On Understanding without Agreement: Leszek Koczanowicz’s Concept of the Politics of Dialogue
Małgorzata BORKOWSKA
Department of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland , Polandhttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5782-3751
Abstract
The aim of the article is to analyze Leszek Koczanowicz’s concept of the politics of dialogue in terms of assessing the usefulness of the category of dialogue to create an alternative to two opposing models of democracy: deliberation in the version proposed by Jürgen Habermas and hegemony (radical democracy) developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Referring to American pragmatism and Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory, i.e. the theories that place dialogue and communication at the center of the social world, Koczanowicz concludes that due to the indelibility of antagonism from social life and politics, the measure of the value of dialogue is not so much achieving consensus (which is not always possible), but broadening the horizon of mutual understanding by the parties to the dialogue. Such an approach reveals a normative dimension to democracy, which is not only a system securing the sovereignty of the people, but also a struggle to maintain understanding among people.
Keywords:
dialogue, democracy, understanding, agreement, models of democracyDepartment of Ethics, Institute of Philosophy, Faculty of Philosophy, John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Al. Racławickie 14, 20-950 Lublin, Poland https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5782-3751
