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«Introduction to the Theory of Intersubjective Management» 
Vladimir A. Vittikh

Holons can not only unite (integrate themselves) into composite holons, but, on the contrary, break up (disintegrate). Processes of integration and disintegration of the holons determine evolution of the intersubject system, which must be considered as a developing system (Ackoff 2009 ), always remaining open and uncompleted. The fact is that in processes of realization and regulation of the problem situation, the composition of participants (holons) may not only be changed, but also their agreements, connected with their priorities, guiding lines and requesting solutions tasks, may be corrected. Thus, this is communicative rationality that must predominate in the consciousness of the actors who direct, by their decisions and actions, the development of an intersubjective system, and not the rationality of target which supposes a rigid orientation to a “set from on high” target and plans being subject to a rigorous execution. To illustrate the above-said, let us apply to some examples.

The Volga Automobile Factory (VAZ, abbreviation of Volzhsky Avtomobilny Zavod) in Togliatti was created to manufacture motor-cars under the prices which would appropriate the purchasing capacity of the population, i.e. with the purpose to meet public demand in this kind of industrial goods. In order to conduct economic and technical feasibility as well as production planning studies, an Italian factory which produced the FIAT motor-cars was taken as prototype. As a result, a national automobile factory was designed being a rather close copy of the Italian original; it was clear, prior to the construction of VAZ, what, how and with the use of what resources the production would be organized. Nobody doubted that only a program and target-oriented method of planning and management, requiring a strict execution of established regulations and procedures on each production site would ensure achievement of the given task. The factory was built, the production of motor-cars was mastered, and the products began to flow to consumers. So, if all the surrounding conditions had stayed stable, or were changed by the manner that had been foreseen by the plans, then no problems would have been arisen.

However, since those times the world has been becoming more and more open and dynamic; consumers requirements have been changing, the demand for motor-cars, in virtue of its stochastic nature, has been badly amenable to predictions; the market has begun to receive the manufactured abroad motor-cars, which are in competition with VAZ models, etc. The VAZ production lines needed in modernization, in technical re-equipment, serious problems with personnel arose, etc. But the centralized bureaucratic system, laid already in the basis of the enterprise management at the design stage, turned to be unable to master with this always growing “snowball” of problems.

In the middle of the 90-th, a tentative was undertaken to reform the VAZ management system towards its decentralization: VAZ structural subdivisions were becoming autonomous “business unities”, acquiring a relative independence and freedom of choice in regard of kinds of activity with the purpose to achieve a higher profitability level. In the issue, the economy of the enterprise would have to be much more efficacious. Nevertheless, for the different reasons, this reform was not fated to come true.

Let us examine, as an alternative example, the organization, and more precisely, the self-organization of Silicon Valley in California (USA), which was “engendered” and “cultivated” as an intersubjective (and non bureaucratic) system. It is known from the history of Silicon Valley origins, that in 1937, two graduates of the Stanford University (two actors)—Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard decided to unify the resources in their possession and to found, in the garage in Palo Alto, an office of their company and a small workshop (basic holon) to develop electronic devices. This action gave rise to the development of one of the biggest world companies: the Hewlett-Packard (HP). The Company’s founders didn’t aim to install a production line and to sell any specific devices or equipment, because, first of all, they wanted to create a company of great vitality, the profits of which would derive from the use of achievements of science and new technologies. Therefore, the key role in the Company’s organization and development was played by knowledge (and not by a status position) of the collaborators, by their solidarity (and not by an administrative coercion) and by readiness to harmonize their personal interests with the corporative ones.

The idea to found their proper company was given to Mr. Hewlett and Mr. Packard by the professor of Stanford University Frederick Terman, who, being worried about the mass departure of the University’s graduates (“brain drain”), began to support actively the other Stanford students (potential actors) in their aspiration to found companies not far from the University. As the result, without any “steering” administrative body participation, a network of research and industrial firms started to get formed around the Stanford University, which the journalist Don Hoefler called in 1971 the Silicon Valley. By the way, Frederick Terman is widely credited with being “the father of Silicon Valley”.

The firms (holons) situated on the territory of Silicon Valley, are interacting in a natural manner with each other, getting “integrated” and “disintegrated”, and, as a result of this, a synergetic effect is being created, i.e. birth of new scientific and technological knowledge which is further converted into profits and corporative development.

Thus, Silicon Valley may be considered as an intersubjective system, being developed on the basis of lowrarchy—“from bottom upwards”. Anyhow, it doesn’t mean that there is no place for hierarchy in such a system. Autonomous actors, possessing sufficient freedom, may agree among them to establish hierarchical relationships when the interests of the common cause require it. Nevertheless, the principles of “ideal democracy” formulated by Ackoff ( 2009 ) in his work should be followed herein:

  • everyone among those who may be affected by a decision that is being made must be able to participate directly or indirectly in this decision-making;
  • everyone who possesses authority over the others must be subject to collective authority of the others over him;
  • an individual or a group may do whatever they like provided that it doesn’t affect the interests of other subjects. If this may affect the others, the action must get approved by these latter or by their proxies.

In the same article, Ackoff gives a short description of a “purely” lowrarchical structure of a well known Visa Corporation, which may be considered as an intersubjective system. “Un example of a radically decentralized organization, in which the initial authority rises from below, is given by Visa where its users are its owners. Dee Hock, the founder of Visa Corporation, called this company “an overturned holding”. By contrast with a holding, i.e. one company possessing many other companies, Visa is the company owned by its member banks and other institutes—issuers of Visa cards. They are simultaneously its owners and its users. In many cases, they are also its suppliers. Organizational structure of the Visa Corporation was deliberately designed as a “federative” system, and it comprises series of regional, national and international organizations, each of them having its own members and board of directors. Each organizational level receives its authority not from upper but from lower levels. Decisions are made by votes of boards at various levels, with a two or three months’ cycle of a matter passing through all the levels. For example, the Visa Corporation members voted on the matter of service costs for themselves to all the Visa transactions and to some other payments for additional services. However, the members of the organization are free to decide which Visa product to use, or to leave entirely the Visa system, or to offer a competing product” (Ackoff 2009 ).

2.6 Structure of the Theory of Intersubjective Management

There are following distinctions between the notion of “theory”, adopted in classical natural science, and interpretation of this term which is used with reference to intersubjective management:

1. If the natural scientific theory is aimed to detect and to uselatent forces of Nature, then the theory of intersubjective management is aimed to intellectual and volitional resources of people in the processes of decision-making.

2. Classical scientific rationality, focusing attention on the object, excludes, at theoretical description, everything that relates to the subject and to the means of its activity; thus, the man with the means of observation finds him-self out of the object and outside the theory. Postnonclassical scientific rationality, being a methodological foundation for the theory of intersubjective management, proceeds from the following: a subject, together with means of observation and of activity, performs a cognitive-activity-function, being inside of the object (of the situation), and, correspondingly, a man and means of activity are component parts of the theory.

3. Unlike classical scientific theory dealing with a universal idealized object, the theory of intersubjective management is an ad hoc theory related to a unique idealized object i.e. a situation which is realized and controlled (regulated) by the inside being people i.e.actors.

4. It is admitted that natural scientific knowledge is objectively-true, whereas, in the theory of intersubjective management, the knowledge of actors is subjective or intersubjective. Nevertheless, the fact is not refuted that each actor has a certain reserve of generally admitted objective scientific knowledge he acquired in school, university or throughout his practical life activity.

5. Classical scientific theory is created “for all the time” and is applied (as required) by the theory users for the purpose to solve the emerging before them problems, but the ad hoc theory of intersubjective management is developed and applied by the actors themselves at the pace of situation development, i.e. in real time. Figuratively speaking, actors are “both authors and performers of their own drama which is cognized by them, after all” (Kokhanovsky et al. 2004 ).

Thus, the structure of theory of intersubjective management comprises:

  • heterogeneous actors, endowed with intersubjectuive consciousness and holding on communicative rationality;
  • intersubjective system—a holonic system with developed means of communication, providing possibility to attain mutual understanding of actors in the processes of decision-making to regulate the situation;
  • personal knowledge of each actor, expressing his material world positioned “in the field of view” of the actor prior to emergence of the problem situation (i.e. this is the pre-understanding of the situation) (Vittikh 2005 );
  • intersubjective knowledge—shared and admitted by all actors, realizing themselves to be in a specific situation, results of their agreement and consent on the basis of what principles, rules and norms the decisions to control the situation will be made (i.e. these are achieved agreements about “the rules of the game” in the processes of decision-making).

These agreements are attained by the actors within the framework of the following types of intersubjectivity (Huebner 1996 ).

Semantic intersubjectivity assumes explicitness and common consent with regard to notions and judgments built of them, i.e. they are understood equally by everybody and therefore may be applied in the same way.

Empirical intersubjectivity implies that statements that are based on empirical facts are designated as rationally substantiated. In this case, it is necessary to have possibility to clearly understand these facts, they must without fail be acceptable and recognized by somebody, i.e. well-founded nature of judgments by facts and observation is recognized to be necessary.

Logical intersubjectivity considers as being rationally substantiated such statements which are a result of logical deduction. This also assumes intelligibility, explicitness and overall acceptability.

Operational intersubjectivity proceeds from reproducibility of patterns for actions and reasoning. It is assumed that a certain sequence of actions is always based on this pattern in an explicit, generally and obligatory accepted manner. Single elements of such a technology and their sequence that compose this pattern are understood by everybody in a unique manner and, in principle, can be reproduced in the same form.

Normative intersubjectivity assumes general acceptability of norms and rules of behavior and appraisal. If a certain activity is guided it-self by norms, it is also considered as being rationally substantiated. Although, a norm is at the same time a guide to action and, in operational sense, doesn’t differ often from this latter, nonetheless, the word “norm” is usually associated with specific value preferences.

In conclusion of this section, it should be noted that the above-expounded non-conventional understanding of the term “theory” is in consonance with the ancient (platonic) notion of “theory”, which is contained in the monograph of Losev ( 1969 ). In his opinion, “the Plato’s term of “theory” represents such state of consciousness which has as its object an organized and shaped reality and which designs analytically-synthetically this reality on the basis of direct vision and contemplation. In the other words, we discover in this term a mutual merger of a directly given and of a consciously designed objectivity, so typical for Plato and for the whole Antiquity”. Thus, the Plato’s term of “theory” has nothing to do with the modern European meaning of the word” (Losev 1969 ).

3 On Elaboration and Appliance of the Theory of Intersubjective Management

3.1 Process of Decision-Making with Appliance of the Theory of Intersubjective Management

The theory of intersubjective management, as it was noted in the previous section, is intended to achieve a mutual understanding of heterogeneous actors in the process of decision-making on how to regulate a problem situation; this theory, being elaborated by the actors themselves, plays the role of a peculiar “integration platform”, assisting to converge their positions.

The traditional theory of decision-making (see, e.g. Zub 2010 ) poses no question about any mutual understanding, and this is rather strange, since it is difficult to imagine a more or less satisfactory decision which would be made under such conditions when interested persons didn’t understand each other. More precisely, this question is raised sometimes, but in an absolutely different formulation which assumes that the person who makes the decision is a leader (manager), and all the others are detached observers. Therefore, the text-book (Zub 2010 ) notes that “the decisions made by the leader are under an intent look both of subordinates and of multiple observers… The leader performs the role of a thinker who looks to the future. He must possess vision of prospects of problem situation’s development and explain to the subordinates the interdependence of events”.

Thus, we see here the manifestation of ideology of management oriented towards “the cult of bosses”: leader is the thinker, strategist, master etc, whereas the people around him need to be protected and watched over by the leader, but they-self may not show any initiative. This idea gets, rather often, a curious continuation: if someone is a leader, then it means that he is supposed to be a creative, well-educated, highly professional man, even with an impeccable moral reputation. But, unfortunately, this is not always the case.

The theory of intersubjective management has absolutely different and, in a certain sense, opposed prerequisites. In place of managers, i.e. professional chiefs, we see appearing of united actors, realizing the problem situation and, at the basis of partnership relations, striving to regulate it, observing the attained agreements and resorting to no forcible methods (including administrative coercion). In the quality of actors may appear citizens, representatives of authorities, business and social organizations who may have, as a rule, quite various and contradictory interests.

The representatives of business will strive to get profits even when they participate in any social projects, an official will try to keep his “position in the authority”, providing (accordingly to his official functions) the population with governmental services. Against such a multiple background of aspirations, a match of interests will be most probably a rare exclusion. Thus, diversity becomes a source of conflicts in the processes of decision-making by heterogeneous actors. The question is how to treat the conflicts.

One position is to eradicate conflicts by all possible (political or spiritual) means. “Overcoming of a social conflict, from this point of view, must lead to harmonization of social relationships, to some ideal condition, happy harmony, to a life without struggle. The implementation of ideal of a conflict-free state is transferred, as a rule, to the long-term future and to the afterlife (“City of God”). The more realistic theories of social relationships considers a conflict as a constant and irremovable component of the public life which is, in either event, included into the structure of cooperation (through competition in the common cause, contest and manifestation of initiative)” (New Philosophical Encyclopedia 2010 ).

Thus, another point of view is to regulate conflicts, and not to eradicate them. It is based on the theory of a free society which represents a gathering of a community (and, accordingly, of authorities), united by laws which recognize the right of individuals to be united with those and in such a manner as they like. A model of a free society provides an existence of a multitude of associations, but no one among them is “privileged” and no one has any special moral importance… The theory of free society is a description of conditions under which various modes of lifeco-exist, but not a description of conditions under which they are drawn into a mutual conformity (Kukathas 2011 ). The concept of free society and conflicts regulation is laid into basis of construction of the theory of intersubjective management, which, in its turn, plays a key role in the process of decision-making to regulate a problem situation (Fig. 1). Let us examine the main stages of this process.

Fig. 1

Process of decision-making to regulate a problem situation

3.2 Formation of Intersubjective System

In proportion as they become aware of the problem situation, the heterogeneous actors start to communicate with each other, forming an intersubjective system, within the framework of which they will conduct negotiations about acceptable for everyone way to go out of the arisen situation. Intersubjective system is an open system, having a holonic structure, which, in the terms of the work (Kukathas 2011 ), represents “community” as an association of “partial associations”. Here, we can trace back the similarity of the positions of Koestler ( 1989 ), being the first to suggest to use the notion of “holon” as a basic element of systems organized on the principle of “part—whole”, and Kukathas, who, being based on a similar approach, gave the definition of “community”, by answering an important question, what of common must have people for being considered as a community (Kukathas 2011 ).

The fact is that a community is not only an aggregate of individuals, not only that to which they just belong and of which they are members. The problem consists exactly in the fact that we call communities the most various kinds of human associations. For example, Kukathas examines in Kukathas ( 2011 ) the model of F. Tönnies, “who distinguished a community from an association by the principle that the members of community not only live close by, they have also a certain common origin. Associations may be founded and constructed, but a true community is formed by a natural manner, on the grounds of kinship and family relations, as well as on the grounds of habitats, views and experience. In this sense, one can be a member of a community only if he was born in. And, as far as everything is focused to the question of birth, status and views, but not of an agreement and interests, living in one place is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for existence of a community”.

The other community model of Maclver emphasizes importance of the unity of interests. However, as Kukathas notes, availability of common interests doesn’t convert a group of people into a community. For example, people at a bus stop are interested in a timely arrival of the bus and a well-ordered getting inside, but they don’t become a community because of that. And then, he gives his proper definition of community: “Community represents an aggregate of individuals with common understanding of what, in the framework of this aggregate, refers to the public sphere and what refers to the private one” (Kukathas 2011 ).

Based on this definition and assuming that the intersubjective system is a community, we come to the fact that the actors must agree with each other and recognize the achieved agreements with regard to common interests, but not forgetting about their own interests, i.e. they must have a certain mutual understanding of difference between a public (a group) sphere and a private (an individual) sphere.

A community appears where there is this mutual understanding; it also follows from the above-said that “many varieties of associations, the members of which are dispersed at a large expanse, are still communities” (Kukathas 2011 ). Awareness by each actor of his membership in the community plays a primordial “starting” role in the process of decision-making to regulate a problem situation.

The actors, together with resources they possess, form holons, and the common “preoccupation” that they have recognized, performs a system-forming function when the intersubjective system is self-organizing.

Important is also recognition and understanding of the fact that a man-actor can simultaneously realize him-self in several problem situations and, correspondingly, in several intersubjective systems. For example, resolving any problems in his office, the man can simultaneously be concerned by the state of health of his close relative in the family; therefore he has to share loyalty between these problems, his resources, making a choice: be concentrated on performance of his office tasks or to visit a chemist’s shop, to buy some medicine and to bring it for the sick person. Therefore let us briefly examine the approach to solution of this problem of loyalty conflict, proposed by Kukathas in his Theory of Diversity and Freedom (Kukathas 2011 ).

The author of this theory proceeds from the fact that each man belongs to a multitude of communities and shares loyalty among them. These loyalties clash with each other (in our example, the loyalty related to the office tasks clashes with the loyalty related to the family).

Fundamental principle of a free society is the principle of freedom of associations, and the first conclusion from it isthe principle of freedom to leave association. The second conclusion is the principle of mutual tolerance of associations (Kukathas 2011 ). In contrast to the Plato’s “State/Ship” metaphor, which declares social unity and social hierarchy to be a key to understand the society, the work (Kukathas 2011 ) uses the metaphor of archipelago of diverse communities, existing in the sea of “mutual tolerance. This liberal archipelago represents a community of communities, not generated and not governed by any single authority,although it is a variety of a structure where the authorities act in conformity with the laws, which, by themselves are out of any control by a single authority”.

A free society is supposed to have availability of multitude of authorities, independent of each other, respect of some authorities to independence of others, unwillingness to meddle in their business, while the existence of authorities is supported by readiness of citizens to submit to them. In this way, an authority is understood as the force to which one appeals with the purpose to settle conflicts, when it has been impossible to settle them by another means, e.g. agreements without mediators. Liberalism supposes that no one authority possesses an absolute understanding of matters being the cause of conflicts, but this authority, nevertheless, is needed for the purpose to settle conflicts (Kukathas 2011 ).

So, if we proceed from the principles of free society, the formation of an intersubjective system to regulate a problem situation must come to a creation (on the basis of self-organization) of a community of communities (a composite holon), representing an association of actors (together with resources in their possession),who possess common understanding of what kind of matters, within the framework of this association, shall be regulated jointly, and what kind of matters shall be settled by each actor independently. In order to legalize these accords, actors enter into agreements which share zones of responsibility for adopted decisions. For settlements of eventual conflicts, one or several actors are endowed of lowrarchy-based authority and resources (Ackoff 2009 ), i.e. the “higher” elements of intersubjective system receive authority and resources from the “lower” elements. But determining processes in the intersubjective system are the processes of a non-violent communication of actors, based (according to Habermas) on “solidarity, orienting common will”(New Philosophical Encyclopedia 2010 ). Strictly speaking, there is no upper or lower level in such a system; there is no division for levels at all, “there are only interactive key points of responsibility” (Cloke and Goldsmith 2004 ).

Bureaucratic systems are built on an opposite assumption, supposing that the people are not willing or unable to take responsibility upon them for consequences of their activity. Then, a strict control and hierarchical order are pushed on foreground, requiring that each decision would be repeatedly rechecked by managers of various levels. But such a “guardianship” generates exactly the situation, when “an important part of personnel is not opposed to be ruled by authoritarian managers and are ready to act in the role of unwise children in exchange for a reduced liability” (Cloke and Goldsmith 2004 ). Intersubjectibe systems, on the contrary, are aimed to increase shared liability for common success of the community.

3.3 Actualization of Actors’ Personal Knowledge

Actors aspire to understand the problem situation, i.e. to catch its sense; with all that, each of them has itspre-understanding (Modern Philosophical Dictionary 1998 ; The World Encyclopedia 2001 ; Vittikh 2005 ). Both there is no cognition without knowledge, and there is no understanding without preceded pre-understanding. Pre-understanding, according to Heidegger, makes subjectively painted the understanding, connected with interpretation of any text (Shulga 2004 ). Pre-understanding, expressing objective world of the man, situated in its “field of vision”, as a matter of fact, represents the aggregate ofa priori personal knowledge of the actor(Vittikh 2007 ), on the basis of which he comprehends the sense of the formed situation. In other words, it is just personal knowledge that is actualized (turned out to be mobilized) in the first instance, i.e. the knowledge which the actor acquired before appearance of the problem situation. We may divide this knowledge into verified knowledge and axiological knowledge (Vittikh 2009c ). Scientific researches which are conducted in natural sciences (physics, chemistry, biology etc), have as its results some knowledge, the truth of which is not only alleged, but proved, explained; at the same time, the knowledge’s content doesn’t depend on researchers, and that allows to refer it to the category of objective one. Let us call it verified knowledge.

Side by side with it, an important part of knowledge, acquired, for example, in technical sciences, is applicable only in any specific situations of life and bears a subjective character, though it has a big practical value being intended to satisfy human needs. Such knowledge may be defined as axiological knowledge,accentuating its values in contrast to the truth of verified scientific knowledge. We may also speak about consistency, feasibility, interpretation ability of axiological knowledge, etc.

In other words, classical scientific verified knowledge is not considered to be unique form of knowledge which, in accordance with contemporary conceptions, is determined as information being of social importance and recognized by certain social subjects and by society in whole to be exactly in the capacity of knowledge (The World Encyclopedia 2001 ).

People began to apply axiological knowledge long before they started to acquire verified knowledge. Primitive man was able to orient him-self on the ground, he knew the habits of animals, distinguished the properties of plants, had an idea about human anatomy, etc. All this knowledge was of a big practical value for him. And only somewhere in the 6th century B.C., when the thinkers of Ancient Greece divided the “subject” and the “object”, first notions of verified knowledge and its truth appeared.

Since that, axiological and verified components of the knowledge have been developing simultaneously and not independently but complementing one another. So, for example, creation of fundamentals of mechanics by I. Newton in 17th century was preceded by accumulation of large amount of axiological knowledge, with the aid of which complex building structures were erected, ships and armaments were created etc. On the other hand, mechanics laid grounds for the origin of axiological knowledge, important for the people, practical appliance of which allows, up to now, satisfy more and more increasing needs of the humankind.

It is clear that each individual is able to acquire on his own a restricted amount of personal (both axiological and verified) knowledge. Therefore, colliding with indeterminacy of any formed situation, the man tries to use personal knowledge of other people, each of them having his own pre-understanding of situation. For example, solution of any problem of industrial manufacture may require the knowledge of a process engineer, a power engineer, a financier, an ecologist and many other specialists, examining the problem situation from the positions of their personal professional knowledge. The question is in what extent this knowledge is accessible for surrounding people and how efficiently it is used.

If a personal knowledge is “attached” to its possessor, then its use becomes dependent on “caprices” of an individual right up to refusal to apply it in the processes of decision-making. At the same time, it is very important, in the stage of pre-understanding, to enable each actor to get acquainted with the points of view of his colleagues, and that can be resulted, among any others consequences, in transformation of his proper views on the problem situation. Then, it is necessary “to extract from the subject” this knowledge, to formalize it and to present in a convenient form to the interested actors. These problems are successfully solved by means of ontologie0073 (Smirnov 2012 ). In other words, actualization of personal knowledge of actors can be implemented by elaboration and placement of their personal ontology in computer networks.

3.4 Intersubjective Agreements of Actors

In order to master the situation with concerted efforts, heterogeneous actors must come to an agreement on decision-making principles and on some common “rules of the game” shared by everyone.

Therefore, the theory of intersubjective management, equally with personal knowledge of actors, represented in the form of ontologies, contains intersubjective knowledge, being the result of the actors’ agreements within the framework of semantic, empiric, logic, operational and normative intersubjectivities (Huebner 1996 ) (see section 1.6). This knowledge, as well, is proposed to represent with the aid of ontologies: ontologies of corporative culture, of decision-making, of activity, of facts, normative and legal ontology (Vittikh et al. 2012a ).

Ontology of corporative culture. Intersubjective theory comprises a restricted multitude of actors who must be unified by a common culture, which is frequently named as corporative, since, otherwise, attainment of mutual understanding is extremely difficult (or impossible at all) even in the case when indeterminacy of situation is exceedingly small and it could be settled at the level of local mutual understanding without use of any global structures (for example, normative and legal acts). Semantic intersubjectivity, in this case, involves a common representation and consent of actors in relation to the corporation’s mission, its value priorities and rules of corporative behavior. All that aggregate of appropriate notions and relations among them can be expressed by means of ontology of corporative culture, allowing the partners to conduct a dialogue “in the same language”, understanding each other quickly enough.

Ontology of decision-making. Logical intersubjectivity is associated with achievement of consent between the actors in the logics of decision-making. It is far to mean that we have in mind classical logics based on the sequence of “notion—judgment—conclusion”, since in the hermeneutical logics, for example, it is just the conclusion that becomes primary. The conclusion appears when “indeterminacy, wherein the man discovers himself, requires an immediate decision” (Mikhaylov 2003 ). Logics of decision-making may proceed from democratic or, otherwise, from autocratic principles, etc. Furthermore, one can use in a real life not one but a multitude of logics (Shuman 2004 ). Description of this aggregate in the form on notions and relations will represent ontology of decision-making which must be shared by all the actors who take part in regulating a problem situation.

Ontology of activity. Operational intersubjectivity proceeds from interpretation ability of actions patterns. At the same time, it is supposed that a certain succession of actions (of technologies) is based on this pattern by an obligatorily accessible manner. Separate elements of such technology and their succession, constituting this pattern, are understood by everyone in a unique manner and can be reproduced in the same form. In essence, the question is about “admissible technologies” of activity, which may be used on the basis of a common consent (consensus). The aggregate of these kinds of activity may be represented in the form of ontology of activity including description of technologies with specification of responsibility for their implementation (as it was done, for example, in the work Vittikh et al. 2009a ). Ontology of activity, thus, will not only provide with its regulation, but contribute to the rise of level of actors’ personal responsibility.

Ontology of facts. Empirical intersubjectivity assumes to be necessary the well-founded nature of judgments by facts which must be recognized by all actors who are in the problem situation, as far as, otherwise, mutual understanding becomes problematic. Therefore, elaboration of the ontology of facts becomes significant; these facts must be classified by degree of their trustworthiness: from rumors generating doubts up to precedents allowing using the cases which took place in the past, to justify the decisions one is making in the present time. With all that, ontology doesn’t include, of course, the facts that have taken place, but, in opinion of actors, mustn’t be taken into consideration (by any causes).

Normative and legal ontology. Normative intersubjectivity assumes generally accepted character of norms and rules of behavior or appraisal, in conformity of which can be built a normative and legal ontology, containing an interconnected complex of laws, orders, standards, agreements and other normative regulatory documents which secure regulation of relationships of actors at a certain level of indeterminacy of the situation. If however the degree of indeterminacy of situation rises, exceeding an allowable threshold, new rules of actors’ interaction are elaborated, which transform normative and legal ontology, and it means that a permanent monitoring of normative and legal framework must be arranged. This kind of ontologies, implemented in the form of computerized normative and legal framework of knowledge were used, particularly, at elaboration of regional system of provision of governmental and municipal services in electronic forms to the population of the Samara region, Russia (Vittikh et al. 2009b ).

It is to note that, to attain actors’ intersubjective agreements, elaboration and appliance of appropriate systems of communicative actions’ support is required (Vittikh et al. 2012b ).

3.5 Attainment of Actors’ Mutual Understanding

On the basis of the elaborated theory of intersubjective management, including personal and intersubjective knowledge in the form of ontologies, actors build in common an Ontological Model of Situation (OMS), with the help of which they comprehend the sense of the formed problem situation (Vittikh 2009b ). In contrast to ontologies of a theory, containing abstract notions and relationships between them, OMS describes specific objects of the real world. For example, there are some notions in the railway traffic which are “general” and not bound to an actual situation: route, train, carriage, stage between stations, station, points, engine-driver, traffic controller, etc., but the relationships between them are: relationship of inclusion (carriages form a train),relationship of place (train is on a station or on a stage), relationship of action (traffic controller changes the points position, engine-driver drives the train), etc. (Vittikh 2005 ; Vittikh et al. 2003 ). At the same time, in OMS, the question is about a specific train which is composed of 8 carriages and which follows the route from London to Cambridge, while the problem situation consists in the fact that, in connection with an increase of passengers flow, a demand occurred to introduce an additional high-speed express train and it should be resulted in variation of train schedule on the division between London and Cambridge. OMS includes the description of the railway network composed of stations, stages, trains, engine-drivers with their attributes, as well as conditions and restrictions at schedule forming: traffic safety intervals, availability of unoccupied train crews, priorities and speeds of train traffic, availability of side tracks at the stations to set there the trains under overtaking, etc.

The example, given in Vittikh et al. ( 2003 ), assumes that, on the London-Cambridge division, there are three trains running which depart from London with a five minutes interval. The added express train should run with a higher speed, but it results in “a deadlock situation”, consisting in the fact that the express train can overtake usual local trains on stages between stations, where there is only one main road in the bound direction. Thus, the problem is how to arrange the transit of this train without disturbing the traffic safety.

Safety index is in priority for the traffic controller. At the same time, the railway administration, in connection with variation of traffic schedule due to the added express train, may aspire to gain additional profits from this situation; as for engine-drivers, they aspire to have wages increase. So, OMS will include all this knowledge and data characterizing various points of view of the actors (administrators, traffic controllers, engine-drivers), their subjective understanding of the problem situation.