The Philosophy of Dialogue Conference

Join us for the Philosophy of Dialogue Conference March 27-28, 2026, hosted by Harvard University's Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics, co-organized by the Center’s Civil Discourse Fellows Cassie Finley and Matthew Willis, and Notre Dame Center for Philosophy of Religion Fellow A.G. Holdier. 

The Philosophy of Dialogue is an invitation to take dialogue seriously as a subject of philosophical inquiry. Dialogue pervades human life, yet philosophers have mostly approached it indirectly, treating its component parts in relative isolation across disparate subfields.  This conference proposes that there is something unified worth examining here – the structure, aims, and norms of genuine exchange between persons. Philosophy of dialogue explores the makeup, mechanics, motives, and morality of discourse, investigating the interpersonal, intrapersonal, and institutional ingredients of conversational exchanges; it focuses on both the relational aspects of our communicative practices, as well as their existential, expressive, and epistemic functions. By bringing together philosophers working on topics like testimony, virtue theory, argumentation, speech acts, social epistemology, ethics, education, and related areas, this conference will facilitate the development of a research network and coherent subfield centered on philosophy of dialogue.

Registration is required and limited, so early registration is encouraged. Lunch will be provided both days to participants. Please Note: If you wish to attend both days, you must select both Friday and Saturday when registering. Registration closes the end of the day Thursday, March 26. If you're interested in attending the conference and registration has closed, please email Cassie Finley ([email protected]).

Conference Sessions Schedule

Friday, March 27

Session I: The Virtues of Dialogue (10 am - 12 pm)

• Marina McCoy (Boston College) - “Epistemic Limit & Dialogue: Philosophy in the Way of Plato’s Socrates"

• Andrew Aberdein (Florida Tech) - “Virtue Argumentation As Virtue Dialogue Theory”

Session II: The Challenges of Dialogue (1 pm - 3 pm)

• Sally Haslanger (MIT) - “Dialogue’s Limits: A Bias towards Doxastic and Epistemic Engagement”

• Darien Pollock (Boston University) - “Antagonistic Speech Acts: Blank English, Illegibility, & Natural Language Classification” 

Session III: Dialogues & Technology (3:30 pm - 5:30 pm)

• Alida Liberman (Southern Methodist) - “The Relational Benefits of Dialogue and the Limits of Artificial Intelligence”

• Ripley Stroud (UNC Chapel Hill) - “Internet Trolls and the Principle of Charity”

Saturday, March 28

Session IV: Civic Dialogue (10 am - 12 pm)

• Matt Ferkany (Michigan State) - “Political Arguing is Prima Facie Respectful”

• Marilie Coetsee (Hope College) - “On Giving Others the Benefit of the Doubt: Open-minded Inquiry with Epistemic Inferiors”

Session V: Evaluating Dialogue (1 pm - 3 pm)

• Catherine Elgin (Harvard) - “Opening the Black Box: Epistemic Access to Expert Testimony”

• Scott Aikin (Vanderbilt) - “Meta-argumentation and the Owl of Minerva Problem”