Philosophy: The Managers - Philosophie Management

problem under investigation. After a group reading, a search is made for the key words, the
formulation of comments, and finally questions. The practice increases the ability to listen,
take part in a dialogue, and share with a group. It was first practiced in experiments with
children and young people by Matthew Lipman.
As we can see from these examples, philosophical practice does not only enable managers to
think better, more logically and to be more careful with their use of words to communicate. It
also helps them to stimulate the sharing of ideas with and among their teams, to share the “unshareable”.
1.2.2. What can management bring to philosophy?
Although it is rarely remarked, management can also contribute to philosophy. For example by
applying management theory to:
- the theory of knowledge by using management processes and techniques to the theory of
knowledge generating processes;,
- philosophical ethics by introducing economic and managerial considerations of the
effectiveness and efficiency of ethical rules and practices;
- the philosophy of culture and aesthetics by extending the philosophical understanding of
culture by product aesthetics 17 and the practice of business culture in highly organized
business institutions and service oriented industries.
More fundamentally, as we will note in the following pages, management has become so
important that it cannot be left to business people. Philosophers have to pay attention to, and
seriously consider this. As Klempner (…) notes: “Money makes ugliness beautiful and the giftless
talented…. In the world of money, every value is reversed. Money not only talks, it
philosophizes”.
So, definitely, the arrows on figure 5 should drawn going in both directions.
1.2.3. The essential difference between philosophy and management: can they
complement each other?
Despite all the links we have just discussed between management and philosophy, the two
should not be confounded. Where do their fundamental differences reside then? - In their
finalities. As we saw, the reason of being of management is performance. Philosophy on the
contrary, has but one goal – the truth, and its corollary, liberty, in the sense of freedom from
illusions and alienations. And, as we will see, beyond all the possible positive contributions from
philosophy to management we have seen so far, the contribution it may bring by having such a
radically different objective is perhaps its greatest.
Truth should not be considered here as something absolute but, as Greek philosophers
understood it, as “intelligence’s adequateness with reality”, the way each of us accepts to
confront reality, and perceive themselves in their environment.
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Note that I have consciously not included product design among the essential tasks of management. Although, the Master of
Philosophy of Management & Organizations (MPMO), of the Free University of Amsterdam considers that “the design of products
and production conditions or the production process, is an area which could be extended and improved by the philosophical
theory of culture, and the aesthetics of products as well as by the philosophy of art.”
ledoux.laurent@gmail.com
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