Are innovators conscious of their role, or do they only consider innovation in a way that is over-capitalist and ultra-liberal?
Starting with philosophy, it is possible to examine innovation from a different perspective, outside of the usual categories of the engineering and management sciences. It is thanks to philosophy that innovation can be (re)viewed as more responsible, ethical and humanist, because philosophy is just as curative as it is preventive, and just as cathartic as it is therapeutic.
Three axes of reflection are highlighted in this book: the first aims, with the use of non-standard philosophy, at putting the essence of innovation (and even its definition) to the test; the second one, based on the Husserlian phenomenology, exhaustively analyzes that which we accomplish when we innovate; and the last pays particular attention to philosophical, spiritual exercises and the necessity of developing technical innovators, as well as self-care and the need to ensure that innovators consider the consequences of their actions.
This book proposes a philosophical criticism of both innovation and the innovator, and questions the disciplines of the modes of life that influence the choices to innovate.
1. The Need to (Re)think Innovation.
2. The Non-standard Philosophy for Thinking Innovation.
3. A Phenomenology of Innovation.
4. Spiritual Exercises to (Re)think the Innovator.
Xavier Pavie is a philosopher, Professor at the ESSEC Business School, Academic Director of the Master in Management program in Singapore, and Director of the iMagination center. He is also Research Associate at the Institut de recherches philosophiques – Paris Nanterre University, France.