Diversifying the Dialogue: Meta-Philosophical Reflections on Teaching Our Core Methodology.

This essay distinguishes between diversity in the content we teach and diversity in the methodologies we use to practice our discipline and transmit it to students. Of all philosophical methods, dialogue is core to our disciplinary identity. However, dialogues rarely stand on their own; they are vehicles for larger philosophical projects. As Pierre Hadot argues, dialogues for early Greeks constituted "spiritual exercises" guiding practitioners toward metaphysical realities beyond ordinary perception. Dialogues in Buddhism, Jainism, and Confucianism convey similar spiritual dimensions. To incorporate these dimensions into the classroom presents a choice: We can take the content of the dialogue and reconstruct it in a deductive argument, i.e., using it as fodder for teaching critical thinking as we normally teach it. This would diversify content without thereby altering disciplinary methods. Or, we can develop pedagogical tools for the dialogical form that consider historical and cultural context as well as contemporary spiritual relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]