Southern African Journal of Environmental Education, Vol. 24, 2007 © 2007 Environmental Education Association of Southern Africa

The dialogue is not aimed at settling anything. We explore meaning together – the creative perception of meaning – thinking together and feeling together. But meaning is … spontaneously active and transformative. (Bohm, 1990) David Bohm introduced a dialogue form that begins with no set purpose beyond the intention to explore thought. He proposed that seeing thought as a reflex (just a more subtle body reflex), could help us understand its operation, not as something mystical, and separate from emotions and bodily functions, but an integral part of a material system. (Styer, 1997) On Dialogue … In approaching this opening Think Piece, I spent some time critically considering the notion of thought and ‘dialogue’. What would a dialogue with the other Think Pieces, the selected Feature Articles and a Viewpoint paper in this journal involve? How might such a dialogue be constituted, and why dialogue? This paper follows a recent reading of David Bohm’s (2004) notable text On Dialogue. Since reading this text I have been fascinated by the way in which he, widely recognised for his contribution to quantum physics, considers reflexive thought an