Talking Beyond the Rational

Abstract

Although discourse theorists have deconstructed Western rationality and rejected objectivism and analytical means, the critique of the rational in discourse theories often does not go far enough. Discourse theories that remain wedded to instrumental action (good means ensure good ends) and continue to ignore the nonrational (emotions, bias, ideology, money, or power) do not offer a vision of public space that is open and inclusive. An alternative theoretical perspective of associational discursive space is offered here, a perspective grounded in feminist ethics and in a reformulation of Hannah Arendt’s notion of agonistic tension. In associational discursive space, storytelling and narrative theory substitute for rational argumentation and rational theory and allow us to talk with one another beyond the rational.

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