Paving the Way for Merleau-Ponty's Eye and Mind in Organizational
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Duquesne University Duquesne Scholarship Collection Electronic Theses and Dissertations Summer 8-11-2018 Paving the Way for Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind in Organizational Communication Studies Johan Bodaski Follow this and additional works at: https://dsc.duq.edu/etd Part of the Business Administration, Management, and Operations Commons, Continental Philosophy Commons, and the Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons Recommended Citation Bodaski, J. (2018). Paving the Way for Merleau-Ponty’s Eye and Mind in Organizational Communication Studies (Doctoral dissertation, Duquesne University). Retrieved from https://dsc.duq.edu/etd/1484 This One-year Embargo is brought to you for free and open access by Duquesne Scholarship Collection. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Duquesne Scholarship Collection. For more information, please contact phillipsg@duq.edu. PAVING THE WAY FOR MERLEAU-PONTY’S EYE AND MIND IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES A Dissertation Submitted to the McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts Duquesne University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Johan Bodaski August 2018 Copyright by Johan Bodaski 2018 PAVING THE WAY FOR MERLEAU-PONTY’S EYE AND MIND IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES By Johan Bodaski Approved June 8, 2018 ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. Janie Harden Fritz Dr. Ronald C. Arnett Professor of Communication & Rhetorical Professor of Communication & Rhetorical Studies Studies (Committee Chair) (Committee Member) ________________________________ Dr. Erik Garrett Associate Professor of Communication & Rhetorical Studies (Committee Member) ________________________________ ________________________________ Dr. James C. Swindal Dr. Ronald C. Arnett Dean, McAnulty College of Liberal Arts Chair, Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies iii ABSTRACT PAVING THE WAY FOR MERLEAU-PONTY’S EYE AND MIND IN ORGANIZATIONAL COMMUNICATION STUDIES By Johan Bodaski August 2018 Dissertation supervised by Dr. Janie Harden Fritz The body is a sense-based medium that creates and interprets organization. Bodies create organizations. An aesthetic theory of organizational communication reveals the significance of the body to the organization. Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of aesthetics offers a theory of aesthetic organizational communication that is yet to be developed. Merleau-Ponty’s aesthetic essay on painting, Eye and Mind, describes the body as the medium through which painters turn the world into painting. His philosophy of painting builds bridges between aesthetics, the body, and organizational communication. In chapter one, four theories of organizational communication are described: communication constitutes organization (CCO), text/interpreter, ventriloquism, and sensemaking. The chapter envisions each theory through an embodied understanding of iv organizational communication. The lived body experiences organizational communication, texts, human and non-human dynamics, and non-rational ways of knowing through sense. Chapter two discusses, aesthetic organizing, a theory developed in the 1990’s as a response to the predominant rational, cognitive, and analytic models used to understand and theorize organizations. Aesthetics engages senses and therefore our body. Aesthetics integrates cognitive and intuitive ways of knowing. Aesthetic organizing is a holistic way to interpret communication in organizations and reflexively with the body as the research instrument for organizational members, managers, leaders, and consultants. Aesthetic is a way of knowing. Chapter three discusses affective atmospheres. Human and non human affects make an atmospheres. These atmospheres offer a way to interpret texts, objects, languages, and discourses simultaneously intertwined within organizational bodies. Organizations are atmospheres co-created through affective bodies. The invisible structures of atmospheres and affect are made visible by aesthetics. Like architecture, atmospheres and affect are built environments accessible only by sense. Chapter five discusses Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy of painting. According to Merleau-Ponty, the task of a painter is to make visible the invisible. His ontology of painting in Eye and Mind describes the painter’s method of interrogating the world. It is a method of understanding that does not abstract or manipulate the subjects it wishes to study. Body, world, and sense are all intertwined for the painter. Chapter six discusses Wendelin Küpers (2015) book, Phenomenology of the Embodied Organization, which is the sole monograph that brings Merleau-Ponty into organizational theory and practice. In this monograph, Küpers applies Merleau-Ponty’s v phenomenology and ontology by braiding organizations, aesthetics, and bodies. Küpers claims that intertwinement, reversibility, and chiasm operate in organizations because bodies co-create organized contexts. The final chapter, discusses organizational communication as tactile, sense, and tacit embodiment. To teach business communication courses on organizational theory by corporeal experiences, e.g. pottery or painting, students develop a tactile understanding of organizational communication and embodied leadership. vi DEDICATION To my grandmother Mimi. Impossible takes just a little longer. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank Dr. Janie Harden Fritz for her professional guidance as my advisor. I would like to thank Dr. Ronald C. Arnett and Dr. Erik Garrett, for their contributions to this dissertation as members of the committee. I would like to thank the other faculty members in the Department of Communication & Rhetorical Studies for their contributions in many ways to this dissertation. In gratitude, I would like to acknowledge the other people and experiences on the campus of Duquesne, too numerous to name, that have changed the way I see body, world, and spirit. Many people have contributed to this project outside the Duquesne context, and I would like to acknowledge a few of them. First, my mother and father, who have been there every step of the way. My friend Simon who introduced me to the humanities. It took me time to come around, but he never stopped communicating the application and value of the liberal arts to me. I would also like to thank Beaudry; a friend, who never doubted. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iv Dedication ......................................................................................................................... vii Acknowledgement ........................................................................................................... viii CHAPTER 1: Introduction to the Research .......................................................................1 Communication Studies ...........................................................................................1 Communicology ...........................................................................................1 Richard Lanigan and Ambiguity ..................................................................3 Frank Macke and the Experience of Communication ..................................4 Discussion of the New Contribution: Aesthetic Organizational Communication ........................................................................................................6 Social and Human Sciences .........................................................................6 The Problem of Studying Lived Experience ................................................8 The Contribution to the Literature ...............................................................9 Question and Chapter Organization .......................................................................10 Method ...................................................................................................................11 Chapter 2: Organizational Communication Literature Review ................12 Chapter 3: Organizational Aesthetics Literature Review .........................14 Chapter 4: Atmospheres and Affect Literature Review ............................15 Chapter 5: Merleau-Ponty’s Philosophy of Painting .................................17 Chapter 6: Merleau-Ponty’s Relational Ontology and Entering Organizational Bodies ................................................................................17 ix Chapter 7: Implications for Organizational Communication and Future Research .....................................................................................................20 Rhetoric ..........................................................................................20 Education .......................................................................................20 CHAPTER 2: Introduction to Organizational Communication Literature .......................22 Envisioning Aesthetic Communication in Organization .......................................24 Communication Constitutes Organization .................................................25 A Communicative Ontology of Text and Interpreter .................................27 Performance of Organizational Communication ...................................................29 Performance of Part and Whole .................................................................29 Cultural Performance .................................................................................30