www.ssoar.info Phronesis as the Sense of the Event Kirkeby, Ole Fogh Veröffentlichungsversion / Published Version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Zur Verfügung gestellt in Kooperation mit / provided in cooperation with: Rainer Hampp Verlag Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Kirkeby, O. F. (2009). Phronesis as the Sense of the Event. International Journal of Action Research, 5(1), 68-113. https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:0168-ssoar-412808 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under Deposit Licence (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, non- Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, transferable, individual and limited right to using this document. persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses This document is solely intended for your personal, non- Dokuments. 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Phronesis as the Sense of the Event Ole Fogh Kirkeby In this article, the Greek concept of phronesis is analyzed on the basis of its philosophical roots, and the indispensability of its strong normative content is emphasized. This creates a distance to most of the recent under- standing of phronesis as prudence, and hence as practical wisdom with a pragmatic and strategic content. The strong dilemmas created by the nor- mative background of real phronesis present management and leadership as a choice in every situation. From this foundation, phronesis is inter- preted as primarily the sense of the event, and an alternative concept of the event is developed. The presentation of the event also demands a theory of the relation of mind and matter, and hence of the body in the event. This is achieved under inspiration from Stoic philosophy. With this in mind, the more serious approaches to practical wisdom: phronesis as determinant of meta-concepts of research; phronesis as a liberating organizational strategy of learning; phronesis as a strategy of knowledge management; phronesis as a narrative strategy; and phronesis as the capacity of the leader, are presented and analyzed. Finally lines are drawn as to the importance of the consciousness of the event and of its theoretical impli- cations, such as through the concept of phronesis for action research. Key words: phronesis, the theory of the event, the sense of the event, ethical imagination, radical normativity Presentation of the problem In recent years, the Greek concept of phronesis has properly speaking been invading Western culture, and especially the field of business economics, and International Journal of Action Research 5(1), 2009: 68-113 DOI 10.1688/1861-9916_IJAR_2009_01_Kirkeby ISSN 1861-1303 (print), ISSN 1861-9916 (internet) © Rainer Hampp Verlag, www.Hampp-Verlag.de Phronesis as the Sense of the Event 69 the field of management in particular, covering the fronts ranging from spiritual leadership to hardcore, strategic management. Sometimes it is even used as a line of demarcation between management and leadership. In a business world dominated by a new-liberalist capitalism liable to almost religious forms of control through an ethos of passionate devoted working life, phronesis has become both a means to instrumental dominance of the organization, and a rather lacerated meta-concept to legitimate and even to re- negotiate the meaning of management. However, the hard facts stand out: the political consumer, the public world-eye watching the corporate behaviour, the pressures on products and technologies due to the upcoming environ- mental catastrophe, and the chronic lack of understanding of principles of functioning of the capitalist economy, due to bad macroeconomic science and even more bad politics. Now the classical effects of the Kondratieff-cycle are here: capitalism has simply not got sufficiently new technologies to drive the canonical upsurge, and the chance to prevent the descent, the nurturing of third country overseas markets were neglected. Hopes now rest with global political initiatives, and the OECD appears to have accepted this new agenda. Phronesis seems, on the one hand, to be the perspective to develop man- agement into a type of leadership which can honour the pressures by employ- ees generally, and by elite knowledge workers in particular, in a market which for the first time in the history of Western capitalism moved towards full employment in the Western countries; and now, in the beginning of the crisis, on the other hand, to have the capacity to keep and change organiza- tional culture at the same time. Since the Greeks made “Kairos”, the right moment, the essence of oppor- tunity, into a god, and the modern world transformed it into a strategic con- cept of (military) timing, the event has been seen as the centre of fruitful action, that which must be prepared for, the ever changing position from where history reveals itself, and the scene of dreams and visions of the future. Hence, it is obvious to define phronesis as the sense of the event. It is of course important that this sense is not mistaken for the common sense of the situation, which is so often a vehicle for nurturing our own “enlightened” or more base interests. 70 Ole Fogh Kirkeby As an epistemological framework of communication, with the central fo- cus laid on dialogue, the sense of the event must be the sine qua non of action research. In this setting, phronesis would denote the capacity to receive and create, in relation to the being of the other person. To action research, the implicit doctrine of phronesis, that any person is a unique being, must both guide and legitimate this hyper-qualitative type of research. One could say that phronesis is an inter-relational capacity to become invisible and present at the very same time; a fly on the wall and a rock in the scenery. But first and foremost, action research presupposes sincerity and “authenticity” in the researcher, and hence, sympathy, if not compassion. Phronesis, nurturing on a deeply reflective earnestness and on distinct, clear and “confessed” values, is the way to create the event while at the same time “honouring” it, and action research is co-creating and co-receiving. However, when considering that phronesis since Socrates, as it is de- scribed in a canonical, interpretative context as for example “Historische Wörterbuch der Philosophie”, Plato and his pupil, Aristotle, was the principle of normative action, the increasing dominance of one of its aspects of mean- ing, prudency, needs explanation. The strategic and pragmatic twisting of its content could be found in recent managerial literature in so far as this aspect is becoming greater and greater. However, Aristotle, in the “Nicomachean Ethics”, restricted the cunning-aspect of practical wisdom (“metis”, “deinótes”, concepts not generally denoting the morally bad when taken out of this context) to the pragmatic, non-normative sides of action, and hence threw the light on its character as a means to realize power through rhetoric – and rhetoric forms, of course, are the trap of action research. The schism between ethical normativity and strategically shaped action is not just a schism, it is an aporia. But phronesis has to do with the capacity of a human being to ethically guide and develop itself as such, the capacity to the sui conservandi, so objectively vindicated by Thomas Hobbes, and at the same time the will and ability to act for the sake of the community, on the basis of reflectively affirmed duty. Phronesis is the meta-concept of intelligent, situated action. Thus it is the principle of the insightfully guided life which Socrates advocated, and it relates to all the spheres of our life, which after all only can mean the life in which a human being knows how to honor or be Phronesis as the Sense of the Event 71 worthy of the event – as the Stoic philosopher Chrysippus phrased it, and with him Gilles Deleuze (1990). Plato conceptualized this maxim, in the “Laws”, on his overall epistemological assumption that thinking is inner dialogue, and that man has an eristic relation to himself being permanently “at war with himself”. The victory hence is one over oneself, and it is the greatest of all victories (”nikan auton auton pason nikon prote te kai ariste” (Nomoi Bog I, 626E)). This immediately takes phronesis out of the self- conservational context of prudence, since self-sacrifice is a possible conse- quence. Plato claims that the inner expression of proving worthy of the event is to honour oneself above all except the gods (Nomoi 334 b-c.). Man must “fol- low in the footprints of God” (”synakolouthesónton”) (Nomoi IV, 716B). As Plato (Menon 87 c11ff), and Aristotle (Nic. Eth. VI, 13 1144 b, 28-30), Socrates identifies virtue with knowledge, though accepting some not pro- nounced normative “techniques” for realizing it (like knowledge or sense of the other person). What Socrates actually meant is difficult to say precisely, but one interpretation could be that he identified phronesis with a knowledge which could be discursively stated, even if this approaches paradox, since phronesis deals with the concrete act, and hence seems to require non- discursive language or trans-reflective capacities.