On Dialogue

The way we start a dialogue group is usually by talking about dialogue – talking it over, discussing why we’re doing it, what it means, and so forth.

In the dialogue, a very considerable degree of attention is required to keep track of the subtle implications of one’s own assumptive/reactive tendencies, while also sensing similar patterns in the group as a whole. Bohm emphasized that such attention, or awareness, is not a matter of accumulated knowledge or technique, nor does it have the goal of

Therefore, you have to watch out for the notion of truth. Dialogue may not be concerned directly with truth – it may arrive at truth, but it is concerned with meaning. If the meaning is incoherent you will never arrive at truth.

If I say I am going to look into my mind but I don’t consider my assumptions, then the picture is wrong because the assumptions are looking. That is a common problem of introspection. You say, “I am going to look at myself inwardly,” but the assumptions are not looked at – the assumptions are looking.

In fact, the problems we have been discussing are basically all due to this lack of proprioception. The point of suspension is to help make proprioception possible, to create a mirror so that you can see the results of your thought.

Thus, in a dialogue, each person does not attempt to make common certain ideas or items of information that are already known to him. Rather, it may be said that the two people are making something in common, i.e., creating something new together. But of course such communication can lead to the creation of something new only if people are able fre

Our purpose is really to communicate coherently in truth, if you want to call that a purpose.

Dialogue is the collective way of opening up judgments and assumptions.

two further aspects of dialogue – the notion of shared meaning within a group, and the absence of a preestablished purpose or agenda.