The foolishness of wisdom: Towards an inclusive approach to wisdom in organization

SummaryThe review of multiple attempts to develop an understanding of wisdom suggests that its modern conceptualizations being typically essentialist and objectivist are more restricted than historical interpretations. Many popular accounts imply interpreting wisdom in terms of other notions, such as knowledge or intelligence, however, as this paper suggests, this path of reasoning is far too limited to be meaningful, since by preventing theoretical exchange between discourses it makes the concept of wisdom unfeasible. This study shall attempt to demonstrate that departure from the essentialist framework of wisdom's conceptualizations may be tempting, and that exploring possibilities of replacing such restrictive approaches to wisdom with more inclusive one is an interesting option for organizational theorists, among others. Such a possibility is investigated via exploring March's notion of foolishness – not as an antithesis to wisdom, as essentialist accounts readily imply, but as a notion with which it appears inextricably linked. The deconstruction of the binary pair wisdom/foolishness suggests undecidability of the meaning of wisdom and encourages considering an extended context capable of accommodating the whole variety of concepts resulting from different sensemaking strategies rooted in the local theories of wisdom. It also invites regarding foolishness as an important organizational and societal concept. As a result, a more inclusive, post-modern context for organizational research on wisdom/foolishness for the potential benefit of organization studies is proposed.

► Recent theories of wisdom are typically rationalist, objectivist and essentialist.
► These approaches are far too limited, as they prevent theoretical exchange between discourses.
► Foolishness, allegedly an antithesis to wisdom, is discussed as constitutive to its meaning.
► The deconstruction of the pair W/F enables exploring foolishness as an important societal concept.
► An inclusive context for organizational research on wisdom and foolishness is proposed.