Beyond the thinking and doing dichotomy: integrating individual and institutional rationality

Abstract

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to introduce a dynamic and integrative epistemology as a substitute to normative epistemology.Design/methodology/approachA philosophical argument based on the critique of literature.FindingsNormative epistemology implies that knowing leads to certainty, and it has to be objective and universal because it is an accurate representation of reality. Dynamic and integrative epistemology uphold that knowing leads to accumulating insights though information processing. Knowing is a unified but fourfold process of experiencing, understanding, judging and acting (Lonergan, 1990). It occurs at four levels of consciousness: the empirical, the intellectual, the evaluative and the pragmatic (Lonergan, 1990). Dynamic and integrative epistemology extends rationality, knowledge and intelligence to non-humans because institutions have substantive, structural, behavior and teleological dimensions and processes that enable them to process information, i.e. to know.Research limitations/implicationsTranslating a conceptual paper into practical action, organizational structuring or product design can be difficult.Practical implicationsExtending the concept of rationality to non-humans implies realizing that human abilities are limited and need to be augmented by proper institutional design and artificial tools.Social implicationsThe design of intelligent organizations, societies and artificial tools.Originality valueNormative epistemology which considers reason and faith, empirical (experience) and rational (understanding), positive (facts) and ideal (principles, representations or wishes), physical (objects) and “mental” (ideas or concepts), practice and theory, knowledge (episteme) and opinion (doxa), reflection and action as opposed and mutually exclusive can be replaced by a dynamic and integrative epistemology which puts emotional, intellectual, evaluative and pragmatic dimensions of human knowing in an order of succession through a unified but yet differentiated process which can be augmented by non-human “experts”.