Dialogue is all the rage

     "The word 'dialogue' is in fashion; I regret this, not having myself any of the virtues of the dialoguist, which are not to hear what is said to one, or to take [what is said to one] in a sense that renders it easy to refute."

     "Le mot dialogue est à la mode; je le regrette, n’ayant moi-même aucune des vertus d’un bon dialoguiste, qui sont de ne pas écouter ce qu’on lui dit, ou de le prendre dans un sens qui le rende facile à réfuter."

     Étienne Gilson, "Le dialogue difficile," in Les tribulations de Sophie:  essais d’art et de philosophie (Paris:  Librairie philosophique J. Vrin, 1967), 103.  I was put on to this by the description to the recent translation of this book by James G. Colbery:  "the virtues of a skilled dialoguer ... are not to listen to what is being said and to take it in a sense that makes it easy to refute."  To this I would add the virtue of treating the process as a form of maneuver.