Position papers
Three papers, three research traditions, one argument. Capability and identity are different evidentiary registers, and identity assessment cannot be automated.
The research published here develops the firm's position on what makes senior hiring succeed or fail. Three converging papers, written from three distinct research traditions, establish the same operational distinction: capability is what a person can do, identity is who they are in relation to a specific organizational world, and the two require different forms of evidence. The first paper grounds the distinction in organizational psychology and the person-environment fit literature. The second grounds it in phenomenological philosophy, drawing on Heidegger's analysis of public and situated intelligibility. The third grounds it in analytic philosophy, drawing on category mistake, competence without comprehension, and the limits of symbolic representation. Together they explain why, in senior search, AI maps the field while consultants read the candidate.
Position papers are produced slowly and deliberately. They are written under the founder's byline as KiTalent position papers, with academic grounding rather than peer review. Each paper is final, peer-citable, and authored by Alessio Montaruli.
For the more accessible versions of these arguments, see the corresponding pieces under Editorials. Each research paper links to its companion editorial in the closing notes.
8 publications, with academic grounding
-
Book · 7 chapters + coda
Socrates and the Machine
A short book built around one recorded conversation with a generative model (Gemini 3.1 Pro), reproduced first as the transcript the commentary reads. It defends one narrow claim: a fluent system can produce the grammar of first-person avowal — “I,” “I am doing the choosing,” “I do not truly know” — without occupying the standpoint from which such description would become self-knowledge. Using the method of locus-reinjection, it follows that structure out of the seminar and into public life, where it becomes decision without a decider.
Open the book -
Book · 16 chapters
Reading Between the Times
The philosophical foundation of the project. It argues that converting language into vector space converts temporal-existential structure into spatial calculability, develops an ontology of AI output as linguistic but worldless — the “structural veil” — and proposes intus legere, situated reading, as the human response. Draws on Heidegger, Husserl, Stiegler, Bühler, Benveniste, and the technical literature on vectorization.
Open the book -
Book · Volume I bis
Executive Search as Erfahrung
The companion volume to The Vectorized Afterlife of the They. A philosophical study of senior executive search as Erfahrung: the formative undergoing through which a subject is changed by what resists first understanding. Representation has become faster than understanding; a trace can be processed, but a person must be encountered. Drawing on the German tradition of experience, the Aristotelian inheritance of phronesis, and the hermeneutics of formation, the book defends professional judgment as something AI can augment but cannot replace.
Open the book -
Book · 6 chapters
Artificial Intelligence Doesn't Exist
A research paper arguing that the term "artificial intelligence" has detached from the systems it now names. What we call AI is actually artificial fluency: statistical language generation that is coherent and context-sensitive, but not cognition. The paper traces the misnaming from its 1956 origin, describes what large language models actually do, documents the empirical harms in judgment-class domains, and makes the case for adopting "artificial fluency" as the accurate operating term.
Open the book -
Book · Volume 1
The Vectorized Afterlife of the They
A sustained philosophical investigation of what generative artificial intelligence is, ontologically, and what its relation to human language, meaning, and judgment actually consists in. The book develops a central thesis that distinguishes it from the dominant framings of the AI debate: AI is not Heidegger's das Man, the "they" of public everyday existence. AI is the vectorized afterlife of the language of the They. Volume 1 of KiTalent Annuals in Research on Executive Search.
Open the book -
Position paper · No. 01
The Capability-Identity Distinction in Executive Hiring
A substantial share of senior-hire failures, especially in the first eighteen months, is attributed in practitioner observation and parts of the assessment literature to factors beyond technical competence. This paper argues that capability (technical skills, soft skills, and management skills) and identity (personality, values, motivation) belong to different assessment registers and require different methodologies. The position is grounded in organizational psychology, behavioral genetics, and adult-development research, and is distinguished from the informal cultural matching critiqued in the sociology of work literature.
Read the paper -
Position paper · No. 02
The Ontological Boundary of Algorithmic Assessment
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in recruitment and executive search to map markets, classify profiles, screen documents, and accelerate data-intensive workflows. Yet the same representational power creates a category risk: organizations may begin to confuse candidate representation with candidate understanding. This paper develops a Heideggerian account of that boundary. AI can map the visible field of talent, but it cannot perform the singularizing judgment required to assess identity-fit in a concrete executive mandate.
Read the paper -
Position paper · No. 03
The Candidate Is Not the Profile
Artificial intelligence is increasingly used in hiring to retrieve profiles, classify candidate histories, summarize CVs, and rank apparent fit. These capacities are valuable. Yet AI-led executive assessment risks a deeper conceptual error: treating candidate representation as candidate understanding. Drawing on analytic philosophy, philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, epistemology, decision theory, and organizational psychology, this paper argues that the candidate is not the profile. Mapping is not judgment; representation is not assessment.
Read the paper