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Introduction
During last years we have attended a growing interest in knowing the
thought of classical authors on fundamental questions of human life. This
resurgence of the Classics stems, partly, from a certain exhaustion of
current thought, which reveals insufficiency in offering clear answers to
main contemporary challenges. The meditation of our century was centered
in a discussion between rationalism and posmodernism that does not
contribute positive solutions. This is a reason why answers are recently
looked for in a more native and limpid thought in which a fresh truth has
not yet been afected by the winding ways of reason. In philosophical
environments, metaphysics seeks to return to original stadiums of premetaphysical truths. Meanwhile, in social sciences, a wide movement of
rehabilitation of practical Aristotelian philosophy has arisen; this movement
takes the place of the habitual epistemological mechanical outline of
modernity, that has proven inadequacy for the explanation of human action.
In the frame of this look back, it clearly arises that the managerial task is
a political task as conceived by Greek thinkers.i Aristotelian politics focuses
on the study of the conditions, aims and necessary habits for the good life of
human being in its natural environment of proficiency, i.e., society. It is also
a study of the directive or political task in this frame. If, as stated in the
previous sentence, direction is equal to politics, it stems that Aristotle
conceived politics as an activity proper of all members of society, and that he
assigned a wide margin of leading hability to all of them. This and other
characteristics of his conception of Politics rely on his idea of human being.
The former is summarised in the following passage of his Politics (I, 2):
The reason why man is a being meant for political association, in a
higher degree than bees or other gregarious animals can ever
associate, is evident. Nature, according to our theory, makes
nothing in vain; and man alone of the animals is furnished with
the faculty of language. The mere making of sounds serves to
indicate pleasure and pain, and is thus a faculty that belongs to
animals in general: their nature enables them to attain the point at
which they have perceptions of pleasure and pain, and can signify
those perceptions to one another. But language serves to declare
what is advantageous and what is the reverse, and it therefore
1
Practical Philosophy
In his Nicomachean Ethics and Politics, Aristotle develops his philosophy
of human affairs.vi (X, 9) For the Philosopher of Estagire, each knowledge
adapts in method, aim and accuracy of conclusions to its subject. Thus, a
science is theoretical when its subject owns the principle of its movement, as
in Physics, and it study the subject for the only sake of knowledge.
On the other hand sciences dealing with objects that are to be made are
practical sciences. The principle of movement of these objects -human
actions- is the election of the one who carries them out. For this reason,
they are subjects of knowledge subjected to unpredictability -for they are
contingent, due to freedom and singularity- and they possess moral
connotations. Thus, in order to achieve a knowledge adapted to human
actions we ought to develop practical sciences.
The conditions of their object originate certain characteristics inherent to
them: they lack accuracy in their knowledge, they aim beyond pure
knowledge invading the field of real action, they greatly depend on
experience, they are moral, and they have their own method. Since they do
not completely possess the essential characteristics of sciences according to
Analitics -Treatise of the Aristotelian Logics (Organon) dealing with science-,
they are only sciences by likeness.
Let us now review each one of those.
presenting a broad outline of the truth: when our subjects and our
premises are merely generalities, it is enough if we arrive at
generally valid conclusions.vii
The more in accordance the principles of theoretical sciences -universality,
sureness, deductive- stick to practical knowledge, the less scientifically
practical practical knowledge becomes. This is the reason why inexactness
is not a defect of this knowledge, but a test of its proximity to concrete
action. Science should not be demanded more than it can say in relation
with the nature of its subject. This limitation is not shameful, since it does
not originate from a weakness of science but, as Aristotle also says, from
the nature of the case: the material of conduct is essentially irregular. viii
In the case of Economics, nothing is more evident than the inexactness of
its conclusions and predictions. Since Mill, Economics has been a science of
no more than tendencies, and this proves to be highly realistic.
A good manager also clearly understand the imperfect condition of his
knowledge. Life has taught it to him. For that reason, he naturally mistrusts
of infallible prescriptions and is flexible in their application. There are many
good ways of carrying out a company: There is not one solution. Moreover,
when agreement is complete it may be that the issue lacked analysis.
b) practical aim:
Aristotle states that the end of this study is not knowledge, but action, ix
and that
the purpose of the present study is not, as it is in other inquiries,
the attainment of theoretical knowledge: we are not conducting this
inquiry in order to know what virtue is, but in order to become
good, else there would be no advantage in studying it. For that
reason, it becomes necessary to examine the problem of actions,
and to ask how they are to be performed. x
These and several more passages indicate the practical aim of the
corresponding science. However, the issue of the aim of practical science
needs further precision, beyond the Aristotelian outline. Indeed, some
sciences are practical as soon as their object is practical, but they study it
theoretically, at least partly. We will frequently meet with the tentative of
dissecting the studied object in order to approach it only from a theoretical
point of view. This is legitimate. But it is not the complete science. Since
although a social science may have a theorical aim, it is always virtually
oriented to action, for the essentially practical character of its subject
defines its epistemological status. Normativeness and prescriptiveness are
the reverse side of the coin of description and explanation. In this way, the
4
Conclusion
Twenty four centuries ago Aristotle developed an epistemological frame
adequate to practical sciences. Within them we find the sciences of
management. In effect, when analysed one by one the characteristics of that
frame, its adaptation to managerial knowledge is inferred.
On the other hand, as long as this paradigm is used, features as morality,
pragmatism and the limitations of the science of management become
consolidated as fundamental basis of it. Moreover, it provides an
epistemological foundation to the case methodology. Finally it helps weigh
realistically the contributions of strategy theories of games and of any
another procedure obeying to a merely technical rationality.
The rationality of managerial tasks is a practical rationality that uses
technical instruments and prudentially esteems their validity and feasibility,
keeping in mind the concrete cultural and historical circumstances and,
above all, the personalities of whom compose the firm. Hence, the case
method appears as an extremely appropriate procedure for their teaching.
10
As, for example, in Tom Morris, If Aristotle Ran General Motors (H. Holt & Co., New York, 1997),
Aristotelian approaches by Robert C. Solomon, Oliver F. Williams y Patrick E. Murphy, y S. Klein
with a Platonic perspective.
ii
Trans. Ernest Barker, Oxford University Press, 1958.
iii
Cf. Joan Fontrodona, Ciencia y prctica en la accin directiva, Rialp, Madrid, 1999.
iv
Cf. Ethics and Excellence. Cooperation and Integrity in Business, Oxford University Press, 1992,
chapters 11, 14 and 16.
v
Cf. Dilemas ticos de la empresa contempornea, FCE, Mxico, 1997, 287-9. On the prudential
character of managerial knowledge, also cf. Llano, La enseanza de la direccin y el mtodo del
caso, IPADE, Mxico, 1996 and Santiago Dodero, La gestin empresarial: La toma de decisiones y
su ejecucin, Jornadas de la Facultad de Ciencias Econmicas, UNC, Mendoza, 1998.
vi
Trans. Martin Oswald, MacMillan, London & New York, 1962.
vii
NE, I, 3, 1094b 11-27.
viii
NE, V, 10, 1137b 17-9
ix
NE, I, 2, 1095a 6.
x
NE, II, 2, 1103b 26-30.
xi
Cf. Wolfgang Wieland, La razn y su praxis, Buenos Aires, Biblos, 1996, 18.
xii
EN, I, 2, 1094b 4-7.
xiii
Cf. Gilles-Gaston Granger, Les trois aspects de la rationalit conomique, in Forme di
Razionalit Pratica, a cura di Sergio Galvan, Franco Angeli, Miln, 1992, 80.
xiv
Charles de Koninck, Sciences Sociales et Sciences morales, Laval Thologique et Philosophique,
I/2, 1945, 196-7.
xv
NE, I, 4, 1095b 2-4.
xvi
NE, I, 3, 1095a 2-4.
xvii
C. I. Massini, Mtodo y filosofa prctica, Persona y Derecho, 1995, 247; cf. also C. I. Massini,
Ensayo de Sntesis acerca de la distincin especulativo-prctico y su estructuracin
metodolgica, Sapientia, 200, Buenos Aires, 1996.
xviii
For a thorough analysis of rhetoric, dialectic, and the like, cf., e.g., Hctor Zagal, Retrica,
Induccin y Ciencia en Aristteles, Universidad Panamericana, Mxico, 1993; Enrico Berti, Le vie
della ragione, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1987, especially Retorica, dialectica, filosofia, 77-98.
xix
Cf. De ratione studiorum, VII.
xx
Cf. Llano, o. c,, 1996, 37 ff..
xxi
On these issues, I benefit from a discussion with Jim Platts (University of Cambridge).
xxii
Wilhelm Hennis, Poltica y filosofa prctica, Sur, Buenos Aires, 1973, 116-7, 120.
xxiii
EN, I, 3, 1095a 1.
xxiv
Cf. Margarita Mauri, Cada uno juzga bien aquello que conoce. tica a Nicmaco I, 3, 1094b
28 - 1095a 13, Paper delivered at XXXVIII Reuniones Filosficas, Universidad de Navarra, April
28-30, 1999.
xxv
O. c., 117.
i