Abstract This essay explains the conceptual tools used in the international LeLo project, coordinated by Marcelo Dascal, which have led, often with innovative results, to the reconstruction of the virtual debate between Leibniz and Locke. The project focuses on the connection between controversies and a specific idea of communication, articulated on several levels, in which the traditional mathematical theory of communication is finally surpassed. In this way, dialogue and care for the audience become the evidence of a more marked attention to the contexts in which a renewed ethics of communication is announced. It allows us to face adequately the new challenges posed by a reality so changing as to resemble a chameleon.