Knowledge, Reification and Organization; Some Critical Comments

Abstract

Typical of the configuration approach is its strong opposition to reification. Attempts at identifying or defining ‘the’ organization are invariably remonstrated. Process and change are posited over against the immutable and the thing-like. Why do configurationists do this? Are their arguments sound? The motive is that people produce their reality in knowing and acting. Nor should they ever forget this. If they do, stagnation and fossilization will occur and development will become impossible. The configuration approach works out this motive in two directions: in epistemology and in the field of action, i.e. the human capacity to direct social processes. I mean to analyze the arguments predicated on this motive in both the theory of knowledge and that of action. It turns out that the case for giving preference to ‘process’ cannot rest on the ‘reification’ diagnosis. Let us begin with the epistemological motive.