"Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it"
Working with daughter on her Philosophy revision resulted in my digging deeper into material I hadn't really looked at in years. Daughter in contrast has become party girl again with the end of exams! Either way, I ended up going back to the Nichomachean Ethics of Aristotle and was reminded of the key quote above and its implications.
The quote links the two intellectual virtues of sophia and phronesis. The first of these Sophia, often translated as wisdom, is the ability to think about he world in a scientific way, to understand and discover universal truths. Phronesis is practical wisdom, the ability to make decisions in the field under fire and is based on a mixture of skill and ability. Aristotle links this with prudence and its a precondition for being virtuous. The key quote here is this:
If we think about apprentice models of knowledge transfer, we see the importance of acquiring experience over time for both knowledge transfer and development of the field as a whole. The key complexity concept of safe-fail experimental interventions involves the specific creation of an ecology in which experience is gained by both success and tolerable failure. Resilient strategies assume learning through failure and fast recovery. Contrast that with the simplistic approach to complex situations involved in the sick stigma cult and the focus of knowledge management on the hopeless task of making tacit knowledge explicit. There are links here to my earlier post on modeling which excited comment; models attempt to create the general, they too often fail to represent the particular.
Of course we also need reflective capability, but management education in the main fails in both respects. Instead of providing future managers with a basic education in philosophy, anthropology, evolutionary models of self-organistion, exaptation, cognitive science etc. etc. it focus on abstracting into the symbolic experience evidenced by cases. Material that can only be really learnt by doing, by dialectical engagement through praxis. We are failing those students in the virtues of wisdom and practice.
Comments (5)
Who made the bust of the young Dave Snowden? Is it from the Catholic Marxist Philosophers' Club era? ;)
Posted by Keith Fortowsky | June 25, 2010 4:19 PM
Posted on June 25, 2010 16:19
Good post, thanks. -j
Posted by John T Maloney | June 26, 2010 3:10 AM
Posted on June 26, 2010 03:10
Global markets, global conformity, call it what you will but we seem destined towards sameness (you need look no further than the current world cup). The maverick is truly out there up to their neck trying to stop the tide coming in. We live in an age of conformity where to speak out or question convention is frowned upon and unless you are fortunate to have enlightened work colleagues, career limiting. Our educational institutions, schools and universities, are complicit in their pragmatic approach more suited to the businesses they provide with labour.
Perhaps that makes us all easier to govern. We all seem to share one universal value - consumption. To pursue this leaves little time for reflection and questioning.
Posted by Alan Byrne | June 30, 2010 4:20 AM
Posted on June 30, 2010 04:20
Unfortunately we will always cling to our existing skills base when investigating new concepts. This clouds our ability to view a problem objectively and often leads to conflict. The Human need for profit and consumption has been driven into us and I am at a loss as to how we will ever unlearn this mindset.
Posted by Andre du Plessis | July 2, 2010 6:46 AM
Posted on July 2, 2010 06:46
Some excellent points here. I wonder if variations between being abstract and practical is also associated with nations - my own experience (and I am certainly open for direct challenge here) is that New Zealanders and Australians can be on the whole over pragmatic at the expense of more abstract or theoretical reflection. I expect the business school case is certainly strong in the USA where even Mintzberg (in "Managers not MBAs") makes similar points to yours here. But as someone who is overly abstract and theoretical I value your insight here from Aristotle about the importance of the dialectic. This is an enormously valuable contribution in my work here from Ken McHugh who I think has quite an innate capacity to get that dialectic right. Finally, I am not sure what you think, but despite many slips in Aristotle I think he is a great scientist and I get a bit annoyed at the total slamming he receives by modern philosophers and scientists who like to view him as the quintessential anti-scientist who destroyed progressive thinking for over 2000 years.
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July 2, 2010 8:59 AM
Posted on July 2, 2010 08:59