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Part of
Controversies in the Contemporary World
Edited by Adriano Fabris and Giovanni Scarafile
[Controversies 15] 2019
► pp. 7–28

Chapter 1
Leibniz beyond Leibniz

Rationality, controversies and the ethics of communication

This essay explains the conceptual tools used in the international LeLo project, coordinated by Marcelo Dascal, which have led, often with innovative results, to the reconstruction of the virtual debate between Leibniz and Locke. The project focuses on the connection between controversies and a specific idea of communication, articulated on several levels, in which the traditional mathematical theory of communication is finally surpassed. In this way, dialogue and care for the audience become the evidence of a more marked attention to the contexts in which a renewed ethics of communication is announced. It allows us to face adequately the new challenges posed by a reality so changing as to resemble a chameleon.

Keywords: alterity, audience, controversy, dialogue, ethics of communication, misunderstandings, Leibniz, Locke, pragmatics, rhetoric
Article outline
  • 1.A necessary premise
  • 2.Updating paradigms: From the mathematical theory of communication to an authentically human communication
  • 3.The role of misunderstandings
  • 4.The recovery of Grice’s pragmatics
  • 5.The relevance of the forms: Fallacies and strategic maneuvering
  • 6.The factors considered in the debate
    • 6.1Interrelations between text, text and context
    • 6.2Requests for misunderstandings and misrepresentations
    • 6.3Tactical moves vs. strategic moves
    • 6.4The attitude of the contenders to the debate
    • 6.5The attitude of the contenders towards each other
    • 6.6Dynamic development of the debate
  • 7.The results of the research: The threefold contrasting attitude of Leibniz in chapter 27 of the Nouveaux essais
    • 7.1Indirect plausibility
    • 7.2Dissimulation
    • 7.3Replacement
  • 8.Capturing the chameleon: Final remarks on rationality, controversies and ethics of communication
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 7 August 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cvs.15.02sca
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