Dialectics – a commentary to Singer: “Global business and the dialectic”

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Sørensen, Asger

Affiliations: Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract: Alan Singer makes a case for the relevance of dialectical reasoning and understanding in business strategy, politics and especially in ecology. He argues that dialectics is the optimal way to handle conceptually tensions, paradoxes, dilemmas and contradictions, and that dialectics has been ignored mainly as a result of “guilt by association”, i.e., because of its linkages to totalitarianism and anti-capitalism. He also makes a case for philosophy informing strategy, and this is what I will attempt to do in the following comments, first, by focusing on the concept of dialectics as seen from a philosophical point of view, second, by trying to show some of the tensions in the concept as employed by Singer, and finally by sketching some implications in relation to politics and strategy. In doing this, I will distinguish between various types of dialectics, which differ in relation to method and theory, epistemology and ontology, nature and culture, and theory and practice.

DOI: 10.3233/HSM-2002-21405

Journal: Human Systems Management, vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 267-269, 2002