Philosophy: The Managers - Philosophie Management

what holds are the questions. The questions of Plato and Aristotle are still ours.
Philosophers know they will never reach the horizon, and yet they are never discouraged.
To understand why, make an attempt to obliterate the questions: you will quickly understand
that it is more frustrating to try to dismiss them, than to try to elaborate a new representation
of our relation to the world, even if you are conscious from the start that it will not hold.
- “How to live accordingly”: this refers of course to the huge domain of moral philosophy and
ethics, which is always, explicitly or not, closely linked to the domain of philosophy dealing
with the possible representations of the world, called by some “critical” philosophy, by others
metaphysics. In this regard, I find Marcel Conche’s definition of wisdom illuminating:
“wisdom is a particular ethical orientation fully aligned with a particular metaphysical
orientation”. 8
- A “practice”: contrary to what some might think, philosophy does not consist in an
accumulation of knowledge. Before anything, it is an active attitude of the mind, a practice
(praxis) rather than the realisation of a work, of an oeuvre (poiesis). Indeed, the passive
knowledge of a few quotes, dates or even thought systems does not bring much benefit: one
only gets something out of philosophy if he or she actively engages their mind and existence
into it. A corrollary of this is that the result(s) of the practice of philosophy might be different
than the one(s) aimed for at the start, and be got unexpectedly, on top of everything else.
- A “thought” practice: To think, to think seriously always implies a shake up of the mind and
of our established ideas and representations. It is a questioning which cannot find easy
answers in what the pensive person already knows.
- “Discursive”: philosophy uses the language of words. It speaks, communicates, argues and
produces discourses.
- “Rational”: philosophy is an activity of reason at work. It leverages logic, rethoric and critical
thinking
- Producing “concepts”: as Deleuze and Guettari (1991) wrote, the productions of
philosophers, contrary to those of sciences and arts, are concepts and only concepts.
1.2.1. The three main domains of philosophy and their possible contributions to
management
What I particularly like about this definition is that, while being fairly exhaustive, she allows
rather easily to distinguish three generally recognized domains of activity in philosophy, “critical”
philosophy, mainly concerned with the formulation and the critic of thought concepts and
systems; “practical” philosophy, mainly concerned with the art of living; and “technical”
philosophy. The latter refers to philosophical domains such as hermeneutics or epistemology, in
which we find thinking “tools” such as radical interrogation, socratic dialogue, problem
building,…(often collectively called “Philosophical practice”, to be distinguished from the
“practical” philosophy mentioned hereabove). “Technical” philosophy enables us to judge
knowledge processes and their validity, and to distinguish well-founded from weakly founded
knowledge and knowledge processes.
So, let us now investigate in the next chapter what these three philosophical domains may
respectively bring to their corresponding managerial domains. Figure 5 presents already a
synthesis of this investigation.
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See Marcel Conche (…), “Philosopher à l’infini”, which I am currently translating into English.
ledoux.laurent@gmail.com
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