PRAXIOLOGY

Praxiology, occasionally praxeology and rarely praxæology, is from the Greek praxis meaning goal-directed action, and logos in the sense of knowledge or information. Apparently having stipulative origins in French, namely, praxéologie (Mitcham), the lexical term praxiology was introduced by Tadeuz Kotarbiński (1886–1981) in 1965. Polish philosopher and co-founder, with Jan Łukasiewicz and Stanislaw Leśniewski of the Warsaw Center of Logical Research (Warsaw Circle), Kotarbiński used praxiology to reference an area in the philosophy of action that was distinguished from other such areas by its focus on efficient action. With adaptations to engineering, business, law, and more, and with discussions relating efficient action to mathematics, the natural sciences, technology, and ethics, praxiology has developed along three major lines: Kotarbińskian, analytic, and synthetic.

Kotarbińskian praxiology, also traditional or classical praxiology, begins with a practical situation said to be complex and exigent, and with a wish to change it to some prescribed future situation. The process of changing a practical situation is subjected to nine value foci called the Es (Collen): efficiency, effectiveness, efficacy, ethicality, economy, educability, executability, evaluability, and expendability. Inasmuch as some Es are factual in nature, for example, efficiency, praxiological inquiries in such areas have been referred to as sciences. Although some Es are more qualitative in nature than others, for example, ethicality, no evaluative hierarchy among the Es exists. Thus economics can compete with ethics in praxiological decision making. The remaining lines of praxiological development focus on one or another phase in the process of change.

Analytic praxiology including pragmatic praxiology refers to an analysis of a situation, specifically, a prediction—based on knowledge of its component parts and their connections—of its response to prescribed stimuli or service conditions. The name pragmatic praxiology derives from the centrality given to the prediction of consequences in the theories of pragmatism crafted by Immanuel Kant and Charles Peirce (Ryan et al. 2002). The main question is epistemological: What do humans know will result from what they do? The task of responding to this question often falls to the sciences. Historically significant contributions to analytic praxiology may well be found in the histories of systems analysis and cybernetics. (Mitcham 1994).

Synthetic praxiology including design praxiology extends the task of analytic praxiology from creating knowledge about consequences of action to the making of plans for action. A design is a choice from a portfolio of possible future situations; it is a choice based on analyses of these situations and the processes required to realize them. The main question is methodological: How do humans change the world to realize their wishes? Historically significant contributions to synthetic praxiology surely lie among the works of Wojciech W. Gasparski on design and Henryk Skolimowski on the ethics of design ends, but they may also be found in the histories of operations research and management science. (Mitcham 1994).

Kotarbińskian, analytic, synthetic, and other praxiologies comprise a general praxiology spawning applications to the professions. Because of its transdisciplinary aspirations, taxonomic issues arise where such applications, or special praxiologies, meet the academic disciplines of professional education. Would a praxiology of law correspond to jurisprudence? Would theology be a praxiology for organized religion? Where does praxiology of education fit into philosophy of education? If management science is rightly called management technology, would praxiology be its philosophical aspect? (Bunge 1999) Is military science a praxiology?

The transdisciplinary mode is but one of four modes by which praxiology might engage another learned discipline. In the cross-disciplinary mode the tools and methods of praxiology are used to inquire into another discipline. For example, instead of attempting to prove that engineering is a case of praxiology, one might demonstrate that engineering possesses praxiological properties or natures. In the multidisciplinary mode, tools and methods of praxiology are brought together with those of other disciplines. Remaining intact and distinct, these disciplines join to produce novel subdisciplines. For example, when Ludwig von Mises made praxiology the method of the Austrian School of Economics, he crafted the subdiscipline that can be called praxiological economics. In the interdisciplinary mode, tools and methods of praxiology may likewise be brought together with those of other disciplines, but they would not remain intact. Rather essentials of each would be organized into coherent wholes or novel disciplines displaying principles that disagree with principles of their parent disciplines. For example, chemical engineering, which possesses nonscientific principles, namely Koen's (2003) heuristics, is to a degree the result of an interdisciplinary engagement of praxiology with chemistry.

At about the same time that Kotarbiński was working out praxiology, John Dewey (1859–1952) was working out his naturalism. Both of their transdisciplinary ideas began with practical situations. Dewey worked within a Cartesian framework developing cognitive abilities to make change, which loosened the grip that classical education had on education. In the cross-disciplinary mode with education, Dewey emphasized the needs of the individual to advance the ideals of a capitalistic democracy, and gave ethics primacy. Kotarbiński worked within a Marxist framework developing the human will to make change. Putting ethics in the Es with economics, Kotarbiński emphasized the needs of the state. In the United States, the technocracy movement of the 1930s, which advocated a dictatorship of engineers (Layton 1971), and the communist scare in the early-1930s, which was followed by McCarthyism in the 1950s, were not favorable to praxiology. In Poland, Nazi oppression and subsequent communistic regimes virtually cut off international scholarly communications. These social factors left the STS movement, which was underway in the United States by the early 1970s, to independently develop many ideas discussed in praxiology. In 1978, Karol Wojtyla became Pope John Paul II, the first Polish Supreme Pontiff, and interest in Polish scholarship increased. By 1978 though, STS gained currency with an attendant lessening of the importance of the theory of praxiology.

TAFT H. BROOME, JR.

SEE ALSO Efficiency.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alexandre, Victor, and Wojciech W. Gasparski, eds. (2004). "French and Other Perspectives in Praxiology." In Praxiology: The International Annual of Practical Philosophy and Methodology, Vol. 12. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Discusses work by scholars from France, Finland, Great Britain, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. Topics include cooperative actions; university education, and corporate governance in Central and Eastern Europe; innovation in Spain; information systems; and fuzzy logic.

Bunge, Mario. (1999). "Ethics and Praxiology as Technologies." Virginia Polytechnic and State University. Available from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/SPT/v4n4/bunge.html. Argues that the intersection of ethics and praxiology is of a sufficient technological nature to comprise philosophical technology; modifies Kotarbińskian praxiology by elevating the status of ethics in the Es to primacy.

Collen, Arne, and Wojciech W. Gasparski, eds. (2003). "Systemic Change Through Praxis and Inquiry." In Praxiology: The International Annual of Practical Philosophy and Methodology, Vol. 11. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Topics include change as a systemic idea from a research methodologist's point of view; prevalence of hierarchy and control; praxiology in research; the research process as means of systemic change; the Es of praxiological inquiry; and traditional, pragmatic, and design praxiologies.

Dewey, John. (1958). Experience and Nature. New York: Dover. Dewey's 1925 naturalism as a metaphor for praxiology.

Koen, Billy Vaughn. (2003). Discussion of the Method: Conducting the Engineer's Approach to Problem Solving. New York: Oxford University Press. The engineering method of change as a universal method of creating utopia; the most innovative aspect is Koen's notion of engineering heuristics.

Kotarbiński, Tadeuz. (1965). An Introduction to the Sciences of Efficient Action, trans. Olgierd Wojtasiewicz. New York: Pergamon Press. Work began in Poland in 1920; the seminal work on praxiology.

Layton, Edwin T. (1971). The Revolt of the Engineers. Cleveland, OH: Case Western University Press. A historical account of the development of U.S. engineering professionalism from 1900 to 1940.

Mises, Ludwig von. (1996). Human Action: A Treatise on Economics, 4th revised edition. San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes. Originally published in 1949, Mises's cross-disciplinary application of praxiology to economics for the Austrian School of Economics.

Mitcham, Carl. (1994). Thinking Through Technology: The Path Between Engineering and Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University Press. A critical introduction to the philosophy of technology offering alternatives to the treatment of technology as magic.

Ryan, Leo V., and Wojciech W. Gasparski, eds. (2002) "Praxiology and Pragmatism." In Praxiology: The International Annual of Practical Philosophy and Methodology, Vol. 10. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Presents a 1972 Kotarbinski study of practicality as well as addresses the relevance of pragmatism to management, business ethics, law, and pragmatic inquiry. Includes a model for teaching pragmatism and a review of pragmatism in Europe.