Conflict, consensus and dissensus in two open letters
I will analyze in this article how discussants in two open letters, issued after Pope Benedict XVIth’s Regensburg lecture in 2006, seek to reach consensus and overcome disagreement in a particular conflict situation. I first show that “conflict” is a tricky and slippery word and that far from being...
সংরক্ষণ করুন:
| প্রকাশিত: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/tipa, |
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| প্রধান লেখক: | |
| বিন্যাস: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| ভাষা: | Anglais |
| প্রকাশিত: |
TIPA. Travaux interdisciplinaires sur la parole et le langage
2017
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| বিষয়গুলি: | |
| অনলাইন ব্যবহার করুন: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| সংক্ষিপ্ত: | I will analyze in this article how discussants in two open letters, issued after Pope Benedict XVIth’s Regensburg lecture in 2006, seek to reach consensus and overcome disagreement in a particular conflict situation. I first show that “conflict” is a tricky and slippery word and that far from being always negatively connoted, it is, for some thinkers, indicative of the solidity and the genuine pluralistic nature of a society. I carry out a rhetorical analysis against this theoretical background, drawing mainly notions, such as kairos, identification, audience, ethos and presencing, from Kenneth Burke’s (1950/69a) and Chaïm Perelman’s (Perelman & Obrechts-Tyteca 1958/69) rhetorical theories. I explore how the writers of the two open letters endeavour to bridge up the gap between Muslims and Christians in a time of heightened tension and how they insist, through the rhetorical process of identification, on the consubstantiality of their religions and their stances towards the inter-faith dialogue. The two parties engage in an open dialogue the hallmark of which is a common eagerness to reach consensus and obliterate dissensus and they repeatedly make plain that their dialogue is conducted under the auspices of a transcendental and ethically motivated rationality. Yet, I show that this apparently rational and dispassionate consensus is only reached by excluding a “third” and by refusing to tackle or by minimizing the important dissensual issues. |
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