1 intellectual styles by johan galtung seminar: innovation, change and decision-making in...

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Intellectual Styles by Johan Galtung

Seminar:

Innovation, Change and Decision-Making in international Organisations

Katja Schülke, Björn Bauer

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Overview:

1. Biography of Johan Galtung

2. Definition of Intellectual Style

3. Dimensions of Intellectual Styles

3.1 Paradigm Analysis

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

3.3 Commentary on others

4. Summary of the four Intellectual Styles

5. Conditions and Consequences

6. World Intellectual Style

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1. Biography of Johan Galtung

• One of the great figures in

Peace Studies

• Born 1930 in Norway

• Degrees in Mathematics and

Sociology

• Established the first peace research institute in 1959

• Professor of Conflict and Peace Research

• 1987 Alternative Nobel Peace Prize

• Director of Transcend

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2. Definition of Intellectual Style

„[…] basic culture-bound models of thought and behavior shown principally by intellectuals.“

Style Center Periphery

saxonic

nipponic

tectonic

gallic

USA, GB

Japan

Germany

France

Canada, Australia

---

Eastern Europe

Latin countries

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

• Paradigm Analysis

• Description of reality

• Theory Formation

• Commentary on others

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.1 Paradigm Analysis

• Paradigm Analysis means to recognize

and to analyse the paradigm you use

• Try to discover the limitations of your own

intellect

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.1 Paradigm Analysis

• Tectonic and Gallic:

Strong in Paradigm Analysis

• Saxonic and Nipponic:

Weak in Paradigm Analysis

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

• Description of reality: Deals with the importance and degree of data collection and documentation

• Theory Formation: Refers to the process how theories are set up and if they are based on data

„[…] theory formation is the stringing together of words, with occasional anchoring in a data base.“ (Galtung, )

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Both dimensions act as counterparts

3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

Saxonic Teutonic Gallic Nipponic

Description

of reality strong weak weak strong

Theory

Formation weak strong strong weak

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

Saxonic:

• Penchant for documentation

• Analyse all sources concealing nothing

• Goal is to find all relevant information

• Faith and beliefs enter to a small degree

• Tolerant and democratic, less elitist

• Underlying figure of theory formation are

a couple of small pyramids

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

Gallic:

• Intellectual activity has at its very center

theory formation

• Function of data would be to illustrate rather

than to demonstrate

• Persuasion is carried by elegance

• Words in theories connote something and

carry conviction

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

• There is a totality to things, a balance rather

than a center (hammock)

• Gallics goal is elegance (if necessary at the

expense of rigor)

• Elitist (only the strongest survive

Darwinian struggle)

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

Teutonic:

• Intellectual activity has at its very center

theory formation

• Function of data would be to illustrate rather

than to demonstrate

• Purely deductive

• Goal to arrive from a small number of premises at

a high number of conclusions

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

• One big pyramid is the forming exercise

• The teutonic aim for rigor (if necessary at the

expense of elegance)

• Elitist (only the strongest survive

Darwinian struggle)

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.2 Description of reality and Theory Formation

Nipponic:

• Very different visions of how real reality is constituted

• Dialectic way of thinking

• Little or no theory at all being developed

• Japanese almost never pronounce absolute statements

• Underlying figure of theory formation is a circle

no beginning and no end

• tolerant and democratic, less elitist

(opposed to gallic and teutonic)

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.3 Commentary on other intellectuals

Saxonic:

• Pluralism is an important value

• Togetherness / Team Work

• Debate is seen as a source of delight

• Changing opinion in the course of a

debate is appreciated

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.3 Commentary on other intellectuals

Gallic and Tectonic:

• Presentator has the role of a defendant

• No complimentary introduction

• Discussants go straight for the weakest points

• Nobody changes opinion

• Change opinion in the course of the

debate is not honorable

• Engage in a debate with a strict

antagonist would be considered hopeless

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3. Dimensions of Intellectual Style

3.3 Commentary on other intellectuals

Nipponic:

• Not very skillful at debating

• Established social relations can not be harmed

• Collectivistic solidarity no victimisation

• Classification into schools preempts a debate

• No direct focus on weak argumentations

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4. Summary of the four Intellectual Styles

Typical question when somebody is faced with a proposition:

• Saxonic: How do you operationalize it?

• Teutonic: How can you trace this back from basic principles?

• Gallic: Is it possible to say this in French?

• Nipponic: Who is your master?

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5. Conditions and Consequences

Relationship between language and Intellectual Style

• A language has to fit the intellectual style of

the concerned culture

• Class differences in languages are related

to differences in Intellectual Style

Intellectual Style has a class character

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5. Conditions and Consequences

Intellectual Style and the culturally defined

notion of truth

• Permanent truth Deductive Intellectual Style

• Flexible truth Dialectical Intellectual Style

• Notions of truth are related to a country`s status

in the world order

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5. Conditions and Consequences

Intellectual Style and social structures

• vertical, polarized and individualist tectonic

• horizontal, individualist and polarized gallic

• horizontal, individualist and less polarized saxonic

• vertical, collectivist and non polarized nipponic

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5. Conditions and Consequences

The situation of peripheries

• Hypothesis: periphery intellectual cultures don`t

produce anything new, but do only imitate their

center

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6. World Intellectual Style

• World Intellectual Style is improbable

because of cultural and language variety

• If there was a World Intellectual Style

Saxonic

• industrialization

• exigencies of UN system

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Thank you for your attention!