Abstract
This essay reviews the recently released Handbook of Philosophy of Management, using it as a jumping off point to explore some potential confusions in contemporary philosophy of management. The handbook itself, comprising 58 articles and some 1,000 pages, is a milestone for the field. At the same time, it brings a few problems into sharp relief. I argue for more clarity about the distinction between the philosophy of management and the philosophy of management research. I make the case that logic as a de facto method for conducting inquiry may or may not be useful, while logic as a de jure standard for evaluating its conclusions is indispensable. I develop the view that neither management nor management studies is properly considered a science, or even an applied science. I contend that the seminal contributions of Alasdair MacIntyre are unjustly neglected by the field. And I advance the thesis that perhaps the leading issue for the philosophy of management today is the question of the purpose of management, pointing in some suggested directions for answering the question.
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Notes
I am grateful for comments on an earlier draft from Nigel Laurie and Anjan Chakravartty.
On one standard interpretation, induction characterizes any argument that aims to make probable—but not certain—its conclusion. On this account, retroduction and abduction are simply varieties of induction. This is developed in Wilson (2020), Chap. 16.
Were there more space, these features could be fruitfully linked to other related features of the mental: Brentano’s account of the mental as irreducibly intentional; Nagel’s case for its essential subjectivity; and Quine’s observations about the failures of substitutivity in attitude contexts.
Another conspicuous omission is Peter Drucker, not a professional philosopher but a deeply philosophical and humanistic thinker who is sometimes referred to as “the father of modern management.”
I affirm that I have no conflict of interest.
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Wilson, D.C. The Philosophy of Management Today. Philosophy of Management 22, 493–503 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-023-00244-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40926-023-00244-5