Creative meaning

A contribution to a human-scientific theory of action

Introduction

On 09. February 2006, I presented a paper at the FORSA conference in Helsinki, Finland, entitled Creative Meaning: A Contribution to a Human-Scientific Theory of Action. Looking back today, I realize that the questions raised there have followed me throughout my entire professional life in social work, teaching, and practical philosophy.

The paper emerged from my encounter with the work of the Swedish-Spanish philosopher José Luis Ramírez, whose dissertation Creative Meaning deeply influenced my understanding of theory, practice, and human action. What struck me most was not simply his critique of modern scientific thinking, but his attempt to recover an older and richer understanding of human rationality — one rooted in Aristotle and the classical tradition of practical wisdom.

Today, twenty years later, these questions feel even more urgent.

We live in a world overflowing with information, methods, systems, and measurable outcomes. Yet many professionals still experience a silent gap between what they were taught and what they actually encounter in lived human situations. Social workers, nurses, teachers, therapists, and even researchers often discover that formal knowledge alone is not enough when standing face to face with suffering, uncertainty, conflict, or moral ambiguity.

Something more is required. Not merely more information. But judgment. Presence. Practical wisdom. And perhaps also courage.

Created in dialogue with OpenAI/ChatGPT as a visual interpretation of Creative Meaning.

The paper put forth in Helsinki:

The Swedish/Spanish philosopher José Luis Ramírez is a professor in human-scientific action theory at the Swedish University of Agriculture in Alnarp. Ramírez has worked at the Nordic Institute for Society Planning since 1984. He has written (1995) a doctoral dissertation called Creative meaning, a contribution to a human-scientific theory of action.

My paper is built on a reconstruction of this dissertation, and I wish to thank Ramírez for his cooperation. I will discuss questions such as how Aristotle can help cast light over the concepts of theory and practice, the difference between doing and acting, and the importance of practical wisdom. By this I wish to argue that teaching in our professions should be based on theory-orientated empirical research.

Ramírez wishes to contribute to a human-scientific action theory. This is a retorical and ethical based theory of science with roots back to Aristotle. The problem is not so much what we do in this theory of science, but rather how we do it. Science is not only the objective result or product, as we can read as articles, doctoral dissertations or other scientific presentations, but science is also something we do and we call this productive activity for scientific research.

This is the background for the titel “Creative meaning”. Research is a creative activity. Scientific research is not created by letting the external, factual, cause/effect reality mechanically press its way into our minds, but by making a large number of choices concerning concepts, definitions, methods and argumentation.

Ramírez is concerned with the observation that teaching and training of our professions have not been enough when we stand face to face with specific choices in everyday life. The professional knowledge that is taught in our educational institutions does not follow the quick and unforeseen changes that take place in our society.

We are often forced to find our own private and quiet ways out of our difficulties with homemade explanations. That is why it is important to try to make visible and articulate the experience which grows forth through personal and long-lasting intercourse with everyday situations and problems.

This knowledge-in-action is a perspective which is less concerned with solving specific problems, and more with practical skill, judgment and personal competence in handling unexpected situations.

To plan an activity, like in scientific research, is per definition an activity based on reason. Therefore it is important to let rationality ripen and develop over time. It is important not to make rationality to a combination of theoretical and instrumental rationality.

The roots of rationality

Our modern rationality has by its critics been called theoretical, instrumental, technical, mechanical, etc. The hidden roots to our way of thinking and the way we look at the world around us are to be found in our Greek heritage.

It is our Greek cultural forefathers who have given us the ideas that made us think the way we do today. This is a forgotten heritage which is active without us noticing it.

While Plato is of interest for those who want to understand what we think of as our basic ideas, Aristotle is important in order to reveal the blind spots in our practical reasoning. Plato has given us a monumental understanding of scientific knowledge, and is the first western thinker to have developed the concept of theory that we use today.

Aristotle is considered to be the foremost creator of our western science as an activity.

Theory and practice

Theory and practice are two of our most common dichotomies. Theory and practice are of those philosophical concepts that have become a part of our everyday language and are used to legitimate, limit, excommunicate and most of all try to explain something without really doing so. We often hear people say that “we are not theoretical, we are practical”. But what is really “theory” and what is “practice”?

Theory and practice are amongst the oldest words in our western culture. They were created by the Greeks. We associate spontaneously theory with thinking or knowledge, and practice with doing. The first sits in our head and the other in our hands. The question is if one can think without doing, or do something without thinking. We are responsible for our actions, because we are conscious of them. Thinking can therefore be considered a form for action.

Ramírez presents an Aristotelian tool box which I mean can help us give some kind of perspective to these two concepts. Aristotle took words out of our everyday language and formed concepts that would become instruments for philosophical and scientific understanding. His influence on our way of thinking is invaluable.

The tool box (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, book 5 and 6) creates a system of concepts which points to different forms of living and knowledge. Knowledge is a most problematic word, because we often mean the objective result or a product from knowledge as an activity. To know something is to have something in ones head, but also to manage or to cope with something. To know something is first and foremost an activity and about the competence this activity forms in the individual.

Aristotle speaks of five forms of knowledge, one form for theory and two forms for practice. These can be put together in this way:

Human activity/forms of living Forms of knowledge

Theory (Theoria a theoretical activity) Science (Episteme)

Doing (Poiesis, a productive activity,) Skill (Techne)

Acting (Praxis, an activity with its own value) Practical wisdom (Fronesis)

Philosophical wisdom (Sofia)

Insight (Nous)

I will concentrate on science, skills and practical wisdom in this papir and not give so much attention to philosophical wisdom and insight. Philosophical wisdom is a combination of insight and practical wisdom. Insight is a form for intuisjon, an understanding we have right before we meet something without having to discuse it.

Skills develop through long-lasting training of productive activity. We find the word theory in all European languages. One develops scientific competence by working with theoretical activities. Aristotle understands the practical on a richer and more varied level than we do today. Aristotle differs between to do and to act and this is important for Aristotle.

Praxis has become practice, which includes both doing and acting. Aristotle meant something else. Praxis stood for our actions, but could also imply the things we do. Doing and acting was in the same way as theory, a human activity for Aristotle.

Techne stands for the skill that productive activity (of any kind) creates in the individual. One becomes a musician by playing music. A person, who practices long enough with speaking, can become a good speaker. The word techne is often translated with art in this words old meaning. This is the same as “craftsmanship”, or some kind of practical skill.

Fronesis is translated to Latin with prudential, which is the same as practical wisdom. This is about collecting experience over time and building up a capability to act in specific human situations.

Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, talks about theory as a way of living. The Greek word theoria does not mean the same as the word theory as we use it today. But sometimes we say that someone is theoretical and we talk about a theoretical activity or work.

The Greeks could, just like we, with the same word mean the objective result, the activity itself and even the capability to accomplish it. But while we most often think of the objective result, the Greeks are inclined to think of the activity.

With theory in Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle did not mean the product of scientific activity which comes forth in compositions and is stored in texts or other information media. Aristotle meant the activity that is produced when we investigate the world around us.

Science was not, as for us, the attained scientific product, not the objective result, but the subjective capacity to attain such results, through theoretical activity. Theory was for Aristotle a theoretical activity, a productive activity, even the highest form for activity a human could be concerned with.

Theory was therefore also a form for doing, a productive activity. If doing is building a house, to compose melodies, to care for the sick (which constructors, musicians and nurses do), than theory is a doing which is concerned with using words objectively in different cases in order to describe them and codify and store this descriptions for the knowledge and use for others.

This productive activity is best done by those scientists who have attained the ability to do science (episteme) through studying science (epistemology). One becomes more scientific by practicing theoretical activity, which again makes us more capable of understanding theory.

A theory is therefore a special kind of activity. A scientist is a person who has learned to work with theories.

Theories are the activities of a scientist, the same way as building a house is the activity of a building worker.

To conceive the concepts of Aristotle

To create concepts is not to en capsulate, but rather as pointing with a shaking finger or using a flashlight which blinks. An understanding which stems from Plato is that concepts are definable and. Plato understands all concepts as if they where geometrical.

The concepts “triangles” or “horses” are identical with the contents of their definitions. One can never completely understand Aristotle if one starts with concepts that have permanent and unambiguous definitions.

Aristotle says that one must always remember that concepts are not physical structures. We can for example talk about “shoe” as a common denominator for all shoes, but we can also divide “shoe”, “sandals”, “boots”, etc.

We use the word man as in “mankind” and “human” to describe both men and woman. In some contexts we differ between human and animals and in others we say that humans are animals. Sound is both a sound and a noise. A bat is some ways a mouse and in other ways a bird. The problem arises when we think of a bat as only a mouse or a bird.

Three different forms for human existence

Acting means “action” in its strict form, but in it’s broaden meaning acting can be understood with Aristotle as all forms of doings and in it’s broadest meaning acting means “human existence”. These forms for living are theory, doing and acting. In Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics he talks about three different forms for human existence.

Theory (Theoria) An intellectual, theoretical life (Bios theoretikos)

Acting (Praxis) Citizenship (Bios politikos)

Doing (Poiesis) The rational strive for material benefit (Bios apolaustikos)

Theory and acting are something we want in it selves. Doing is a useful activity which is valuable only for the good results which it causes. Aristotle regarded “the good life” as citizenship (bios politicos), even though an intellectual, theoretical life (bios theoretikos) was a higher form for life activity.

The fact that Aristotle praises theory as the highest form and most sought-after activity stems from Plato, and can creates some confusion in his way of thinking. It is clear that the concept of acting gives the best expression for human action and life form at all. Even if theory is the highest form for activity, it is acting that is the typical human paradigm for all human living.

Conclusion

We get a clear reflective form for knowledge, science (episteme), through theoretical activity, and practical wisdom (fronesis) through long-lasting reflective action (which means that we give meaning to what we do).

We get competence and skills (techne) by doing something productive, by working with something creative in the existing reality. To act is not the same as to do, but it is through what we do that our actions can be seen and understood.

Our skills differ from science, but at the same time it is a form for science. Science can explain, and skills help us in a productive activity. But to explain what one does is also science. Theory and science are both activities and thereby capabilities which can be learned.

These words become, by help of the written language, a result of something one does; formulating thesis, constructing theories, and writing text and books. Theory and science are just forms of productive activity.

The most important concept according to Aristotle in order to live a good life is acting with the corresponding capability, practical wisdom.

Science is just the competence to know, while skills are the competence to do a productive activity. It is the concept of action (an understanding-creative activity) which leads to the practical wisdom of bringing forth the knowing and doing which again can create a meaningful life.