CONCEPT
Phronesis (Flyvbjerg's Reading)
The Aristotelian virtue of practical wisdom — knowledge of how to act well in particular situations — which Flyvbjerg has spent thirty years rehabilitating from philosophical obscurity into the central concept of his life's work and which now names the specific capacity AI systems structurally cannot possess.
Phronesis is the third intellectual virtue in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, distinct from episteme (scientific knowledge) and techne (craft knowledge). Where episteme concerns universal truths and techne concerns rule-governed making, phronesis concerns particular judgment — the knowledge of what should be done in this situation, with these stakes, for these people, under these constraints. Flyvbjerg has devoted his career to rehabilitating phronesis from philosophical marginalization to what he argues is its rightful place at the center of social science and institutional design. His 2001 book Making Social Science Matter mounted the foundational argument: the social sciences' century-long attempt to produce episteme about human affairs has failed, and phronesis is the form of knowledge best suited to the phenomena they study. The AI transition has made this argument operationally urgent.
