Intelligent Leadership

In terms of practice Aristotle distinguished between ‘making’ and ‘doing’. ‘Making’, Aristotle argued, is art (expertise in producing some output) whereas ‘doing’ is the ‘end’ (or outcome). This is a rational way of describing this because we can explain how we made something, irrespective of its intended use. For example, a violin is not made for its own sake, but for a musician who will play the instrument and make wonderful music! Successful Techne relies on the remaining virtues. We will start with Intuitive reason (below).

Intuitive reason (otherwise known as intellect/nous) is the capacity we build through our experience, to understand the sources of knowledge and truth, and to consider our important and fundamental assumptions (which may of course be either right or wrong). Unlike knowledge (episteme), it deals with unarticulated truths, but then draws upon episteme for its scientific knowledge (or evidence). Nous therefore provides phronesis with its aims, whereas scientific knowledge (see next) provides the knowledge to generate philosophical wisdom.

For Aristotle, one has scientific knowledge whenever one has the appropriate sort of confidence and knows the principles, for if one does not know them better than the conclusion, one will have scientific knowledge ony coincidentally. Selective knowledge can e problematic, for we all often assume that what we know is not capable of being otherwise and, as argued by Aristotle (translated by Sachs) that it escapes our notice when they are not; in other words, we will ignore it if it doesnot accord with our so-called knowledge! A further point is that all knowledge seems to be teachable, and what is known is learnable. However, how do we seek to know the unkonw and thus, by implication, we cannot teach what we do not know!

Because wisdom belongs to the wise, who are unusual, it cannot be that which gets hold of the truth. This is left to nous (described earlier). Aristotle describes wisdom as a combination of nous and episteme (knowledge with its head on). Therefore, wisdom must clearly be the most advanced representation of knowledge. It follows that the wise man must not only know what follows from the first principles, but must also possess truth about the first principles. Therefore, wisdom must be intuitive reason combined with scientific knowledge--scientific knowledge of the highest objects which, at this time, can be attained.

Practical wisdom represents the judgement used in deciding upon the action to be taken, not the specific act or acts of making, which is art (techne). While the aim (or truth) in the art (techne) would concern making something needed for an agreed purpose, phronesis judges things according to the wider purpose (or outcome). It is an important virtue that, unlike techne or episteme, will require further discussion. Aristotle associates this virtue with the political art and distinguishes skilled deliberation from knowledge, because we do not need to deliberate about things we already know. It is also distinct from guessing, or learning; it must always be a type of inquiry and reasoning.