We continue our journey through epistemology, now moving onto Pragmatism. We’ll explore how James’s metaphysical pragmatism can be applied to non-metaphysical truth and practices in furthering knowledge in the workplace—specifically, how to manage information overload and maximize individual learning.
Between the Internet and company Intranets, today’s knowledge workers have access to a vast amount of information. James’s theory of truth may provide some guidance to today’s knowledge workers in helping them sift through that information—in the form of criteria by which to evaluate truth. In this way, James can help us with how we can further knowledge in the workplace. For example, one can look to James’s criteria of instrumental truth to help define what is the truth—or perhaps what could be considered the most correct knowledge—for that workplace. That is, each idea or belief could be evaluated in light of its ability to link the employee’s, department’s, and/or company’s experience and their ‘power to work’ (James, 1907, p. 23).
While helping further workplace knowledge, it is important to remember that truth is very subjective to each individual or entity. As James states in citing the ideas of Schiller and Dewey, “…ideas become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relation with other parts of our experience” (1907, p. 23). Echoing Kant’s belief that “no mental faculty is to be cultivated by itself, but always in relation to others” (1960, p.71), James also teaches us that we acquire new beliefs and ideas through the linking or ‘grafting’ of new knowledge onto previous. As new knowledge is acquired, it is done so in relation to what we already know, and in forming these new truths our old ideas and beliefs are forever changed (James, 1907, p. 24). James also—like Rousseau—cautions us that a person must want to acquire new ideas; that “a new opinion counts as ‘true’ just in proportion as it gratifies the individual’s desire to assimilate the novel in his experience to his beliefs in stock” (1907, p. 25).
Perhaps the answer to furthering knowledge in the workplace is not to rely solely on compulsory training for delivering the “truth”, but rather to also equip knowledge workers with the tools, ability, and opportunities to make linkages for themselves and evaluate their own important truths in context of the ideas and beliefs of them individually and as a member of their workplace. This sentiment is supported in Jay Cross’s new book Informal Learning where in discussing the future of work he states, “As we enter an age of informal and workflow learning, authority is less centralized than ever before” (2007, p. 7). He further goes on to quote Etienne Wenger (noted expert on communities of practices) who states, “Learning is best understood as an interaction among practitioners, rather than a process in which a producer provides knowledge to a consumer” (Wenger as quoted in Cross, 2007, p. 7).
But how can organizations provide these tools, ability, and opportunities? Fostering knowledge networks can help, plus maximizing informal learning. Since informal learning is how we naturally learn the best/most, as knowledge managers we need to maximize these opportunities and help people to be able to utilize their networks to improve their potential learning. For example, “Learning is optimizing our connections to the networks that matter to us. This satisfies both the community concept of learning (social networking) and the knowledge aspect (gaining access to information and fitting it into the patterns in one’s head)” (Cross, 2007, p. 19). The form the tools and opportunities take will vary but can include such things as communities of practice, collaborative software tools, and corporate yellow pages / expert finders. Importantly, it also needs to include making physical space within organizations to encourage sharing plus supporting employees in making the time to share.
-Robin
References:
Cross, J. (2007). Informal learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
James, W. (1907). Pragmatism: A new name for some old ways of thinking. In The matter of belief: Selected works of William James. Retrieved from http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject
Kant, I. (1960). Chapter 4: Cultivation of the mind. In Education (pp. 66-82). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press. (Original work published 1803)
Rousseau, J.J. (1957). Book III. In B. Foxley (Translator), Emile (pp. ii-v,128-171). London: JM Dent and Sons. (Original work published 1762)
Copyright Robin Donnan 2007. All Rights Reserved.
Performance Associates, Inc.
