I don't recall seeing much if any reference to Michel Foucault on this
list. Foucault (who died in 1984) was possibly the most articulate
twentieth-century philosopher vis-a-vis knowledge and its deficiencies. I
find his translated book THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF KNOWLEDGE to be full of
notable expressions. Concerning what is not said, he wrote:
"The manifest discourse, therefore, is really no more than the repressive
presence of what it does not say; and this 'not-said' is a hollow that
undermines from within all that is said."
In close correlation with Argyris' point of view re "framebreaking and
remodeling", Foucault said:
"We must oust those forms and obscure forces by which we usually link the
discourse of one [hu]man with that of another; they must be driven out
from the darkness in which they reign.
"And instead of according them unqualified, spontaneous value, we must
accept, in the name of methodological rigor, that, in the first instance,
they concern only a population of dispersed events".
One could say: from those conversations to which you are connected, at
first accept only the raw concepts as possibly being relevant; but do not
accept the relationships that are overtly stated or covertly implied; and
spent energy investigating the tentative connections implied.
John N. Warfield
Johnwfield@aol.com
--Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>