ABSTRACT
Philosophical assumptions have always had a significant coordinating function in the development of distinctive positions in educational administration. For the writers of the Theory Movement, educational administration owes much more to administrative studies than to educational theory. Discussions of administrative theory usually begin with a recounting of the advantages of theory for practice. The connection between symbols, cognition and organisational design has been the major preoccupation of Herbert Simon, without doubt the most influential theorist of administrative studies during the past fifty. Controversy over values often reflects the sheer complexity of many moral issues, especially in applied fields such as medicine, law, education, or administration. In Simon’s work, understanding administratively relevant human subjectivity is a matter of developing a psychologically realistic account of human rationality. However, Simon’s models have all been within the symbolic paradigm and hence within a correspondingly narrow view of rationality.
