035 - L is for Learning

035 - L is for Learning, originally uploaded by gingerpig2000.

Tools are nothing more than a manifestation of our imaginations, which we choose to use in order to make specific tasks easier or more comprehensible. The guiding force behind the use of all tools, including our own hands, is philosophy, that mental, sharable manifestation of our innermost selves.

Philosophy to many is something divorced from the practical world, something engaged in by lofty intellectuals either while wearing a white sheet and sandals or a tweedy jacket with a pipe hanging from the mouth, ready to be used to point out relevant facts.

Philosophy was once part and parcel of the whole learning thing, but somewhere along the way it lost contact with the sciences and barely remained in anything more than a nodding acquaintance of the arts. Philosophy forgot one of its own - if you step into a river today, then if you step into it tomorrow, it won't be the same river. Philosophy tried to remain the same river, not really noticing that the science had cut a whole new channel of its own.

If philosophers fail to keep in regular enough contact with science and its companion, business, can science and business at least keep an eye on philosophy? The answer is, generally no, because philosphy appears largely irrelevant. I mean, who cares whether the river today is or is not the same as it was yesterday, it's a just river, isn't it?

Actually, no, imagine if instead of a river, the example had been a market. This leads to two thoughts - the fiorst of which is that the market today is not the same as it was yesterday, even though it might not appear to have changed. Business, therefore, must continue to monitor the market day after day to see how it is changing in order to decide when the business must change its prices, products, internal procedures and so on. The second is that by putting your foot in a river, you change the river - and by entering a market, you change the market, either slightly or significantly, depending on how big one's business foot is.

I chose this well known piece of philosophy merely to illustrate a point - and that is philosophy is relevant, it is a special tool for managing our knowledge to relate it to our understanding. River, market, HR, family - the philosophic principal works all over the place, a general tool no different to a screwdriver.

If I were to hand you an unfamiliar tool and asked you to use it, you might be concerned - how is it supposed to be used, and when should one use it? A car is a good example of a special transport tool that you know how it is useful, and that special training will be needed in order to use it. With philosophy, on the other hand, no one thinks twice about needing special training in how to use it, hence most people cannot use it effectively and therefore it must be of little or no use.

I see this process every day - the philosophy of creation, for example, is taken for granted, is consequently done badly when attempted, and then when the result fails to meet expectations, the eventual users are blamed. Often the solution is to take more time at the initiation of the process, and to see the process as trying to find the best-fit solution and not the best-fit tradition to wrap around the process like a tired and over-size suit.

All tools are equal if they are equal to the task, and all tools effect whatever they are used on, even if only for observation. Your image of your own language is affected by the grammar you have been taught in relation to it, if you have learned a foriegn language then you are even more affected by the grammar you have been taught, while your image of an unlearned language is almost completely unaffected because you haven't learned any grammar for it. If you were to assess someone else's writings, then writings in your own language, your school-learned language and your unlearned language would all be different. You assessments would be unreliable, no matter how well trained you are, especially in your school-learned language, your assessment of that one is the least likely to be of any practical use them moment you meet a native. Your assessment of the unlearned language would at least have a chance of being safely curtailed by the lack of any understanding. This is the purpose of philosophy - to give you insight into processes without actually touching the processes with the inevitable changes to the processes, and to predict processes that as yet do not exist.

All tools need practice, and all tools need respect. If you cannot get the desired result with a tool then the4 first place to look for a fault is inside our heads.

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