The present paper offers a new and potentially useful approach to the development of knowledge in the fields of marketing and consumer research. Specifically, it reports a dialogue between a doctoral student (Michael N. Woodward (MNW)) and a recently retired professor (Morris B. Holbrook (MBH)) in which MNW and MBH debate the meaning(s) of various concepts in general and of the ‘consumption experience’ in particular. The presentation of this material in dialogue form – echoing the Socratic method but in a manner new to our own discipline – sheds light on both the relevant issues at stake and the rhetorical strategies of those who espouse somewhat different points of view.