On Dialogue and person-hood: can we have one without the other?
Professor Laurance Splitter, Professor, Philosophy and Education
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Tuesday 7 July 2009
Laurance Splitter - professor of philosophy and education at the Hong Kong Institute of Education - was a Visiting Professor at the Centre for Dialogue in July 2009. He was recently appointed Executive Seminar Moderator to the Aspen Institute in the USA. Professor Splitter has published widely in the areas of philosophy for children, dialogue and questioning, identity politics, concept formation, values and citizenship education, and pedagogy. He is currently trying to raise awareness about the role and importance of dialogue in dealing with problematic and challenging situations, both within formal education and more broadly.
In this engaging seminar Professor Splitter explored the theory and practice of dialogue drawing attention to the primacy of ’personhood’. Professor Splitter examined the question of relativism, and asked whether all differences and conflicts can be amenable to dialogue. Professor Splitter argued that dialogue and inquiry must be open-ended with no ‘sacred assumptions’, he went on to examine some of the implications of this view for how we might approach cultural, religious, ethnic and other differences.