Hari Narayanan

This paper argues that the notion of Dialogue articulated by physicist–philosopher David Bohm constitutes a distinctive method of philosophical practice based on shared inquiry into the dynamics of thought. The paper contends that Bohmian Dialogue addresses the contemporary civilizational crisis of shared meaning, particularly its most outward manifestation in the form of communication breakdown. Although not conceived as a psychotherapeutic intervention or an instrumental communication technique, Bohmian Dialogue may exert a unique socio-therapeutic force. Through contemplative practices of suspending judgments and sustained observation of the movement of thought, Bohmian Dialogue can foster cognitive rebalancing by cultivating open, receptive modes of attention. Based on conceptual analysis and close engagement with Bohm’s writings, the paper situates his account within contemporary debates on philosophical practice.

The paper argues that the fundamental claim of approaches to cognition that are ‘representation-eschewing,’ such as the enactive one, must have been more intuitively plausible in some cultures where the self is not understood in terms of an inner entity that can feel alienated or separated from the world. Taking cues from ancient literature, the paper demonstrates that even a simple act of perception is understood differently in some ancient cultures. It was more like an activity spread across eyes and objects and not simply an internal event receiving input from the world. This involves understanding oneself as continuous with the rest of existence. Accordingly, there was hardly any need to posit discrete representations inside that stand for objects outside. This suggests that approaches to cognition that are representation-eschewing may appear intuitively implausible in our culture because of certain inveterate but culturally constructed ways of understanding oneself as separate from the world.

Humans tend to seek their identity as entities existing over a period of time by making narratives. The paper argues that seeking diachronic self-identity through narratives or stories results in the self-experience being one of separation or alienation from the real world. This happens because language is primarily a form of secondary representation, and the means by which we attempt to find identity often appear in the form of narratives. The dominance of the metaphor of life as a journey shows this. The remedy is to reduce the hold of narrativity by making self-experience fundamentally episodic.