A major American pragmatist educated at Harvard, Lewis taught at the University of California from 1911 to 1919 and at Harvard from 1920 until his retirement in 1953. Known as the father of modern modal logic and as a proponent of the given in epistemology, he also was an influential figure in value theory and ethics.
Mind And The World Order: Outline Of A Theory Of Knowledge, by Clarence Irving Lewis
Dr. Deming was greatly influenced by Lewis’s writings about the relationship between information, experience, theory and knowledge. The importance of operational definitions and the fact that there is no “true value” for anything that you measure are concepts from this book. The importance of the theory of knowledge to management was an outgrowth of Deming’s reading of this book in the 1930s.
The book is not an easy read. Some knowledge of basic philosophical thought would be helpful before reading this book. Dr. Walter Shewhart recommended Lewis’s book to Deming. Dr. Deming reported that he had to read it a number of times before he understood it. His recommendation was to start at Chapter 6.
Links:
http://www.iep.utm.edu/l/lewisci.htm
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