|
Author
|
Topic: Theory
|
Mandos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 888
|
posted 05 September 2003 01:38 PM
Something I've been meaning to ask. What, exactly, is "theory"? I know that "music theory"--as I have been educated in it, albeit not to a very high level--is essentially a formalization of what people, after experience, have decided sounds good/makes musical sense. I know that mathematical theories are formalizations of what people claim can be proven in this universe involving symbols and numbers. Linguistic theory, as I study it, is a set of explanations about how some sentences exist in human language and not others and (perhaps) how these sentences interact with other aspects of human cognition/behaviour. All of these theories have something in common in that they involve an attempt at a consistent formalism and, crucially, some form of perhaps-ambiguous distinguishing mechanism between "better" and "worse" theory.But then there is this other use of "theory" that I have so far taken for granted whose limits I have not yet seen defined. "Social theory," for instance, and I guess I've seen it in other places. How does one delimit the use of this "theory" from the former use of theory? Is there some attempt at a consistent formalism, some agreed-upon way of distinguishing and discarding ideas? (I shall leave issue of the means of agreement for later.)
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
Foxer
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4251
|
posted 05 September 2003 02:05 PM
The word has come to mean a little more than it's original intent. Like most words i guess  .here's the dictionary rundown of possible meanings Etymology: Late Latin theoria, from Greek theOria, from theOrein
Date: 1592
1 : the analysis of a set of facts in their relation to one another
2 : abstract thought : SPECULATION
3 : the general or abstract principles of a body of fact, a science, or an art
4 a : a belief, policy, or procedure proposed or followed as the basis of action b : an ideal or hypothetical set of facts, principles, or circumstances -- often used in the phrase in theory
5 : a plausible or scientifically acceptable general principle or body of principles offered to explain phenomena
6 a : a hypothesis assumed for the sake of argument or investigation b : an unproved assumption : CONJECTURE c : a body of theorems presenting a concise systematic view of a subject
Basically i think you could sum it up by saying theory represents concepts and thought behind a thing, rather than the thing itself.
From: Vancouver BC | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 05 September 2003 07:40 PM
quote:
equations which represent an idealized reality.
That is a most interesting phrase, zaphod. I wonder whether we could think that it applies to the formalist phase of every discipline. And Mandos: I assume that you are not challenging the study of etymology -- so, um: what does that question mean?
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
Tommy_Paine
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 214
|
posted 08 September 2003 03:19 AM
My understanding is that a "law" describes how something works. A "theory" is an explanation of how something works.For example, we may know the "theory" of evolution is empirically correct, but it will never be a "law". It will always be "theory". Where confusion comes in is the difference the word "theory" means to the scientific community, and the non-scientific community, which uses the word "theory" interchangably with "hypothesis". I've tried very hard to eliminate the word "theory" from my vocabulary when hypothesis is appropriate.
From: The Alley, Behind Montgomery's Tavern | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478
|
posted 08 September 2003 05:31 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Mandos:
skdadl: Are you presupposing that formalism necessarily is just a phase?I am not challenging the study of etymology. I mean to ask whether or not a word means something because there was a first, deliberate use of the word to mean something, or whether or not the word just "happened."
Yes.
I don't know about words just "happening" in the first place. That seems to be what post-modernists claim.  I don't know, and I don't know how we could know. About formalism and phases: In literary history, and in the history of literary history, things run pretty clearly in cycles, it seems to me. We watch the corsi and the ricorsi, as Vico observed. The genuine epics never quite return once a culture is up and running, but their place will be taken in later cycles by the romance. Tragedy, comedy, and satire will just keep cycling on, more or less in order. The same sort of history seems to me to work in literary theory/criticism as well. Formalism is romantic/tragic: that is, it invests a great deal in the newest metaphors, aims to explore them with zeal, and is most creative for that reason. But inevitably, along will come a great comic thinker who can place new metaphors in a much greater whole (that's what comic thinkers do); and then, inevitably, along will come the great ironic thinkers, who will exhaust all the metaphors, take them all apart, paint grey in grey, and make us all wonder whether life can ever begin again ... Until! Oh come, new romantic thinker! Come! Soon!
From: gone | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mandos
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 888
|
posted 08 September 2003 05:43 PM
Hmm. But it seems to me that things like mathematics and physics cannot avoid but being in a formalist phase (as I understand the term "formalism") for ever. Certainly my own field of study is essentially studying formalism itself, what formal systems are, how they work, etc, etc. And in my case I try to apply this to the study of human language.As for etymology and intent, the question about word roots is more complicated, IMO, than a simple yes or no. It's clear that there are words with specific, conscious intent at "lexicogenesis" (a word I just invented now with specific, conscious intent...), but I have difficulty believing that some ancient character one day decided to choose the ancestor of "at" to refer to quite abstract (in that 'at' is a difficult concept to describe/paraphrase/translate) prepositional use we put it today, or some ancestor of this concept.
From: There, there. | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
|
|
batz
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 3824
|
posted 12 September 2003 11:21 AM
I suspect that a theory can be described as a system of internally consistent metaphors based upon axioms derived from some observable phenomenon external to the theory.That is, a theory is an abstraction which allows for the transferrance of meaning such that the consistency of the thing being represented is preserved. A system for expressing the consistency of models, maybe. Interestingly, problems with theories can often be attributed to inconsistencies in the principles that they are based upon, which is kind of a neat way to make new discoveries. Set axioms, for each iteration or
extrapolation, re-evaluate consistency
of axioms, if it breaks, append new axioms and fork, reiterate/reextrapolate until a new fork is reached, or else....? This doesn't give much in the way of whether it is a "good" theory or a "bad" one, but I'd bet it is valid for most purposes.
From: elsewhere | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Email this thread to someone!
