Dialogue (sometimes spelled dialog in American English) is an interactive communication between two or more people, and a literary and theatrical form that depicts such an exchange. As a philosophical or didactic device, it is chiefly associated in the West with the Socratic dialogue as developed by Plato, but antecedents are also found in other traditions including Indian literature.
Etymology
The term dialogue stems from the Greek (, ); its roots are (, ) and (, ). The first extant author who uses the term is Plato, in whose works it is closely associated with the art of dialectic. Latin took over the word as ."Dialogue", Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition
As genre
Antiquity Dialogue as a genre in the Middle East and Asia dates back to ancient works, such as Sumerian disputations preserved in copies from the late third millennium BC,G. J., and H. L. J. Vanstiphout. 1991. Dispute Poems and Dialogues in the Ancient and Mediaeval Near East: Forms and Types of Literary Debates in Semitic and Related Literatures. Leuven: Department Oriëntalistiek. Rigvedic dialogue hymns, and the Mahabharata.
In the West, Plato ( BC – BC) has commonly been credited with the systematic use of dialogue as an independent literary form. Ancient sources indicate, however, that the Platonic dialogue had its foundations in the mime, which the Sicilian poets Sophron and Epicharmus had cultivated half a century earlier. These works, admired and imitated by Plato, have not survived and we have only the vaguest idea of how they may have been performed. The Mimes of Herodas, which were found in a papyrus in 1891, give some idea of their character.
Plato further simplified the form and reduced it to pure argumentative conversation, while leaving intact the amusing element of character-drawing. By about 400 BC he had perfected the Socratic dialogue. All his extant writings, except the Apology and Epistles, use this form.
Following Plato, the dialogue became a major literary genre in antiquity, and several important works both in Latin and in Greek were written. Soon after Plato, Xenophon wrote his own Symposium; also, Aristotle is said to have written several philosophical dialogues in Plato's style (of which only fragments survive). In the 2nd century CE, Christian apologist Justin Martyr wrote the Dialogue with Trypho, which was a discourse between Justin representing Christianity and Trypho representing Judaism. Another Christian apologetic dialogue from the time was the Octavius, between the Christian Octavius and pagan Caecilius.
Japan In the East, in 13th century Japan, dialogue was used in important philosophical works. In the 1200s, Nichiren Daishonin wrote some of his important writings in dialogue form, describing a meeting between two characters in order to present his argument and theory, such as in "Conversation between a Sage and an Unenlightened Man" (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin 1: pp. 99–140, dated around 1256), and "On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land" (Ibid., pp. 6–30; dated 1260), while in other writings he used a question and answer format, without the narrative scenario, such as in "Questions and Answers about Embracing the Lotus Sutra" (Ibid., pp. 55–67, possibly from 1263). The sage or person answering the questions was understood as the author.
Modern period Two French writers of eminence borrowed the title of Lucian's most famous collection; both Fontenelle (1683) and Fénelon (1712) prepared Dialogues des morts ("Dialogues of the Dead"). Contemporaneously, in 1688, the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche published his Dialogues on Metaphysics and Religion, thus contributing to the genre's revival in philosophic circles. In English non-dramatic literature the dialogue did not see extensive use until Berkeley employed it, in 1713, for his treatise, Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. His contemporary, the Scottish philosopher David Hume wrote Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. A prominent 19th-century example of literary dialogue was Landor's Imaginary Conversations (1821–1828).
In Germany, Wieland adopted this form for several important satirical works published between 1780 and 1799. In Spanish literature, the Dialogues of Valdés (1528) and those on Painting (1633) by Vincenzo Carducci are celebrated. Italian writers of collections of dialogues, following Plato's example, include Torquato Tasso (1586), Galileo (1632), Galiani (1770), Leopardi (1825), and a host of others.
In the 19th century, the French returned to the original application of dialogue. The inventions of "Gyp", of Henri Lavedan, and of others, which tell a mundane anecdote wittily and maliciously in conversation, would probably present a close analogy to the lost mimes of the early Sicilian poets. English writers including Anstey Guthrie also adopted the form, but these dialogues seem to have found less of a popular following among the English than their counterparts written by French authors.
The Platonic dialogue, as a distinct genre which features Socrates as a speaker and one or more interlocutors discussing some philosophical question, experienced something of a rebirth in the 20th century. Authors who have recently employed it include George Santayana, in his eminent Dialogues in Limbo (1926, 2nd ed. 1948; this work also includes such historical figures as Alcibiades, Aristippus, Avicenna, Democritus, and Dionysius the Younger as speakers). Also Edith Stein and Iris Murdoch used the dialogue form. Stein imagined a dialogue between Edmund Husserl (phenomenologist) and Thomas Aquinas (metaphysical realist). Murdoch included not only Socrates and Alcibiades as interlocutors in her work Acastos: Two Platonic Dialogues (1986), but featured a young Plato himself as well. More recently Timothy Williamson wrote Tetralogue, a philosophical exchange on a train between four people with radically different epistemological views.
In the 20th century, philosophical treatments of dialogue emerged from thinkers including Mikhail Bakhtin, Paulo Freire, Martin Buber, and David Bohm. Although diverging in many details, these thinkers have proposed a holistic concept of dialogue. Educators such as Freire and Ramón Flecha have also developed a body of theory and techniques for using egalitarian dialogue as a pedagogical tool.
As topic
Martin Buber assigns dialogue a pivotal position in his theology. His most influential work is titled I and Thou. Buber cherishes and promotes dialogue not as some purposive attempt to reach conclusions or express mere points of view, but as the very prerequisite of authentic relationship between man and man, and between man and God. Buber's thought centres on "true dialogue", which is characterised by openness, honesty, and mutual commitment.
The Second Vatican Council placed a major emphasis on dialogue within the church and with the world. Most of the council's documents refer to some kind of dialogue: dialogue "between the laity and their spiritual leaders" (Lumen gentium),Holy See, Lumen gentium, paragraph 37, accessed on 2 September 2024 dialogue with other religions (Nostra aetate: "dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions"),Holy See, Nostra aetate, paragraph 2, accessed on 2 September 2024 dialogue with other Christians (Unitatis redintegratio: "fraternal dialogue on points of doctrine and the more pressing pastoral problems of our time"),Holy See, Unitatis redintegratio, paragraph 18, accessed on 2 September 2024 dialogue between a diocesan bishop and his diocesan clergy, especially on pastoral matters (Christus Dominus),Holy See, Christus Dominus, section 28, published on 28 October 1965, accessed on 23 August 2026 dialogue with modern society (: "the rightful betterment of this world ... cannot be realized, ... apart from sincere and prudent dialogue"),Holy See, Gaudium et spes, paragraph 21, accessed on 1 September 2024 to which Catholic schools can make an important contribution (Gravissimum educationis),Holy See, Gravissimum educationis, section 8, published on 28 October 1965, accessed on 23 March 2026 and dialogue with political authorities (Dignitatis humanae: "[in] dialogue ... men explain to one another the truth they have discovered, or think they have discovered, in order thus to assist one another in the quest for truth").Holy See, Dignitatis humanae, paragraph 3, accessed on 2 September 2024 However, in the English translations of these texts, "dialogue" was used to translate two Latin words with distinct meanings, colloquium ("discussion") and ("dialogue"). The choice of terminology appears to have been strongly influenced by Buber's thought.
The physicist David Bohm originated a related form of dialogue where a group of people talk together in order to explore their assumptions of thinking, meaning, communication, and social effects. This group consists of ten to thirty people who meet for a few hours regularly or a few continuous days. In a Bohm dialogue, dialoguers agree to leave behind debate tactics that attempt to convince and, instead, talk from their own experience on subjects that are improvised on the spot.
In his influential works, Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin provided an extralinguistic methodology for analysing the nature and meaning of dialogue:Maranhão 1990, p.51 Dialogic relations have a specific nature: they can be reduced neither to the purely logical (even if dialectical) nor to the purely linguistic (compositional-syntactic). They are possible only between complete utterances of various speaking subjects... Where there is no word and no language, there can be no dialogic relations; they cannot exist among objects or logical quantities (concepts, judgments, and so forth). Dialogic relations presuppose a language, but they do not reside within the system of language. They are impossible among elements of a language.Bakhtin 1986, p.117
The Brazilian educationalist Paulo Freire (1921-1997), known for developing popular education, advanced dialogue as a type of pedagogy. Freire held that dialogued communication allowed students and teachers to learn from one another in an environment characterised by respect and equality. A great advocate for oppressed peoples, Freire was concerned with praxis—action that is informed and linked to people's values. Dialogued pedagogy was not only about deepening understanding; it was also about making positive changes in the world: to make it better.
The philosopher Jürgen Habermas (1929-2026) argued in The Theory of Communicative Action (1981) that it is the human capacity for rational dialogue which has sustained human societies.Astier, H., German philosopher and social critic Jürgen Habermas dies at 96, BBC News, published on 14 March 2026, accessed on 26 March 2026
As practice
Dialogue is used as a practice in a variety of settings, from education to business. Influential theorists of dialogal education include Paulo Freire and Ramon Flecha.
In the United States, an early form of dialogic learning emerged in the Great Books movement of the early to mid-20th century, which emphasised egalitarian dialogues in small classes as a way of understanding the foundational texts of the Western canon. Institutions that continue to follow a version of this model include the Great Books Foundation, Shimer College in Chicago, and St. John's College in Annapolis and Santa Fe.
Egalitarian dialogue
Egalitarian dialogue is a concept in dialogic learning. It may be defined as a dialogue in which contributions are considered according to the validity of their reasoning, instead of according to the status or position of power of those who make them.
Structured dialogue