‘Action Philosophy’: Philosophical Inquiry, Professional Development and Organizational Change

In the present paper, I will explore whether and in what sense philosophical inquiry can be deployed in organizations as a pedagogical vehicle to promote reflective professionalism and a learning-oriented approach to organizational practices. This investigation will unfold in two steps: first, it will be argued that the contemporary “practical turn” in philosophy has enabled us to rediscover its intimate relationship with education and, thereby, has turned it into a possible pivot for the reconstruction of organizational practices; and, secondly, rather than reading “philosophy in organizations” from the perspective of philosophical counselling I will propose a pedagogical hypothesis that dovetails – under the aegis of the thought of John Dewey – Donald Schön and Chris Argyris’s theory of action with Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp’s approach of the community of philosophical inquiry. I will maintain that the latter may represent a major resource to promote a transformation of the meaning perspectives of organizations and of practitioners therein working along the lines indicated by Schön and Argyris.