First draft of a paper for the Symposium: ACreating Actionable Knowledge@, at the Academy of Management Conference in New Orleans, 21^st August 2004

EXPRESSING AND LEGITIMATING >ACTIONABLE KNOWLEDGE=

FROM WITHIN >THE MOMENT OF ACTING=

John Shotter

ABSTRACT: As living, embodied beings, we cannot not be responsive in some fashion to the expressions of others (spoken, written, or otherwise), and to other kinds of events, occurring in our immediate surroundings. Communication begins in, and continues with, our living, spontaneous, expressive-responsive (gestural), bodily activities that occur in the meetings between ourselves and the others and othenesses around us. It is by our 1^st-person expressions that we influence the actions of others. Our tellings are much more important that our reportings. Thus, as I see it, abstract and general theories are of little help to each of us in the unique living of our unique lives together, either as ordinary people, or as professional practitioners, or as action researchers. While the specific words of another person, uttered as a >reminder= at a timely moment as to the character of our next step within an ongoing practical activity, can be a crucial influence in its development and refinement B a point of central relevance for action research. Thus in this paper, I outline a distinction between >withness-> and >aboutness-talk/writing=: Aboutness (monologic)-talk, however, is unresponsive to another=s expressions; it works simply in terms of a thinker=s >theoretical pictures= B but, even when we >get the picture=, we still have to interpret it, and to decide, intellectually, on a right course of action. While withness (dialogic)-talk is a form of reflective interaction that involves coming into living contact with an other=s living being, with their utterances, their bodily expressions, their words, their >works=. It gives rise, not to a >seeing=, for what is >sensed= is invisible; nor to an interpretation, for our responses occur spontaneously and directly in our living encounters with an other=s expressions; but to a >shaped= and >vectored= sense of our moment-by-moment changing placement in our current surroundings B engendering in us both unique anticipations as to what-next might happen along with, so to speak, >action-guiding advisories= as to what-next we might do.

Keywords: Action research, expression, responsiveness, dialogue, >withness=-talk, practitioners.

A(If I had to say what is the main mistake made by philosophers, including Moore, I would say that it is when language is looked at, what is looked at is a form of words and not the use made of the form of words)@ (Wittgenstein,1966, p.2, my emphases).

ACan only logical analysis explain what we mean by the propositions of ordinary language? Moore is inclined to think so. Are people therefore ignorant of what they mean when they say >Today the sky is clearer than yesterday=? Do we have to wait for logical analysis here? What a hellish idea!@ (Waismann, 1979, pp. 129-130).

There are a number of interlinked topics I want to discuss in relation to the production of Aactionable knowledge:@ In particular, I want to discuss what we might call the inner, psychological dynamics of two quite different styles of talking and writing, what I will call for short >withness=(dialogical)-talk and >aboutness=(monological)-talk B that is, I want to discuss the influence of these two styles of writing and talk in terms, not of the information they provide, but of their influence in orienting us toward taking certain lines of action, in generating a certain attitude of mind within us to do with how we organize or >orchestrate= our ways of relating ourselves to our surroundings. In other words, I want to discuss the difference between talk that >moves= us, and talk that leaves us >unmoved=. This discussion, however, entails the discussion of a number of other general issues. I will list them in turn: The issue of how we can create between us, in our dialogical or conversational involvements both with each other and with our surrounding circumstances, a shared >terrain=, >landscape=, or >inner world= of practical understandings that will enable us, in practice B knowing how we are >placed= in such a world in relation to everything around us B to interact with each other and with our circumstances in a flowing, unconfused, and unproblematic manner. There is also the issue of how, in the creation of such shared >worlds=, everyone=s voice can play a part, can count; that is, how can the >world= created in our dialogical exchanges be accounted by everyone within it as >my world=, the >world-I-am-at-home-in=, rather than as an alien world, the world of >those others=. To this we must add the issue of how we can give voice to these issues B and in particular, of the part played by our responsiveness to other peoples= envoiced activities within them B in such a way that we do so simply as just one of the envoiced bodies participating in such a shared world, without tending to privatize or to appropriate its resources to our own ends. While finally, with regard to action research, and the use of various, linguistically expressed claims within it, I want to discuss how people making such claims can be responsibly accountable for their actions to the others around them, that is, how they can justify their intellectual legitimacy B for, as I see it, what is distinctive about action research is, that it must deal with the particular circumstances in which it is situated, not in terms of its similarity to other situations, but in terms of its uniqueness. As Palshaugen (2001) puts it, in action research, researchers have to express their understandings and knowledge Aby entering into the language games of the practitioners... This is not simply a question of >simplifying= or >popularising=. It also requires the linguistic competence to recreate the researcher=s knowledge in a way which >makes it work at work= B that is, in a way that make it useful to the practitioners@ (p.209). The solutions to action research problems are to be found in particular concrete details, not abstract generalities.

Two example accounts

Let me begin straightaway with an example of two quite different styles of talk/writing. Almost everyone is familiar with Oliver Sacks=s (1985) account of Dr P. B the man who mistook his wife for a hat. Sacks has developed a quite distinctive style of speaking/writing, not unconnected with science fiction, in an attempt to express the uniqueness of the afflicted people he depicts. About them he says: AWe may say they are travelers to unimaginable lands B lands of which otherwise we would have no conception. This why their lives and journeys seem to me to have a quality of the fabulous... [and] I feel compelled to speak of tales and fables as well as cases. The scientific and romantic in such realms cry out to come together B [and my friend] Luria liked to speak here of >romantic science=@ (Sacks, 1985, p.xi). So this is Sacks=s task in his writing: not only to depict >unimaginable lands B lands of which we otherwise have no conception=, but to do it in such a way that we ourselves can get a sense of what it would be like for us to inhabit such a land. Wow! What a task! Yet, to an extent, as those who have read his work I=m sure will agree, he succeeds in doing it. How? Before I turn to my two examples, let me set the scene: Dr P. was a musician of distinction. He came to visit Sacks, however, as he began to make odd visual mistakes, for example, not recognizing students by their face, but only by their voice. After his initial consultation with Sacks, Sacks went to visit Dr P. in his home, taking with him a collection of test materials, among them, the Platonic solids. Dr P. had no visual trouble with them at all: a cube, a dodecahedron, and Adon=t bother with the others,@ he said, AI=ll get the eikosihedron too=. The Sacks then presented him with a rose. Here is one account (of my devising) of what happened next:

I had a rose in my buttonhole, so I now removed it, and gave it to him to study.

Dr P. described the flower in geometric, abstract terms.

I asked him to tell me what it was, and he said that he found it difficult to say.

He made some rather off-target suggestions which, when I asked him to confirm them, he did.

I asked him to smell it, and then he said that it was a rose.

I concluded that he was visually deficient in perceiving shapes other than geometrical forms.

Here is Sacks=s (1985) account:

AI had stopped at a florist on my way to his (Dr P.=s) apartment and bought myself an extravagant rose for my buttonhole. Now I removed this and handed it to him. He took it like a botanist or morphologist given a specimen, not like a person given a flower.

>About six inches in length=, he commented, >A convoluted red form with linear green attachment=.

>Yes= I said encouragingly, and what do you think it is, Dr P.?=

>Not easy to say=. He seemed perplexed. >It lacks the simple symmetry of the Platonic solids, although it may have a higher symmetry of its own... I think is could be an infloresence or flower.=

>Could be?= I queried.

>Could be,= he confirmed.

>Smell it,= I suggested, and again he looked somewhat puzzled, as if I has asked him to smell a higher symmetry. But he complied courteously, and took it to his nose. Now, suddenly, he came to life.

>Beautiful!= he exclaimed. >An early rose. What a heavenly smell!= He started to hum >Die rose, die Lille...= Reality, it seemed, might by conveyed by smell, not by sight... Visually, he was lost in a world of lifeless abstractions... He could speak about things, but did not see them face-to-face@ (pp.12-13).

What=s the difference? Well, at the purely surface level (I will introduce a much >deeper= level in a moment), Sacks=s account is longer; it contains many more (irrelevant?) scene-setting details; more metaphorical talk (of >like= and >as if=); more evaluative talk (>extravagant=; >perplexed=, >courteously=, etc.); more >possibility=-talk (>it seemed=, >might=, etc.); more direct speech and dialogical exchanges. It makes clear that he is issuing requests and invitations to Dr P., not commands. Furthermore, Sacks expresses his evaluative judgments in relation to Dr P., i.e., how he stands in relation to Dr P.=s responses, in a metaphorical, poetic fashion B >he was was lost in a world of visual abstractions... he did not see [things] face-to-face=. And at a perhaps less obvious level B when compared with my account, in which I present a sequence of facts like >beads on a string= B his account has a rhythm to it, its is >paced=, it gives rise to emphases and pauses B in short, as we read each utterance within it, a fairly specific expectation is responsively aroused in us as to what might happen next (Tannen, 1989)^[i]. Whereas, with my contrived account, while we might, so to speak, >get the picture= quite accurately, it arouses very few such specific directional expectations. In short, my account is essentially a 3^rd-person report, while Sacks=s is a 1^st-person telling.

But what is the functional or operative difference between these two ways of talking/writing? How is it that Sacks, by the use of allusive, evocative, gestural, and emotionally expressive forms of talk and text, achieves (at least in my opinion) a greater intellectually legitimate account of Dr P.=s >reality= than I do? B a legitimacy present in the way it provides us with Aactionable knowledge,@ i.e., orients or directs us toward the next >right step= to take in practice in Dr P.=s treatment, in a way that my account does not.

To emphasize this last point, consider voicing the utterance: AThe cat sat on the mat, the mat was red, the cat was black.@ Again, we can get the picture quite clearly, but B ASo what?@ How might we act in relation to such an account? If it arouses any expectations at all, they are so vague and non-specific that they lack any action-guiding force. But if the utterance is voiced in the following manner: AThe cat...(pause)... sat... (pause)... on the mat,... (pause)... the mat... (pause)... was RED!? (emphatic intonation)...(pause)... the cat was (...) BLACK!@ Then, is it the beginning of a ghost story, or of a murder story, or of a mystery to do with black cats and red mats? Whatever it is the beginning of, we feel it is the beginning of something we might like to follow further, we feel engaged by it, >arrested= or >struck= by it.

At the end of the consultation at Dr P.=s home, Dr P. said to Sacks:@Well, Dr Sacks... Can you tell me what you find wrong, make recommendations?@ AI can=t tell you what I find wrong,@ Sacks replied, Abut I=ll say what I find right. You are a wonderful musician, and music is your life. What I would prescribe, in a case sch as yours, is a life which consists entirely of music. Music must become the center, make it the whole, of your life@ (p.17). Sacks=s thought in relation to Dr P. was this: AVisually, he was lost in a world of lifeless abstractions. Indeed he did not have areal visual world, as he did not have a real visual self. He could speak about things, but he did not see them face-to-face@ (p.13, my emphasis). In other words, Dr P. had lost that capacity to respond to living movement expectantly, i.e., in terms of expectations of what should come next. The visual flow of things thus expressed nothing to him. Instead of in terms of visual anticipations and expectations, he held the flow of his life together musically, in terms of a rhythmic flow of sound.

This failure of Dr P. suggests a distinction to us, a distinction between >withness-> and >aboutness-thinking/talking/writing=: Withness (dialogic)-thinking is a form of reflective interaction that involves coming into living contact with an other=s living being, with their utterances, their bodily expressions, their words, their >works=. It gives rise, not to a >seeing=, for what is >sensed= is invisible; nor to an interpretation, for our responses occur spontaneously and directly in our living encounters with an other=s expressions; but to a >shaped= and >vectored= sense of our moment-by-moment changing placement in our current surroundings B engendering in us both unique anticipations as to what-next might happen along with, so to speak, >action-guiding advisories= as to what-next we might do. While aboutness (monologic)-thinking, however, is unresponsive to another=s expressions; it works simply in terms of a thinker=s >theoretical pictures= B but, even when we >get the picture=, we still have to interpret it, and to decide, intellectually, on a right course of action.

About this kind of writing, Palshaugen (2001) very correctly notes: Ait might seem that the activity of writing has this inherent tendency towards generalisation, while the spoken word B the >living word= B is inherently specific and anchored in the practical. This is indeed a too hasty conclusion. The point is rather that the process of writing makes it particularly clear to us that when the words used are not about that practical context within which the linguistic expressions are made, the meaning of the words becomes >theoretical=. In other words, the meaning of the words used derives from some other phenomenon than the practical context in which the words are being used. The meaning is so to speak created >out of context=. In contrast, a language game which takes place within the very same practical situation as that language game is about, gains B by dint of the very interplay between the actors use of words and the practical circumstances B a kind of specificity which a language game >out of context= is not capable. In this sense, there seems to be a kind of inherent force towards generality B towards theory B in writing, in the written word@ (p.210).

It is in being able to >move= us, to elicit from us, creatively, responses not previously expressed, that >withness= styles or forms of talk/writing can do what >aboutness= styles cannot. They can work both to >deconstruct=-in-practice our current practices, and enable us to re-construct them selectively. And they can do this by guiding us toward eliminating previously unnoticed misleading tendencies, and by directing our attention toward ones of a more enhancing kind. To repeat: their force in practice, is that they can bring previously unnoticed, alternative, intrinsic possibilities to our attention. As George Steiner (1989) puts it:AThe authentic experience of understanding, when we are spoken to by another or by a poem, is one of responding responsibility. We are answerable to the text... morally, spiritually, and psychologically (a threefold accountability)... those who are not executants can be respondents: answers in action... all new possibilities are in their creation in a sense implicitly critical: they say that things might have been otherwise... they are also critical in the sense that, in being articulated the writer, painter, musician selects and rejects possible forms of expression, measuring them up against an inner, felt sense of a >something= that is there needing expression... they are also critical in the sense that in their formation the writer brings their the >real presence= of their other >textual friends= to bear in such articulations... in their practice, they reject, alter, omit, elaborate aspects of their >friends= work... we read each other through the rival refractions of both others and our own inventions... the critical motion or movement in one=s practice...@ (pp.6-11, my emphases). In short, what the voices of others can do for us that we cannot do for ourselves, is that their A>otherness= which enters into us makes us other@ (p.188) B they can arouse a dialogically-structured response in us, they can create possibilities for change within us that we cannot create within ourselves alone.

But how is this possible? Sacks=s practical recommendation to Dr P., one that Dr P. could put into the practice of his everyday life, clearly arose as a result of Sacks=s >withness=-thinking, and relied on the >withness