Some extracts from the original text by John Shotter:
"In this paper I distinguish between two kinds of speech/writing: ‘withness (dialogic)’ -talk and ‘aboutness (monologic)’ -talk . Crucial in this distinction is our spontaneous, expressive, living, bodily responsiveness.While monological aboutness-talk is unresponsive to the activities of the others around us, dialogical withness-talk is not. In being spontaneously responsive both to the expressions of others, as well as our own, as I show in the paper, it engenders in us both unique anticipations as to what-next might happen along with, so to speak, ‘action-guiding advisories’ as to what-next we might do"
"To turn to Bakhtin’s (1986) contribution first: He introduces us to the idea of a previously unnoticed kind of understanding spontaneously occurring within our ongoing involvements in our ordinary, everyday, practical activities, a relationally-responsive understanding, that can contrasted with the representational- referential forms currently more familiar to us."
"It is a kind of thinking that takes place, not like geometric reasoning, in episodic moments in terms of static, spatially arrayed shapes and forms; nor in terms of measuring spatial like up against spatial like to achieve a correspondence or not. Indeed, it is a style of thought that, metaphorically, is not best described as a kind of ‘seeing’ at all. Instead, it is a style of thought that only takes place in motion, that works in terms of felt, living, inner, expressive-responsive ‘movements’ unfolding in time—above, I have called it ‘withness’- thinking to contrast it with our more usual style of ‘aboutness’-thinking."
"that when someone acts, their activity cannot be accounted as wholly their own activity—for a person’s acts are partly ‘shaped’ by the acts of all the others around them. Thus, because the overall outcome of any exchange cannot be traced back to the intentions of any of the individuals involved, the ‘dialogical reality’ or ‘space’ constructed between them is experienced as an ‘external reality’, a ‘third agency’ (an ‘it’, a ‘something’) with its own (ethical) demands and requirements: “The word is a drama in which three characters participate (it is not a duet, but a trio)” (Bakhtin 1986: 122)—in other words, it is as if this third agency, this something, has a ‘voice’ of its own to which dialogue participants must also respond. This is where all the strangeness of the dialogical begins."
"such inter-activity cannot be simply described as a sequence of actions (for it is not done by individuals; and cannot be explained by giving people’s reasons ), nor can it be simply described as behavior (as it cannot be explained in terms of causal principles either); it constitutes a distinct, third sphere of dynamically intertwined activity, sui generis , with its own distinctive properties. It involves a special kind of nonrepresentational, sensuous or embodied form of practical-moral (Bernstein 1983) understanding, which, in being constitutive of people’s social and personal identities, is prior to and determines all the other ways of knowing available to us. What is produced in such dialogical exchanges is a very complex ‘orchestration’ of not wholly reconcilable influences — as Bakhtin (1981) remarks, both ‘centripetal’ tendencies inward toward order and unity at the center, as well as ‘centrifugal’ ones outward toward diversity and difference on the borders or margins."
Their complex intertwined nature makes it very difficult for us to characterize them: they have neither a fully orderly nor a fully disorderly structure, neither a completely stable nor an easily changed organization, neither a fully subjective nor fully objective character. As a complex dynamic ‘orchestration’ of many different kinds of influences, they lack specificity, they are only partially determined: they are just as much material as mental; just as much felt as thought; in being ‘spread out’ amongst all those participating in them, they are ‘non-locatable’; they are neither ‘inside’ people, but nor are they ‘outside’ them; they are located in a ‘dialogical space’ where ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ are, seemingly paradoxically, one. Due to their living continuity, they do not allow for the spatialization of time into a sequence of events each with a separate ‘before’ and ‘after’ (Bergson), nor do they allow for separable agencies or effects; they consist only in meaningful wholes which cannot divide themselves into separable parts."
"Indeed, it is precisely their lack of any pre-determined order, and thus their openness to being specified or determined by those participating within them in practice (while usually remaining quite unaware of having done so), that is their central defining feature."
"this is precisely what makes this sphere of activity interesting to us, for at least the two following reasons: (1) to do with in situ practical investigations, i.e., action research, into how people actually do in fact manage to ‘work things out’ effectively between themselves, and the part played by the ways of talking/ writing we interweave into them in so doing; but also (2) for how we might refine and elaborate these spheres of talk intertwined activity, and how by an appropriate use of such talk, we might extend them into novel spheres as yet unknown to us."
"I began with a comparison of two styles of writing: 3rd-person reportings and 1st-person tellings, a comparison between talk/writing that leaves us ‘unmoved’ with that which ‘moves’ us. While objective, reporting-style of writing may serve an important authoritative function in setting the outside limits, so to speak, within which an institution must function. To the extent that action research has to operate within the ordinary, ongoing, everyday life activities of organizations, institutions, businesses, and all the other everyday spheres of worklife, each unique in its own way, it is the second telling-style that will give rise to actionable knowledge.While the first style attempts to capture the nature of life in another world independent of us, it is the second that enables us to enter into another world, with a life of its own, not independent of us, but in relation to us —thus to gain a sense of its movements relative to ours."
"While 3rd-person reports of research, represent important regularities and de-contextualized universals, i.e., facts, about the groups in question researched into by outsiders to the groups, 1st-person tellings work in a different way. They are related to the experiences of insiders to those groups, and they work so that in their telling they ‘move’ listeners into paying attention to previously unnoticed particularities within the ‘world’ of the insiders—and it is in this way, in making the unnoticed noticeable, that, although the cases described might seem to be utterly unique and particular, they can in their telling give rise, nonetheless, to transferrable or actionable knowledge."
"a distinction between ‘withness-‘ and ‘aboutness-thinking/talking/writing’: Withness (dialogic)- thinking is a form of reflective interaction that involves coming into living contact with an other’s living being, with their utterances, their bodily expressions, their words, their ‘works’. It gives rise, not to a ‘seeing’, for what is ‘sensed’ is invisible; nor to an interpretation, for our responses occur spontaneously and directly in our living encounters with an other’s expressions; but to a ‘shaped‘ and ‘vectored‘ sense of our moment-by-moment changing placement in our current surroundings—engendering in us both unique anticipations as to what-next might happen along with, so to speak, ‘action-guiding advisories’ as to what-next we might do.While aboutness (monologic)-thinking, however, is unresponsive to another’s expressions; it works simply in terms of a thinker’s ‘theoretical pictures’—but, even when we ‘get the picture’, we still have to interpret it, and to decide, intellectually, on a right course of action"
"While Sacks’s account works in terms of unfinished, fluid or flexible varieties of possibilities. And while he leaves it open as to how Dr P. might respond—for he issues invitations not commands—it is the relation of Dr P’s unique responses to Sacks’s invitations, that are revealing of the unique nature of Dr P.’ s ‘world’. Furthermore, in engaging us, Sacks’s style of writing is ‘moving’, we are ‘moved’ by it in the sense that provides us with a shaped and vectored sense of Dr P.’ s ‘world’, i.e., a sense of how, practically, to find out ‘way about’ within it, thus to ‘go on’ with him in practical ways that make sense to him (Wittgenstein 1953)."
"In dialogical-prospective-relational styles of writing, however, we would be talking/writing to our readers of the character of our ongoing involvements with certain other people, as if from within that involvement - while both looking back on what had been achieved so far, and forward prospectively, toward the possibilities open to us for our next ‘steps’. Our concern in such talk/writing would be with attempting to ‘show’ or ‘make manifest’ to readers (metaphorically) how they might, justifiably , be able to make sense of the character of such involvements."
"People’s sense of their own responsibility for their actions is, then, at the very basis of science itself. Scientists lacking any sense of their own participation in events occurring around them would be unable to do experiments. So, although Sacks’s style of writing may seem ‘anecdotal’, may seem to be merely about single, peculiar particularities, it is an unavoidable style of communication that all scientists must indulge in, if they are to instruct one another in how the categories of their theories should be used and applied—for the categories of such un-involving, such ‘non-moving’ forms of talk, do not apply themselves."
