Shimon Naveh’s Concept of Mētis

Shimon Naveh is a former General in the Israeli Defence Forces. What makes him interesting is that he has applied continental philosophy like Deleuze and Foucault to warfare. The other part that makes him interesting is this slideshow where he visualizes the structure of Mētis [1]. He explains Mētis as a “mental system” for Generalship, which comes across similar to John Boyd’s survivor attributes and Robert Greene’s “way of seeing“.

All three of these authors have outlined a set of attributes needed to outwit and out-compete other human beings.

The first slide that introduces the concept lists four attributes:

1. Modesty
2. Heresy
3. Skepticism
4. Idealism

The slide itself is this:

He then has a second slide that has an indepth description of what Mētis is:

 

The next slide has the four attributes, and their sub-attributes.

It’s a nice thinking framework that fits in very well with Boyd & Greene’s works. 

Notes

(1) Naveh has a great selection of books at the end of the slideshow. He has listed jumping straight into Deleuze and Guattari’s books, but this is like suggesting someone who wants to learn math jumping straight into calculus without having done trig or algebra. Not that I’m being snobbish about it, but their works are confusing for first time readers. I’d recommend starting with Manuel De Landa. His books are readable, and he is heavily influenced by Deleuze and Guattari. War in the Age of Intelligent Machines is good, but if you want a clear explanation of what Deleuze is about then I’d suggest “Intensive Science & Virtual philosophy.” It was written with the intent of explaining Deleuze’s concepts to scientists and non-philosophers. Then I’d read Deleuze’s “Dialogues” by Claire Parnet. It is (surprisingly) clear as well, and explains Deleuze’s main concepts. From there just jump into whatever chapters in Deleuze & Guattari’s books look interesting too you (I believe they once explained in an interview that is how they wanted them read. A rhizomic reading process for philosophers with ADHD). I’d also check out the limited information out there on the pre-Socratic philosopher Heraclitus. He is (again, suprisingly) very similar to Deleuze in his talks of flows etc.

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~ by D on April 18, 2009.