Qualitative Research Reports in Communication

ISSN: 1745-9435 (Print) 1745-9443 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rqrr20

Defining Philosophy of Communication: Difference

and Identity
Ronald C. Arnett
To cite this article: Ronald C. Arnett (2010) Defining Philosophy of Communication:
Difference and Identity, Qualitative Research Reports in Communication, 11:1, 57-62, DOI:
10.1080/17459430903581279
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17459430903581279

Published online: 20 Oct 2010.

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Date: 17 January 2017, At: 20:15

Qualitative Research Reports in Communication

Vol. 11, No. 1, 2010, pp. 5762

Defining Philosophy of
Communication: Difference
and Identity
Ronald C. Arnett

This article defines philosophy of communication as an emerging option in the doing of

qualitative research in communication, differentiating its identity from philosophy
proper. Philosophy of communication, in its commitment to questions of meaning and
understanding, illuminates communicative understanding and meaning in the engagement of qualitative research in communication.
Keywords: Difference; Identity; Philosophy of Communication; Story in Action

My task is to offer a public definition of philosophy of communication that frames

difference and the identity of philosophy of communication. We work within a discipline characterized by different contexts, channels, and methods of communication
inquiry. Difference shapes identity, as Ronald L. Jackson (2010), editor of the
Encyclopedia of Identity, so aptly revealed. This article applauds the importance of
philosophy of communication while simultaneously celebrating its limits, framing
philosophy of communication as understanding situated within limits that give it
identity. In the words of Gandhi, and within a postmodern pragmatic vocabulary,
it is advisable to assume that others will follow paths contrary to ones own with
the hope that if, at a later date, we discover we were wrong, then anothers path
will cast light (Arnett, 1980, p. 37). Pragmatically, this essay celebrates alterity
(differences) in our communicative engagements as fundamental in shaping the
understanding (identity) of the identity of philosophy of communication.

Ronald C. Arnett (PhD, Ohio University, 1978) is chair and professor in the Department of Communication &
Rhetorical Studies, Duquesne University, College Hall 340, 600 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15282. E-mail:
arnett@duq.edu
ISSN 1745-9435 (print)/ISSN 1745-9443 (online) # 2010 Eastern Communication Association
DOI: 10.1080/17459430903581279

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R. C. Arnett

The Particulars and Temporal Public Opinion

To differentiate philosophy of communication from the study of philosophy, I turn
to the work of Immanuel Kant (1961) and his differentiation of reason and judgment.
Reason rests within the abstract, the theoretically pristine, pursuing truth that dwells
within universal precepts. Reason facilitates knowledge that stands above the tainted
ground of particulars (Arnett, Fritz, & Holba, 2007). Judgment, on the other hand,
begins with problematic particulars and works to discern not pristine truth, but
something much more fallibleopinion in the public domain. Philosophy of communication accounts for the particulars, which renders temporal public opinion
and brings multiplicity to the public domain (Arendt, 1963).
Philosophy of communication engages particulars contingent on a particular situation, a particular moment, and a particular public contribution to public opinion.
Philosophy of communication does not give us unquestioned assurance; it is tested
by public opinion offered as a philosophy of communication road map that details
the particulars and temporal suggestions for engaging those particulars. Philosophy
of communication is a form of communicative architecture that requires a blueprint
of understanding, from the first particular to the point of temporal understanding, to
disclosure of a position in the public domain.
Philosophy of communication as a public map for public opinion undergoes the
test of questioning whether the theory (word) matches the outcome (deed). For
example, Aristotles (1962) ethics of virtue centers on right actions for the polis,
Bubers (1958) dialogue suggests an ontological ground for meaning not owned by self
or the Other, and Arendts (1958) deconstruction of modernity contends that the
precepts of modernity (progress, individual agency, and efficiency) represent a false
hope, a moral cul de sac (Arnett et al., 2007). These theories offer examples of temporal conviction that remain significant as long as a given theory continues to pass
a pragmatic test of public opinion in the public domain. A public must ask whether
the theory does what it attempts to do. The assessment itself is a communicative event.
Philosophy of communication permits disagreement with an author and a philosophy of communication itself. The pragmatism in philosophy of communication
acknowledges multiple voices in the diversity of public opinion, recognizing that a
philosophy of communication can atrophy and die and then, like a phoenix, arise
again, ever dependent on public opinion.
Public opinion can move a given version of philosophy of communication both
into and out of the annals of the history of communication; it is public-dependent.
Take, for example, the General Semantics of Alfred Korzybski (1933) and S. I.
Hayakawa (1949). We can call this perspective a philosophy of communication
that does not claim the same public opinion as it did in 1970. Some would argue that
this philosophy of communication fits better within a history of the philosophy of
communication, yet at the Eastern Communication Association Convention of
2009 and the National Communication Association Convention of 2008, there was
vibrant conversation about what some thought was now a footnote in communication history.

Qualitative Research Reports in Communication

59

On the other hand, one cannot ignore the increasing emphasis on cognitive understandings of philosophy of communication, which now vie for a place in public opinion, as the link between communicator and biological wiring takes on increasing
attention in what is termed the posthuman (Hyde, 2005). Philosophies of
communication live and die in the acknowledgement or enmity of public opinion.
Philosophy of communication engages us in public opinion work, responsive to
Gadamers (1983) description of a community of scholars (p. 52) and to others
who compose public opinion, who ask, Does a given philosophy of communication
address the questions of this historical moment? Philosophies of communication
fade in their public opinion into the annals of the history of communication, suffering from inattentiveness and dismissiveness on the part of publics. William James
(1952), founder of American Pragmatism, stated that the most fiendish way to deal
with another person is to ignore that person; such action moves a person away from a
sense of public worth, denied public recognition.
Difference and Identity
1. Philosophy of communication includes a public opinion of community of
scholars aimed at understanding the particulars of a given communicative
moment.
2. Philosophy of communication lives and dies by public opinion, preserved by
history of philosophy of communication, ready for resurrection from the
reclamation energy of public opinion.
Philosophy of Communication in Action as Scholarly Story
Public opinion works with philosophy of communication in what Paul Ricoeur
(1990) detailed as the construction of story: (a) drama, (b) emplotment, (c) main
characters, and (d) an ongoing attentiveness to time defined by historicity, not by
a linear view of time sequences. A philosophy of communication begins with attentiveness to the historical moment and emergent questions that define a given moment.
What makes a given question possible is the drama of human life. We seldom attend
to emerging questions in the midst of routine; we respond to some form of drama
in the form of a rhetorical interruption that takes us out of everyday, unreflective
communicative engagement and demands that we attend to a given question.
In the emergence of a given question, it is the drama of human existence that
announces the need for the importance of attending to a given question. The notion
of emplotment can be understood as the ideas and concepts that are brought together
to answer or respond to a given question. As this group of ideas and concepts takes
on scholarly acceptance, it becomes a form of public opinion that this essay terms a
philosophy of communication. These scholars are the main characters associated with
a given philosophy of communication, such as W. Barnett Pearce and Vernon
Cronen (1980) in the construction of the Coordinated Management of Meaning.

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In addition, there are characters who continue to support a given theory, keeping
public opinion vibrant; such public opinion champions assist the work of scholars
like Kenneth Burke and Emmanuel Levinas.
Philosophies of communication change, multiply, atrophy, and die when main
characters no longer believe a given philosophy of communication can offer an
emplotment that makes sense for a given drama. Philosophies of communication live
by those shapers of public opinion who believe in the ideas; and when those ideas no
longer have currency, diversity of thought emerges in the form of another philosophy
of communication.
The story engagement of question, drama, emplotment, and main characters
frames philosophy of communication as story-laden. Arendt (1958) detailed the
movement from behavior to action as necessitating the situating of behavior within
a story that lends itself to action. This movement from behavior to action through
story is akin to the difference between information and meaning. It is not sufficient
for a philosophy of communication to offer information; it has a unique task of
rendering the meaningfulness of information before us. It is the story that moves
information into the realm of meaning. Meaning is the gestalt that is more than
the collection of informational parts. A philosophy of communication is a story that
lives by and within public opinion. As Arendt (1958) suggested, the movement from
behavior to action, or information to meaning, is dependent on a story within public
opinion that sheds understanding and meaning.

Story in ActionIn Summary

1. A philosophy of communication dwells in the testing ground of communicative
existence.
2. A philosophy of communication dwells within a story as a form of emplotment
that meets an existential communicative drama created by a historical moment
(time) that announces or demands that we address a given question.
3. The test of this meeting of emplotment and drama is a pragmatic existential one
in which main characters (users and, simultaneously, judges) assess the pragmatic
importance of a philosophy of communication for meeting the particulars of a
given human drama.
Philosophy Communication as Multi-Centered Conversation
Rorty (1979) is famous for the pragmatic stress on keeping the conversation going
beyond the limited confines of authorial intent (Schleiermacher, 1998). The rejection
of authorial intent works in two directions. First, the author does not own a theory,
demanding that the rest of us function as cult followers and implementers. Second,
we cannot use a philosophy of communication with a conviction that we are 100%
correct. Martin Buber (1992) stated that the danger of psychologism (p. 86) was
one of the primary fears associated with modernity. In psychologism, one has
bad faith (Sartre, 1992) or false confidence that one can attribute motives to

Qualitative Research Reports in Communication

61

another without that other persons concurrence. Such attribution assumes one can
stand above history and render an objective judgment on another or impose our
answer on a person or a communicative event untempered by doubt.
In addition, philosophy of communication is not method-centered. It was the
17th-century work of Rene Descartes (1956) that framed the importance of method.
A philosophy of communication cannot and should not reject the important contribution of method; however, a philosophy of communication chooses the vulnerability of public opinion over public verification of methodological findings. A
philosophy of communication tied to public opinion works differently than scientific
theories linked to public verification.
A philosophy of communication is but a fraction of a multifaceted communication that works as a public disclosure of the bias or prejudice that one takes into
the study of the findings about communication. From a philosophy of communication perspective, the goal is understanding, not accumulation of unassailable truth.
Philosophy of communication lives within a community of communicative drama,
communicative emplotment, and communicative characters working to assist by
confirmation of and argumentation about public opinion, forever attentive to a story
of the human condition that continues to beckon us to an enlarged mentality that
refuses to confuse the new with progress (Arendt, 1968; Kant, 1987).

Multi-Centered CommunicationA Summary

1. Philosophy of communication begins a conversation, rejecting the authorial
intent of the cult of the creator and implementer.
2. Philosophy of communication follows the guidelines of Gadamer (1983), choosing the temporal and forever flawed and limited pursuit of truth as a public story
over the Descartian (1956) method.
3. Philosophy of communication is decentered communicative engagement, sharing
the stage with the drama and characters that make the story possible and ready
for the test of public opinion.
The Philosophy of Communication Turn
The philosophy of communication turn is a celebration of diversity in communicative contexts, channels, and forms of inquiry. The philosophy of communication turn
is the recognition of acknowledged limits, biases, prejudices, provincialities, and temporalities as necessary first steps toward a cosmopolitan communicative worldview.
We do not stand above history; we stand in the midst of communicative mystery with
temporal openings of clarity.
I end by restating the disclosure of bias that has guided this essay. The sharing of
the bias is a beginning announcement in the doing of philosophy of communication;
one cannot assume a theory or application of a theory to be an announcement of
undisrupted truth; it is more akin to an honest call to reflect on temporal findings.
As Arendt (1968) stated, we look too often for solutions that do not demand that

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we think. Philosophy of communication requires one to think, for it begins with

tenacious convictionthe theory and I, the implementer, may be wrong.
Philosophy of communication works for understanding and illuminates temporal
meaning with a warning offered to the Other and oneselfthink, question, and talk
about the conceptual map or blueprint with full knowledge it will and should
changesuch is the demanding role of inquiry responsive to public opinion.
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