Final answer:
Paul Ricoeur's concept of 'discourse' involves creating meaning from texts and dialogues, considering it as a verbal expression that's open to infinite interpretations, beyond a simple exchange or formal debate. So, the correct answer is option b.
Step-by-step explanation:
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur understood discourse to refer to the process of making meaning out of texts and dialogues. Rather than a formal debate or a simple conversation, Ricoeur viewed discourse as possessing endless interpretative possibilities.
It is the verbal expression of thoughts that extends beyond the author's intent, and in encountering a text or dialogue, we engage intellectually and creatively to construct meaning out of the presented words. This process is aligned with Ricoeur's broader philosophical concerns around hermeneutics, the theory of text interpretation, and phenomenology, the philosophical study of the structures of experience and consciousness.
For Ricoeur, understanding is not an objective extraction of meaning from language but rather an active construction influenced by the reader's own context and experiences. Theorists like Kenneth Burke compared the nature of academic conversations to a parlor where an unending discourse occurs, emphasizing a collective, societal conversation. Traditional dialectics focuses on engaging in reasoned argument to discover truth, contrasting with the adversarial nature of debates.
So, the correct answer is option b.