Beyond Consensus — Dialogue, Corrigibility, and the Responsibility to Respond

Abstract

Dialogue is often judged by whether it produces agreement. This essay proposes a different criterion: whether the relational field becomes more truthful, corrigible, and capable of responsible response. It distinguishes four thresholds — hearing, recognition, assent, and action — and examines how dialogue may succeed in disclosing truth while failing to make that truth effective in conduct, institutions, and political life. Drawing on the Mahābhārata and the Bhagavad Gītā without presupposing familiarity with either, the essay develops answerability as an ethical and epistemic condition in which what is heard and recognized acquires a legitimate claim upon response. A conceptual bridge with śraddhā clarifies how orienting trust can allow recognition to reorganize conduct without turning responsibility into obedience. Consensus remains a possible fruit of dialogue, but not its final criterion.