The Communicative Relationship Between Dialogue and Care By Mari ...

an understanding of human communication situated in relation (Cissna & Anderson, 1994). This work is significant because Buber embedded dialogue within the “lived concrete, the everyday reality” of human existence (Friedman, 1960, p. v). Buber's philosophy is a philosophy of the “interhuman” life lived in relation (1965, p. 75). Buber offered ideas that are situated within and are responsive to the historical moment. Furthermore, Buber's philosophical anthropology has been hailed as significant to the field of communication. According to Arnett (1986), “emphasizing philosophical anthropology situates Buber's dialogic project and privileges a space for the discipline of communication” (p. 77).

The second pillar supporting the task set forth in this book, to make explicit the connection between Buber's philosophy of dialogue and care in order to enrich our communicative lives, is the consideration of care itself. In order to gain a deeper understanding of care and its connection to the human condition, literature is reviewed from across the disciplines. The culmination of this review identifies three significant metaphors for understanding care and its relationship to communicative life: obligation, relation, and significant outcomes. Each of these is drawn from the breadth of the literature; however, they primarily reflect the communicative association with care introduced by Johannesen and Noddings and considered in greater depth by Julia Wood (1994).

To bring the metaphor of dialogue as the labor of care to fruition, this work also employs the theory of the human condition articulated by Hannah Arendt, who wrote from a political theorist's perspective and focused the majority of her thinking on life—the human condition (Kristeva, 2001). Therefore, the focus here is primarily on Arendt's writing in The Human Condition, in which she made known the intimate relationship between labor and action in human life. This relationship implies care as central to all human relations.

Like Buber, Arendt's ideas are concerned with responding to specific happenings in a historical moment and specific experiences in people's lives. Arendt's contribution to this project lies in her ability to connect philosophical thought to everyday life, a valuable perspective when