Keywords

3.1 Communicating and Acting

It is a human need to communicate our humanity to others and respond to them. Yet there is currently much tension in society that militates against open and productive conversation. Across universities in the UK, there are topics which have become so contentious that students and staff, in their own groups or mixed, have reached an impasse in communication, to the point that mediation is required, but is usually not forthcoming. Copious analyses are written about the free speech debate, but without practical solutions. Language, the instrument of mediation, is what Ricœur worked extensively on throughout his career, developing a philosophy that entails being linguistically active and taking responsibility, by being accountable for the way we express ourselves.

Whilst Immanuel Kant’s morality was not dependent upon developing conversational bonds, Ricœur understood that our use of language to really try and communicate should be interpreted as a serious assertion of our personal moral position. He believed that the way we use and experience language will affect us and change us. This became integrated into his analysis of narrative: language never exists for its own sake; it must always pursue an attempt to reflect the experience of living in the world. Attendant upon this approach is his ‘vehement insistence on preventing language from closing up on itself’ (Ricœur 1991b, 19). This is as necessary offline, as it is online in the digital world—which Ricœur did not live to see in its current intensity. Online activism, Emma Dabiri observes, has become a performative device that bypasses real action and devalues language:

We seem to have replaced doing anything with saying something, in a space where the word ‘conversation’ has achieved an obscenely inflated importance as a substitute for action. (Dabiri 2021, 11)

But of even greater interest, perhaps, is the offline trend on campus towards extreme caution in both conversation and action. I will show how this caution is manifest in students and also in free speech commentators. With regard to students, in 2016, 37% of students polled (in an online survey by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)) agreed that students should be ‘protected from discrimination rather than allow unlimited free speech’; but in 2022 students agreeing with the same statement increased significantly to 61% (Hillman 2022, 4). Hillman concludes that ‘the level of student support for greater restrictions on free expression is so high that it is unlikely to be something that higher education institutions can grapple with on their own, assuming it is thought to need tackling, but instead is an issue for wider society’ (Hillman 2022, 14). I see this differently: the HEPI question offers two extreme alternatives, but surely protection from discrimination should be a (if not the) major priority at universities in order to make open debate possible. This finding demonstrates that students’ awareness is consistent with that of the Equality Act in seeking to be careful about ‘unlimited free speech’ and I explore how to achieve that in this chapter.

3.2 Challenging the Curriculum on Discrimination

The university curriculum is itself a site of judgement. To take an example from philosophy, the curriculum accords much attention to Immanuel Kant. For Kant, the modern university is integral to the modern state, because it is there that individuals learn critical reasoning skills that are morally based. Furthermore, Kant proposed a threefold version of moral universalism in which he considers tripartite human autonomy at the personal (individual), communitarian (group-based) and cosmopolitan (society-based) levels. These constitute progressively more expansive concentric circles of responsibility which we can see in my Matryoshka doll model (see Sect. 1.1). Ricœur noted how Kant has also influenced the thought of American legal scholar Rawls and German philosopher Habermas. Habermas and others have sought to remedy Kant’s reliance upon logic even for practical reason, which Kant proposed as distinct from theoretical reasoning whilst following the same basic two-part structure, ‘a priori’ and ‘a posteriori’. The former, ‘a priori’, comprises the conditions of possibility for every empirical argument deployed for addressing an issue, whilst the latter ‘a posteriori’ comprises all the possible non-evidence-based prejudices, desires, pleasures etc. that one may deploy. These two levels of reasoning (theoretical and practical) impel right action for rational agents.

People of colour, however, were excluded ‘a priori’ as Kant believed them not to be rational agents; they could not be contained within ‘a priori’ conditions of possibility. Accordingly, he saw the enterprise and advantages of modern society such as the university as restricted to white people. To express this exclusivist ontology, Kant deployed a racialized epistemology; and in order to explain this, Lu-Adler adopts David Theo Goldberg’s description of racism as: a racially-based distribution of ‘social power’ whereby the dominant race is ‘in a position to exclude [racial] others from (primary) social goods, including rights, to prevent their access, or participation, or expression, or simply to demean or diminish the other’s self-respect (Lu-Adler 2022, 319). Applying this to Kant, Lu-Adler shows him to have portrayed the four races he identifies—white, yellow, black and red—in terms of unbridgeable differences. Whites, Kant asserts, possess all the driving forces, predispositions, and talents that are needed for advanced culture and civilization; they alone can continue to progress in perfecting themselves. Accordingly, it is primarily negative features that Kant attributes to his other three races.

The norm in academic circles, however, is to ignore, deny or downplay Kant’s racism. For example, Kleingeld argues that Kant changed his mind and became less racist (Lu-Adler 2022). This argument, however, seems untenable since Kant maintained his moral indifference to the question of slavery, viewing its success as necessary for European prosperity and seeing the ‘Negro’ as a natural slave (Kant 2007; Lu-Adler 2022). The value of his model of moral universalism is undermined; yet many of his constructs remain valuable, and there is no reason to reject his whole philosophy; rather, like Habermas and others, one can be influenced by it but also seek to remedy it. Indeed, the university curriculum could be greatly enhanced by reading one Kant (the universalist) against the other (the racist) to see if the negligent lack of attention paid to Kant’s taxonomy of race helps with understanding the as yet unresolved bias blind spot (Pronin, Lin, and Ross 2002).

As it stands, however, the negatives of difference from Kant are still very much alive on campus, and very poorly addressed—hence their perpetuation. Wael Hallaq (see Sect. 2.7) might have been classified as red-skinned by Kant and therefore deemed not capable of a conversation on the matter, yet Kant and Hallaq ‘agree’ on the need for independent universities; and here I argue for independent debate in universities.

3.3 Communities of Inquiry

I conduct debates on campus through Communities of InquiryFootnote 1 (acronym CofI, pronounced coffee) sessions, which seek to provide agency through conversations that lead to action: it is an organising principle, not a method per se, and it opens a safe consensual space for challenging thinking and talking about doubts. A CofI group can be convened at any time and agree to discuss any topic. The topic may be pre-chosen as one that is of urgent interest or may be chosen by the group. The individuals may be staff, students or both. A session usually needs two hours to achieve a working rhythm of discussion and an outcome. Chatham House rules obtain i.e. what is said in the group stays within the group. Ideally a trained facilitator will support the group. University students who have learnt consent training, mediation and conflict resolution work are ideally placed to also train in CofI techniques and act as facilitators for CofI sessions. If that is not possible, then an individual will need to agree to intervene if there is abuse or severe upset: and in fact, each member should see themselves as a mediator of meaning for the benefit of group functionality (see Sect. 3.4). This is a development of the community of inquiry set out in Pragmatism by the pragmatist and scientist William James (1842–1910), who proposed its mediating role in group decision-making in general terms. This was quickly adopted by American pragmatist thinkers Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) and John Dewey (1859–1952) who applied it to scientific problem-solving and democratic processes respectively. Peirce understood it as a way to move away from the Cartesian individual who worked out his own truth, towards the individual working in a group to share and evolve ideas in order to resolve doubts through inquiry:

Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves.... The irritation of doubt causes a struggle to attain a state of belief. I shall term this struggle Inquiry. (Peirce 1958, 99)

Peirce’s contemporary, Nobel Peace Prize winner, friend to John Dewey and inspiration for the Chicago school of sociology Jane Addams, implemented it daily for twenty years in her work supporting immigrant women in the 19th District, Chicago. In fact, she likely understood Hull House—a multi-purpose safe house which functioned for 40 years, providing medical, educational, cultural and social community support, and which was the physical site of her activism—as a living example of a community of inquiry (Shields 1999); the women being supported there also conducted ground breaking social research and used their findings to bring about change in legislation (Shields 1999; Addams 1910, 126).

After these seminal thinkers, the community of inquiry was deployed with specific topics in mind. For example, Garrison used it to develop online communities (Garrison and Arbaugh 2007), Lipman and Kennedy to develop philosophical inquiry for children (Kennedy 2012), and Patricia Shields in her work on public administration (Shields 2003).

The Communities of Inquiry approach preempts and precludes the prevalent dynamics of discourse explained by John Peters in 2005 (Peters 2005). He describes how, both on and offline the following sequence is now recurrent: in the name of liberalism an ‘outrage artist’ breaks a taboo with the use of a word or a sentiment that arouses support from a libertarian who wants to support free speech at all costs even when offence is caused. The third protagonist is the ‘outraged bystander’, the offended party who disagrees strongly, possibly for a range of different reasons (Peters 2005 cited in Titley 2020, 116–17). These three converge to co-create tension, heightened emotion and no resolution. Communities of Inquiry is very different, using, for example, the dubitative form of open questioning where doubt is shared openly: ‘Why do you think that?’ ‘What do you mean?’ What can we do about X?’ This allows for doubt, for questioning and for negotiation. The optative form is also crucial: ‘Let’s hope for…,’ ‘May we succeed in ….,’ ‘Let there be…’ (Ricœur 1965, 205–208). The optative form expresses possibility, future intention that can be dismissed as ‘wishful thinking’ that almost elides present and future tenses, so that the possible seems real. Optative language can in fact help us to hope for a better future by imagining it. Ricoeur looks at the optative in both religious and secular contexts and never underestimates the fallibility of hope (Ricœur 1994, 2001).

Communities of Inquiry emphasize that human understanding is fallible because individuals are materially affected by changeable factors such as social relations and context. In practice, it becomes a form of self-managed discussion in which participants can reflect on their beliefs and ask themselves and others whether they really have a clear understanding of an issue or whether they are in thrall to unverifiable opinions; and, if the latter, whether they wish to explore them critically or defend them unchallenged (Pardales and Girod 2006; Scott-Baumann 2010).

My development of Communities of Inquiry aligns with Jane Addams’ solution-focused pragmatist philosophy in three ways: group identification of a problematic situation; a methodical, group-based approach to finding solutions by using different methods and approaches (as also recommended by Ricœur); and an emphasis upon participatory democracy, which necessitates having an open mind and listening to different viewpoints. These organising principles can provide a powerful antidote to the free speech wars that currently polarise debate into apparently simple binaries, and which make it seem as if we want either completely free speech or no free speech, unlimited immigration or no immigration, full access to rights or no access to rights, two sexes or no sexes etc.; in reality of course, decisions and practices are much more complex than ‘all or nothing’.

3.4 Key Guidelines for Communities of Inquiry

To ensure proper discussion and debate, Communities of Inquiry last at least 90 min and can go on for several hours. There are five key guidelines that underpin Communities of Inquiry, which are listed below. They share many similarities with Habermas’ ethics of discussion, who insists upon universal participatory and practical rules to govern any discussion and to resolve the tension between the individual, the group and society (Habermas 1984, 1987). Ricœur became interested in Habermas’ communicative ethics late in life as a very different approach to that of either Kant or Rawls, with whose theory of justice he became somewhat disenchanted (see Sect. 6.3); Ricœur summarised Habermas’ rationalist approach—which Ricœur had in fact practised for decades—as follows:

Everyone has the right to speak; everyone has the duty to give his best argument to anyone who asks for it; he must be heard with a presumption that he could be correct and, finally, the antagonists of a rule-governed argument must share a common horizon which is one of agreement, of consensus. (Ricœur 2007, 240)

Ricœur continues:

It assumes on the part of the antagonists an equal will to seek agreement, a desire to co-ordinate their plans of action on some reasonable basis, and finally a concern to make cooperation prevail over conflict in every situation of disagreement. (Ricœur 2007, 241)

I believe this is in fact a clear description of what can be achieved in a community of inquiry, but I do not find Habermas’ three assumptions justifiable, or workable as ‘rules’, in the current fevered context of offensive language. I therefore propose that each group needs to establish their own rules in order to reach Habermas’ three assumptions. I call this procedural ethics, which creates explicit ownership of agreed behaviour, takes account of cultural sensitivities and develops understanding of group identity as well as the incontrovertible individuality of each participant.

The absence of trust building in Habermas’ model is noted by Danielle Allen, who posits that trust is vital so that one is not to be suspected of manipulation—a concern Plato also had (Habermas 1984, 1987; Allen 2004, 54–68). Ricœur too may have sensed the frailty in Habermas’ insistence upon unanimity without building trust: he calls the model ‘courageous’ but notably confines his own discussion of it to legal and medical cases (where there are already sectoral frameworks within which to negotiate solutions); he avoids exploring more expansive moral debates in this context (Ricœur 2007, 241ff).

However, times have changed, and the culture wars have greatly distorted people’s understanding of how to express themselves, with trust seemingly having completely disappeared. Furthermore, the culture wars have cemented extreme populist positions of left and right, with binaries so polarised that we cannot find agreement between two poles; the poles are contrived to be so far apart that they cancel the other out (e.g. leaving or remaining within the EU; deciding to support either sex or gender as the definitive identity marker). Hidden within such extremes are denial and negation because the process necessitates negating one pole of such an argument. This is not conducive for appreciating the nuances and complexities of the debates, nor for producing more amicable relationships. For that reason, I developed with Simon Perfect the fourfold discussion model explained in Chap. 1 (see Sect. 1.1), which Stephen Whitehead and Pat O’Connor have endorsed in Creating a Totally Inclusive University (Whitehead and O’Connor 2022). Using the model, interlocutors can determine the parameters of their discussion by choosing from libertarian, liberal, guarded liberal, or no-platforming models. Whilst libertarian and no-platforming are both extreme positions, each has a less headstrong sibling: the libertarian view is related to the liberal approach that we may speak openly as long as it is legal. The no-platforming approach is related to the guarded liberal view that we should take more care than usual with how we express ourselves, but that we should definitely discuss difficult issues. With all four options, there has to be clarity and agreement about the approach being adopted; additionally, with the extreme versions the discussion has to be especially carefully managed due to the risk of being trapped into extreme positions. Above all, knowing the options and being able to choose allows us to then act by discussing what to do instead of being intimidated or confused into silence by ‘Populism’s Pincer Grip’ of extreme forms of libertarian or no-platforming reacting to each other (see Sect. 1.5).

Accordingly, the guidelines for Communities of Inquiry are as follows:

1. We need to take care with the words we use

Procedural ethics are necessary to ensure that individuals in a group are able to feel safe. To label this process as cancel culture negates its value; we have to be responsive to the linguistic toxicity obtaining in the world outside the university as a result of digital media, authoritarian populism and phenomena like the ‘culture wars’. To avoid using confected accusations of insult that shut us down and stop us discussing urgent matters, as a society we need to relearn the etiquette of argument so that vocabulary can be used in discussion of controversial topics that seem negative. We must not forbid debate and discussion.

Ricœur offers us a clear method of thinking through this problematic with his exploration of the semiotic aspect of words and the related structural process that creates meaning—what he called ‘a cumulative metaphorical process’ (Ricœur 1974, 93). The word is capable of acquiring new layers of meaning while retaining the old ones; and a word can become a symbol that is a means of expressing an extra-linguistic reality which can be either useful or pernicious. A spoken word creates an event, located in time, space and sound that brings together the structure of language and the event created by our use of language. Each word potentially has many meanings, of which some may even contradict others (Ricœur 1974, 96): if we insist upon a single meaning, it will weaken our capacity to communicate.

Ricœur asserted that if we insist upon one particular meaning for a word, we close the universe of signs and thereby also close the possibility of discourse. In Excitable speech Judith Butler takes a similar view, believing that injurious words can be partially neutralized by being used and becoming a ‘linguistic display that does not overcome their degrading meanings, but that reproduces them as public text and that, in being reproduced, displays them as reproducible and resignifiable terms’ (Butler 1997, 100). However, the current atmosphere seems to me to militate against this approach. Some words have become so painful that they should not be used, even descriptively. Indeed, Butler goes on to explain why that might be the case, but also why it necessarily cannot remain so:

No-one has ever worked through an injury without repeating it: its repetition is both the continuation of the trauma and that which marks a self-distance within the very structure of trauma, its constitutive possibility of being otherwise. There is no possibility of not repeating. The only question that remains is: How will that repetition occur, at what site, juridical or nonjuridical, and with what pain and promise? (Butler 1997, 102)

The Communities of Inquiry approach provides a site for refusal, replacement and review of terms, phrases or concepts that evoke discomfort or disgust.

2. It is unacceptable to refuse to discuss anything. The CofI group agrees upon the importance of discussing intractable problems as a principle, and then agrees on a topic to discuss together with a view to finding solutions.

Through group discussion, the topic of racism often emerges as being of interest. However, if, despite the group interest in discussing racism, one group member (perhaps in an influential position in the university with regard to race issues) says it is complicated to discuss race as a topic, the group may be tempted to drop the topic. But, more fruitfully, the question ‘Why can we not talk about race?’ could itself become the topic of discussion. Saying ‘No’ to a topic is discouraged. However, the ‘invisibility’ of whiteness, which confers privilege and power upon white members of the group, necessitates consideration of whether the group, if ethnically mixed, should meet a few times to get to know each other before having such a discussion. Safe spaces and expert advice could also be requested if required.

Bearing in mind Ricœur’s conviction that the methods we choose and the questions we ask will determine where we end up, it is worth being pragmatic and initially choosing a topic in which the individuals believe there is a reasonable chance of deciding upon and agreeing upon a practical outcome.

3. The CofI group adheres to procedural ethics, which entail a commitment to the interests of securing group agreement.

Procedural ethics address the moral need to behave towards each other in ways that are reciprocal as well as agreeing to share the risk of causing offence and on the consequent need to apologise. (This is at odds with current use of social media.) Such a practical approach will help staff and students at universities to respond to the structural pressures currently driving the free speech wars on campus and to the systemic racism that endures.

Collective identity needs to be established by deciding upon the parameters of discourse (Scott-Baumann and Perfect 2021). Since this establishment of parameters may end up being a lengthy process, sufficient time needs to be set aside for it. It may even take up the bulk of the session; but, in the process, participants will be able to face and deal with the tensions in language that underpin their positions. Through this process, definitions of terms can be clarified, and participants may even agree that some language and some ideas will not be used in their CofI—but may be reserved for future discussions (see above).

4. Participants must see themselves as group members, willing participants in group change, where each participant is also a mediator between their ‘truth’ and that of the others: participants ‘must be hospitable and ready for experiment’ (Addams 1910, 126).

Using evidence is often convincing, but there is so much ‘fake news’ available, that we need to make decisions about which sources we trust and whether we can secure information from different sources for comparisons. Participants join the CofI with the mindset that their ‘truth’ and arguments are there to be tested, and should have appropriate evidence to support their claims.

5. The group agrees to decide upon a practical goal, however small, that can be implemented after the discussion. Lobbying for change is practical if well planned.

For a community of inquiry to succeed, its members need to believe that they can take calculated risks together, towards a shared goal. Lobbying for change could range from asking to see the university’s policies on a certain topic to working towards influencing a person of influence within the university, or beyond (an MP or peer, for example). Institutional needs may prevail: using Communities of Inquiry approaches I have been asked to teach deans and associate deans about ‘whiteness’ for example.

Addams was fearless in her belief that a small group can change laws: she lobbied successfully for many changes, including legal protection for children under fourteen from being used in factory labour. In all this activism she saw the need to find out what others wanted, learning from discussions in the onsite café at the Hull House:

The experience of the coffee-house taught us not to hold preconceived ideas of what the neighborhood ought to have, but to keep ourselves in readiness to modify and adapt our understandings as we discovered those things which the neighborhood was ready to accept. (Addams 1910, 132)

I will show in Chap. 7 how Communities of Inquiry can contribute to what I call a ‘politics of pedagogy’, and how these organisational principles can be equally applied beyond the campus, including even the Houses of Parliament to become polity praxis (see Sects. 7.9 and 7.10).

3.5 Practical Outcomes

A key feature of Communities of Inquiry is for participants to consider concrete outcomes as a result of their dialogue. Whilst it is valuable to agree some possible outcomes at the initial stage, it is often the case that as the discussion evolves, different, sharper, and more pertinent goals will also emerge. They will be revisited and possibly renegotiated in the last fifteen minutes. In this plenary stage, and in the days that follow, participants will realise that they have negotiated a difficult conversation by using a moral framework that reminds them to be responsible for the words they use, and they can use the same processes in other discussions and debates. Furthermore, participants will also likely want to meet up again and return to the same group and topic to further the debate. As the group works on the concrete outcomes they collectively agreed, the opportunities for further discussion will also present themselves.

Such post-CofI steps heighten participants’ appreciation of the value of collective discussions, and listening to understand different perspectives, rather than simply rebutting, refuting and rejecting. Through such steps and prolonged interpersonal engagement, individual members begin to appreciate that it is appropriate to subsume one’s individuality just enough within the group that it becomes possible to retain one’s own opinions (that may differ from the majority of the group) and contribute to a shared opinion that can drive an agenda forward productively to a useful practical outcome that may lead to working beyond the university, for example with parliament, in a form of polity praxis. By talking about issues in this way, participants start to see that it is more likely there will be worthwhile outcomes if people work to develop group understanding that encompasses individual views, even if partially. The personal sacrifice required when one is convinced of being ‘right’ becomes worthwhile for group cohesion, as I will show in the work of Danielle Allen (see Sect. 7.6) (Allen 2004).

3.6 Group Work

This description of group praxis is, however, also idealistic, and the concept of group cohesion is fragile. In a community of inquiry, the group becomes the context for decision-making, so it is necessary to consider the possible influence of the individuals who comprise it and the decision-making process. The process of doing so addresses the major challenge Ricœur presents us with: in order to balance different views, we have to recover the use of language that will allow us to create dialectical debate and explore the views of those we disagree with, instead of rejecting them. Hallaq explains that in the Islamic tradition, argument and debate (ḥiwār) were believed to be ‘a primary precondition for knowledge and its acquisition’ and that ideally the logical ‘communicative dialectical methods formed, and were formed by, tradition’ (Hallaq 2019, 52). Individuals and groups will use different means to influence each other, and a much-contested area is that of rhetoric: using form and emotional appeal to influence the decision making of others; the question often asked is whether this is acceptable or not.

3.7 Rhetoric: Plato’s Gorgias Dialogue

In our university context, before we can be confident of conducting ethically valid group discussion, we must consider the suspicion of rhetoric as a beautiful yet deceptive use of language. Rhetoric is often perceived as a threat to effective group work. Plato, Socrates and Ricœur were deeply suspicious. Plato’s Socratic Dialogues embody and exemplify a belief that discussion is the best and indeed morally the only way to resolve differences. Its basis is Socrates’ avowed assertion that ignorance is the basis for most human decisions, attitudes and beliefs, and that if we interrogate our own ignorance through honest discussion, we may find out what we don’t know and, in the process, come closer to better understanding.

Arguing against oratory or oration (a form of rhetoric), Socrates used a form of dialectic based upon questioning in order to get the answers he wanted and suggested that: ‘Oratory is a producer of conviction-persuasion and not of teaching-persuasion concerning what’s just and unjust’ (Plato 1987, sec. 455a). He attacked Gorgias and other rhetorician orators, objecting that to be a successful sophist it is not necessary to know your subject matter since it is like cookery or poetry; it is the art of persuasion, and thus about form rather than content; and that the act of oratory is always based upon flattery, persuasion, manipulation and power (Plato 1987, secs 466a-c, 464d, 481b, 466c–e).

Discussing Socrates’ eponymous dialogue with Gorgias, and Plato’s analysis of flattery as crucial to oratory, Ricœur describes oratory as ‘the art of inducing persuasion by means other than the truth’ (Ricœur 1965, 257). Ricœur sees the Gorgias dialogue as demonstrating the perversion of philosophy through sophistry and the perversion of politics through tyranny; he therefore summarises Gorgias in this way: ‘Thus the lie, flattery and untruth—political evils par excellence—corrupt man’s primordial state, which is word, discourse and reason’ (Ricœur 1965, 257). A primordial state and reason resonate with Islamic fiṭra.Footnote 2 Resonant with Ricœur’s hopefulness, Ovamir Anjum juxtaposes fiṭra with the deep scepticism about human nature and the world of Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault (Hallaq and Anjum 2022, vol. 6).

In Plato’s Gorgias dialogue, Callicles (pronounced Calliclees) remains proudly bullish about the use of language to get his own way, and his belief that the powerful are good: might is rightFootnote 3; so forceful arguments and elegant turns of phrase (clever, passionate and emotional but not always based upon evidence) are good. How do we balance the desire to persuade others of our way of thinking with the need to be honest and straightforward? In the Islamic tradition, munāẓara can serve to provide such balance and temper excess. It means ‘examining mentally or investigating, by two parties, the relation between two things in order to evince the truth’ and its etiquettes include the debating person being wary of extreme brevity; verbosity; using vague or unfamiliar words; interrupting before comprehending something; being offensive or vulgar (Taşköprüzāde 2020, 47, 52–54).Footnote 4

In contrast to Socrates, through whom Plato voiced concerns about rhetoric, it was Aristotle, Plato’s pupil, who admired, mastered and systematised rhetoric. In Rhetoric, he sets out the rules, giving both practical examples and theoretical structures that also explain why people are convinced by certain uses of language. Sam Leith argues that Aristotle understood that study of rhetoric was the study of human nature (Leith 2016, 3–31). In early medieval times Aristotle’s work fell out of favour; however, with the accession of the Abbasids to power in Baghdad, and ‘supported by the entire elite of Abbasid society’, the Graeco-Arabic translation movement saw Islamicate scholars seeking out and translating such texts as Aristotle’s Rhetoric, often saving them from destruction: indeed, ‘from about the middle of the eighth century to the end of the tenth, almost all non-literary and non-historical secular Greek books that were available throughout the Eastern Byzantine Empire and the Near East were translated into Arabic’ and thus saved for posterity (Gutas p.1).Footnote 5 Muslim scholars, however, understood rhetoric and oratory positively due to the foundational Arabic text: the Qur’an. The Qur’an uniquely employs rhymed-prose throughout and across themes, stories, responses and topics (legal and otherwise) to argue for the good life and what is just; it seeks to both teach and convince of its truth with rhetoric (Abdul-Raof 2006; Chowdhury 2013); it thus transcends Socrates’ dissection of oratory and Aristotle’s binary analysis that something is either something or it is not.

Thus, we need not uphold the Socratic understanding of truth and rhetoric being mutually exclusive; rather the focus needs to be on the obligations participants in a discussion have to each other which are important for building a culture of reciprocity in universities. This is consistent with Ricœur’s belief that the authors of a speech action cannot present themselves as ethically neutral, because neutrality would be impossible:

All speech acts… commit their speaker through a tacit pledge of sincerity by reason of which I actually mean what I say. Simple assertion involves this commitment: I believe that what I say is true and I offer my belief to others so that they too will share it. (Ricœur 1991a, 217)

3.8 Communities of Inquiry Sample: Challenging Callicles

Aristotle proposed three powerful rhetorical techniques: ethos (‘trust me’), logos (‘believe me’) and pathos (‘follow me’). Is it possible to persuade others without using these techniques? Use the notes below to have a go at resolving a fundamental dilemma: should we use rhetoric or not?

In Talking to Strangers, Danielle Allen entitles a chapter ‘Rhetoric: a good thing’ and presents therein Aristotle’s book Rhetoric as a magnificent approach. Not sharing any of the doubts that beset Socrates, Plato and Ricœur, she asserts that a speaker must ‘be precise about which emotions are at stake in a particular conversation’, generate trust by convincing all her audience, and use her fluency to demonstrate how she makes personal sacrifices and shows solidarity even with strangers (Allen 2004, 157). So, for Allen the rhetorical ability to persuade people is invaluable and does not lead to deceit because it must be based in honesty. For her, the ultimate prize is what she calls political friendship, and to achieve that she recommends rhetoric because it represents fluent and convincing communication which is vital for improving the world. Callicles is different.

Callicles accuses the others of, in effect, hypocrisy, asserting that he will speak truly while they dissemble: he doesn’t care. He then states:

I believe that the people who institute our laws are the weak and the many…. They’re afraid of the more powerful among men, the ones who are capable of having a greater share, and so they say that getting more than one’s share is ‘shameful’ and ‘unjust’. (Plato 1987, sec. 483b)

In stark contrast with the orator and with the uncompromising Callicles, Socrates believed a philosopher should avoid the use of charm, flattery and seductive language and respond well to questions: ‘alternately asking questions and answering them, and to put aside for another time this long style of speechmaking’ (Plato 1987, sec. 499b). How can we overcome the ‘brute force’ of an argument like that of Callicles, using a community of inquiry? It is worthwhile believing that although Callicles will not change, those who witness the standoff will learn from Socrates’ arguments. Using a Communities of Inquiry approach, read Plato’s Gorgias and Allen’s arguments in Talking to strangers and debate the pros and cons of rhetoric.