This chapter examines one of Western historyâs most inconspicuous and ambiguous knowledge known as mètis. Largely relegated to the shadow of Platoâs more noble episteme (or knowledge as ideal Truth), and lacking any formalized delineation as found across Aristotleâs Categories, it is a knowledge called upon for spur-of-moment actionâfor which experts, professionals, and organizations would be hard-pressed in its total absence. Yet, as we shall see in later Chaps. 2, 3, and 6, mètis has been hardly recognized nor sufficiently emphasized within past and contemporary organizations.
Mètisâ significance lies not just in what it consists of (an entanglement of tacit, intuitive, localized, contingent, and flexible knowledge) but also in the striking contrast between the time needed to acquire it and its lightening-speed deployment. We will present a particularly telling example of mètis across the landing of US Airways Flight 1549 by Captain âSullyâ Sullenberger and his crew on the Hudson River in January of 2009.
Finally, we conclude with the non-coincidental observation of how mètisâ presence and deployment has been concurrent with more democratic social interactions. This, as we shall later see in Chaps. 6, 7, and 8, is a key aspect organizations must retain if they are to successfully foster mètisâ progression and deployment.
The Greek Heritage of Western KnowledgeâThe Rise of Abstractionism
Ancient Greek philosophers, starting from Thales to the Stoics and the Skeptics, initiated particular ways of thinking which greatly influenced Western intellectual tradition. Often, there were explicit preferences for the life of reason and rational thought. Of particular interest was the search for knowledge often associated with the search for universal Truth. Plato for example, saw knowledge as consisting of what was true across the concept of universal objects of knowledge known as Forms (The Republic VII). These Forms, being a-spatial and a-temporal, were essentially the âobjectiveâ blueprints for perfection, and as such, the purest representation of all things. In turn, true knowledge or intelligence became the ability to grasp the world of Forms with oneâs mindâthat is, the ability to justify that these Forms were indeed true across the rational thought of dialectics (noesis).
For Plato, within the material world, particular âthingsâ and âbeingsâ change, while Forms remain separate, unchanging, and universal. Hence, let us take the âPerfect Universal Dogâ as a Form. Knowing that âLassie is a dogâ is through sensory observations, which one then rationally compares to knowledge of the perfect idea (or Form) of a âPerfect Universal Dogâ. Lassie is not the example of a âPerfect Universal Dogâ, yet contains universal âdognessâ, which is not just in Lassie, but in other particular things. The âPerfect Universal Dogâ is the âcommensurate universalâ, or that which all the particulars, in exhibiting a degree of, have in common. In this sense, âPerfect Universal Dogâ becomes the model, as an abstract representation of perfection (Ross 1951). This contrasts with the holistic pragmatic view which considers models as approximations (i.e., approximate abstractions), and not perfect versions of the materialâwhich we shall see in Chaps. 6 and 7, has significant implications on organizational knowledge, expertise, and power (Winther 2014; Dreyfus and Dreyfus 2005).
Aristotle also agreed with Plato that knowledge is what is true and must be justified across the rational logic of dialectics (noesis)âbut differed with Plato as to where truth could be found. For Aristotle, truth is within the material worldânot in an otherworldly place. In this sense, Plato could be associated to extreme rationalism and Aristotle to empiricism. As such, we would be tempted to say that Aristotle was not an abstractionist. But Aristotleâs inauguration of Categories, which would eventually have a deep influence on Western philosophical thought, is another form of abstractionism, this time across classifications (James 1950; Dewey 1929). Two important categories of knowledge which both Plato and Aristotle referred to are episteme and techne âthe first relating to pure theory and the second to practice expressed as formal tenets (Scott 1998). Aristotle eventually referred to techne as also being episteme in that he viewed it as a practice grounded in an accountâthat is, practice articulated in terms of theoretical knowledge (Parry and Hacker 1991).
In contrast to both Plato and Aristotle, the Sophists rejected the notion of knowledge as truth by way of either an absolute ideal separate to the material world (Plato) or of an absolute category within the material world (Aristotle). The Sophistsâ position on knowledge, as best exemplified by Gorgias and Protagoras, is both subjective and constructivist. For Gorgias, ânothing existsâŚif something does exist, we cannot know itââthat is, humans cannot transcend their languages and cultural systems, and as such, cannot obtain any absolute viewpoint (Hirschheim 1992). Furthermore, âif we come to know it, we cannot teach it to othersâ. Reinforcing this latter point is Protagorasâ âman is the measure of all thingsâ, leading to the relativistic argument in which two different points of view can be acceptable at the same time. That is, two individuals can perceive a given context in very different ways; for example, air can be hot for one and cold for the other (Schiappa 1991).
Sophists were especially skilled in the practical application of rhetoric toward civic and political life (Kerferd 1981; DÊtienne and Vernant 1978). More specifically, the Sophists were often able to render the weaker argument stronger, across a keen awareness of change, and a capacity to respond adaptively to it, which DÊtienne and Vernant (1978) refer to as mètis. Yet, nowhere in Greece do we find any written theory relating to the cunning intelligence and ambiguous nature of mètis:
Although mètis operates within so vast a domain, although it holds such an important position within the Greek system of values, it is never made manifest for what it is, it is never clearly revealed in a theoretical work that aims to define itâŚThere is no doubt that mètis is a type of intelligence and of thought, a way of knowing; it implies a complex but very coherent body of mental attitudes and intellectual behaviour which combine flair, wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception, resourcefulness, vigilance, opportunism, various skills and experience acquired over the years .. (DĂŠtienne and Vernant 1978: 14)
The Sophistsâ attempt to philosophize on the nature of mètis was soon suppressed by Plato, who intentionally ignored mètis in his Gnoseological Theory (Vernant 1985; Baumard 1999; Jullien 2004). Plato viewed practical knowledge as inferior knowledge because, on the one hand, it did not make use of Dialectical Reason (noesis), while, on the other hand, it was linked to the body and senses, that is, the so-called Dionysiac forms which Plato considered as lesser and non-virtuous.
More fundamentally, Plato considered reality as a world of Being, in which invention is made solely by discovery of what already exists (Miller 2008...