Furthering the operational research philosophical agenda
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Viewpoint ± Furthering the operational research philosophical agenda Throughout the 1970s, it was being argued that OR was a form of social engineering incapable of re¯ective action.1±10 This led to a crisis in OR11 from which it has yet to emerge, considering the lively debate which continues inside the pages of OR=MS journals.12±15 The need for re¯ective action has called for interdisciplinary tools which will enable OR practitioners to engage in such issues as (among others): ethics,16 the nature of social engagements,17 the acquisition, validation and dissemination of knowledge,18 emancipation,19±22 paradigm commensurability issues23 and methodological underpinnings.24 Critical Systems Thinking has set itself as the platform from which such issues can be debated25 and, being the only branch of OR which has moved the agenda forward, has been allowed to inform the remaining OR community. Compared to its mass of publications, an embarrassingly few number of papers are available which provide an alternative perspective.26 For a profession which professes to be engaged in re¯ective action, such reliance on onesided views risks the development of a further crisis, this time not in response to the imperialistic mathematical techniques, but in response to the lack of alternative re¯ective guidance. There is no reason to accept unquestioningly the biases, theories and conclusions of the Critical school, which are based on a selective interdisciplinarity. For OR to be an interdisciplinary, epistemic subject concerned with building prescriptive models of human action, it must embrace an everwide interdisciplinarity. Building prescriptive models is only as effective as the epistemic scope to which the profession applies itself. The epistemic scope has thus far been limited. The only ontological understanding of social interaction which continues to inform OR's prescriptions is based on the views of Habermas.27 A wider ontological understanding of social interaction is required to inform OR's prescriptions. Although postmodernist and structuralist themes, and in particular the works of Foucault, are increasingly being used to support OR's re¯ective action agenda,28,29OR has neglected to consider the source from which such themes have sprung. It is becoming increasingly clear that Jean-Paul Sartre30±33 is to be credited for most of the major notions which are today attributed to Foucault, Lacan, Levi-Strauss and Derrida.34 There also appears to be a link between Sartre and the work of prominent sociologist Georges Gurvitch35,36 which provides further interdisciplinary scope. Furthermore,
related thinkers such as Merleau-Ponty are beginning to be referenced in the OR literature.23 In addition to this, Sartre provides us with an ontology of existence and social interaction suf®ciently rich, varied and well-de®ned compared to what OR has considered thus far. There are four main advantageous reasons for pursuing
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