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Article published In: Language and Dialogue
Vol. 6:3 (2016) ► pp.349–369

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How to verify a theory of dialogue

 | University of Münster (Germany)
Published online: 8 December 2016
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ld.6.3.01wei
In recent decades the term ‘theory’ has pervasively been used in the literature without any reflection upon the conditions of its legitimate use. The paper focuses on the issue of what makes up a theory. Constitutive components are the object-of-study and the methodology. The object of a theory has to be the minimal autonomous unit. The object ‘dialogue’ is a human affair, language used by human beings in the dialogic action game. Any approach which claims to be a theory needs to justify its hypotheses. A theory about human actions and behaviour in the end relates to anthropological insights which can eventually be verified by neuroscience. It is sociobiology which unites the different disciplines in their search for the unity of knowledge.
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