One contemporary theorist, whose multifaceted oevre has carefully argued in the context of those three challenges, is the French hermeneutical philosopher Paul Ricoeur. Ricoeur was in no way concerned with practical wisdom or business values. Rather he more basically questioned the role of any religious ‘text’ in the totally different ‘con-text’ of the contemporary secular world, which is in large parts increasingly skeptical against religions (Ricoeur 1995, 2008).
The world of the text – le monde du texte
According to Ricoeur, texts are a form of language and therefore represent a basic communication between a sender (the author or scripter) and a receiver (the reader) (Ricoeur 1970, 1974, 1978, 1980). Even the oldest texts we know – which are temple lists from antique cities in Mesopotamia – can be characterized by a certain significance, i.e. by the aim of demonstration. To analyze its specific structure one has to reflect on the relationship between speech and text. As a form of communication, the text presupposes a speech. However, when a speech is written down and becomes a text, it basically changes its character. The speech is an act of communication between a speaker and her addressee; this communication is taking place in the context of a shared context of meaning. As such, the speech has a relationship to the reality, which can be characterized by a dialectic structure between sense (content) and significance (presumption of truthfulness) (see Ricoeur 1974: 28). With the transformation from speech to text, however, the communication becomes independent from the intention of the communicator. The significance of the communication (i.e. of the text) is no longer identical with the intended significance of the communicator (i.e. what author wanted to say). More precisely, in the oral communication the primary significance of the speech assumes to demonstrate a common reality to the addressees, which is embedded in a common universe of meaning. By transforming speech into a written text, however, this primary significance is being destroyed. The destruction becomes especially manifest in fictive literature, which explicitly intends to destroy any primary significance of the communication. Referring to this hermeneutical observation, Ricoeur talks about the world of the text (le monde du texte) that is independent from the author as well as from the reader.
Furthermore, according to Ricoeur, this process of interpreting the specific world of the text has a twofold meaning: It is not only the reader who understands the text but it is also the text itself that induces a process of self-reflection and influences the self-understanding of the reader. In this sense, by entering into a text, the reader modifies his/ her own perception of the world and potentially develops new ways of his/ her being-in-the-world. The text may become the medium, by which we understand our own being-in-the-world.
Summing up, according to Ricoeur, a written text cannot be perceived as an instrument of communication between the author and the reader. Rather the world of the text, which historically emerged with the speech becoming text, serves as prerequisite for the perpetually ongoing re-interpretation of the text as an autonomous subject. On the other side, by interpreting the text the reader himself may disclose his own contemporary world and re-interpret himself in the context of his contemporary world.
Symbolic language and metaphorical texts
This twofold meaning of the reading of a text is especially relevant for metaphorical texts employed in religious and spiritual traditions. In order to understand the character of religious and spiritual traditions, the reflection about the specific nature of metaphorical texts is of crucial importance. In the context of spiritual traditions – especially of those, which are grounded on textual traditions like Holy Scriptures – the metaphorical text is a symbol for the Divine or Inspired. According to the hermeneutic philosophy of Ricoeur these text-world based symbols are multidimensional by nature. They can never be expressed exhaustively by rational scientific language. Rather, compared with the descriptive code of reports or analyses, they always retain a substantial ‘plus’, which leaves open space for their renewed interpretation from the different perspective of a (future) reader. As Ricoeur entitles one of his essays: “Le symbole donne à penser” – the symbol provides food for thought.
Thus, rather than an immediate communication act between the (historical) author (of the 2nd, 3rd or 7th century) and the contemporary reader, spiritual texts (as symbolic text) are opening-up the space for on-going re-interpretation and appropriation. Therefore, during the course of Human history, spiritual texts and religious motives (‘symbols’) are no longer tied to their original communication context. They are no longer bound to the historical concept of Human history or contingent, era-specific concepts of the world, which prevailed during time and place of their origin. Rather the autonomy of their text-world enables and even calls for a culturally ‘updated’ interpretation and appropriation.
Originating from a Christian concept, Ricoeur elaborates his hermeneutical concept by exemplarily referring to the narratives of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. The Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels makes extensive use of metaphoric language, here. Instead of formulating plain statements about God, the world, or the duties of the Faithful, the synoptic Jesus is rather telling parables, e.g. about God as the merciful father, the Kingdom of God as a winery, whose owner compensates his workers graciously, the prodigal son etc. Similar narrative traditions can be found in many other religious and spiritual traditions globally. According to Ricoeur, these spiritual narratives possess their own persuasive power, which differs substantially from mere descriptive statements. They disclose potentials for a renewed interpretation and appropriation of the situation of the reader - similar to a poem, a short story or even a witty joke. Like other forms of metaphorical language and narratives, the parables of the Christian Gospel express a meaning, which can always become a source of inspiration for a renewed and emancipative practice.
Metaphorical language, however, is not limited to the Christian tradition. Rather using another example from the Islam tradition, Qu’ran texts report, that the wife of the Prophet Muhammed was in her time a successful trader and entrepreneurial women and even older than the Prophet himself; she initially even employed him as a sales representative for a certain region. Again, this text is much more than information about the past. On the contrary, interpreted in the social context of Northern African societies at the beginning of the 21st century, this symbolic text can become an important source of empowerment and emancipative inspiration for young female business students and entrepreneurs. The symbolic texts of Qu’ran and Haddith may empower young female entrepreneurs to liberate themselves from the prevailing formal or informal limitations based in certain tribal cultural traditions of their business context.
Consequences for a managerial approach to Religious Traditions
Based on these fundamental considerations inspired by Ricoeur’s hermeneutical theory, we now attempt to face the threefold objection against a spiritual traditions-based approach to practical wisdom in management. For that purpose, we start in a reverse order with the last objection:
3) It is true that all major spiritual traditions emerged during the times of pre-modern agrarian societies and therefore per se have no relationship whatsoever with modern business environment and business challenges. However, following the indication of Paul Ricoeur, spiritual texts have to be interpreted and applied according to their genuine metaphorical and ‘symbolic’ character. Thus, they cannot be understood as a plain recommendation for any individual strategy, organizational policy or even governance structure in the highly complex business world of the 21st century. Interpreting traditional texts in this one-dimensional way would indeed result in a (fundamentalist) misunderstanding. Rather, instead of representing plain recipes for a better world, those metaphorical texts necessarily have to become applied by the individual reader. It is up to her or him to read, understand and interpret the text in the light of his experience and professional knowledge and to translate it into the design of the above mentioned business actions and/ or structures. Moreover, this process takes place in an institutional context - for example the context of the community of the faithful, the Umma of the Islamic communities etc. General rules for a proper interpretation of a text (i.e. integrating it in a hierarchical complex of multiple texts) may serve as a moderating element here, which is supposed to prevent extreme and potentially dangerous misinterpretations of a single text. However, this context does not imply that the essential receptive structure of reading and interpreting a metaphorical text is changed. Rather the above described reception process causes the central role of the individual person as a subject of interpretation and application. It is always the individual person herself, endowed with all her experience and professional knowledge, who interprets the text or at least who decides which interpretation offered by others she wants to follow. Due to this indispensable structure of the hermeneutical process, a spiritual text can well enfold its dynamics in the contemporary world, even if the historical authors themselves had necessarily lacked any experience and even the imagination of today’s challenges.
2) As reflected above spiritual texts are conveying a multidimensional significance that goes beyond empirical definiteness and leaves room for an ever new adaptation from a contemporary reader’s perspective and context. This openness for subjective adaptation, however, does not necessarily expulse them from the business school. On the contrary, a Practical Wisdom approach opposes the methodological reductionism of a management education practice, which is emulating natural sciences and their research methods as closely as possible and is therefore blinding itself for the complexity of Human business practice. Hence, the narrative character of spiritual communication does not impede but rather stimulate its application into contemporary business situations.
Nevertheless, even a careful spiritual analysis is required in order to avoid e.g. subjective arbitrariness, eclectic reductionism, or materialistic instrumentalism. Moreover, in order to convert spiritual wisdom into concrete business strategies, organizational features or governance policies, professional knowledge and experience is necessary. For example, if the spiritual inspiration to work for the integrity of the Divine creation results in the decision of a business woman to implement a sustainable production strategy, this decision does not substitute but rather calls for her rigorous professional implementation. For that purpose, she will well draw on her professional experience including the underlying scientific knowledge - thereby intuitively closing the hermeneutical gap between pre-modern spiritual text and contemporary concepts.
1) The final and probably most influential objection against spiritual traditions is their seemingly intolerant and illiberal character. As mentioned above, conflicting believe systems have regularly nurtured violations of Human rights and explosions of aggressiveness against different groups people. However, if we profoundly analyze existing conflicts it becomes clear that religious reasons in many cases are not really at the heart of them. Rather, the hatred exemplarily resulting from economic discrimination and injustice, from political imperiousness and economic greed, or from distrust and suspicion is religiously legitimized even if it finds itself in contrast with the religious instructions and the concept of man, on which the most important religious concepts are based. Therefore, ‘political entrepreneurs’ or power holders invoke religion, because it is of high importance for many of their contemporaries and this dedication allows them to secure relatively ‘cheap’ support by legitimizing their political or economic strategies with religious arguments. Most of the same political entrepreneurs or power holders do not care at all about religious teachings as soon as their personal living standard and a dignified treatment of other people in their immediate surrounding is concerned. A logic of instrumentalization becomes obvious here, which regularly discredits religious beliefs in the public perception. It simply overshadows the obvious truth that for many believers living a religious life is an important motivation to civilize their life – including their economic practice – and humanize their attitudes against their fellow-beings.