Theory

Theory

 * Theories are sets of statements that must meet very specific requirements. For a set of sentences to be considered a theory, it must have a certain structure, in particular a set-theoretic structure. From a certain set of axioms (for which no proof is required) and following certain rules of inference (in particular, deduction) we can prove other statements as theorems
 * To see if what happens corresponds to what the theory would predict, we need `corresponding rules'.
 * Focusing on certain features of an object while neglecting others is the typical process involved in abstraction. Of course, choosing a focus raises issues concerning the vantage point of analysis, the level of its generality, and the space-time extension relative to both. Nonetheless, by admitting that a focus is ultimately a context-specific feature, it is not implied that what is out of focus can be assumed away, nor that contextual features exist in isolation
 * For regularities to play their role, events and states of affairs must be emptied of their context-related, but often essential, content. In the end, regularities obtain, but at a price: that of producing only broad generalizations
 * Social phenomena belong to social systems, and social systems are structured processes of interaction
 * In the process of giving meaning to the things, peoples, events and controversies in the world, we are engaged in a theoretical process, explicitly or otherwise. We cannot simply observe the everyday world without giving theoretical meaning to what we are seeing
 * Facts can be accorded a range of different meanings and interpretations depending on which facts are selected and how they are understood, processed and prioritized; depending, more precisely, on the theoretical frame of reference one brings to them.
 * There are fact and truth and reality in the world, but that it is always contingent fact, and that the truth and reality it speaks of are always infused with theoretical and interpretive dimensions
 * Social theories and social-historical processes are reciprocally interconnected. Theories are based upon, grow out of, reflect, and attempt to explain ongoing social events and circumstances. Therefore, there is a sense in which it can be said that social theories are the products of the social and economic circumstances in which they are conceived
 * Illuminate the nature of contemporary controversies in economic theory by examining their historical antecedents
 * A being with unlimited cognitive capacity would have no need of theory, which is a means of economizing on cognition.
 * A theory is a device, located in the space of representations, for simplifying complexity by manipulating symbols instead of phenomena
 * Errors are likely if the internal coherence of the theoretical structure appears to be dependent on the continued exclusion of what may be important in practice
 * the capacity to be surprised by one's observations is a hallmark of good theory

Learning theorizing
Ask:
 * 1) What is the epistemology of the author? How do you know? And how do you think you can know?
 * 2) What is his/her ontology? What is there in the world? Is there something like reality? Does it come about through interactions, or interpretation, or material relations?
 * 3) What is the author's assumption about human nature
 * 4) What is the purpose/goal of the author? Why does he/she actually write what they do?

Revolutionary theory
To be accepted a theory needs to possess five main characteristics: First, it had to attack the central proposition of conservative orthodoxy ... with a new but academically acceptable analysis that reversed the proposition ... Second, the theory had to appear to be new, yet absorb as much as possible of the valid or at least not readily disputable components of existing orthodox theory. In this process, it helps greatly to give old concepts new and confusing names, and to emphasize as crucial analytical steps that have previously been taken as platitudinous ... Third, the new theory had to have the appropriate degree of difficulty to understand ... So that senior academic colleagues would find it neither easy nor worthwhile to study, so that they would waste their efforts on peripheral theoretical issues, and so offer themselves as easy marks for criticism and dismissal by their younger and hungrier colleagues. At the same time the new theory had to appear both difficult enough to challenge the intellectual interest of younger colleagues and students, but actually easy enough for them to master adequately with sufficient investment of intellectual endeavor ... Fourth, the new theory had to offer to the more gifted and less opportunistic scholars a new methodology more appealing than those currently available ... Finally, (it had to offer) an important empirical relationship ... to measure (Johnson, 1971

Ontology
Ontology is concerned with what one considers to be the fundamental elements of the world. Epistemology is concerned with the question of how we come to know what we know about these fundamental elements. From this position one can make decisions about one’s methodological preferences: how we illustrate that our ontological premise is correct.

Epistemology

 * Descriptive: a statement that describes how something is or could be, without evaluation
 * Normative: expression of an evaluation; an (oftentimes) implicit assessment relative to some standard or ideal
 * Not the facts themselves constitute science, but the method of elaborating them
 * Science is characterized by "systematizing", "coordinating", "organizing"
 * The process of scientific thinking is as an adaptation of thoughts to facts and of thoughts to thoughts
 * The original method of science is the "classification" of facts, which does not mean a mere collection of facts, but their "systematic connection"

Teleology

 * (as opposed to causality): according to which everything in the world is subject to certain purposes. The conception of a goal presupposes the conception of some one who sets this goal as a goal, i.e., who sets it consciously.
 * There is no such thing as a purpose apart from him who conceives the purpose. A purpose is an idea which can be associated only with conscious living creatures, having desires, representing these desires to them selves as goals, and aspiring to the realization of these desires (in other words, to "approach" a certain "goal").
 * The universe has been conceived as a product of the creative will which appropriately enough gives serious attention to fixing the goals it has in mind, its "divine plan".
 * The causality in phenomena has been taken to be an expression of this divine will. The teleological standpoint is based on religion. In its origin, this standpoint is a crude and barbarous transfer of the earthly relations of slavery and submission, on the one hand, and domination on the other, to the universe as a whole. It fundamentally contradicts a scientific explanation, and is based on faith alone.
 * A causal system is a set of interlocking causal mechanisms with certain features. Teleological causal systems include feedback mechanisms (which produce adjustment or equilibration such that the system maintains itself or progresses toward a goal that is built into the system). These systems can be characterized as purposive or end-seeking or teleological. But “teleology” does not, so to speak, reside in the mechanisms as social purposes were once thought to reside in the group mind or in a collective “intelligence.” End-seeking is a property that adds no explanatory content – everything that happens does so because of the arrangement of causal mechanisms such as the feedback mechanisms that do the work of directing the system toward the end state. The “ends” are a consequence of the arrangement of mechanisms, rather than something that adds predictive power or explanatory force to the explanation.
 * For example, if an attitude or practice is defined as racist because of its effects, the explanation becomes circular, or true by definition: racism is whatever produces racist effects.