I want to use this entry as a way of thinking about and using language in public discussion.
Philosophers, social thinkers, and cognitive scientists of various kinds have long argued hotly about the origin and nature of language. But “ultimate”… Read More »
Author Archives: Adolf Gundersen
Language and Public Discussion*
Convergence as an Alternative Approach to Decision-Making in IF Sanctuary Projects*
As the sanctuary discussions that generate IF Citizen Discussion Reports move along, they rely on two distinctive, if not unique, decision-making processes. The first is to preserve any possibility as long as even one discussion participant wants to report it… Read More »
Posted in Education, Perspectives Tagged consensus, interactivity, sanctuary discussions Comments closed
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Experts and Citizens in IF’s Public Discussions*
As Interactivity Foundation (IF) has learned through actual experience, experts and lay citizens complement each other well in sanctuary discussions. Experts and lay citizens can complement each other in public discussions, as well. This post explains how and why this… Read More »
Contrast in IF Public Discussions: Why It’s Important and How It’s Achieved*
As exploratory discussion, IF discussions thrive on (or even presuppose) contrast. If you haven’t covered new ground, you haven’t explored. (The contrasting individual conceptual possibilities that are at the core of IF discussions are actually intended not just to be… Read More »
What’s “Practical” about IF Discussions—And What’s Not*
People unfamiliar with IF sometimes ask if our “conceptual” discussions are at all “practical.” The answer isn’t straightforward. One could say that they’re practical “in the Aristotelian sense” or that they’re not practical in the “immediately or strictly instrumental sense,”… Read More »
Connecting IF’s Public Discussions with the Larger Democratic Conversation*
In my last entry I described citizen discussion reports as a way to connect sanctuary discussion and public discussion. Here I want to suggest several possible ways in which public discussion of our reports might be connected to broader democratic… Read More »
IF’s Citizen Discussion Reports*
Sanctuary discussions, which I described in my previous post, need not culminate in a written document. But if their results are to be made available for public discussion, they need to be put in some communicable form. This essay describes… Read More »
Posted in Perspectives Tagged citizen discussion reports, sanctuary discussions Comments closed
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Sanctuary Discussion*
At the mention of “citizen discussion,” we tend to conjure up images of rapid-fire, heated exchanges between partisans, often in the glare of the media spotlight. Haste, partisan heat, and intense public scrutiny may to some extent be inevitable features… Read More »
Posted in Education, Perspectives Tagged citizen discussion reports, Public Discussions Comments closed
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A Comparative View of IF’s Approach to Public Discussion*
In my last note I described our public discussions in terms of but four key aspects: active facilitators; small groups; interactivity; and exploration and development. Together they paint a very broad-brush picture of what we’re aiming to do—and how we… Read More »
“Testing” in the IF Discussion Process: Consequences, Values and Purposes
IF’s Citizen Discussion Reports call on participants in public discussions to “test” conceptual possibilities by exploring their consequences. But this does mean that other considerations are irrelevant to testing.
Consider “values,” for instance. IF founder Jay Stern found it… Read More »
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