Positioning, Role, and Participatory Organization: Toward a Theory of Role-Based Participatory Transparency
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) September 18, 2026 DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.21820129 (opens in new tab)
Study at a glance
AI-extracted from the abstract| Characteristics | Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed |
|---|---|
| Key points | Proposes that empathy, belonging, alienation, and felt agency depend on an agent's organizational positioning — Position, Perspective, Participation, and Role — rather than on the bare facts of a situation, and argues that prediction is a residual cognitive strategy within a broader "cognitive toolbox" rather than the primary mode of cognition. |
Abstract
This paper extends the Organizational Phenomenology framework by developing Positioning as a multidimensional variable — Position, Perspective, Participation, and Role, with Commitment and Responsibility as its projections — that modulates the phenomenal character of experience. It proposes Role-Based Participatory Transparency (RBPT): the thesis that empathy, belonging, alienation, and felt agency track an agent's organizational positioning rather than the bare facts of a situation. The paper reframes prediction as a residual cognitive strategy rather than the primary mode of cognition, situates this within a broader "cognitive toolbox," offers a speculative account of feeling as the tone of an agent's participatory bonds, and completes a five-level account of the meta-problem of consciousness.