TSElosophers

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Author: karluk

Alike ants and termites – what if it’s our sociality, not our selfishness, that is to blame?

27.10.2025 / / 0 Comments

Article:

Agriculture as a major evolutionary transition to human ultrasociality, John Gowdy, Lisi Krall, Journal of Bioeconomics (2014) 16:179–202

TSElosopher discussants:

Albrecht Becker, Annika Hasselblad, Kari Lukka, Michiru Nagatsu, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Marja Turunen, Milla Unkila

Article summary

What made us humans collectively, in a relatively short timespan, opt for an agricultural lifestyle instead of the hunting and gathering lifestyle? How did this end up making human collectives the ultrasocial superorganisms we currently inhabit? Was this transformation due to the unique intelligence of humans, or can a more compelling explanation be found when looking at evolutionary biology? This quandary, also known as the Neolithic Revolution, is the starting point for the present reading. The authors draw answers from the multilevel selection theory proposing that humanity shares an intriguing feature with ants and termites – at some point in our evolution, the evolution leaped from the individual level to the collective level. Drawing parallels of the specialized, hierarchical, militant and farming focused social organization between ants, termites, and humans, the authors suggest that the surplus producing tendencies in humans are less due to agentic choices than they are a result of evolutionary imperatives aimed at favoring the group instead of the individual.

Our discussion

Considering that in the age-old debate of nature vs nurture, most TSElosophers can be found either solidly spanning the divide in a Giddensian fashion or prone to digging trenches on the side of nurture, this paper seeking explanations from the side of nature could have been received more critically. Instead, we found it thought-provoking – especially as many of us are used to calling for more prosocial behavior. While TSElosophers were not happy with the limited explicit focus of the paper on the drastic ecological consequences of the human lifestyle in the described ultrasocial superorganisms, the striking inference from the paper’s analysis that our current environmental calamities may actually stem from our ultrasociality, not from our selfishness, provided a refreshing twist to our typical way of thinking. If our ability to collaborate is not the cure but the cause of the ailment, where do we go from here?

Naturally, the discussion did not flow without its discords. The paper is based on the widely shared premise that evolution cannot predict, nor contemplate. Given this, the authors could not quite convincingly explain how agriculture could become dominant, given that in the short term, the lifespan of people got shorter and the productivity per working hour decreased. It was also pointed out that the authors did not discuss the mechanisms of the social organization at any depth, making no qualitative distinctions of how organizing is achieved – instead of looking at why any group would become a community, they were content to note external (and maybe even superficial) similarities between the three species. It was also pointed out that a deeper definition of a species’ “success” was largely missing, replaced instead by the amount of biomass of the respective species. Also, the notion of domination is quite different between our insect friends and us humans: Where the insects, despite having been able to multiply admirably, have spread around the globe without wreaking total havoc on the ecosystems in which they live, our human domination looks, unfortunately, quite different.

One proposed explanation is the link missing in this article. In the case of ants and termites, the group-level evolution is purely driven by biology and thus proceeds at the pace of the biological evolution of the other species cohabiting a given ecosystem. Thus, the other species co-evolve, maintaining a balance between the ants/termites and the rest of the ecosystem. Also, a negative feedback mechanism seems to exist: As the population of a species gets bigger, more individuals behave in a ‘selfish’ manner, thereby reducing its population growth and giving room for other species to co-exist (Yamamichi et al. 2020).

In the case of humans, our evolution happened to equip us with a brain that not only enables us to collaborate on tangible things (“there’s a deer”, “let’s shelter here”, “how about making a baby”), but also to orient our collaboration towards abstract, and even imaginary things (“let’s build a temple to this god”, “let’s set up a start-up and become rich”). Due to our storytelling – and storybelieving – abilities, our evolution has, for the past 12 000 years, harnessed mass-scale coordination and cooperation through culture and technology, thus outpacing the purely biological evolution evidenced in other species. No potentially balancing species managed to keep up with us.

An interesting detail was mentioned: The elephants have better memory than humans, at least in the sense that the former ground their actions firmly in their physical reality. Our memory, in turn, is quite fallible. Could it be that exactly because we cannot remember reality, we are so reliant on our imagination, and as we rely on it more and more, we actually live not only in the environment (umwelt), but also within our experienced world (welt) and thus can ignore the effects our actions have on the physical reality as we pursue the imaginary ones?

Embedded in the article was the idea that the growth imperative somehow follows automatically from the shift in the evolutionary level from individual to group. Instead of orienting actions towards what suffices, the group efforts are aimed at producing surplus. While the article is not explicit regarding the link from seeking surplus to the growth imperative, we wondered whether this might be the intended ratio: As farming mandates sedentary life, which in turn makes it more difficult to wander far searching for additional sustenance, in the case of a bad harvest or other contrary conditions, access to a stocked larder becomes essential. We, however, were left wondering whether this simple explanation really suffices in explaining the immensity of the growth imperative – especially considering that humanity made a similar leap from better to worse individual lifestyles again at the start of the industrial revolution. Then the growth imperative was not oriented to better stocked larders but to a general drive for more of more of nearly everything.

To summarize, the best aspects of the article were the questions it made us think about, not necessarily their answers. This was also featured in the ending of the paper: Instead of the habitual uplifting final recommendations of how to go about solving stuff based on the stuff uncovered in the paper, the authors took, again, a counterintuitive turn. In discussing the future avenues, they simply state: “We might consider that evolution is not without its unsuccessful experiments.”  Whether we’re determined to live out this unsuccessful experiment or whether we have not only the free will but also the inclination to revert the current trajectory, remains to be seen – and discussed probably also in future TSElosophers meetings…

Reference:

Yamamichi, M., Kyogoku, D., Iritani, R., Kobayashi, K., Takahashi, Y., Tsurui-Sato, K., Yamawo, A., Dobata, S., Tsuji, K., & Kondoh, M. (2020). Intraspecific Adaptation Load: A Mechanism for Species Coexistence. Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 35(10), 897–907. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2020.05.011

The dangers of AI in research – “I want to own my craft”

26.05.2025 / / 0 Comments

TSElosophers meeting on 19 May 2025

Participants: Albrecht Becker, Annika Hasselblad, Samu Kantola, Kari Lukka, Nicolas Balcom Raleigh, Marja Turunen

Reading

Bechky, B. A., & Davis, G. F. (2024). Resisting the Algorithmic Management of Science: Craft and Community After Generative AI. Administrative Science Quarterly, 00018392241304403. https://doi.org/10.1177/00018392241304403

Summary

In this essay, Bechky and Davis (2025) discuss their worries in the face of the emerging generative AI tools that are introduced into a context characterised by increasing algorithmic management of research and universities. Digitalisation has already enabled, on the one hand, a ‘Cambrian explosion’ in the number of journals and journal articles and, on the other hand, an infrastructure and culture of stressing the quantitative understanding of research output and quality, deepening the publish-or-perish culture and the ensuing dominance of instrumentalism. Generative AI amplifies, Bechky and Davis argue, and accelerates these developments: “generative AI threatens not just to manage our work by algorithms but to have algorithms do the work itself” (p. 3). This further undermines the two pillars of scholarship: craft in doing research and community as the constitutive context of research activities. Bechky and Davis discuss possible strategies to preserve, or bring back, scholarship, including revitalising scholarship as a craft in our everyday doings and specifically in educating early career researchers. They also emphasize upholding the ideal of scholarship in our communities, e.g., in hiring, evaluation, reviewing, and editorial activities.

Discussion

In the discussion, TSElosophers fundamentally agreed with the analysis of Bechky and Davis (2025). Their worries connected to many earlier discussions in different TSElosophers meetings. They also see the threat to scholarship increasing due to the danger of AI tools in the context of the publish-or-perish culture, driving out deep thinking and deep reading. Some notable statements argued that using AI tools “violates community” and leads to the feeling of “not owning my craft” as a researcher. However, some also argued that the essay undervalues positive aspects of AI, such as its potential to democratise publishing or relieve us of “dirty work”. We concluded, however, that the authors probably saw the well-known functional potential of AI as a matter of course and, therefore, left it without mention.

Probably not surprising, a part of the discussion centred around pressures of the publish-or-perish culture, lack of time, and the seductiveness of turning towards generative AI tools in this situation. Its statements’ seeming authoritativeness, constant availability, and eternal friendliness may be especially seductive. Another strand of the discussion on publish-or-perish was about Goodhart’s law. While some stated that it is important to reflect the conditions under which a performance measure turning target becomes dysfunctional, others saw it as an inherent dilemma to need measures that unavoidably become targets and thus dysfunctional.

When discussing the strategies of preserving craft, community, and scholarship in the face of generative AI, TSElosophers concluded that most of the suggestions were not surprising and wondered if they have the potential to fend off the threats. We more deeply discussed, first, the role of individual responsibilities. While it is clear that even a systemic issue in social systems can be changed through actions of individuals, in the case of academia, senior researchers must carry the larger load. Secondly, we discussed evaluation processes. In this context, one of us mentioned that they do not favour overly long publication lists; rather, they are a bit suspicious about scholarly quality if there are too many publications produced in a short time. For early career researchers, it would be helpful to hear such views from senior researchers personally. The same holds for the third strategy we discussed and which Bechky and Davis term “shadow CV”: senior academics sharing not only success stories but also the often tedious and dispiriting journeys towards such successes as well as failures. Again, early career researchers feel that this is helpful. One of us reported on a group of PhD students sharing issues and problems among themselves, but they think that “sharing across hierarchical levels” would be specifically helpful.

The unbearable difficulty of scholarly debates

31.03.2025 / / 0 Comments

TSElosophers meeting on 21 March 2025

Participants: Albrecht Becker, Samu Kantola, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila

Reading

Suddaby, R. (2024) What theory is, what theory was: Whence and whither theory. Organization Theory, 5:4.

Suggested supplementary reading: Abend, G. (2008) The meaning of ‘theory’. Organization Theory, 26:2.

Summary

Suddaby (2024) is a response to and critique of both Abend (2008) and Abend (2023) simultaneously. He claims that Abend is against conceptual clarity, arguing for its importance in many ways. Suddaby also claims that Abend misuses pragmatism in the (alleged) dismissal by the latter of theory and theorizing. Further, Suddaby claims that Abend is ahistorical and has an outdated understanding of what ‘theory’ means in organization studies today. It is easy to buy Suddaby’s key arguments: We need conceptual clarity in research; pragmatism is not an atheoretical stream of thought; and epistemology has certainly become more accommodative since the days of ancient Greeks. However, it is surprisingly unclear how Suddaby so aggressively claims Abend’s thinking would be different in these regards. Finally, and very importantly, Suddaby (2024) completely bypasses even mentioning the key worry of Abend (2008): There are several meanings of ‘theory’ in organization studies, hampering scholarly communication. Hence, Abend argues, something should be done about it, i.e., we need conceptual clarity.

Discussion

This discussion of TSElosophers was generally deeply confused: Some members had read or at least glanced at one of the targets of Suddaby’s critique, the paper by Abend from 2008. Unfortunately, nobody had accessed the other target, Abend’s book from 2023. The group anticipated that as Suddaby was explicitly targeting both these texts of Abend as a bundle, it should be sufficient to be familiar with what Abend argued in 2008. This assumption was likely, at least partially, erroneous, as is explained below.

Considering just Suddaby (2024) and Abend (2008), there is good reason to be confused: Suddaby’s critique seems to be largely missing the target, not least as a reader could well conclude that he and Abend, for the most part, agree. Suddaby’s critique claiming that Abend is dismissing conceptual clarity seems completely unwarranted as the main worry of Abend (2008) is precisely the lack of conceptual clarity in organization studies! Also, Suddaby’s claims that Abend (2008) has misunderstood the view of pragmatism regarding theory or being generally ahistorical seem strange. TSElosophers generally wondered why Suddaby was so critical of Abend in the first place.

When this blog post was drafted, none of the TSElosophers had still got access to Abend’s book (2023). However, one TSElosopher, during our meeting, found the response text by Abend, published in 2024. Reading Abend (2024) made it clear that there must be quite a difference between Abend (2008) and Abend (2023). Abend (2024) likely stresses much more than Abend (2008) the extremely inclusive democratic process as a solution to the current conceptual ambiguity. TSElosophers generally shared Abend’s worry, but given the general confused sentiment at the meeting, we never got far in discussing the solution that Abend put forth. A notable cause of the confusion was that Suddaby (2024) bundled the two texts of Abend (2008) and (2023) as the target of his critique, while this choice likely does not hold water.

One learning point from this session is that TSElosophers should pay more attention to the scope of the debates chosen to be discussed at their meetings. This time, the scope was too narrow, which made the discussion situation complex and unhelpful. That said, in the words of one TSElosopher, the meeting was anyhow nice to have, given how seldom we have chances to lead such open discussions as are typical of the TSElosophers’ meetings.

Abend, G. (2023) Words and distinctions for the common good. Princeton University Press

Abend, G. (2024) Democratizing social scientists’ words and distinctions: Where and why moral reasons are decisive. Organization Theory, 5:4.

Known problems tackled with ecological realism?

10.02.2025 / / 0 Comments

TSElosophers meeting on 3 February 2025

Participants: Albrecht Becker, Annika Hasselblad, Samu Kantola, Erkki Lassila, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila

Reading: Domination, Power, Supremacy: Confronting Anthropolitics with Ecological Realism

Toni Ruuska, Pasi Heikkurinen and Kristoffer Wilén, Sustainability 2020, 12, 2617; doi:10.3390/su12072617

Summary

Anthropocene is caused by anthropolitics – systems of power built on the notion of human supremacy that enable the domination of non-humans and a mass of humans by a smaller group of humans. The article traces the foundations and premises of anthropolitics grounded on a specific version of humanism, discusses the merits and deficits of post-humanist approaches as solutions to future social organizing, and introduces ecological realism as an alternative theoretical frame that could underpin the formulation of genuinely sustainable societies.

Our discussion

This was one of the articles that divided the Tselosophers into two camps. Many of us applauded the clear and understandable articulation of the complex past trajectories that have brought us to the brink (and over?) of the current environmental calamities and admired the courage of the scholars to not only weave together the many strands of the problems but also to take a step further and suggest future possibilities. Others, in turn, stated that the depiction of the problems was nothing new – after all, we have at least 50 years known that human actions are destroying the globe – and that at least some of the seven suggested solutions for future societies were questionable to the extent of some reading even as naïve, especially as the authors made no mention of how to reach the desired end states.

This point triggered discussion: indeed, there has been ample discussion of the root causes of the current problems. However, it is not the novel knowledge on any of the single themes outlined in the article that creates value but the drawing of the bigger picture, here labelled as anthropolitics, that is fresh. After all, the current scholarly mechanisms do not support integrative approaches, making it very difficult to understand the amalgamated mess of human choices responsible for the problems. The fans of the article also noted that while the issues have been pointed out, too few attempts have been made to paint possible images of the principles that could underpin future societies and the lack of any visions of the potential directions makes it impossible to move towards them – we would sorely need goals to try to figure out how to get there.

Of the seven suggested solutions, especially decentralization and detechnologization were contested. Considering the global scope of the problems, it was pondered whether a local turn would be a beneficial direction to address them. In terms of technology, some of us accepted that to stop the overshoot, we would need, first of all, to move away from our energy dependence, which would naturally lead to less available technology, whereas some others were more hopeful as regards technology being at least a part of some solutions.

A theme that spawned most discussion was the perception of human agency, especially as it relates to the question of whether we need to see humans as qualitatively different from other species to hold them responsible for their negative impacts or whether it is possible to detach responsibility from the concept of agency. The concern with the latter position is this: As we all accept that humans have no more value than other living beings, should we think that humans are similar to other animals to the extent where our agency – as understood to include responsibility – is not a unique feature, but our effects on the planet are merely a question of scope and scale? If so, that could leave a way out of the responsibility of us humans: We can always shrug and say that as we don’t blame other animals for exhibiting species-typical behavior, neither should we humans be blamed for our respective features. However, some of us do not want to leave that loophole and instead argue that while non-humans do have an equal value to humans, there is a qualitative difference in humans – that is, our ability to conscious intentionality – which has resulted, among other things, in our destructive actions. These TSElosophers believe that agency is a combination of responsibility and intentionality, not something that can be reduced to merely causing effects, which is something each human and non-human, living and non-living entity, in any case, is involved with.

There were several other themes mentioned but not dug deeply into, too. For example, we noted that while the authors discuss the conceptualization of human agency underpinning anthropolitics (e.g., will to power), they did not elaborate on a conceptualization of human agency that could underpin ecological realism and responsibility for the planet. Additionally, we pondered the distinction between the notion of hybridism when discussing post-humanism and parts vs. the whole when discussing ecological realism, wondering what precisely was the point of the authors for differentiating them. This contemplation led to a vivid discussion on the notion of agency in ANT (arguably one version of hybridism) and to what extent the principle of symmetry inherent in ANT helps deal with the question of responsibility for the effects actors produce.

Overall, this article proved a fruitful starting point for a rich discussion, and had the time not limited the discussion, it could have taken us to many additional directions now left unexplored.

Cultivating the attitude of wonder: Philosophy and organization studies

04.12.2024 / / 0 Comments

TSElosophers meeting on 26th November 2024.

Participants: Erkki Lassila, Kari Lukka, Ari Nieminen, Minna-Liina Ojala, Otto Rosendahl, Mia Salo, Milla Unkila

Reading: Introduction to the Special Issue on Philosophy and Organization Studies: How Does Philosophy Illuminate the Study of Organizations? Tsoukas, H., Sandberg, J., Fayard, A-L. & Zundel, M. (2024) Organization Studies, 45(9), 1229–1251.

Summary

The aim of this introductory article is to promote and offer means for a more philosophically oriented approach to organization studies. The authors argue that philosophical inquiry concerning the meta-theoretical level of research along with philosophical intuition are needed to question extant closures of meaning, and to propose new ways of seeing and theorizing organizational phenomena, as well as the world more broadly. In addition to identifying common conceptual traps Tsoukas, Sandberg, Fayard, and Zundel also propose four ways in which philosophy can inform organizational studies: (1) Cultivating the attitude of wonder where the emphasis is on “letting the phenomena of interest reveal their own be-ing”; (2) Questioning received images of thought, that is, putting effort on evaluating our own thinking and theories we use; (3) Enabling new images of thought for theory development, where philosophical inquiry permits generating novel conceptual distinctions and thus theorizing; (4) Philosophy helps us think critically about organization and management as a ‘problem’. For example, through philosophical inquiry, we can “problematize the pervasiveness of a market logic in the context of social issues”. To conclude, the authors introduce the featured articles of the Special Issue.

Our discussion

TSElosophers found this article important, well-structured, and necessary, even though it somewhat echoes the themes that the authors have described in their previous papers, such as Tsoukas & Chia (2011). Most of all, we considered this piece a kind of wake-up call for organizational scholars to stop and think as to what kind of research each of us is conducting and how well that matches with what scholarly research should arguably be all about – for instance, most certainly not only about ‘getting published’!

Surely, we had a lively discussion. To start with, we particularly appreciated the emphasis on the importance of philosophical inquiry, that is, the meta-theoretical level of study and its legitimacy as a research approach in our field. Likewise, articulating how the development of basic scientific concepts relies on philosophical intuition is most likely a useful reminder for many. One important aspect of the possibilities of the philosophical inquiry is that it does not need to limit itself to the factual but instead can also enter the realm of the ethical. From the perspective of “an evaluative organization science” or “humanist science” (Selznick), theorizing through philosophical inquiry is necessary. Indeed, we warmly recommend this article for those organization scholars who are interested in using philosophical inquiry to generate new conceptualizations and theories.

Many of us, while reading the article, had paid attention to the frequently used term ‘closure of meaning’, which was also metaphorically depicted through Wittgenstein’s ‘fly-bottle’. The closure of meaning denotes that “specific ways of investigating the world become unquestioned and accepted as true”. We were amused by our idea of numerous (fly-)bottles in a ‘sea of reality’, where researchers jump from one bottle to another as they adopt new ways of doing research. We also decided to be hopeful that with these jumps, the ‘sight’ of science and organizational studies, for that matter, will improve. Importantly and paradoxically, as researchers, we both need these domain-specific closures of meaning or nomological networks in our research and, similarly, we ought to see beyond them at times. As Hines (1988) put it, a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing. In the paper, this dilemma was also exemplified by a movement between presence and absence – a pair of concepts whose usefulness and meaning, in general, we ended up debating.

One thing that also caught our attention was that the authors do not explicitly mention the term ‘performativity’ at all. Instead, the notion of ‘becoming’ appears numerous times. For one of us, their meanings appear similar, while a few others suggested there are notable differences. The latter turned out not that simple to articulate, however, partly due to the time limitation. Nevertheless, already during the discussion, it became evident that ‘becoming’ is the broader and more general notion of the two – but it also came to the fore how the conceptual meaning of ‘performativity’ obviously needs further thought. Hence, we concluded that philosophical inquiry is certainly needed!

Overall, we really enjoyed this paper – even though some of us were a little surprised that the authors relied heavily on the ideas of one key philosopher, namely Alfred Whitehead. That said, this can perhaps be quite easily excused when Haridimos Tsoukas features in the author team: Several of his prior works lean heavily on the process philosophy approach to organization studies.

References:
Tsoukas, H. & Chia, R. (2011) Introduction: Why philosophy matters to organization theory. In (Eds.) Tsoukas, H. & Chia, R. Philosophy and Organization Theory. Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Volume 32, 1–21. Emerald Group Publishing Limited 2011.
Hines, R. D. (1988). Financial accounting. In communicating reality, we construct reality. Accounting, Organizations and Society. Vol. 13, No. 3, 251–261.

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