Dmitri Nikulin

This book considers the emergence of dialectic out of the spirit of dialogue and traces the relation between the two. It moves from Plato, for whom dialectic is necessary to destroy incorrect theses and attain thinkable being, to Cusanus, to modern philosophers—Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Schleiermacher and Gadamer, for whom dialectic becomes the driving force behind the constitution of a rational philosophical system. Conceived as a logical enterprise, dialectic strives to liberate itself from dialogue, which it views as merely accidental and even disruptive of thought, in order to become a systematic or scientific method. The Cartesian autonomous and universal yet utterly monological and lonely subject requires dialectic alone to reason correctly, yet dialogue, despite its unfinalizable and interruptive nature, is what constitutes the human condition.

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.