![]()
Part I
Philosophy and Organizational Aesthetics
![]()
1 Relevance of Philosophical Aesthetics in Organization Studies
Part I, Philosophy and Organizational Aesthetics, is dedicated to introducing the reader to the core issues illustrated and discussed in this book, and also, at the same time, to my style of researching, theorizing and communicating on the aesthetics of organization.
Part I is composed of three chapters. The first chapter aims to argue for the importance of philosophical aesthetics in the study of the aesthetic dimension of work and organization. The second chapter focuses on the organizational study of the creation process. The third chapter discusses the relationship between art and ordinary beauty in the understanding of organizational aesthetics.
Two Interludes create a symbolic bridge between the three chaptersâa bridge that connects and interrupts, at the same time, the flow of the written words using art photography. My principal intent with these Interludes is to point out the different organizational knowledge that we can acquire through written language, on one hand, and visual language on the other hand. All the âdifferent media of non-verbal representationâ, writes the American philosopher Susanne K. Langer (1942: 96â97), are often indicated as distinct âlanguagesââand this is a âloose terminologyââ but their main difference with the verbal and written language, that is, the âlanguageâ, is that
[T]he meanings given through language are successively understood, and gathered into a whole by the process called discourse; the meanings of all other symbolic elements that compose a larger, articulate symbol are understood only through the meaning of the whole, through their relations within the total structure. Their very functioning as symbols depends on the fact that they are involved in a simultaneous, integral presentation. This kind of semantic may be called âpresentational symbolismâ, to characterize its essential distinction from discursive symbolism, or âlanguageâ proper.
Photography, we shall see, constitutes both a metaphor of organizational aesthetics and the field study of my argument for the relevance of philosophical aesthetics in organizational theories.
The importance of the aesthetic philosophy in researching organization constitutes the leitmotiv of this book. This is therefore the principal subject of Chapter 1, where I shall illustrate how it has been that, in doing empirical research on organizational cultures, I gave form to my aesthetic approach to understand organization thanks to the aesthetic philosophies.
1.1 Polysemy, Mystery, Intensity
The relevance of philosophical aesthetics in organization theory and management studies became evident in my research from the very beginning of my study of the aesthetic dimension of organization. My âdiscoveryâ of the sociological relevance of the aesthetic side of organizational life happened during a research study on the organizational culture of three departmentsâart, mathematics and educationâof one of the oldest Italian universities (Strati, 1990). Aesthetics emerged as an important dimension in the work to be done, individually and collectively, and was also able to influence the organizational settings and the power relations of the department. Moreover, the empirical research showed that aesthetics as an organizational dimension of these departments was characterized by polysemy, mystery and intensity:
- Polysemy emerged as an important characteristic because aesthetics referred to organizational interactions and events that were very different, such as, for instance, the elegance of a mathematical demonstration, the ugliness of the hierarchical expressions flaunting power in the department organizational life or the nostalgia of past work relationships and work atmospheres which were intellectually fascinating.
- Mystery emerged as another important characteristic because the beauty of the construction of a statistical data table, or of the study of a painting, or of the creation of a mathematical formula, was not self-evident and self-explaining. These beauties required intuition, socialization, learning process, symbolic understanding and metaphorical thinkingâthat is, characteristics which are distinctive of the specific working practices in organizations conducted, in one case, as a social scientist of the education department; and in another case, as an art historian of the art department; and in a third case, as a mathematician of the department of mathematics.
- Intensity emerged as an equally relevant characteristic because the relevance of aesthetics varied enormously, according to my fieldwork results:
- (a) In the department of mathematics, aesthetics was in great consideration and influenced the practices of the department. The beauty was in âdoing pure mathematicsâ and the pure mathematicians were dominating the departmental organizational cultures and dynamics.
- (b) In the art department, aesthetics was situated in and circumscribed to the artwork at study. Art historians were not seeing themselves and their colleagues dedicated to creation and beauty, such as the pure mathematicians did. They were considering their research study as the production of knowledge about works of beauty.
- (c) In the department of education, aesthetics was a âsinâ tout court, given that the organizational culture was inspired by the ethos of doing useful things for specific communities and the society in general.
Now, the question is: why did my sociological research need to create a dialogue with philosophical aesthetics? Because, in order to reach the research results mentioned above and âdiscoverâ the sociological relevance of aesthetics for understanding organizational cultures, philosophy does not seem to be necessary. There was, of course, my sensibility towards philosophical theories and epistemological debates, which was rooted in sociology and social theory. There was also my sensibility towards the arts and the research in the arts made by art historians, critics and artists, which was grounded in my conceptual art photography. But how my dialogue with the aesthetic philosophies began is better illustrated by the field research process itself.
Two of âmy situationsâ that have come into being during my empirical research can explain why I felt the need for a dialogue between the sociology of organization and philosophical studies. The first highlights the issue of acquiring organizational knowledge, while the second highlights the question of judging the organizational experience. These two issues have been fundamental; they gave to my aesthetic approach to the study of organizational life a distinctive form.
I shall illustrate them in Chapter 1, just after pointing out that they both originated from within my field inquiryâthat is, from the specific and concrete research situation I was in. Specific and concrete in the sense that the Italian existentialist and hermeneutic philosopher Luigi Pareyson expresses through the following considerations:
I have this body, these relatives, these friends, this homeland, this job, these relations with others and other things: that is I have a very definite position in the universe, a specific place in the world. In a word: a situation, or better, my situation. I cannot regard my situation as one among many others, any of which I could have been given at random. My situation is my [âŚ] âincarnationâ: without it, I, as a single person, would not exist. The bonds that connect me to my situation are very tight, and above all, they are essential to me: they are not links of âfeaturesâ, but of âessenceâ.
(1943; Eng. trans. 2009: 42)
1.2 Tacit Dimension of Knowing and Aesthetics
My first situation was created when an internationally well-known Italian mathematician told me that a âbeautiful result is often one in which the author demonstrates more than he saysâ (Strati, 2008; reprint 2012: 136). This consideration captured my attention, also because of my typification of mathematiciansâ work. The philosopher and sociologist Alfred SchuĚtz pointed out that our process of acquiring knowledge derives only in part from our direct experience. A large part of our knowledge originates, in fact, in our social heritage.
It consists of a set of systems of relevant typifications, of typical solutions for typical practical and theoretical problems, of typical precepts for typical behavior.
(SchuĚtz, 1962: 348)
According to my social heritage, I was used to assuming that, in the exact world of mathematics, everything was in the demonstration, that is, that the scientific formalization represented by the mathematical demonstration would say all it has to be said. The fact that a mathematician could demonstrate âmore thanâ what s/he actually says was therefore an unexpected researchâs surprise.
This also resonates with something that I noticed in other work settings, such as in the sawmills, where the work practices were finalized to sawing a tree to produce boards for the furniture industry: even though the production standards were in principle well specified, the outcome was never scientifically predictable. This was due to the state of the wood and the state of the saw, as well as to the technology of the work process and the ability of the people to work.
The âscientific auraâ of the mathematical demonstration pushed me to deepen the epistemological debate in the sciences and, in doing it, I found inspiring the research in the field of the philosophy of science conducted by the Hungarian philosopher Michael Polanyi. With his research, Polanyi highlighted the distinction between two dimensions of knowing:
- the explicit dimension, constituted by the knowledge that is formalized in scientific terms, and
- the tacit dimension, that is, the knowledge that is not expressed formally and scientifically.
Both dimensions constitute our personal knowledge, but the tacit dimension is of crucial importance. To stress this point, Polanyi made explicit reference to the rules of art, which
can be useful, but they do not determine the practice of an art; they are maxims, which can serve as a guide to an art only if they can be integrated into the practical knowledge of the art. They cannot replace this knowledge.
(1958: 50)
My typification of the mathematical world was neglecting the tacit dimension of the mathematiciansâ personal knowledge, while, on the opposite dimension, the personal knowledge of a mathematical result was âsomethingâ richer than the mere scientific comprehension of the theorem demonstration. But there was something more to grasp in the words of the famous mathematician: in the department, the mathematicians were aware of the fact that there is some kind of beauty when an author demonstrates more than s/he says.
For me, the fact of understanding that in the world of mathematics, the explicit dimension of knowledgeâformalized and scientificâhas to face the mystery, due to tacit knowledge, that characterizes the aesthetic practice of knowledge, has profoundly influenced my aesthetic approach to the study of daily work practices in organization.
This was âmy situationâ when Polanyiâs philosophical distinction between the tacit dimensionâthe practice of an artâand the explicit dimension of knowledgeâthe rules of an artâbecame one of my arguments in favor of the aesthetic approach to the study of social practice in organizational settings, and also in polemic against the cognitivist approach to the study of organization (Strati, 2003; reprint 2012: 30â32).
Thereafter, I even stressed something more, that is, that the aesthetic approach is able to provide the tacit dimension of knowing with a languageâ poetic, artistic, through metaphors. The aesthetic language is in fact able to express the organizational experience without violating its tacit character because it does not seek to transform the tacit dimension into explicit knowledge.
This argument clearly expressed the difference and the distance of the aesthetic study of the organization from the organizational approaches and epistemologies which, on the contrary, were seeing the tacit knowledge as translatable in the explicit, such as the cognitivist approach and the rationalist and positivist study of organization have been attempting to do.
1.3 The Sublime and the Categories of Aesthetics
My second situation that shows how immediate my search for philosophy has been during my field study in the three Italian departments always occurred in the department of mathematics. This one was, in fact, the context where the aesthetic dimension of work and organization emerged with an intensity that was not foreseen, and this beautiful surprise was intriguing. During an interview, another famous Italian mathematician told me that the act of giving a mathematical problem to be solved to the mathematics communityâan act done by a very well-known colleagueâwas something âsublimeâ, and he emphasized his comment with a wide movement of his right arm.
How to understand sublime? This question denotes my situation in which, in order to deepen the aesthetic quality of the sublime, I decided to move from the original frame of the sublime used, given by the context of sociological research, to that of the investigation of how the sublime was treated in the aesthetic philosophies. Through this shift from sociological field research to philosophy, I had the sensation of achieving a better understanding of what both the word and the gesture accompanying it meant. As philosophical aesthetic category, in fact, sublime connects the beauty to the nobility of spirit, to dignity, to high-minded moral rectitude (Bodei, 1995).
This was the philosophical interpretation of sublime that I preferred among the various philosophical ways to understand this aesthetic category. I felt it respondent and appropriate to the sentiments I experienced in the field study. I had the impression that the shift from the ordinary language of the interview to philosophy configured the sublime used in a new shape that was respectful of both the departmental context and the sociological research context.
From then, the philosophical debate around the aesthetic categories, in general, became part of my research style. âBeautifulâ lost its status as an umbrella concept depicting art and aesthetics in organization and translated itself into an aesthetic category. Other categories of aesthetics, such as the âsacredâ, the âpicturesqueâ, the âtragicâ, the âuglyâ, the âcomicâ and the âgracefulâ, as well as the âagogicâ aesthetic categories that concern rhythm, had emerged from my empirical studies, and all of them shaped, through their philosophical background, my aesthetic ...
