Read more
Jaques presents a totally new general theoretical foundation for understanding the individual and social behavior of all living organisms. In contrast to existing theories of behavior which are static, Jaques has succeeded in breaking through to a truly dynamic orientation. This breakthrough, resulted from his fundamental research into work organizations that led to the realization that the difference between inanimate processes and all living behavior, is that all living behavior is composed of intentional goal-directed work.
This continuous work entails the use of judgment in choosing goals and in making the decisions necessary to get to these goals. This work process is the same in all living organisms, including humans. It is an ineffable process of the total organism, inaccessible to direct observation and experience. Intentionality is the dynamic of behavior. This discovery has led over the past 50 years to extensive discoveries--objective measures of work complexity, and of the level of complexity (capability) of individuals in all species; how human language differs from communication in other species; the need to distinguish between horizontal evolutionary mutations within a given level of capability, and vertical evolution to species with higher levels of complexity; the nature of freedom within mutual-trust inducing constraints. Set forth to radically change the nature of all behavioral and social sciences in the new millenium, Jaques' analysis is essential reading for all scholars, students, and researchers as well as the general public involved with the behavior of living organisms.
List of contents
Preface
IntroductionWhat Is Life? Overview
A Half Century of Findings on Work, Complexity, and CapabilityWork as Goal-directed Choice (laboro ergo sum)
Complexity and Capability in Living Organisms
Laying the GroundworkAwareness, Signaling, Language and Other Basic Concepts
Minds, Bodies, Reductionism, and Systems Theory
Potential and Applied Capability Throughout the Living Kingdom
Life in the Pre-Linguistic WorldThe Choice Making Functions of All Living Organisms
The Whole Organism and Its Parts
The Organism in Action
Reality in the Sensible World as Cause-and-effect Testing
The Language-Suffused World of HumansThe Evolutionary Emergence of Homo Sapiens, with Language and Consciousness
The Fruits of Evolution
The Spread of Homo Sapiens Across the World
The Language Suffused World: Prometheus, Pandora, and the Unicorns
Modern Alchemy and the Disruption of Capitalist Democracy
Time, Science, and FreedomToward a Science-based Art of Social Ordering
Values for a Living World: Freedom and Constraint, and Mutual Trust and Morals
Some Retrospective Musings
Glossary
Bibliography
Index
About the author
ELLIOTT JAQUES is Research Professor of Management Science, Department of Management, George Washington University, and Professor Emeritus of Social Science at Brunel University, England. He holds an M.D. from Johns Hopkins, a Ph.D. from Harvard, and is a member of the British Psycho-Analytical Society. Dr. Jaques was cited by (then General) Colin Powell for . . . his outstanding contribution in the field of military leadership theory and instruction. . . . He is author of numerous articles, in one of which he created the concept of the mid-life crisis, and more than 20 books, among them The Life and Behavior of Living Organisms, published by another imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Praeger Publishers.
Summary
Presents an understanding of the individual and social behaviour of living organisms. It shows that research into work organizations led to the realization that the difference between inanimate processes and living behaviour is that living behaviour is composed of intentional goal-directed work.
