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Qualitative Research Reports in Communication
ISSN: 1745-9435 (Print) 1745-9443 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rqrr20
Defining Philosophy of Communication: Difference
and Identity
Ronald C. Arnett
To cite this article: Ronald C. Arnett (2010) Defining Philosophy of Communication: Difference and Identity, Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 11:1, 57-62, DOI: 10.1080/17459430903581279
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17459430903581279
Published online: 20 Oct 2010.
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Defining Philosophy of
Communication: Difference
and Identity
Ronald C. Arnett
This article defines philosophy of communication as an emerging option in the doing of qualitative research in communication, differentiating its identity from philosophy proper. Philosophy of communication, in its commitment to questions of meaning and understanding, illuminates communicative understanding and meaning in the engage-ment of qualitative research in communication.
Keywords: Difference; Identity; Philosophy of Communication; Story in Action
My task is to offer a public definition of philosophy of communication that frames difference and the identity of philosophy of communication. We work within a disci-pline characterized by different contexts, channels, and methods of communication inquiry. Difference shapes identity, as Ronald L. Jackson (2010), editor of the Encyclopedia of Identity, so aptly revealed. This article applauds the importance of philosophy of communication while simultaneously celebrating its limits, framing philosophy of communication as understanding situated within limits that give it identity. In the words of Gandhi, and within a postmodern pragmatic vocabulary, it is advisable to assume that others will follow paths contrary to one’s own with the hope that if, at a later date, we discover we were wrong, then another’s path will cast light (Arnett, 1980, p. 37). Pragmatically, this essay celebrates alterity (differences) in our communicative engagements as fundamental in shaping the understanding (identity) of the identity of philosophy of communication.
Ronald C. Arnett (PhD, Ohio University, 1978) is chair and professor in the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies, Duquesne University, College Hall 340, 600 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15282. E-mail: arnett@duq.edu
Vol. 11, No. 1, 2010, pp. 57–62
The Particulars and Temporal Public Opinion
To differentiate philosophy of communication from the study of philosophy, I turn to the work of Immanuel Kant (1961) and his differentiation of reason and judgment. Reason rests within the abstract, the theoretically pristine, pursuing truth that dwells within universal precepts. Reason facilitates knowledge that stands above the tainted ground of particulars (Arnett, Fritz, & Holba, 2007). Judgment, on the other hand, begins with problematic particulars and works to discern not pristine truth, but something much more fallible—opinion in the public domain. Philosophy of
com-munication accounts for the particulars, which renders temporal public opinion and brings multiplicity to the public domain (Arendt, 1963).
Philosophy of communication engages particulars contingent on a particular situ-ation, a particular moment, and a particular public contribution to public opinion. Philosophy of communication does not give us unquestioned assurance; it is tested by public opinion offered as a philosophy of communication road map that details the particulars and temporal suggestions for engaging those particulars. Philosophy of communication is a form of communicative architecture that requires a blueprint of understanding, from the first particular to the point of temporal understanding, to disclosure of a position in the public domain.
Philosophy of communication as a public map for public opinion undergoes the test of questioning whether the theory (word) matches the outcome (deed). For example, Aristotle’s (1962) ethics of virtue centers on right actions for the polis, Buber’s (1958) dialogue suggests an ontological ground for meaning not owned by self or the Other, and Arendt’s (1958) deconstruction of modernity contends that the precepts of modernity (progress, individual agency, and efficiency) represent a false hope, a moral cul de sac (Arnett et al., 2007). These theories offer examples of tem-poral conviction that remain significant as long as a given theory continues to pass a pragmatic test of public opinion in the public domain. A public must ask whether the theory does what it attempts to do. The assessment itself is a communicative event. Philosophy of communication permits disagreement with an author and a philo-sophy of communication itself. The pragmatism in philophilo-sophy of communication acknowledges multiple voices in the diversity of public opinion, recognizing that a philosophy of communication can atrophy and die and then, like a phoenix, arise again, ever dependent on public opinion.
Public opinion can move a given version of philosophy of communication both into and out of the annals of the history of communication; it is public-dependent. Take, for example, the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski (1933) and S. I. Hayakawa (1949). We can call this perspective a philosophy of communication that does not claim the same public opinion as it did in 1970. Some would argue that this philosophy of communication fits better within a history of the philosophy of communication, yet at the Eastern Communication Association Convention of 2009 and the National Communication Association Convention of 2008, there was vibrant conversation about what some thought was now a footnote in communi-cation history.
On the other hand, one cannot ignore the increasing emphasis on cognitive under-standings of philosophy of communication, which now vie for a place in public opi-nion, as the link between communicator and biological wiring takes on increasing attention in what is termed the ‘‘posthuman’’ (Hyde, 2005). Philosophies of communication live and die in the acknowledgement or enmity of public opinion. Philosophy of communication engages us in public opinion work, responsive to Gadamer’s (1983) description of a ‘‘community of scholars’’ (p. 52) and to others who compose public opinion, who ask, ‘‘Does a given philosophy of communication address the questions of this historical moment?’’ Philosophies of communication fade in their public opinion into the annals of the history of communication, suffer-ing from inattentiveness and dismissiveness on the part of publics. William James (1952), founder of American Pragmatism, stated that the most fiendish way to deal with another person is to ignore that person; such action moves a person away from a sense of public worth, denied public recognition.
Difference and Identity
1. Philosophy of communication includes a public opinion of community of scholars aimed at understanding the particulars of a given communicative moment.
2. Philosophy of communication lives and dies by public opinion, preserved by history of philosophy of communication, ready for resurrection from the reclamation energy of public opinion.
Philosophy of Communication in Action as Scholarly Story
Public opinion works with philosophy of communication in what Paul Ricoeur (1990) detailed as the construction of story: (a) drama, (b) emplotment, (c) main characters, and (d) an ongoing attentiveness to time defined by historicity, not by a linear view of time sequences. A philosophy of communication begins with attent-iveness to thehistorical momentand emergentquestionsthat define a given moment. What makes a given question possible is the drama of human life. We seldom attend to emerging questions in the midst of routine; we respond to some form of drama in the form of a rhetorical interruption that takes us out of everyday, unreflective communicative engagement and demands that we attend to a given question.
In addition, there are characters who continue to support a given theory, keeping public opinion vibrant; such public opinion champions assist the work of scholars like Kenneth Burke and Emmanuel Levinas.
Philosophies of communication change, multiply, atrophy, and die when main characters no longer believe a given philosophy of communication can offer an emplotment that makes sense for a given drama. Philosophies of communication live by those shapers of public opinion who believe in the ideas; and when those ideas no longer have currency, diversity of thought emerges in the form of another philosophy of communication.
The story engagement of question, drama, emplotment, and main characters frames philosophy of communication as story-laden. Arendt (1958) detailed the movement from behavior to action as necessitating the situating of behavior within a story that lends itself to action. This movement from behavior to action through story is akin to the difference between information and meaning. It is not sufficient for a philosophy of communication to offer information; it has a unique task of rendering the meaningfulness of information before us. It is the story that moves information into the realm of meaning. Meaning is the gestalt that is more than the collection of informational parts. A philosophy of communication is a story that lives by and within public opinion. As Arendt (1958) suggested, the movement from behavior to action, or information to meaning, is dependent on a story within public opinion that sheds understanding and meaning.
Story in Action—In Summary
1. A philosophy of communication dwells in the testing ground of communicative existence.
2. A philosophy of communication dwells within a story as a form of emplotment that meets an existential communicative drama created by a historical moment (time) that announces or demands that we address a given question.
3. The test of this meeting of emplotment and drama is a pragmatic existential one in which main characters (users and, simultaneously, judges) assess the pragmatic importance of a philosophy of communication for meeting the particulars of a given human drama.
Philosophy Communication as Multi-Centered Conversation
Rorty (1979) is famous for the pragmatic stress on ‘‘keeping the conversation going’’ beyond the limited confines of authorialintent(Schleiermacher, 1998). The rejection of authorial intent works in two directions. First, the author does not own a theory, demanding that the rest of us function as cult followers and implementers. Second, we cannot use a philosophy of communication with a conviction that we are 100%
correct. Martin Buber (1992) stated that the danger of ‘‘psychologism’’ (p. 86) was one of the primary fears associated with modernity. In psychologism, one has ‘‘bad faith’’ (Sartre, 1992) or false confidence that one can attribute motives to
another without that other person’s concurrence. Such attribution assumes one can stand above history and render an objective judgment on another or impose our answer on a person or a communicative event untempered by doubt.
In addition, philosophy of communication is not method-centered. It was the 17th-century work of Rene´ Descartes (1956) that framed the importance of method. A philosophy of communication cannot and should not reject the important contri-bution of method; however, a philosophy of communication chooses the vulner-ability of public opinion over public verification of methodological findings. A philosophy of communication tied to public opinion works differently than scientific theories linked to public verification.
A philosophy of communication is but a fraction of a multifaceted communi-cation that works as a public disclosure of the bias or prejudice that one takes into the study of the findings about communication. From a philosophy of communi-cation perspective, the goal is understanding, not accumulation of unassailable truth. Philosophy of communication lives within a community of communicative drama, communicative emplotment, and communicative characters working to assist by confirmation of and argumentation about public opinion, forever attentive to a story of the human condition that continues to beckon us to an enlarged mentality that refuses to confuse the ‘‘new’’ with progress (Arendt, 1968; Kant, 1987).
Multi-Centered Communication—A Summary
1. Philosophy of communication begins a conversation, rejecting the authorial intent of the cult of the creator and implementer.
2. Philosophy of communication follows the guidelines of Gadamer (1983), choos-ing the temporal and forever flawed and limited pursuit of truth as a public story over the Descartian (1956) method.
3. Philosophy of communication is decentered communicative engagement, sharing the stage with the drama and characters that make the story possible and ready for the test of public opinion.
The Philosophy of Communication Turn
The philosophy of communication turn is a celebration of diversity in communica-tive contexts, channels, and forms of inquiry. The philosophy of communication turn is the recognition of acknowledged limits, biases, prejudices, provincialities, and tem-poralities as necessary first steps toward a cosmopolitan communicative worldview. We do not stand above history; we stand in the midst of communicative mystery with temporal openings of clarity.
we think. Philosophy of communication requires one to think, for it begins with tenacious conviction—the theory and ‘‘I,’’ the implementer, may be wrong.
Philosophy of communication works for understanding and illuminates temporal meaning with a warning offered to the Other and oneself—think, question, and talk
about the conceptual map or blueprint with full knowledge it will and should change—such is the demanding role of inquiry responsive to public opinion.
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