Stances, Paradigms, Personae

Abstract

This paper argues that paradigmatic thinking in organization studies has failed to treat personhood as a central problematic within the research enterprise and that this oversight underlies a number of seemingly intractable field-level problems. We emphasise the centrality of personhood to the development and exercise of knowledge via three distinct but complementary projects: Ian Hunter’s investigation into ‘the moment of theory’, Pierre Hadot’s exposition of ‘philosophy as a way of life’, and Bas Van Fraassen’s reconceptualization of philosophical positions as ‘stances’. The notion of ‘stance’ provides a means for assimilating and differentiating otherwise distinct paradigms and thereby circumvents debates about paradigm incommensurability or the theory-practice dualism. Rather, the shift from ‘paradigms’ to ‘stances’ enables us to re-classify the field of organizational analysis according to new values-based criteria such that practical relevance and ethical seriousness can be restored.