20 août 2008
Intelligence, epistemology and the sex of angels
Many authors are asking if intelligence might be considered as a science, “art and science” or tradecraft. My opinion is that the debate may be more than clarified through epistemological point of view.
Is intelligence a science? Certainly not if we consider a science is a discipline that generates theories and "universal" knowledge. However, intelligence may be considered as a set of methods and techniques that have been empirically developed and are currently used by communities of practices. In that case it is possible to assess the scientific nature of intelligence in order to distinguish both art and science as parts of a same model. At least, intelligence as a tradecraft may be studied through the lens of science, in order to assess the scientific value of methods, tools and individual skills.
So it seems to be of main interest, not to discuss the sex of angels, but to study intelligence following an epistemological approach, since analysts must question the nature of reality, the nature of knowledge and the way they use to get it. They must question the choice of posture they make vis-à-vis the object they analyze: Is reality just ontological facts? Are facts determined with causes and effects? Are there intentions behind facts? What is own analyst’s intention: to observe, explain or build a theory?
To answer these questions is the role of epistemology which studies the nature of scientific knowledge and permits to assess relevance and reliability of empirical methods and practices. Far from a semantic exercise, epistemology may give practical issues on the use of intelligence in decision making, as well as it can for example, explain and predict intelligence failures. Then epistemology is not just a philosophical debate on the limits of induction and probabilities, and since Popper is but one philosopher among others, analysts are not supposed to read the whole epistemological literacy, which may appear a little bit boring from the operational point of view. However analysts should understand clearly the consequences and the limits of the paradigms they use, most of the time without knowing them.
In that way, the concept of “operational epistemology” should soon emerge as a key course in intelligence education and training programs.
Commentaires
etymology
Maybe we could analyse the étymology of the word. (in te lego)which includes literacy. In a collective way, the etymology could be (inter-legere) with the thesis of Bernard Stiegler.
Maybe intelligence is not a scientific matter but a fight. Not in a business intelligence way but more in a culture of information's meaning.
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