Appreciative Philosophy:  The Emerging Context and the Transformative Power of Co-creation

Appreciative Inquiry, positive psychology, the movement toward strength based processes in business, new insights into leadership, and the application of broader notions of intelligence are early indications of a paradigm shift grounded in social constructionist theories.  This dissertation will examine the emergence of Appreciative Philosophy as the context for the affirmative, post-modern stance in the social sciences.  Appreciative Philosophy is an ongoing co-creation by a community of practitioners, who are using Appreciative Inquiry, and other strength based processes in their work. In the Appreciative Inquiry process, co-creation refers to the social construction of meaningful outcomes through dialogue among representative stakeholders. This paper will posit “appreciative theology”.  Western Judeo-Christian religious understanding and experience has been lodged in the philosophies of Plato, and Aristotle, both being primarily concerned with the deficits of human beings, and the world.  Appreciative Philosophy shifts the view toward the strengths and positive qualities of “being.” Through the lens of Appreciative Philosophy, appreciative theology reveals Co-Creation emerging as the collaborative Divine/Human life-giving energy that catalyzes and powers transformation.  The paper will posit an “appreciative theology” that is grounded in Appreciative Philosophy, and in particular, examine how Co-creation impacts the areas of sustainability and leadership.

The research method to affirm and define an emerging Appreciative Philosophy will be to develop an appreciative set of questions, which the shared learning and dialogue of the AI Commons and the AI list serve, will answer.  Not as conscious questions and answers formally asked of users of the AI Commons and list serve, rather the questions will be used to narrow the field, and the answers will derive from an examination of experience and conversation among users, unfettered by the boundaries and expectations of the questions.  The same set of questions will be asked of the AI Commons archives, for the years 2006, and 2007.

Once Appreciative Philosophy is established, the emergent appreciative theology will be articulated as a new way to understand Co-Creation as a shared endeavor of the Divine and Human Beings, and will be applied to further the discussion of sustainability and leadership.