Organisational aesthetics is a burgeoning field with a growing community of scholars engaged in arts-based and aesthetic approaches to research. Recent developments in this field can be traced back to the works of early Enlightenment writers such as Vico, Baumgarten and Kant. This paper examines the contributions of these three philosophers. In particular it focuses on Vico’s treatment of history and myth; Baumgarten’s notion of sensation and its relationship to rationality; and Kant’s investigations into form and content. An exploration of (...) an artistic organisation in change demonstrates how the conduct of an aesthetically aware manager can be informed by qualities such as an alert imagination and intuition, comfort with the chaotic, backward thinking, and attention to inner sensations and perceptions, all working together to provide a coherent view of the organisation. (shrink)

In this study I argue that Richard Rorty’s anti-representationalist philosophy arises from a misguided belief that realists are compelled to argue that we need a single and exclusive “mirror-like” form of representation to capture reality. I argue that Rorty fails to appreciate the fact that realists do not have to absolutely identify reality with a particular mirror-like representation of it and nor do they have to fall prey to an invidious distinction between reality and the various ways that we do (...) represent it. I argue that we need not associate realism with the kind of absolutism that Rorty associates it with. To illustrate this I challenge Rorty’s attempt to claim that Nietzsche also rejects realism and interpret Nietzsche’s perspectivism as a form of realism. I also challenge Rorty’s anti-representationalism in the context of his political philosophy. In order to do this I assess the role that Rorty assigns to the poet in his liberal utopia by examining the work of Sylvia Plath and Tony Harrison. I also discuss the various positions that Hilary Putnam has adopted in order to explore different possibilities within realism and representationalism. I conclude that Putnam’s internal realism concedes too much to Rorty and that his earlier external realism is a better alternative. (shrink)

John Dewey viewed philosophy as an intelligent means of realizing change, emphasizing the ubiquity of process, context and relations. The revolution in Organizational Behavior known as Process Re-engineering (PR) is an approach to organizational thinking recognizing the importance of process, context and relations at all levels of organizational activity. Because Dewey’s philosophy affords primacy to process and change, context and relations, it is fundamentally aligned with PR. Compelling connections between PR and Dewey’s philosophy are established concerning primacy of process, importance (...) of context, inquiry as experimental, value dimensions of outcomes, work as a means to self-realization, and increasing recognition of the future as an open possibility. While Dewey’s philosophy and PR stand as examples of intelligent understanding and reconstruction of process, recent developments in formal systems ontology point to dangerous consequences resulting from an eclipse of the material conditions of experience through the imposition of a formal architectonic. (shrink)

Son muchas las cuestiones que en la reflexión epistemológica contemporánea se han ido acumulando en torno a la doctrina coherentista de la verdad y la justificación. En este artículo propongo un conjunto de distinciones sistemáticamente organizadas para orientarse en la forma en que todos estos problemas encajan entre sí. Fundamentalmente estas distinciones tiene que ver con los aspectos descriptivos y prescriptivos que tienen las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cuál ha sido la creencia que pide paso en nuestro sistema de creencias? ¿Es racional (...) aceptarla? ¿Cómo se ha realizado lógicamente la acomodación de la nueva creencia? ¿Se ha hecho siguiendo procedimientos racionales fiables? ¿Cómo se ha formado de hecho el sistema de creencias del que partimos? ¿Ha sido racional este proceso de formación? ¿Qué estructura tiene nuestro sistema de creencias? ¿Podemos revisar racionalmente esta estructura? ¿Es verdadero o racional el sistema de creencias resultante? (shrink)