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Toward a Society of Explorers Craig M A POST-CRITICAL SCIENCE OF ADMINISTRATION: TOWARD A SOCIETY OF EXPLORERS CRAIG M. WICKSTROM Bachelor of Arts in Natural Science North Park College May 1979 Master of Science in Urban Studies Cleveland State University May 2003 submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for the degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN URBAN STUDIES AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS at the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY DECEMBER, 2017 © COPYRIGHT BY CRAIG M. WICKSTROM 2017 We hereby approve this dissertation for Craig M. Wickstrom Candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy in Urban Studies and Public Affairs degree for the Maxine Goodman Levin College of Urban Affairs and the CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY College of Graduate Studies _________________________________________________________________ Dissertation Chairperson, Michael W. Spicer _____________________________________________ Department & Date _________________________________________________________________ Dissertation Committee Member, Helen Liggett ________________________________________ Department & Date _________________________________________________________________ Dissertation Committee Member, Walter B. Gulick _____________________________________________ Department & Date Student’s Date of Defense: November 30, 2017 DEDICATION I dedicate this dissertation to my families: • To my wife, Cheryl, who patiently and sometimes not-so-patiently endured my long effort. • To my birth mother and father who always remained interested and willing to listen to my discoveries. • To my mother-in-law and especially my late father-in-law who understood little of my purpose or thinking, but supported me unconditionally, as a son. • To my children who sometimes wondered why I continued such a long pursuit with little promise of reward. • To my grandchildren (and all children) who always bring me so much joy. • To my local church family which sought to give me space while suffering from the neglect of my full presence. • To my siblings and siblings-in-law who probably understand me better than I do myself - and yet have continued to support me nonetheless. • To my missionary family which always assumes more of me than I deserve. • To my global church family which always accepts me as a brother. Even if I had never completed this work, my families would have accepted me, encouraged me, supported me, and brought me joy. I am blessed to belong and to be called by so great a throng of witnesses. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation was made possible by expressions of confidence in my ability that called me to keep pushing forward when I sincerely doubted myself. That encouragement came in many forms - from my wife, Cheryl, refusing to let me give up and my family members taking time to listen and discuss ideas with me, to the recognition of indeterminate possibilities evident in me from the time I was an infant. I am particularly fond of the story Dorothy Blakeway and Helen Berquist tell of baby- sitting me as a one-year old and teaching me to say "sphinx" as my first word. Academically, I owe much of my success for completion of this dissertation to Michael Spicer who gave me confidence by inviting me to write a dissertation under his tutelage and who, as my committee chair, then pushed me to complete it, spending many, many hours correcting and critiquing and editing my work in a process of apprenticeship that made real many of the concepts I was attempting to bring to light. Of course others also had a part in encouraging my academic efforts. Norman Krumholz first stimulated my interest in public and urban affairs by his hands-on teaching style. Lawrence Keller sparked my interest in leadership and organizations and chaired my first major writing effort. Helen Liggett taught me to explore ideas that pushed my thinking beyond what was comfortable and served as a member of my committee. Walter Gulick showed an early interest in my understanding of Polanyi's ideas and, as the Polanyi scholar on my committee, encouraged me to restrict my elaboration of Polanyi's philosophy to that which was relevant to my central topic. Many other professors at Cleveland State University contributed to my development as a scholar, among them Camilla Stivers, Sylvester Murray, Jennifer Alexander, Robert Simons, Joel Elvery, William Bowen, and Robert Gleeson, and I received further encouragement from the associations, particularly the Public Administration Theory Network and the Polanyi Society, of which I have become a part. Special acknowledgement must be made to The Institute of Applied Phenomenology in Science and Technology for financial support provided through a Ralph P. Hummel Scholarship in 2013. Without the expressions of confidence from all of these and many more, I would not have been able to bring this work to completion. A POST-CRITICAL SCIENCE OF ADMINISTRATION: TOWARD A SOCIETY OF EXPLORERS CRAIG M. WICKSTROM ABSTRACT What is meant by "science" and whether it is an appropriate model for public administration has been a subject of debate since Woodrow Wilson called for a science of administration in 1887. This dissertation introduces another voice into that debate, the voice of a world-renowned physical chemist named Michael Polanyi. Polanyi's sharp criticism of positivism reinforces the arguments of those questioning the legitimacy of an administrative science, but instead of rejecting it, he constructed an alternative definition of science that recognizes the indeterminacy of reality, the personal nature of knowledge, and the centrality of "the logic of tacit knowing." Because all knowledge is tacit or rooted in tacit knowing, we can know more than we can tell, and tacit knowing becomes evident in the dynamic order of polycentric entities and in their reliance on tradition and the person, constrained by community, and morally responsible for discovery and practice. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ………………………………………………………………………... vii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ………………………………………………….. 1 A History of "Science" in Public Administration ……………….. 7 Chapter Overview ………………...…………………....……….. 11 II. TACIT KNOWING AND THE LEGITIMACY OF RELYING ON AN INDETERMINATE REALITY …………….………………….. 14 The Structure of Tacit Knowing …………...…………………… 16 Tacit Knowing as Indwelling …………………………………... 19 Three Aspects of Tacit Knowing and Objectivization ……....…. 23 Tacit Knowing and the Discovery of a Hidden Reality ………… 26 The Dynamics of Tacit Knowing ……………………………..… 30 Emergence and the Creative Tension of a Stratified Reality …… 36 The Fiduciary Foundation of Knowledge …….………………… 42 The Fiduciary Call to Responsibility …..……………………….. 46 Beauty, Passion, and Legitimacy in Tacit Knowing ………….… 49 III. COMMUNITY, TRADITION, AND DYNAMIC ORDER IN A FREE SOCIETY ……………………………………………… 53 Community ………………...…………………………………… 55 Tradition ……………………………………...………………… 58 Dynamic Order …………………………………....…………… 61 viii Problem Solving in a Dynamic Order …………….………….... 66 Mutual Authority in a Dynamic Order ……………………….... 69 Apprenticeship in a Dynamic Order ………………………....... 72 Public Liberty in a Free Society ………………………………. 75 Moral Inversion in a Free Society ……………….……………. 80 IV. LIKE CLOWNS IMITATING PUPPETS: FACTS AND CLUES IN PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION …………………………………..... 85 Objective, Empirical Knowledge in Administration ………...... 89 . Facts and Values in Administrative Science ….…..……….….. 95 Theory and Formal Method in Administrative Science …......... 97 Alternative Models, Methods, and Forms of Knowledge ...…... 100 A Deterministic World of Administration ………………….…. 104 Personal Knowledge and the Paradox of Positivism …….....…. 110 An Indeterminate World of Public Administration …….……... 113 Facts and Clues in Public Administration …..….…..…………. 117 Tacit Knowing as an Alternative Model for Administration …. 121 V. PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, TRADITION, AND DYNAMIC ORDER IN A FREE SOCIETY ………….………………………... 126 Tradition in the Public Administration Literature ….……….…. 127 Planned Order in Public Administration ………………….....…. 134 Spontaneous Order in the Public Administration Literature ….... 142 Public Administration as Dynamically Ordered Tradition …...... 145 Public Liberty and Public Administration ……………………... 154 ix VI. A SOCIETY OF PERSONS CALLED TO RESPONSIBILITY ….. 163 A Dynamic Person and Harmonious Particularity ……….……. 166 The Person in Public Administration …………………………... 171 A Redefined Science of Administration ……………………...... 177 POSTSCRIPT ………………….…………………………………………………... 183 REFERENCES ….…………………………………………………………………..199 x CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION But apart from this contemporary mood, the ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong, are more powerful than is commonly understood. Indeed the world is ruled by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back. (Keynes, 2008, p. 383) He taught me, among other things, that science begins when a body of phenomena is available which shows some coherence and regularities, that science consists in assimilating these regularities and in creating concepts which permit expressing these regularities in a natural way. He also taught me that it is this method of science rather than the concepts themselves (such as energy) which should be applied to other fields of learning. (Wigner, 1963) ------- “Science” has been an important theme in American public
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