Afterword

Summary

My aim in this book was to highlight the interplay of numerous factors involved in the making of a dialogical social theory. Although most important among such factors is the creative mind of the author, the mutual interdependence of all contributing factors facilitates or hinders the emergence and development of a theory. One cannot make sense of the theory without understanding the multitude of resources from which it is drawn together with its evolution through societal, historical, cultural, and political events. Authors are immersed in unique dialogues between themselves and such events and many examples in this book show that these dialogues take place on different, but mutually interconnected, planes. Such planes reveal the creators’ depth of thinking, their hopes, fears, and motives in developing their ideas, resisting outside forces prohibiting free expressions and struggling to win over their audiences. The history of the sciences, the arts, and music, ranging from researchers such as Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galilei, or Albert Einstein to artists and musicians such as Dmitri Shostakovich or Marc Chagall, shows the mutual influence of such manifold forces. Consequently, in each case, a theory follows a unique path. Its impact depends both on the intellect, engagement, and imagination of the creator and on the significance of its subject matter for others; it ranges from being highly influential to being hardly noticed. A theory is formed, maintained, and transformed if it speaks to peers and the public and fades when it is no longer engaged in dialogues with others.