To Be or Not to Be a Dot? Philosophy of Management and the Subjective Body

Abstract

The Self has been the question of numerous studies in management that set a dualist and essentialist definition against a postmodern conception, which operates through successive detours and makes room for a divided and fragmented subject. Such investigations tend however to situate the question of Self alongside that of representation – notably by making use of images of managers, employees or leaders in order to better decrypt their respective self-identities. In opposition to these currents of thought, Henry erects an immanent and radical conception of the Self in life, in an onto-phenomenological territory situated upstream from identity and from reflexivity. In this paper, I present Henry’s material phenomenology as a first and critical philosophy of ontological monism, before delving deeper into his conception of the Self as a subjective body. Then, I draw some political and ethical lessons from this distinction and sketch out a few avenues for future research.

Holly Martins: “Have you ever seen any of your victims?”

Harry Lime: “Victims? Don’t be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare?”(The Third Man, Carol Reed (1949))