Sapere Aude

Borrowing from the Latin poet Horace, Immanuel Kant framed the European Enlightenment with the motto: Sapere aude ('dare to know') (Kant, 1784). What impressed itself upon him was not the content of the knowledge claims being made by the Philosophes whose work had sought to transform econo...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Organization studies 2013-11, Vol.34 (11), p.1587-1600
Main Authors: Holt, Robin, den Hond, Frank
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Age of Enlightenment
Enlightenment
History of philosophy
Knowledge
Knowledge management
Organization theory
Organizational research
Organizations
Periodicals
Right to know
Studies
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Summary:Borrowing from the Latin poet Horace, Immanuel Kant framed the European Enlightenment with the motto: Sapere aude ('dare to know') (Kant, 1784). What impressed itself upon him was not the content of the knowledge claims being made by the Philosophes whose work had sought to transform economic, social, religious and intellectual life through the application of reason, but the attitude or spirit by which enquiry was being undertaken. For Kant, any prospect of an end point, an enlightened age, was a distraction; enlightenment is experienced in the undertaking of study rather than in its completion. This undertaking finds complicity between what is being claimed as truthful and the endeavour of enquiry. A field of enquiry is a discipline in so far as there is closure around two questions: 'in what way' are knowledge projects and research endeavours executed, and 'by what right' are they legitimated (cf. Butler, 2009). In the case of organization studies, there appears to be increasing closure around both questions.
ISSN:0170-8406
1741-3044
DOI:10.1177/0170840613502293