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Human and Organizational Factors in Nuclear Safety
The description of the two incidents examined closely in the study further
illustrates the complex combination of singular events that can threaten the
safety of nuclear facilities. In one sense, the difficulty in anticipating and
controlling such situations was already present in Aristotelian thinking, through
the phronesis concept (prudence or practical wisdom): “The ground for
prudence is … the contingent which, when it affects us, is called
chance
”
279
. To
Aristotle, prudence is neither science nor art; it is a virtue. “Virtue consists in
acting according to the golden mean, and the ...