Theorizing and its justification in scholarly work: the role of de dicto and de re claims

Alexander Styhre ()

Chapter 6 in A Pragmatist Theory of Economic Reason, 2025, pp 127-144 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Management studies has been portrayed as a discipline that holds the potential to address the grand challenges that are ahead for late-modern societies and their advanced economies. To address various economic and organizational conditions, theories need to be both bold and inclusive, but also to be substantiated at some point, either on the basis of their logical consistency or their empirical accuracy or applicability. This chapter introduces the concepts of de dicto and de re beliefs to underline that theorizing needs to be premised on both doxastic beliefs and epistemic claims, otherwise the value of new theory is limited. The case of the concept of functional stupidity, introduced to denote a number of cognitive and communicative incapacities in organizations, illustrates the difference between de dicto and de re beliefs, and how claims that pertain to specific rather than general cases play a key justificatory role when advocating new theory.

Keywords: Theorizing; De dicto beliefs; De re beliefs; Inferences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035343911
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