Creating Community through Communication: Richard McKeon's Philosophic Pluralism

Douglas Mitchell's introductory remarks on Richard McKeon's "Communication, Truth, and Society" set the theme of communication and McKeon's philosophy in the context of his lifelong friendship with the literary/rhetorical theorist Kenneth Burke. McKeon's essay is in two parts: the first is devoted to communication as a means to avoid skepticism, relativism, and dogmatism and as a means to improve the content and impact of communication; the second is devoted to truth in a pluralistic society, where the basis is found in arts of communication whose powers command respect for truth, values, freedom, and community. McKeon and Burke devoted their careers to the ways language shapes philosophic problems in experience and in texts, where ambiguities and oppositions of perspective lead to discovery and to robust bonds of society. Mitchell offers a final reflection on McKeon as diplomat and participant in international institutions, with the aim of making men of one mind in truth.