Cover not available

Discussion published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 13:1 (2023) ► pp.3–25

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required
Discussion articles

Instrumental dialogue and the ethics of expressing solicitude for each other’s existence

 | Université TÉLUQ
 | Université du Québec à Montréal
Published online: 6 February 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.00138.ben
Abstract
Dialogue is about forgoing control and possession when interacting with the Other. In comparison, the notion of instrumentality appears contrary to the very notion of dialogue. This paper suggests, however, that mutual instrumentalization is necessary for dialogue to be a space where participants express solicitude for each other and promote each other’s voice, action, and existence. Building on the work of French philosopher Étienne Souriau, we argue that promoting another’s existence requires taking their actions and speech into our own. This enables them to also exist through us as we allow them to instrumentalize us. Such a view better accounts for what goes on in tangible dialogue situations, as we show by revisiting an empirical case. Our proposal extends current research on the conditions of productive dialogue, invites being careful about who or what populates the dialogical scene, and turns our attention to what they may need to pursue their existence.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Dialogical ethics as the absence of control and instrumentalization
  • 3.Ethics in dialogue: In defense of instrumentalization and cultivation
  • 4.Étienne Souriau and the different modes of existence
  • 5.The everyday ethics of solving a problem in a work context
  • 6.Instrumental dialogue’s ethics of care
  • References
References (82)
References
Arnett, Ronald C. 2001. “Dialogic Civility as Pragmatic Ethical Praxis: An Interpersonal Metaphor for the Public Domain.” Communication Theory 11 (3): 315–338. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2015. ‘The Dialogic Necessity: Acknowledging and Engaging Monologue.” Ohio Communication Journal 531 (October): 1–10.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016a. “An Immemorial Obligation: Countering the Eclipse of the Other.” Journal of Communication and Religion 39 (2): 7–21.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2016b. “Dialogue Theory.” In The International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy, ed. by Klaus Bruhn Jensen, Eric W. Rothenbuhler, Jefferson D. Pooley, and Robert T. Craig, 1–13. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Arnett, Ronald C. and Pat Arneson (eds). 2016. Philosophy of Communication Ethics: Alterity and the Other. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ashcraft, Karen Lee, Timothy Kuhn, and François Cooren. 2009. “Constitutional Amendments: “Materializing” Organizational Communication.” The Academy of Management Annals 3 (1): 1–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Austin, John L. 1962. How to Do Things with Words. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich. 1986. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barnes, Marian. 2020. “Community Care: The Ethics of Care in a Residential Community.” Ethics and Social Welfare 14 (2): 140–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, Boris H. J. M. Brummans, and Camille Vézy. 2020. “Agency without Agents: Individuation, Communication, and the Reordering of Organizational Becomings.” Paper presented at the 70th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association, Gold Coast, Australia.
Bencherki, Nicolas, François Cooren, Boris H. J. M. Brummans, Chantal Benoit-Barné, and Frédérik Matte. 2020. “La culture en tant que cultivation : vers une conception communicationnelle de la culture organisationnelle.” Communiquer. Revue de communication sociale et publique, no. 29 (June): 89–109. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, and Kasper Trolle Elmholdt. 2022. “The Organization’s Synaptic Mode of Existence: How a Hospital Merger Is Many Things at Once.” Organization 29 (4): 521–543. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, and Andrew Iliadis. 2021. “The Constitution of Organization as Informational Individuation.” Communication Theory 31 (3): 442–462. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, Frédérik Matte, and Émilie Pelletier. 2016. “Rebuilding Babel: A Constitutive Approach to Tongues-in-Use.” Journal of Communication 66 (5): 766–788. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, Viviane Sergi, François Cooren, and Consuelo Vásquez. 2021. “How Strategy Comes to Matter: Strategizing as the Communicative Materialization of Matters of Concern.” Strategic Organization 19 (4): 608–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bencherki, Nicolas, and James P. Snack. 2016. “Contributorship and Partial Inclusion: A Communicative Perspective.” Management Communication Quarterly 30 (3): 279–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Benoit-Barné, Chantal, and François Cooren. 2009. “The Accomplishment of Authority through Presentification: How Authority Is Distributed among and Negotiated by Organizational Members.” Management Communication Quarterly 23 (1): 5–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bos, René ten. 2002. “Machiavelli’s Kitchen.” Organization 9 (1): 51–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brummans, Boris H. J. M. (ed.). 2018. The Agency of Organizing: Perspectives and Case Studies. New York, NY: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buber, Martin. 1958. I and Thou. New York: Scribner.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Callon, Michel, Pierre Lascoumes, and Yannick Barthe. 2009. Acting in an Uncertain World: An Essay on Technical Democracy. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Callon, Michel and John Law. 1995. “Agency and the Hybrid Collectif.” The South Atlantic Quarterly 94 (2): 481–507. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castor, Theresa and François Cooren. 2006. “Organizations as Hybrid Forms of Life: The Implications of the Selection of Agency in Problem Formulation.” Management Communication Quarterly 19 (4): 570–600. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Choukah, Sarah and Philippe Theophanidis. 2016. “Emergence and Ontogenetics: Towards a Communication without Agent.” Social Science Information 55 (3): 286–299. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Christensen, Lars Thøger, Mette Morsing, and Ole Thyssen. 2011. “The Polyphony of Coporate Social Responsibility: Deconstructing Accountability and Transparency in the Context of Identity and Hypocrisy.” In Handbook of Communication Ethics, ed. by George Cheney, S. May, and Debashish Munish, 457–474. New York, NY: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cissna, Kenneth N., and Rob Anderson. 1998. “Theorizing about Dialogic Moments: The Buber-Rogers Position and Postmodern Themes.” Communication Theory 8 (1): 63–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “The Communicative Achievement of Collective Minding: Analysis of Board Meeting Excerpts.” Management Communication Quarterly 17 (4): 517–551. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2008. “The Selection of Agency as a Rhetorical Device: Opening up the Scene of Dialogue through Ventriloquism.” In Dialogue and Rhetoric, ed. by Edda Weigand, 23–37. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2015. “In the Name of Law: Ventriloquism and Juridical Matters.” In Latour and the Passage of Law, ed. by Kyle McGee, 235–272. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. “Ethics for Dummies: Ventriloquism and Responsibility.” Atlantic Journal of Communication 24 (1): 17–30. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Materializing Communication: Making the Case for a Relational Ontology.” Journal of Communication 68 (2): 278–288. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooren, François, Stephanie Fox, Daniel Robichaud, and Nayla Talih. 2005. “Arguments for a Plurified View of the Social World: Spacing and Timing as Hybrid Achievements.” Time & Society 14 (2–3): 265–282. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooren, François, and Sergeiy Sandler. 2014. “Polyphony, Ventriloquism, and Constitution: In Dialogue with Bakhtin.” Communication Theory 24 (3): 225–244. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques. 1994. Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. Monolingualism of the Other, or, The Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. [URL]
. 2000. Of Hospitality. Ed. by Anne Dufourmantelle. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Follett, Mary Parker. 1926. “The Psychological Foundations: The Giving of Orders.” In Scientific Foundations of Business Administration, ed. by Henry C. Metcalf, 132–149. Human Relations. Baltimore, MD: The Williams & Wilkins Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Foucault, Michel. 1979. “What Is an Author?” In Textual Strategies: Perspectives in Post-Structuralist Criticism, ed. by Josué V. Harari, 225–230. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fricker, Miranda. 2007. Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García-Marzá, Domingo. 2005. “Trust and Dialogue: Theoretical Approaches to Ethics Auditing.” Journal of Business Ethics 57 (3): 209–219. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garfinkel, Harold. 1967. Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1984. The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Golob, Ursa, and Klement Podnar. 2014. “Critical Points of CSR-Related Stakeholder Dialogue in Practice.” Business Ethics: A European Review 23 (3): 248–257. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gurevitch, Zali. 2000. “Plurality in Dialogue: A Comment on Bakhtin”. Sociology 34 (2): 243–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hennion, Antoine. 2017. “From Valuation to Instauration: On the Double Pluralism of Values.” Valuation Studies 5 (1): 69–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Illia, Laura, Stefania Romenti, Belén Rodríguez-Cánovas, Grazia Murtarelli, and Craig Carroll. 2017. “Exploring Corporations’ Dialogue About CSR in the Digital Era.” Journal of Business Ethics 146 (1): 39–58. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johannesen, Richard L. 1971. “The Emerging Concept of Communication as Dialogue.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 57 (4): 373–382. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel. (1785) 2002. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Ed. by Thomas E. Hill and Arnulf Zweig. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. [URL]
Krippendorff, Klaus. 1989. “On the Ethics of Constructing Communication.” In Rethinking Communication: Paradigm Issues, ed. by B. Dervin, Lawrence Grossberg, B. J. O’Keefe, and E. Wartella, 66–96. Newbury Park, CA: Sage. [URL]
Latour, Bruno. 2011. “La Société Comme Possession – La « preuve Par l’orchestre »’. In Philosophie des Possessions, ed. by Didier Debaise, 9–34. Dijon: Presses du réel.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. An Inquiry into Modes of Existence: An Anthropology of the Moderns. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Létourneau, Alain. 2012. “Towards an Inclusive Notion of Dialogue for Ethical and Moral Purposes.” In (Re)Presentations and Dialogue, ed. by François Cooren and Alain Létourneau, 17–36. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levinas, Emmanuel. 1987. Time and the Other. Translated by Richard A. Cohen. Revised edition. Pittsburgh, PA: Duquesne University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levy, Neil. 2014. “Forced to Be Free? Increasing Patient Autonomy by Constraining It.” Journal of Medical Ethics 40 (5): 293–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lozano, Josep M., and Alfons Sauquet. 1999. “Integrating Business and Ethical Values Through Practitioner Dialogue.” Journal of Business Ethics 22 (3): 203–217. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
MacIntyre, Alasdair C. 1981. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Maclagan, Patrick. 1999. “Corporate Social Responsibility as a Participative Process’. Business Ethics: A European Review 8 (1): 43–49. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matte, Frédérik, and Nicolas Bencherki. 2019. “Materializing Ethical Matters of Concern: Practicing Ethics in a Refugee Camp.” International Journal of Communication 131: 5870–5889.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matte, Frédérik, and François Cooren. 2015. “Learning as Dialogue: An “on-the-Go” Approach to Dealing with Organizational Tensions.” In Francophone Perspectives of Learning Through Work: Conceptions, Traditions and Practices, ed. by Laurent Filliettaz and Stephen Billett, 169–187. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McNamee, Sheila, and John Shotter. 2004. “Dialogue, Creativity, and Change.” In Dialogue: Theorizing Difference in Communication Studies, by Rob Anderson, Leslie Baxter, and Kenneth Cissna, 91–104. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meunier, Dominique, and Consuelo Vásquez. 2008. “On Shadowing the Hybrid Character of Actions: A Communicational Approach.” Communication Methods and Measures 2 (3): 167–192. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mondada, Lorenza. 2018. “The Multimodal Interactional Organization of Tasting: Practices of Tasting Cheese in Gourmet Shops.” Discourse Studies 20 (6): 743–769. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morrell, Kevin, and Michael Anderson. 2006. “Dialogue and Scrutiny in Organizational Ethics.” Business Ethics: A European Review 15 (2): 117–129. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Morsing, Mette, and Majken Schultz. 2006. “Corporate Social Responsibility Communication: Stakeholder Information, Response and Involvement Strategies.” Business Ethics: A European Review 15 (4): 323–338. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oosterhout, J. (Hans) van, Ben Wempe, and Theo van Willigenburg. 2004. “Rethinking Organizational Ethics: A Plea for Pluralism.” Journal of Business Ethics 55 (4): 385–393. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poulos, Christopher N. 2008. “Accidental Dialogue.” Communication Theory 18 (1): 117–138. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1971. A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ricœur, Paul. 1991. From Text to Action: Essays in Hermeneutics, II1. Evanston, IL: Northwestern Univ. Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sanders, Robert E. 2012. “Strategy and Creativity in Dialogue.” In Spaces of Polyphony, ed. by Clara-Ubaldina Lorda and Patrick Zabalbeascoa, 11–24. Amsterdam; New York, NY: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Souriau, Étienne. (1956) 2015. “Of the Mode of Existence of the Work To-Be-Made.” In The Different Modes of Existence, translated by Erik Beranek and Tim Howles, 219–240. Minneapolis, MN: Univocal Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. (1943) 2015. The Different Modes of Existence. Translated by Erik Beranek and Tim Howles. Minneapolis, MN: Univocal Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, ed. by Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, 271–313. Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stam, Henderikus J. 2010. “Self and Dialogue: Introduction.” Theory & Psychology 20 (3): 299–304. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stewart, John, and Karen Zediker. 2000. “Dialogue as Tensional, Ethical Practice.” Southern Communication Journal 65 (2–3): 224–242. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stückelberger, Christoph. 2009. “Dialogue Ethics: Ethical Criteria and Conditions for a Successful Dialogue Between Companies and Societal Actors.” Journal of Business Ethics 84 (3): 329. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Suchman, Lucy. 1987. Plans and Situated Action: The Problem of Human-Machine Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1992. The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vásquez, Consuelo, and Timothy R. Kuhn, eds. 2019. Dis/Organization as Communication: Exploring the Disordering, Disruptive and Chaotic Properties of Communication. New York, NY: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weigand, Edda. 2010. Dialogue – The Mixed Game. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Parsloe, Sarah M., Jose D. Leon, Logan Allen & Seth Juncewski
2025. The Power of Puppetry as an Arts-Based Tool for Health and Disability Communication Research. Health Communication 40:13 ► pp. 2797 ff. DOI logo
Sénac, Coline
2024. Injustice épistémique et démocratie délibérative à l’ère du numérique : l’envers du mouvement #BalanceTaStartUp. Communiquer. Revue de communication sociale et publique 39 DOI logo
Létourneau, Alain, Geneviève Boivin & Nicolas Bencherki
2023. Practices of Dialogue, Dialogues in Practice. Language and Dialogue 13:2 ► pp. 147 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 november 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue