Dmitri Nikulin

The notion of dialogue occurs frequently in current debates. Yet it is often used too broadly. Rather than as a proper concept, it is sometimes unintentionally applied in an ambiguous manner, whereas at other times it is used deliberately to mean that which is plurivocal. Dialogue is one of those passwords that everyone takes to be a “good thing,” even if it is understood very differently from what it is. When such a term is used so loosely and in many different contexts, it tends to lose its original form and meaning, as well as any sense of its having a definite content.

This article traces some modern conceptions of memory in history (Halbwachs, Nora), indirectly comparing them with the ancient poetic tradition of so-called “catalogue poetry.” In the discussion of memory and oblivion, I argue that history encompasses multiple histories rather than constituting one single teleological and universal history. Every history is produced by a historical narrative that follows and interprets what may be called the historical proper, which comprises lists of names of people, things, or events that have to be kept and transmitted within a history. The historical and the narrative within a history are relatively independent, insofar as the narrative that interprets the historical may in principle change, whereas the historical has to be preserved, which is the primary task of historical memory. Historical being, then, is being remembered within a history.

The notion of dialogue occurs frequently in current debates. Yet it is often used too broadly. Rather than as a proper concept, it is sometimes unintentionally applied in an ambiguous manner, whereas at other times it is used deliberately to mean that which is plurivocal. Dialogue is one of those passwords that everyone takes to be a “good thing,” even if it is understood very differently from what it is. When such a term is used so loosely and in many different contexts, it tends to lose its original form and meaning, as well as any sense of its having a definite content.

The role of agreement or consensus in the constitution of both modernity and antiquity can hardly be underestimated. On the one hand, in the practical sphere, that of lawful and moral action, legally constitutive agreement appears as a constitution which brings otherwise dispersed individuals into one independent and autonomous “body politick”, or commonwealth, capable of being extended to a treaty between the independent members of a union. Agreement also reigns supreme in establishing le contrat social, which supposedly allows people to shake off a state of unruliness and discord. As moral, agreement further extends to socially acceptable norms of behavior, and is later interpreted as an agreement of the autonomous rational will with itself in its own maxims according to the moral law. Thus, in the practical sphere, a consensus about certain basic principles of communication between individuals and/or larger groups appears to be necessary in order to achieve a stable and just social interaction.