Conference program.indd - CBS OBSERVER

Why a Kierkegaard conference at Copenhagen Business School?Business education is being currently rethought, most recently by the inuential CarnegieFoundation report, and philosophy is increasingly cited as one possible new source of inspiration.Top leadership training, executive education as well as coaching have long revisited philosophy torethink management education. Today Business Schools are urged to become Business Universitiesconnecting both graduate and undergraduate business education to the humanities and philosophy.Are there limits to such philosophy stretching? What is a fruitful “use” and what “abuses” shouldbe avoided?For Copenhagen Business School, a Danish Business University connecting business educationwith philosophy, Søren Kierkegaard, one of the most “stretched philosophers,” is impossible toavoid. Kierkegaard is referred to in management, business administration, organizational studiesand leadership. Kierkegaard’s thought pragmatically fuels a wide range of intellectual programs inelds such as philosophy, theology, religious studies, psychology and political science. His emphasison human freedom, choice and responsibility has led to him being co-opted by the existentialists,who hailed him as one of the forerunners of their movement. This, in turn, may easily turn him intoa guru for individual development in a human resource context. His reections on ethics, art andaesthetics echo recent ideas in the theory of organizations. Similarly, his use of irony, pseudonymsand different literary voices has been seen as an early form of the postmodernist dogmas of thedeath of the author or the deferment of meaning. Likewise his views about individual action andsociety have been an inspiration for thinkers with very different views from both ends of the politicalspectrum.The conference wants to examine various “uses” of Kierkegaard, some of which have been calledinto question as “abuses” by scholars who, trying to restore Kierkegaard to his original context,have pointed out important distortions of his thinking that have been made by those wishing toappropriate him for their own set purposes. Yet the study of Kierkegaard cannot be limited to achapter in the history of thought. How then can Kierkegaard inspire new thinking in contemporaryelds? What are the truly fruitful uses and interpretations of his thought? By focusing on the specialcase of Kierkegaard, Copenhagen Business School wishes this conference to provide a better generalunderstanding for how to integrate humanities and philosophy into tomorrow’s business curriculumby both constructive uses and creative abuses.The Conference is sponsored by The Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy,Copenhagen Business School, The Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University ofCopenhagen, the Danish Society for Education and Business and The Danish Council forIndependent Research: Humanities.2