Document Type : Original Article
Highlights
Extended abstract
Background and Purpose
Contemporary organizations operate under conditions of complexity, ambiguity, rapid change, uncertainty, and multidimensional crises. Financial scandals, ethical failures, declining public trust, environmental challenges, and the growing complexity of organizational problems demonstrate the limitations of approaches based solely on technical expertise, instrumental rationality, and predetermined rules. In such circumstances, leadership requires more than theoretical knowledge or technical skills; it requires the capacity to recognize what ought to be done in a particular situation and to translate sound judgment into appropriate action. This capacity is commonly discussed in contemporary organizational studies through the concept of phronesis, or practical wisdom (Aristotle, 2009; Nonaka & Toyama, 2007; Shotter & Tsoukas, 2014).
The present study examines practical wisdom as a foundation for crisis leadership, with particular emphasis on the virtue of courage. Its central purpose is to clarify the relationship between practical reason (al-ʿaql al-ʿamali) in Islamic philosophy and Aristotelian phronesis, as well as its contemporary interpretation in organizational studies, particularly in the work of Küpers and Pauleen (2013). The study seeks to answer two interrelated questions: first, whether practical reason in Islamic philosophy can be regarded as equivalent to Aristotelian phronesis; and second, how the distinctive functions of practical reason in Islamic philosophy can provide a more comprehensive account of wise courage and leadership in crisis situations.
Theoretical Framework
Aristotle distinguishes among episteme, techne, and phronesis. Whereas episteme concerns universal theoretical knowledge and techne concerns production and technical skill, phronesis is concerned with appropriate action in particular and changing circumstances (Aristotle, 2009). Contemporary interpretations emphasize that practical wisdom cannot be reduced to a predetermined set of rules or techniques. Rather, it involves situated judgment, ethical discernment, experience, and the transformation of judgment into praxis (Flyvbjerg, 2001; Kemmis, 2012; Küpers & Pauleen, 2013).
Islamic philosophy contains a rich conceptual framework for understanding this relationship through the distinction between theoretical and practical reason. In Avicenna’s account, theoretical reason concerns the apprehension of universal truths, whereas practical reason is concerned with particular human actions and, importantly, functions as a principle that moves bodily powers toward action or restraint (Avicenna, 1364/1985). Bahmanyār further distinguishes between practical wisdom as a branch of philosophical knowledge concerned with general principles of action and practical reason as the faculty that applies those principles to particular and changing circumstances (Bahmanyār, 1375/1996). Thus, practical reason in the Islamic philosophical tradition is not merely a cognitive capacity for situational judgment; it also has a motivational function that connects cognition with action.
Mullā Ṣadrā develops this distinction within the framework of substantial motion and the existential development of the human soul. Practical reason is consequently related not only to the management of action and bodily powers but also to moral cultivation and the perfection of the soul (Mullā Ṣadrā, 1410 AH). This dimension constitutes an important distinction between Islamic practical reason and narrower interpretations of phronesis.
Methodology
This research is a philosophical study conducted within the tradition of applied philosophy. It employs conceptual analysis, rational reconstruction, and normative reasoning. Primary philosophical sources, particularly the works of Avicenna, Bahmanyār, Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, and Mullā Ṣadrā, are examined alongside Aristotelian Nicomachean Ethics and contemporary literature on practical wisdom and organizational leadership. The interpretations of Küpers and Pauleen (2013), Nonaka and Toyama (2007), Flyvbjerg (2001), and Kemmis (2012) provide the contemporary framework for comparison. The contemporary exposition of Ayatollah Javadi Amoli is used as a secondary interpretive source for explaining selected aspects of the Islamic philosophical tradition rather than as an independent substitute for the views of the classical philosophers.
Findings
The findings indicate substantial conceptual overlap between Islamic practical reason and phronesis at three levels. First, both emphasize the recognition of particular and changing circumstances and reject the mechanical application of universal rules. Second, both connect sound judgment with virtue, ethical responsibility, and the common good. Third, both require the transformation of judgment into concrete action or praxis. Nevertheless, the two concepts should not be regarded as synonymous.
The principal distinction concerns the psychological and functional structure of practical reason in Islamic philosophy. In Avicenna’s account, practical reason is both perceptive and motivational: it recognizes the appropriate particular action and moves the relevant bodily powers toward its realization. In Mullā Ṣadrā’s philosophy, this practical function is further connected to the ethical cultivation and existential perfection of the soul. Accordingly, Islamic practical reason provides a more extensive account of the transition from knowledge to action by incorporating cognition, motivation, regulation of the faculties, and moral self-cultivation.
This distinction becomes particularly significant in understanding courage. In the philosophical ethics of the Islamic tradition, courage is the virtue of the irascible faculty (al-quwwa al-ghaḍabiyya) and represents the mean between cowardice and rashness (Ibn Miskawayh, 1375/1996; Ṭūsī, 1373/1994). Cowardice results from the failure to activate the irascible faculty when action is necessary, whereas rashness results from its uncontrolled activation without adequate rational judgment. Courage, by contrast, emerges when practical reason accurately assesses the situation and regulates the irascible faculty according to the requirements of the circumstances.
On this basis, the study proposes a five-stage model of wise decision-making in crisis leadership: (1) apprehension of general principles and values; (2) recognition and assessment of particular circumstances; (3) regulation and restraint of the irascible faculty to prevent rashness; (4) appropriate activation of the irascible faculty to prevent cowardice; and (5) issuance of proportionate action as wise praxis. Courage, therefore, is not merely an emotional disposition or an abstract judgment; it is the practical realization of rational judgment through the appropriate regulation and activation of human powers.
Implications for Crisis Leadership
The proposed framework suggests that effective crisis leadership requires a balance between decisiveness and restraint, courage and prudence, persistence and strategic flexibility. A wise leader does not respond to threats through impulsive and emotionally driven action, nor does fear produce paralysis and inaction. Instead, the leader evaluates general principles, interprets the concrete circumstances, considers capabilities and consequences, regulates emotional responses, and finally selects an action proportionate to the situation.
The conduct of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), as presented in the study, illustrates this form of wise courage through strategic adaptation in circumstances such as the Battle of Uhud, the Battle of the Trench, and the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. These examples demonstrate that courage does not necessarily mean direct confrontation. Depending on the circumstances, it may require resistance, strategic patience, negotiation, restraint, or decisive action. Hence, wise courage is fundamentally contextual and cannot be reduced to a universal behavioral formula.
Conclusion
The study concludes that Islamic practical reason and Aristotelian phronesis share important foundations in situational judgment, virtue, and praxis, but they are not identical. Islamic practical reason possesses additional motivational and, in the Mullā Ṣadrā framework, moral-existential dimensions. This broader conception provides a valuable philosophical basis for understanding courage in crisis leadership. Wise courage can be conceptualized as the capacity to recognize danger accurately, judge the appropriate response, restrain excessive emotional reactions, mobilize action when necessary, and translate ethical judgment into proportionate praxis. Consequently, practical wisdom offers an alternative to purely instrumental and technocratic models of leadership and provides a normative framework for leadership capable of responding to complex crises through ethically grounded, context-sensitive, and courageous action.
Selected References
Aristotle. (2009). The Nicomachean ethics (D. Ross, Trans.; L. Brown, Ed.). Oxford University Press.
Bahmanyār ibn Marzbān. (1375). Al-Taḥṣīl. University of Tehran Press.
Flyvbjerg, B. (2001). Making social science matter: Why social inquiry fails and how it can succeed again. Cambridge University Press.
Ibn Miskawayh, A. ibn M. (1375). Tahdhīb al-akhlāq wa-taṭhīr al-aʿrāq. Zāhidī Publications.
Kemmis, S. (2012). Phronēsis, experience, and the primacy of praxis. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 147–162). Sense Publishing.
Küpers, W., & Pauleen, D. J. (Eds.). (2013). A handbook of practical wisdom: Leadership, organization and integral business practice. Gower Publishing.
Mullā Ṣadrā, M. ibn I. (1410 AH). Al-Ḥikmah al-mutaʿāliyah fī al-asfār al-ʿaqliyyah al-arbaʿah (Vol. 9). Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī.
Nonaka, I., & Toyama, R. (2007). Strategic management as distributed practical wisdom (phronesis). Industrial and Corporate Change, 16(3), 371–394.
Shotter, J., & Tsoukas, H. (2014). Performing phronesis: On the way to engaged judgment. Management Learning, 45(4), 377–396.
Ṭūsī, N. al-Dīn. (1373). Akhlāq-i Nāṣirī. Kharazmi Publications.
