Philosophy of Public Administration

This chapter undertakes the task of defining and delineating the contours of a philosophy of public administration (PA) which may be fit for the problems and challenges of PA in the twenty-first century. Philosophy of PA is identified as a branch of philosophy which is derivative (i.e. it is grounded on foundational areas of philosophy, such as ontology or epistemology or political philosophy) and whose main task is elaborating the research questions in PA that are philosophical in nature, thereby outlining what is distinctively philosophical in PA problems and questions. It is further argued that a philosophy of PA may draw upon one very important strand of philosophical thinking in the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophical tradition which has been fleshed out through very distinctive contributions provided by such philosophers like Francis Bacon, Thomas Hobbes and Giambattista Vico, who coined the expression ‘verum factum est’, that is, what is true in the social world is such because it has been made, we know it because we humans are its maker, we have made it and thereby we are the cause of it. This encapsulates the idea of a maker’s conception of philosophy, which is central to the philosophy of information theorised by Luciano Floridi and which can provide a valuable blueprint for working out a philosophy of PA.