French and Other Perspectives in Praxiology

Book excerpt: Volume 12 in this distinguished series explores current topics in praxiology as studied in France and elsewhere. As is characteristic of contemporary praxiology, contributors both investigate new topics and use new methods to re-examine older approaches.Part 1 is composed of three sections by French scholars. These deal with humans as a subject of action as well as a subject of knowledge. In respecting the particular domains of psychology and praxiology, they demonstrate how they converge to shed light on the human being as an individual or as part of a group. The first section discusses relations between individual action and collective action, while the second section is concerned with relations between the act, objects, and space, and explores work spaces, production spaces, office spaces, and social spaces. The third section examines relations between action and cognition, a domain considered to be little understood in general. Finally, the role of mathematics in decision-making is discussed as a determinate of the praxiological process.The second part is composed of contributions by scholars from Finland, Great Britain, Poland, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. The topics are: how praxiology helps economists understand cooperative actions and related issues of different responsibilities; how and to what an extent university education creates conditions for competitive advantage in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe and how problems of corporate governance are approached in the region; how innovation influences competence in the region of established economy in Spain; and how information systems constitute a multi-agent system. Finally, a formal analysis of praxiological dimensions in light of the fuzzy logic approach is discussed.