages that otherwise might share the same title. ... Henri Léon Emile Lavedan (9 April 1859 - 30 September 1940), French dramatist and man of letters, was born at Orléans, the son of Hubert Léon Lavedan, a well-known Catholic and liberal journalist. ... An anecdote is a short tale narrating an interesting or amusing biographical incident. ... Thomas Anstey Guthrie (8 August 1856 - 1934) was an English novelist and journalist, who wrote his comic novels under the pseudonym F. Anstey. ...

The Platonic dialog, as a distinct genre which features Socrates as a speaker and one or more interlocutors discussing some philosophical question, experienced something of a rebirth in the 20th century CE. Authors who have recently employed it include George Santayana, in his eminent Dialogs in Limbo (1926, 2nd ed. 1948; this work also includes such historical figures as Alcibiades, Aristippus, Avicenna, Democritus, and Dionysius the Younger as speakers), and Iris Murdoch, who included not only Socrates and Alcibiades as interlocutors in her work Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogs (1986), but featured a young Plato himself as well. (19th century - 20th century - 21st century - more centuries) Decades: 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s 1970s 1980s 1990s As a means of recording the passage of time, the 20th century was that century which lasted from 1901–2000 in the sense of the Gregorian calendar (1900–1999... George Santayana George Santayana (16 December 1863 in Madrid, Spain – 26 September 1952 in Rome, Italy), was a philosopher, essayist, poet, and novelist. ... Alcibiades Cleiniou Scambonides (Greek: ; English /ælsɪbaɪədi:z/; 450 BC–404 BC), also transliterated as Alkibiades, was a prominent Athenian statesman, orator, and general. ... Aristippus (c. ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... ‎ Democritus (Greek: ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher (born at Abdera in Thrace around 460 BC[1][2]). Democritus was a student of Leucippus and co-originator of the belief that all matter is made up of various imperishable, indivisible elements which he called atomos, from which we get the... Dionysius the Younger or Dionysius II (c. ... Dame Iris Murdoch Dame Jean Iris Murdoch DBE (July 15, 1919 – February 8, 1999) was an Irish born British writer and philosopher, best known for her novels, which combine rich characterization and compelling plotlines, usually involving ethical or sexual themes. ...

The philosophic dialog, with or without Socrates as a character, continues to be used on occasion by philosophers when attempting to write engaging, literary works of philosophy which attempt to capture the subtle nuance and lively give-and-take of discourse as it actually takes place in intellectual conversation.

Compare: Closet drama A closet drama is a play that is not intended to be performed onstage, but read by a solitary reader or, sometimes, out loud in a small group. ...

Platonic dialogs

The philosopher Plato wrote a series of dialogs, mostly between Socrates and some other person. In all these dialogs there is an explicit or an implicit disagreement, and the purpose of these dialogs is to resolve the disagreement. The typical way is for Socrates to probe his partner for further beliefs until a contradiction is reached with the disputed belief or hypothesis by implication. In this way the interlocutor is made to see the impossibility of his hypothesis, and then tries some other hypothesis, which is again subject to the same scrutiny. Most of these dialogs break off without a final resolution—as in real life. For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized as , SÇ’cratÄ“s; circa 470–399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... Socrates (Greek: , invariably anglicized as , SÇ’cratÄ“s; circa 470–399 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher who is widely credited for laying the foundation for Western philosophy. ... Belief is assent to a proposition. ... Look up Hypothesis in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... An interlocutor (pronounced in-ter-lock-you-ter) describes someone who informally explains the views of a government and also can relay messages back to a government. ...

Philosophical, theological, and social concept

Martin Buber places dialog in a central position in his philosophy: he sees dialog as an effective means of on-going communication rather than as a purposive attempt to reach some conclusion or to express some viewpoint(s). Martin Buber pictured late in life. ...

David Bohm originated a related form of Dialog where a group of people talk together in order to explore their assumptions of thinking, meaning, communication, and social effects. This group consists of ten to thirty people who meet for a few hours regularly or a few continuous days. Dialogers agree to leave behind debate tactics that attempt to convince and, instead, talk from their own experience on subjects that are improvised on the spot. People form their own Dialog groups that usually are offered for free of charge. There exists an international online Dialog list server group, facilitated by Don Factor, co-author of a paper called "Dialog - A Proposal," with David Bohm and Peter Garrett. (http://www.david-bohm.org/mailman/admin/bohm_dialogue) David Bohm. ...

Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of "dialog" emphasized the power of discourse to increase understanding of multiple perspectives and create myriad possibilities. Bakhtin held that relationships and connections exist among all living beings, and that dialog creates a new understanding of a situation that demands change. Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (Russian: Михаил Михайлович Бахти́н pronounced: ) (November 17, 1895 – March 7, 1975) was a Russian philosopher and literary scholar, who wrote influential works of literary and rhetorical theory and criticism. ...

Celebrated Brazilian educationalist Paolo Freire, who is known for developing popular education, advanced dialog as a type of classroom pedagogy. Freire held that dialogged communication allowed students and teachers to learn from one another in an environment characterized by respect and equality. A great advocate for oppressed peoples, Freire was concerned with praxis—action that is informed and linked to people’s values. Dialogged pedagogy was not only about deepening understanding; it was also about making positive changes in the world.

Today, dialog is used in classrooms, community centers, corporations, federal agencies, and other settings to enable people, usually in small groups, to share their perspectives and experiences about difficult issues. It is used to help people resolve long-standing conflicts and to build deeper understanding of contentious issues. Dialog is not about judging, weighing, or making decisions, but about understanding and learning. Dialog dispels stereotypes, builds trust, and enables people to be open to perspectives that are very different from their own.

In the past two decades, a rapidly-growing movement for dialog has been developing. The website of the National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation, at http://www.thataway.org, serves as a hub for dialog (and deliberation) facilitators, conveners, and trainers and houses thousands of resources on these communication methodologies.

Groups such as Worldwide Marriage Encounter and Retrouvaille International use dialog as a communication tool for married couples. Both groups teach a dialog method that helps couples learn more about each other in non-threatening postures, which helps to foster growth in the married relationship. Marriage Encounter (M.E.) is a weekend program designed to help married couples improve their marriage, grow closer to each other, and improve a couples commitment to and relationship with each other. ...

See also

• Conversation
• Chat
• Speech
• Bohm Dialog
• Facilitation

For the movie from Francis Ford Coppola, see The Conversation. ... Look up chat in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Bohm Dialogue or Bohmian Dialogue is a form of free association conducted in groups, with no predefined purpose in mind besides mutual understanding and exploration of human thought. ... In organizational development (OD) and consensus decision-making, facilitation refers to the process of designing and running a successful meeting. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• The National Coalition for Dialog and Deliberation
• NCDD's Learning Exchange - for thousands of guides, videos, articles, books, and other resources on dialog
• Selected Websites on Dialog

Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

External Links

• Smith, M. K. (2001) Dialog and conversation, the encyclopaedia of informal education