Elements of a Hermeneutics of Knowledge in Government the Coalition of Public Sector Reform and Enterprise Resource Planning
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Elements of a Hermeneutics of Knowledge in Government The Coalition of Public Sector Reform and Enterprise Resource Planning Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Information Technology in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Queensland University of Technology Helmut Klaus Brisbane 2004 *Frontispiece and caption from: The management cockpit [ca. 1999]. Singapore: Origin Asia Pacific [commercial flyer] “Corporate War Room of the Future”* Who ordered the scale of the market? And who demands that everything be weighed on it alone?1 1 Martin Heidegger, Contributions to philosophy [Beiträge zur Philosophie, English]: from enowning, trans. Parvis Emad and Maly Kenneth, Studies in Continental thought (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1989/1999), 168. Abstract In techno-organisational innovation, knowledge is reconstituted. Understanding this process in its complexity and its outcomes asks for an inquiry and interpretation that heed to the conditions at the end of modernity, and must therefore take recourse to prac- tical philosophy. This understanding has been formulated with reference to a field study that inquired into the conduct of reform and effectuation of new information technology by the central department of a regional government over a period of approximately eight years. In considering this ambience, the study has been informed by (i) a synopsis of her- meneutic thinking on knowledge; (ii) an outline of governmentality and (information) technology; (iii) a reflection on the conditions of the social sciences and their relation to information technology; (iv) an exploration of the possibilities of social inquiry at the end of modernity. Deliberating the stipulations of social inquiry, the destructive narrative is proposed that allows for a rational and argumentative appropriation of the past, beyond scientific method and mere perceptivity. Events, ideas, and experiences indicate the reciprocal relation of political and organisational rationalities, on the one hand, and managerial and informational technologies on the other. Within these dimensions, the knowledge of governmentality is being re-defined, shifting expertise into the harness of business discipline. The rationalities of information, process, integration, prediction and performance, and ultimately efficiency, make bureaucracy itself an object of increased scrutiny. These rationalities also remind that the challenge of Ge-stell and the rule of politics-as-fabrication do neither come to pass primarily in implementations of manage- rial technologies, nor in instantiations of information systems, but within the articulations of the technological worldview. Due to the fragmented and contentious nature of knowledge, innovation as routine nevertheless appears disjointed and asynchronous, yet upholding the representational and disciplinary constellations. Acknowledgements For this piece of work to be commenced, carried through, and completed, the help of others was indispensable. Their sincere and honest support is highly appreciated. I am grateful to Guy Gable for accommodating my studies within a research project that was co-sponsored and co-funded by SAP Australia, and which provided me with an Australian Postgraduate Award – Industry (APAI) scholarship. I feel particularly obliged to the managers at Queensland Treasury who participated in my investigation, and shared their experiences. I extend special thanks to John Weatherley and Michael Bucior for this aspect, and to Aaron Palmer who piloted me through the riffs and shoals of conducting field research between the shores of a modern government administration. I am very thankful to Christine Bruce for originally sending me on this way when super- vising my master’s studies and for lending her full support to this more daunting en- deavour. Jörgen Sandberg deserves special thanks for his subtle direction at an early stage of the project, initiating questions that significantly strengthened my approach. I am indebted to Carol Steiner for an inspiring exchange on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy and contemporary science studies, and to Rafael Capurro for communicating his insights into the onto-theological grounding of a certain strand of philosophy of science. Last but not least, I want to thank Tina Thornton for her professional services in editing and layout. Contents Towards a Phenomenological Account of the Completion of Organisational Modernisation Chapter 1: The Question of Knowledge and Technology in Modern Organisations.1 On Theory and Practice of Understanding .......................................................................4 The Practice of Questioning and the Questioning of Practice.........................................9 From Projections towards Phenomena............................................................................12 Confinements and Potentialities.......................................................................................14 Chapter 2: Thematic Overview ...................................................................................15 Acquisition..........................................................................................................................15 Synopsis ..............................................................................................................................15 I. Knowledge in Modernity: Technology and Information Chapter 3: Problematising Knowledge in Organisations..........................................19 Knowledge as Object.........................................................................................................19 Knowledge as Social Cognition.........................................................................................23 Knowledge as Involved Interpretation ............................................................................26 Hermeneutics and the Phenomenology of Science and Technology as a Way of Interpreting Knowledge in Organisations.......................................................................28 Chapter 4: Recalling Knowledge with the Phenomenology of Science and Technology: Projecting, Representing, Ge-stell.........................................................31 Existential Pragmatics or Philosophy of Modernity?.....................................................32 Hermeneutics as Uncovering of Knowledge....................................................................34 Hermeneutics—From Exegesis to Existence................................................................................ 34 Knowledge in the Hermeneutical Circle....................................................................................... 35 The Phenomenology of Science and Technology in the Modern Age ...........................38 The Truth of Science .................................................................................................................... 40 Practice and Way of Knowing of Science—Research and Theory............................................... 42 Projection and Rigour .............................................................................................................. 43 Method and Objectness............................................................................................................ 44 Specialisation and Ongoing Activity ....................................................................................... 47 Truth as Representation ........................................................................................................... 49 Foundation and Consequence of Modern Science—the World as Picture ................................... 50 The Limits of Techno-Scientific Doing and Knowing ................................................................. 52 The Essence of Technology—Representation and Ge-Stell ...........................................54 The Insufficiency of the Anthropological and Instrumental Determination of Technology......... 55 The Technological Essence of Science......................................................................................... 60 The Essence of Information Technology—the Information Ge-Stell ........................................... 61 Language in the Information Ge-Stell—Information ....................................................63 Information as Representing Nature—Challenging Disclosure and Sufficient Reason................ 64 Language as Instrument for Communication—Language as Information.................................... 65 World as a System of Information—Cybernetic Interpretation of Man ....................................... 69 Information as Anthropological Category ......................................................................73 i Representation, Information, Organisation and Information Technology ..................77 Response to the Pro-Vocation—Knowledge-as-Information and Myth .......................78 Organisational Information Systems as Objects of Knowledge ................................................... 78 The Securing of Organisational Information Systems—Myths of Knowing and Organising ...... 81 Response to the End of Metaphysics—Overcoming or Negation ..................................82 Dialectic versus Ontology or “Difference in Accent”?................................................................. 83 The Historicity of Hermeneutics—Technology and Humanism .................................................. 89 II. Knowledge in Modernity: Social Science, Liberalism, Management Chapter