9789147097364

What is theory?

There is no consensus in the social and cultural sciences on what theory is, and that is as it should be; a consensus would be outright dangerous for the diversity of intellectual life.

The volume consists of a multidisciplinary collection of essays that are tied together by a common effort to tell what theory is. These essays are also paired as dialogues between senior and junior researchers from the same or allied disciplines to add a trans-generational dimension to the book’s multidisciplinary approach.

What is theory? has been designed for third year undergraduate students, master’s degree students, and postgraduates in the social sciences and the humanities, but it should be of interest to anyone who has felt that the question of what theory is can be more easily asked than answered.

HERVÉ CORVELLEC is the editor of this book. He is a professor of business administration at the Department of Service Management and Service Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Other contributors come from the disciplines of history of ideas, theory of science, science and technology studies, organization theory, sociology, history, European ethnology, economics, economic methodology, political science, human geography, philosophy, and rhetoric.

What is theory?

The perspectives represented in What is theory? show that theory can be understood as plot, hope, beholding, doxa, heritage, a stalemate, disappointment, personal matter, or family concept. But even if theory can be defined in many ways, it cannot be defined in any one way. Beyond disciplinary and epistemological differences, theory has the steadfast characteristic of being what academics, including students, work with. More than an epistemological matter, the book’s title question is an entry into the dynamics of academic practice.

Hervé Corvellec (ed.)

Answers from the social and cultural sciences

Hervé Corvellec (ed.)

What is theory?

Answers from the social and cultural sciences

”This highly original, lively and refreshing book is more than welcome: it is needed. In a world of social and management sciences where theory is often reduced to some abstract, cold and normative rules that scholars have to blindly cope with, the contributors’ insights, passion and diversity fully restore the creative value of theorizing as a way to grasp, understand and more importantly shape the world.”

Franck Cochoy, Professor of sociology, University of Toulouse “What is theory? is a unique and fascinating endeavour to make sense of theory with the help of those who professionally practice theorizing in social and cultural studies. Hervé Corvellec has organized an inspiring and yes, epic, journey, which he, together with a group of authors from a variety of disciplines embarked upon. Rather than wonder if there is a final answer to the question asked in the title, one may, as I did, happily collect all the artifacts, ideas, and insights that this journey abounds in. Enjoy!”

Monika Kostera, Professor Ordinaria, University of Warsaw ”What is theory? is a fantastic book. Lively and accessible it presents a diverse collection of essays from across the social sciences about how to think with, and think about, theory. Next time anyone tells you they just don’t understand theory, just point them in the direction of this engaging collection.”

Alan Latham, Senior Lecturer, University College London

Best.nr 47-09736-4 Tryck.nr 47-09736-4

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Liber Copenhagen Business School Press

2013-03-07 09.38

What is theory? Answers from the social and cultural sciences ISBN 978-91-47-09736-4 (Sweden) ISBN 978-87-630-0250-9 (Rest of the World) © 2013 by the authors and Liber AB Publisher: Johan Lindgren Editor: Emily Wigelius Cover and graphic design: Nette Lövgren Cover illustration: Mr Dog Dog/Hipopotam studio Typeset: Nette Lövgren Edition 1:1 Repro company: Repro 8 AB, Stockholm Print: China 2013

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À Léa, parce que la théorie, ce n’est pas seulement rester à l’écurie pour panser les chevaux ou étudier les mors, les selles et les harnais.

Contents

Chapter 1.

Why ask what theory is? ........................................................................ 9 HERVÉ CORVELLEC

1. Why theory? ........................................................................................11 2. A multidisciplinary and trans-generational approach ................................12 3. Why this book?.....................................................................................14 4. Eight pairs of chapters and an afterword................................................15 5. Theorizing as practice ..........................................................................21 Chapter 2.

Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory ................................................... 25 SVEN-ERIC LIEDMAN

1. Theory as beholding.............................................................................27 2. Theory, practice, and technique ............................................................29 3. The dream of the exact theory ..............................................................35 4. The human sciences and theory ............................................................41 Chapter 3.

History of ideas at the end of Western dominance ................................ 48 EDDA MANGA

1. The grand narrative..............................................................................50 2. Poststructuralism as a threat ................................................................52 3. Poststructuralism and the postcolonial situation .....................................54 4. De-centering perspectives ....................................................................55 5. Provincializing the history of ideas .........................................................59 Concluding remarks .................................................................................63

Chapter 4.

Looking at theory in theory of science ................................................ 65 M A R G A R E TA H A L L B E R G

1. What is theory within philosophy of science? ...........................................67 2. What is theory outside of philosophy of science? ....................................72 3. What is theory in theory of science? .......................................................74 4. Philosophy and theory of science and why they are not one and the same 75 5. The concept of science ........................................................................79 6. The role of theory in social studies of science .......................................80 Concluding remarks .................................................................................85 Chapter 5.

Theory has no Big Others in Science and Technology Studies (STS) ...... 88 TEREZA STĂ–CKELOVĂ

1. Theory (as explanation) and description .................................................89 2. Theory (as thinking) and data ................................................................91 3. Theory (as disinterestedness) and practice ............................................93 4. Decentering theory ..............................................................................95 Chapter 6.

What social science theory is and what it is not .................................... 99 BARBARA CZARNIAWSKA

1. Some historical precedents ..................................................................99 2. Lessons from the past: what theory is, and what it should and could be..106 3. Theory as plot ...................................................................................107 4. Theorizing: constructing the plot .........................................................117 Chapter 7.

Theory as hope ................................................................................ 119 TOMMY JENSEN

1. Antiessentialism and theory ................................................................119 2. Conversation and engagement ...........................................................122

Chapter 8.

Theory crisis and the necessity of theory – The dilemmas of sociology ................................................................ 130 ELENA ESPOSITO

1. The discovery of social reference .......................................................130 2. Relativity and reflexivity: when theory speaks of itself ............................133 3. Contingency without arbitrariness........................................................136 4. What sociology could do ....................................................................138 5. How sociology works .........................................................................144 Chapter 9.

Theory as disappointment – The dilemmas of history in particular, and on the end of history in general .................................................. 147 SARA EDENHEIM

1. History and theory .............................................................................150 2. The complacent rhetoric of reflexivity .................................................152 3. Theories of contingency and ethics .....................................................157 Chapter 10.

Theory – A personal matter ............................................................... 159 B I L LY E H N A N D O R V A R L Ö F G R E N

1. Life with or without theory...................................................................160 2. Dying theories … ...............................................................................161 3. …and emerging new ones ..................................................................163 4. An “eclectic” tradition .........................................................................165 5. Theory first, or… ...............................................................................168 6. Passions for theory ............................................................................171 7. Emotional challenges .........................................................................176 8. Disciplines, generations, and micro-climates ........................................178 Concluding remarks ...............................................................................179 Chapter 11.

Theory – A professional matter.......................................................... 181 FREDRIK SCHOUG

1. Personal matters and employability .....................................................181 2. Do lawyers and engineers need theory? ...............................................184 3. The study of theory from a pedagogical point of view............................188

Chapter 12.

Economic theory – A critical realist perspective ................................. 193 L A R S PÅ L S S O N S Y L L

1. What should we demand of economic models? .....................................196 2. Two paradigmatic examples ...............................................................203 3. Why neoclassical economic theory is a dead-end .................................211 Concluding remarks ...............................................................................217 Chapter 13.

For theoretical pluralism in economic theory ..................................... 221 FREDRIK HANSEN

1. Nuancing Pålsson Syll’s description of the state of theory in today’s economics ............................................................................................222 2. What kind of realism? .........................................................................225 3. Let’s get pluralistic! ............................................................................228 Chapter 14.

What is theory in political science? .................................................... 231 MORTEN OUGAARD

1. Political theory versus political research...............................................232 2. Political theory ...................................................................................234 3. How sharp a distinction? .....................................................................235 4. Theory and theories in political research ..............................................236 By way of conclusion: theory as a family concept .....................................247 Chapter 15.

For a new vocabulary of theory in political science ............................ 250 MARTIN HALL

1. Language 1: the Hollis and Smith tradition ...........................................251 2. Language 2: the Jackson reply............................................................254 In lieu of a conclusion .............................................................................256

Chapter 16.

Theorizing the earth ......................................................................... 258 R I C H A R D E K A N D M E K O N N E N T E S FA H U N E Y

1. Imperative to theory ...........................................................................261 2. Theoretical/methodological Eurocentrism ............................................264 3. Positivism, the revolution that never was, and human geography ...........267 4. The spatial turn..................................................................................273 5. Down the ontic hole ...........................................................................276 6. Quo Vadis theory? ..............................................................................281 Chapter 17.

The spatial turn within social and cultural studies – Spatial theory as an interdisciplinary praxis .................................................................... 283 L O U I S E FA B I A N

1. Heralding the spatial turn in humanities and social sciences...................285 2. A genealogy of the spatial turn ............................................................286 3. Critical geography .............................................................................290 4. The phenomenological theory of place .................................................291 5. The analysis of spatial practice ...........................................................293 6. When is a turn a turn? ........................................................................295 7. The methods and meta-theoretical insights nurtured by the spatial turn...296 Chapter 18 (Postface).

Walk the line .................................................................................... 299 M AT S R O S E N G R E N

Contributors (in alphabetical order) ..............................................................303 References ................................................................................................309 Index .........................................................................................................328

Chapter 1.

Why ask what theory is?

HERVÉ CORVELLEC

The idea of editing a book on the question “What is theory?” originates in an outburst by a former junior colleague at the end of a busy term to the effect that students do not know what theory is. We were discussing some weak Bachelors’ theses, and she was attributing their weakness to a presumed authorial lack of understanding of what theory is about – with a good added dose of disillusioned generalization.

I had heard this remark before and recognized the argument, so I nodded. But I also kept to myself that I was not actually sure whether I could say what theory was, not on the spot anyway, despite my senior academic status. I came rapidly to the reassuring view that I was unsure whether many of my colleagues could actually say what theory was, even the outraged colleague before me. I went home dogged by a double feeling of cowardice and negligence, at not having admitted my ignorance and at not helping my students to better answer a question that is obviously so central to their studies.

After the protracted process of first getting the idea for this volume accepted and then editing its eighteen chapters, I now know for sure that the question “What is theory?” is a difficult one to answer. The massive effort that the nineteen contributors and I have put into answering it allows me to open this book by claiming that “What is theory?” is not an innocuous question. Instead, it is a destabilizing question that can take academics off guard and unsettle even entrenched convictions. Expecting clear-cut answers from students thus lies somewhere between unfair and uninformed.

The wide-ranging answers provided here, which are only a few of a wealth of possible answers, since they come solely from selected disci9

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

plines in the social and cultural sciences, clearly indicate that theory is something so elusive and multi-faceted that, if you get an answer at all, it is unlikely to be “satisfying”. So many things are labeled “theory,” for so many purposes and from so many intractable epistemological perspectives, that I would bet most academics would consider any answers to the question to be at best incomplete and at worst downright inadequate. Of course, this is true of any of the answers presented here, taken individually. But it is not that theory can be anything and that anything can be theory; rather, it is that theory can refer to so many things (usually not at all physical) and that so many things (again, usually not at all physical) can be labeled theory. There is a fundamental difference between anything and many things, and I would say that the purpose of this volume is to help readers distinguish between many and any views of theory.

With the help of the contributors to this book, I know now that I should have answered my colleague in this vein: It is fully possible that students do not know what theory is, but there are good reasons why.

“What is theory?” is a challenging question that can elicit a wide range of answers, depending on how you ask, whom you ask, when you ask, where you ask, and for what purpose. What matters is that students learn how to orient themselves among the possible answers to the question. Studying theory provides insights into what theory might be, but it is far from certain that these insights can be articulated in a clear-cut formulation of what theory is. Answering the question requires one to go beyond individual theories and delve into a reflexive and critical project that calls into question one’s disciplinary traditions, methodological habits, epistemological preferences, and, possibly, favorite intellectual objects.

To put it plainly, there is no point pouring scorn on anyone who has difficulties saying what theory is. But I am convinced that there is a point to addressing the question systematically, and more often than is usually the case.

10

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

1. Why theory?

Theory is not the exclusive province of academics. “Having a theory” is also characteristic of people convinced that all kinds of conspiracies rule the world, or of people with definite ideas about which queue will move the fastest or how best to grow roses or raise children. Many people have developed theories of their own, and use these to shape their lives. Theory unexpectedly links a scientist such as Archimedes, who shouts “Eureka!”, and football fans who close their eyes, convinced that the ball will miss the net if they watch the player kicking it. This conviction confers a sense of power at having found out how things connect, at knowing, at being in a position to explain, to foresee, and to anticipate the unknown.

One characteristic of academics is that major sections of their work touch on theory, for example, when they teach students how to apply theory, or when they study how to expand on one given theory and challenge another. As Corley and Gioia (2011, p. 12) put it in the opening sentence of a recent article in the Academy of Management Review, a top management research journal: “Theory is the currency of our scholarly realm.” The first sentence of a text is where the authors establish the basis for agreement with their readers, so the claim must be taken as foundational: theory is the key stuff of academic work and life.

More specifically, Alvesson and Sandberg state, also in the opening sentence of an article in the Academy of Management Review: “As researchers, we all want to produce interesting and influential theories” (Alvesson & Sandberg 2011, p. 247). Being acknowledged as an influential theorist is the ultimate sign of academic success, and from this high watermark, success runs downward to being able to theorize, to being able to use theories and being able to understand them. At the top of the theory hierarchy one finds classic thinkers such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Max Weber, or more recent ones such as Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Jörgen Habermas, and Judith Butler, who are all widely acknowledged both inside and outside their original fields.

On the steps beneath these most prestigious theorists, one finds the army of scholars who fill the pages of academic journals and books, 11

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

from the most influential to the most obscure. Doctoral students work hard to plant their feet firmly on the first steps, followed by students who are (ideally) seeking to develop their competence in understanding and working with theory.

It thus makes good sense in academic life to ask “What is theory?,” although one could also ask “What is good theory?,” “How should one make good use of theory?,” or “How does one develop theory?” All these are relevant questions, although not the question being asked here. Allow me to describe the spirit in which I have asked the question, so that it may become clearer why I asked it.

2. A multidisciplinary and trans-generational approach I started by asking a series of senior researchers in various social and cultural science disciplines to provide me with a personal answer to the question “What is theory in your field?” I chose a multidisciplinary set of authors on the assumption that, in different disciplines, theory is conceived of differently and plays different roles. This assumption has largely been confirmed: If the individual answers that I have gathered are at all indicative, theory is understood differently by different disciplines, although there are also many underlying commonalities.

However, this assumption is challenged by Martin Hall (Chapter 11, this volume), who suggests that I should have sought responses from various philosophies of social science rather than from various academic disciplines. Though Hall’s alternative is potentially relevant, my choice of a multidisciplinary set of authors was also intended to let readers see what happens in other academic disciplines. In addition to my main aim of providing answers to the title question of the book, I have an ancillary aim: i.e., to demonstrate the advantages and limits of thinking in multi- and cross-disciplinary terms.

Once the first series of chapters had been written, I then asked a series of junior researchers from the same or allied disciplines in the social and cultural sciences to comment on their elders’ texts. (For the record, I used my own year of birth, 1961, as an arbitrary line of de12

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

marcation between the two populations, though the very late defection of a senior author forced me to alter this age criterion for one chapter.)

These commentary chapters were not intended to be point-by-point critiques of the initial chapters. Instead, they were to be stand-alone pieces which used the texts on which they commented as a launching pad, but with a point of their own to make. The idea is to complement the multidisciplinary approach described above with inter-generational dialogues that enrich answers to the question “What is theory?�

The first series of chapters uses even numbering (Chapter 18, an afterword, is excluded from that series), while the second series of chapters uses odd numbering, starting from Chapter 3.

The contributors to this volume come from a diversity of academic disciplines: the history of ideas, the theory of science, science and technology studies (STS), management, organization theory (my own field), sociology, history, European ethnology, economics, economic methodology, political science, human geography, philosophy, and rhetoric. One could, of course, question the absence of disciplines such as psychology, gender studies, language and literary studies. Likewise, one could challenge the exclusion of engineering or the natural sciences. My answer to that is that exhaustiveness lies beyond the scope of this volume. The present volume provides personal accounts of the status of theory in the fields where its contributors are active, fields that can be either broader or narrower than the disciplines to which they belong. Taken together, these accounts provide a broad set of answers illustrative of the diversity of potential answers to the title question of the book. One does not need to be exhaustive in order to represent such diversity; while diversity is part of the promise of this volume, exhaustiveness is not.

Respecting the diversity of the expressed views and making these views understandable to people from other disciplines has been my motto.1 As a result, the reader is not provided with a uniform definition of theory. Instead, the chapters emphasize various aspects of theory that 1 In particular, I have let the authors decide whether to refer to other texts using footnotes (Oxford style) or in the body of the text (Harvard style), since the use of footnotes versus in-text citations is part of every discipline’s heritage.

All references have been gathered in the reference list, however.

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Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

the contributors find particularly relevant, discussed, controversial, or simply interesting in their fields. The reader is presented with a series of answers to the title question of the book, but what constitutes theory is not the sum of these answers. These answers are not additive. They do not build an overall theoretical framework aimed at providing one definition of theory. Instead, the chapters are deliberately personal, expressing different concerns and emphasizing different aspects of theory.

And the views that they express are not always compatible.

3. Why this book?

Theory is an elusive object of multifaceted academic inquiry, and I contend that this is exactly why the question “What is theory?” is essential to academia. I totally disagree with the claim of Sutton and Staw in the Administrative Science Quarterly, another top management journal, that: Lack of consensus on exactly what theory is may explain why it is so difficult to develop strong theory in the social sciences. (Sutton & Staw 1995, p. 317, emphasis added)

If the contributions to the present volume demonstrate anything, it is that lack of consensus on what theory is itself explains why it is possible to develop strong theory in the social and cultural sciences. One cannot separate the widely-praised diversity of theories from the equally widely-decried diversity of views about what theory is: theories emerge from views about what theory is, and vice versa. Dynamic and diverse answers to the question “What is theory?” are thus a precondition and a consequence of the dynamic and diverse development of theory or theories.

Theory is central to academia because it is an object of endless controversy and imaginative redesign efforts – and the keyword in this sentence is “endless.” As Perelman and Olbrecht-Tyteca (1969/1958) argue, contra Descartes, disagreement is not a sign of error but a sign that the social construction of meaning is ongoing (and, one could add, 14

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

that reality, as the object of theory, changes). Controversy and interrogation regarding the nature of theory are simply signs that academia is working as it should.

Calls for a definite answer to the question “What is theory?” are simply dangerous. They express a dogmatic stance that entails the risk of leading academia into a form of collegial or political control. Such dogmatism recalls the rejection of Edouard Manet and other “Impressionists” by the French Salon officiel of 1863 on the grounds that they did not respect the canons of artistic painting, or the heralding, for ideological reasons, of Trofim Lysenko’s fallacious evolutionary theses by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Theory is a collective quest. Locking the object of this quest into a chest or black box (Latour 1987) would put an end to the quest and eliminate the raison d’être of the people who have joined it. This is why the purpose of this book, in addition to providing answers to the question “What is theory?,” is also to illustrate the importance of this question to academic life and the academic community. I will return to this idea, i.e. that theory is what unites academia. But first, let me introduce the various contributions to this book.

4. Eight pairs of chapters and an afterword The book comprises eight pairs of chapters, preceded by this introductory chapter and followed by an afterword. The first three pairs of chapters present general discussions on how to approach the history of the concept of theory, the relationship between the philosophy of science and the theory of science, and the role of theory users in theory development. The following five pairs of chapters focus more on the status of theory in each author’s discipline(s). However, these also touch on broad issues, such as the relationship between theory and paradox, desire, emotion, employability, realism, epistemology, and spatiality.

Such a structure may evoke comparison between disciplines. However, the various chapters present individual views that are informed by disciplinary differences rather than disciplinary views that are in15

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

formed by individual differences. The contributions are thus not directly comparable.

History of ideas: theory as heritage and theory as critique

In Chapter 2, Sven-Eric Liedman presents a history of the concept of theory that demonstrates how modern and postmodern views of theory are indebted to the ancient Greek view that theory is a form of contemplation, in that contemporary thinkers are either supportive of this view or distance themselves from it. This history also indicates that conceptions of theory have been directly influenced by the intense debates that have taken place since the early 1800s about the nature of science, the two having become inseparable over the years.

In Chapter 3, Edda Manga reflects on the status of theory in the discipline of the history of ideas rather than on the history of theory itself.

She observes that, after the decline of Western colonialism, theoretical reflection has mostly dealt with challenges to the grand narrative of modernity. For her, the dominance of poststructuralism in the field can be explained by the suggestive answers it brings to the question of how to historicize and interpret the European postcolonial heritage, for example, by de-centering and provincializing readings.

Theory of science and science and technology studies (STS): theory as the opposite of philosophy and theory in the absence of a “big other”

In Chapter 4, Margareta Hallberg looks in more detail at the relationships between theory and science. Her chapter underscores the difference between how one conceives of theory in the philosophy of science and in the theory of science. Schematically, the philosophy of science debates whether or not theory should be reduced to an explanation of observable facts scrutinized by scientific method, with a particular interest in the relationships between theory and empirical data, hypotheses, models, and practical scientific technology. In contradistinction, the theory of science adopts a view of theory as a holistic perspective or worldview, but pays distinct attention to methods, concepts, and scientists’ practices and experience. At the core of the difference between the 16

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

two lies the importance accorded to empirical studies of science (i.e., studies of how scientists produce scientific results) and, from that, an approach to science either as an ideal construction that relies on theory, or as an actual practice that makes use of broad theoretical repertoires.

The point is that empirical studies of science have destabilized modernist epistemological dichotomies and left theory without any “Big Other,” claims Tereza Stöckelová in Chapter 5. Science and technology studies demonstrate that one can no longer consider theory to be the opposite of description, data, or practice. Theory is not an ideal which is more or less hidden behind impure practices. Instead, it is something that emerges from the actual engagement of scientists with their object of study, with all the social circumstances and political consequences that this implies.

Management and organization theory: theory as plot and theory as hope

Invoking the heritage of interpretive social theory, in particular the work of Herbert Blumer and Erving Goffman, Barbara Czarniawska defines theory in Chapter 6 as an attempt at a meaningful interpretation of life and the world. For her, the aim of theory is to transfer research results into the reader’s sphere of experience through comparison, reduction, and abstraction. She illustrates her claim with a theory that theories are plots, which is a way both to emphasize that theorizing (redefined as plotting) is a creative effort akin to literary invention, and to demonstrate that the interest of a theory lies in its potential to evoke meaning for the reader.

In Chapter 7, Tommy Jensen challenges what he considers to be one of Czarniawska’s non-explicit assumptions; namely, that the success of a theory/plot rests with its coherence. Considering that coherence can only be imposed on the reader by the author, Jensen takes stock of Richard Rorty to find that Czarniawska contradicts her other claim that the relevance of a theory emerges from the pragmatic use that the reader makes of it. Instead, Jensen advocates the unlimited – and therefore

17

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

deeply hopeful – right of the reader to twist, scar, bend, and even wreck theory/plots.

Sociology and history: theory as stalemate and theory as disappointment

Paradoxically, Elena Esposito observes in Chapter 8 that, whereas theory is increasingly understood as something social, sociological theory remains mired in the difficulties of grasping its social nature. The original reliance of empirical sociology on sociological theory is broken. Reflexivity and relativity have produced a stalemate in a discipline (sociology) which itself is part of the field (society) whose mission it is to study.

To overcome this stalemate, Elena Esposito suggests that paradoxes be taken as starting points instead of dead ends, and that sociology accept and emphasize the social contingency of its theorizing of the social.

Sara Edenheim, herself a historian, observes in Chapter 9 that reflexivity and relativity have created uneasiness with theory in the discipline of history as well. Considering contingency a key, she claims that history as a discipline needs to acknowledge not the contingency of past events, but the contingency of its theorizing of history, or more precisely, the contingency of its theorizing of the contingency of history. In particular, such an acknowledgement would encompass the fact that contingency stands in the way of truly seeing, which is why theory (understood as contemplation) always includes a kind of frustrating disappointment.

European ethnology: theory as personal matter and theory as professional matter

Although they do not use the terms, Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren provide evidence, in Chapter 10, of the contingency or situatedness of how academics understand theory. Starting with their experiences as students of European ethnology at Stockholm University in the 1960s, they recount how they have participated in defining a new approach to theory in cultural analysis – as they re-label their discipline. Eclecticism is characteristic of this approach, which leads to an affective and emotional relationship between researchers and “their” theory or theories.

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Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

Concerning the latter, Ehn and Löfgren emphasize that one should not underestimate the link between theory and emotion.

Similarly, one should not underestimate the link between theory and employability, claims Fredrik Schoug in Chapter 11. To students at all levels, he says: “Learn how to work with whatever theory you like (or love), and this intellectual facility will help you become employable – it is as simple as that.” And to teachers: “This is another reason why you should not give up on teaching theory.”

Economics and economic methodology: theory as models and theory as plural achievement

Economics is a discipline with the avowed ambition of producing theory for the real world. However, it fails in this ambition, asserts Lars Pålsson Syll in Chapter 12, at least as far as the dominant mainstream neoclassical economic theory is concerned. Overly confident in deductivistic Euclidian methodology, neoclassical economic theory lines up series of mathematical models that display elaborate internal consistency but lack clear counterparts in the real world. Such models are at best unhelpful, if not outright harmful, and it is time for economic theory to take a critical realist perspective and explain economic life in depth rather than merely modeling it axiomatically.

The state of economic theory is not as bad as Pålsson Syll describes, retorts Fredrik Hansen in Chapter 13. Looking outside the mainstream neoclassical tradition, one can find numerous economic perspectives that are open to other disciplines and manifest a growing interest in methodological matters. He is confident that theoretical and methodological pluralism will be able to refresh the debate on economic theory, particularly concerning the nature of realism in economic theory, a matter about which Pålsson Syll and Hansen clearly disagree.

Political science: theory as family concept and languages for theory

Morten Ougaard opens Chapter 14 with a conventional distinction in political science. On the one hand, you have political theory that follows a tradition of developing normative views about society and 19

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

considers theory part of its object, while on the other, you have political research that is concerned with describing and analyzing political phenomena as they appear in the “real world,” considering theory to be about its object. The distinction between the two is not always that clear. Ougaard then describes in detail how theory is understood in political research, e.g. as theoretical frameworks or as explanations. He emphasizes that, although there might be no agreement across political science as to what theory is, theory nonetheless functions as a “family concept,” that is, a multidimensional construct to which everyone can relate, even when not agreeing on all of its traits.

In Chapter 15, Martin Hall considers a debate between Hollis and Smith (1994; Hollis 1994) and Jackson (2010) about what theory can be in international relations, a subfield of political science. His purpose is to demonstrate that the terms of this debate offer us languages (or vocabularies) that make it possible to talk about theory, discuss how theories relate to each other, and more generally answer the question “What is theory?” in ways that are richer than mere binaries, such as normative versus explanatory. Hall stresses that one needs adequate languages in order to speak of theory and that such languages transcend disciplinary boundaries.

Human geography: theory as geo-graphy and the spatial turn of theory

In Chapter 16, Ek and Tesfahuney, both geographers, claim that no less than all theory is earth-bound (i.e., geographical). Not only is all theory a view from somewhere, Europe and Greece are implicitly at its core, constituting this “somewhere” par excellence. Theory has also been conceived largely as a form of representation – which is an eminently geographical activity, as any map shows. More generally, theory participates in the geo-graphic project of writing the earth and those who inhabit it. The spatial turn in the social sciences, of which non-representational and post-foundational geography are prominent examples, even reinforces the earth-bound or geographical character of theory as

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Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

it brings out the spatial character of all relationships, not least the relationships between theory and the world, including those who inhabit it.

Louise Fabian claims in Chapter 16 that the spatial turn is a broad experience shared by many social and cultural sciences, linked to the fact that life, cognition, and society – and thus theory – are spatially situated. Theory is more spatial than geographical and this spatiality should be taken seriously, for example, when it comes to the spatiality of language, practices, consciousness, experience, imagination, performance, and ultimately power – all essential ingredients of theory. Such a suggestion supports Edda Manga’s call in Chapter 2 for a de-centering of theory and Sara Edenheim’s call in Chapter 9 for an acknowledgment of the contingency of theory.

Theory as doxa

Finally, in his afterword, Chapter 18, Mats Rosengren, himself a philosopher, invokes a classic sense of theory that has fallen into oblivion, namely, that of a delegation sent by a town to a solemn feast or temple.

Half-ironically comparing academics as a collective to such a procession, he suggests viewing the various meanings that this volume attaches to theory as a mustering of the doxa of theory in the social and cultural sciences. Allow me to say that I would be delighted if this were the case.

5. Theorizing as practice If it is true, as the Swedes say, that a beloved child has many names, then the wealth of names that academics give to theory demonstrates that theory is a beloved child of academia. Plot, hope, doxa, stalemate, heritage, disappointment, personal matter, or family concept – obviously, academics care about theory for many possible reasons, each understanding of theory underlying a reason as to why one should care about theory.

Theory lies at the core of what academics, including students, work with. Theory is one of the favorite objects and celebrated products of 21

Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

academic work. It is the object of dreams and desire as well as a reason for envy and despair. It is also one of the things that keeps academia together, beyond and because of the differences, oppositions, and conflicts existing between disciplines, epistemological paradigms, or the natural, social, and cultural sciences.

Morten Ougaard (Chapter 14) alludes to this aspect of theory when he refers to theory as a “family concept,” as does Mats Rosengren (Chapter 18) when he refers to a procession. Both emphasize that theory functions as social glue in the academic community. There are good reasons to question the modernist opposition between theory and practice, and to present theory as a form of ontological practice and engagement (Stöckelová, Chapter 5), particularly because considering theory as engaged practice (Zundel & Panagiotis 2010) explains the diversity of views of theory presented here.

A practice is not simply something that people do. As Reckwitz (2002, p. 249) puts it: A “practice” (Praktik) is a routinized type of behaviour which consists of several elements, interconnected to one other: forms of bodily activities, forms of mental activities, “things” and their use, a background knowledge in the form of understanding, know-how, states of emotion and motivational knowledge.

Beyond what people do, the notion of practice refers to why, how, when, and with what intentions people do what they do. Moreover, it is because the notion of practice encompasses a broad diversity of components that it explains why theory can simultaneously be so many things.

Understood as a practice, theorizing is something that people in academia engage in emotionally and physically (Ehn and Löfgren, Chapter 10), expressing desire and love, and even painful disappointment (Edenheim, Chapter 9). Theory is a mental construct (Hall, Chapter 15) aimed at producing and conveying meaning (Czarniawska, Chapter 6). It derives from collective mind- and body-based habits and procedures that follow and establish traditions (Liedman, Chapter 2; Hallberg, Chapter 4; Pålsson Syll, Chapter 12; Ougaard, Chapter 14) and

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Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

social norms (Esposito, Chapter 8).2 Theory also provides pragmatic answers to all kinds of problems, challenges, and interrogation (Jensen, Chapter 7), aiming, for example, to solve a plurality of theoretical puzzles (Hansen, Chapter 13) or to simply get people jobs (Schoug, Chapter 11). Theory is the basis for and outcome of engaging with artifacts (Stöckelová, Chapter 5; Ehn and Löfgren, Chapter 10), an aspect of theory that representatives of the experimental sciences would probably have emphasized more than the present contributors do. Being able to theorize is a social signal one sends to one’s environment in order to establish one’s social position (Schoug, Chapter 11), thus constituting a force in the power struggles (Manga, Chapter 3; Edenheim, Chapter 9; Ek and Tesfahuney, Chapter 16) which people engage in for resources and rewards. Finally, theorizing practice is embedded in time (Liedman, Chapter 2; Hallberg, Chapter 4) and space (Ek and Tesfahuney, Chapter 16; Fabian, Chapter 17), as well as in social contexts (Esposito, Chapter 8), intricately interlaced with other social practices such as governing (Ougaard, Chapter 14) or organizing (Czarniawska, Chapter 6).

Considering theory as both an object and a product of practice emphasizes that being in academia means being engaged in many ways with theorizing: creating, developing, but also learning and teaching theories, sometimes to express hope and enthusiasm, sometimes to experience frustration and regret (as did my colleague at the beginning of this chapter). The practice of theorizing lies at the core of academic life, giving theory a central and multifaceted role in this life.

Theory is as glorified and protected as it is challenged and transformed. To conclude, I would like to direct your attention to the converging calls made in this volume to understand theory as something dynamic, that is to say, an invitation to focus on theorizing rather than on theory. The reader is invited to recognize and acknowledge the social conditioning and contingency of theorizing practice and therefore 2 In commenting on a previous version of this text, Tereza Stöckelová acutely observed that we find this advocacy of the importance of the academic collective and of tradition in the even-numbered chapters, written by senior scholars, … (to be continued in footnote 3)

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Chapter 1. Why ask what theory is?

theory (Esposito, Chapter 8); de-center her or his approach to theory (Manga, Chapter 3; Stöckelová, Chapter 5; Edenheim, Chapter 9; Fabian, Chapter 17);3 challenge ruling theoretical hegemonies (Pålsson Syll, Chapter 12; Hall, Chapter 15); bring in new methodologies (Hansen, Chapter 13); and invent new plots (Czarniawska, Chapter 6), even wrecked ones (Jensen, Chapter 7). The object and product of an incessant practice, theory is not something that can be caught and mounted like a butterfly in a box. As the historically oriented contributions in this volume demonstrate (Liedman, Chapter 2; Manga, Chapter 3; Hallberg, Chapter 4), theory is a ceaselessly evolving matter.

Before you continue reading this book, you can take my word for it that it provides no clear-cut answers to the question “What is theory?”.

There will never be such an answer, simply because every new reading of an existing theory, every new use of an existing one, and every effort to develop one, even every new artifact that will be an object of theoretical work, every new political assignment given to academia as an institution, and every societal change that affects the societal place of theory – in a word, every change in the practice of theorizing – automatically entails new claims as to what theory is. Nor is there any opposite to theory (Stöckelová, Chapter 5) – no matter how many de-centerings and inventions academia produces, or how many answers there are to the title question of this book – which is why it is imperative to ponder the possible answers to this fascinating question.

3 (continuation of footnote 2): … whereas Tereza Stöckelová further observed that we find this advocacy of decentering approaches to theory in the odd-numbered chapters, written by junior scholars. I gratefully acknowledge her suggestion that there might be a noteworthy inter-generational difference in the emphasis of senior researchers on tradition and of junior ones on de-centering approaches.

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Chapter 2.

Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory SVEN-ERIC LIEDMAN

“Theōría” is a classical Greek term. According to Liddell and Scott’s Greek–English Lexicon, the word means looking at, viewing, or beholding.4 Initially, a theorist was a person able to reveal the mysteries of existence. This proximity to the mystical and religious did not disappear with the ancient world. Throughout the entire European Middle Ages, and later, the word “theory” retained these connotations.5 Theory is a key word in many respects in Greek philosophy. Some of the most renowned thinkers idealized what they referred to as theōrētikós bios, the theoretical or contemplative life. In his seminal work Early Greek Philosophy,6 John Burnet stressed that the expression never entirely lost its original meaning: “the life of the beholder,” is most clearly illustrated in the Pythagorean school.7 According to the Pythagoreans, the individuals of a society could be compared with those attending the Olympic Games. Some – the lowest – went only to buy and sell goods. Others were participants in the competitions, while the highest were the spectators, who thus played a role equivalent to that of the philosophers in society: the beholders of reality.

4 Lidell, Henry George (1996 [1889]) An intermediate Greek-English lexicon founded upon the seventh edition of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, p. 364.

5 For a short, succinct overview of the concept of theory, see Ritter, Joachim; Gründer, Karlfried & Gottfried Gabriel (eds.) (1998) “Theorie” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 1998, pp. 1128-54. That article was written by G. König, with the section about the twentieth century written in collaboration with H. Pulte.

6 Burnet, John (1930) Early Greek philosophy. London: Adam and Charles Black, pp. 25 & 98.

7 According to Herakleides, it was the founder of the Pythagorean school, Pythagoras himself (who lived in the sixth century B.C.), who first presented this metaphor.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

This trisectioning continued to reverberate throughout later philosophy, not least in the work of Aristotle, who elaborated on it. In his Nichomachean Ethics, he distinguished between three types of individuals. The majority saw good in pleasure, and therefore had no higher aim in life than the satisfaction of pleasure. Aristotle compared such a life with that of an animal – he even called it a violent way to live. Wealth was not good per se, but merely a means to a higher end.

Aristotle saw two other ways of life: a life of politics and a life of contemplation (theōrētikós). Most people who chose politics saw honor as the greatest good. However, renown was not attributable to the individual himself; rather, it was contingent on those who endowed him with it (it was always a “he”; women had nothing to do with politics).

In addition, true good could not be dependent on such external and transient confirmation.

Contemplation, “the theoretical (or beholding) life,” was, according to Aristotle, the only activity that could be loved for its own sake. It had no definite results, unlike all other activities, and thus it was not a means to an end but an end in itself. Politics or war might serve a good purpose, i.e. the establishment of a good society or peace, respectively.

Not only did contemplation not serve an end, it was not to be tiring or agitating either. However, contemplation in itself was not human; it was divine. God, the immovable mover, was eternally blissful in contemplation of the universe. However, according to Aristotle, the human intellect was not merely a passive recipient; it also had an active dimension and, as such, it was also divine, or took part in that which is divine. A philosopher was able to fully exploit this ability and could therefore behold reality precisely as God could. However, this state of ultimate bliss could only be achieved in a transitory way, since the philosopher was, above all, a human being and, as such, subject to all the needs that characterize human beings.8 The tradition of theory as contemplation, beholding, the state of being preoccupied with the essence of existence has survived into our own 8 The idea of the contemplative life is presented in Nicomachean Ethics, Book I, Ch. V and Book X, Ch. V ii and viii: Aristotle’s (2000) Nicomachean ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

times. But before delving into the Greek classical tradition, in which theory is also related to the basic meaning of the verb “to see” but where the focus is actually on the knowledge itself, a little historical retrospect is in order.

1. Theory as beholding Plotinus, usually considered the primary exponent of Neo-Platonism, extended the need and ability to behold the universe as it is beyond the narrow circle of philosophers, and even beyond human beings. Plant life, he asserted, had notions, albeit vague and diffuse, concerning the divine creation of which they were constituent parts.

Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians restrict this ability to mankind, although not to an intellectual elite. In the work of Plotinus, a spiritual, theologically-marked meaning of the word “theory” gained the upper hand. For example, Gregory of Nyssa distinguished between three ways of acquiring knowledge about God. The first was what he referred to as the scientific means, requiring the use of one’s external senses and logic. The second, or exegetic, means required the use of one’s abilities to interpret the sacred texts of the Scriptures, while the third and final means was the mystical contemplation of the supreme good.

Initially, “theōría” was translated into Latin by Cicero as “contemplatio,” and Saint Augustine, the Church Father, wrote in Latin and used the same word to describe the greatest state of human happiness – beholding God. Boëthius, a philosopher who lived around 500 AD, was one of the last of the Latin Christian scholars (for a very long time) who mastered Greek, and he attempted another translation: ”speculatio,” from the Latin “speculum,” for mirror. He was inspired in this respect not by Aristotle, or by any other philosopher for that matter, but by the apostle Paul in his First Corinthians, 13:12: “For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

Although Paul did not use the precise word that the word “theory” emanates from, it is clear that he meant that even the little of God we earthly beings can see is as though we are peering through a glass darkly, even in the most consummate mystical revelation.

During the Middle Ages, most of the work of Aristotle was lost to Western Christianity (with its spiritual center in Rome), remaining inaccessible until contact increased with the Muslim world during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Many of Aristotle’s most important writings were not translated into Latin directly from Greek, but via Arabic. The Arabic influence can be noted in many ways, not least due to an alternative translation of the word “theōría” into the Latin “consideratio,” meaning precisely beholding. The Arabic word for theory is “natharia,” from the verb that denotes seeing or beholding and is thus substantially closer to the original Greek than either “contemplation” or “speculatio.” When knowledge of classical Greek became more common among the well-read, the loan words “theorica” and then “theoria” appeared and became accepted, not only in Latin but also in their respective forms in the languages of the masses, including Italian, French, English, and others. Indeed, they are with us still. This development paved the way for today’s common usage of the word “theory” in both scholarly and everyday language.

However, this does not imply that the tradition of regarding “the theoretical life” in terms of philosophical contemplation or religiousmystical absorption disappeared as an ideal. Both these traditions are still alive and well. Hannah Arendt, the renowned German Jewish philosopher, wrote in her best-known book, The Human Condition (2006 [1958]),9 that, by tradition, contemplation has a higher status than the active, political life. Thus, the ideal of the Greek philosophers has been maintained, both in thinking and in religious life. Arendt contrasts this with the ideal of the constantly active, attentive citizen, always assuming her or his responsibility for what is going on in society.

9 Arendt, Hannah (2006 [1958]) The Human condition (third edition). London: Routledge, pp. 36–46.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

The dream of a life elevated to contemplation also appears in the work of philosophers with a fully contemporary interpretation of theory, far from that of Antiquity. Moritz Schlick, the neopositivist, wrote: The essence of knowing absolutely requires that he who would practice it must betake himself far away from things and to a height far above them, from which he can then view their relations to all other things. Whoever comes close to things and participates in their ways and works, in [sic: is] engaged in living, not in knowing; to him, things display their value aspect, not their nature.10

Contemporary mystics also relate metaphorically to the tradition rooted in classical Greece. One well-known example is the work of American Trappist monk Thomas Merton. In New Seeds of Contemplation (1961), he explained that “contemplation is a kind of spiritual vision to which both reason and faith aspire. Yet contemplation is not vision because it sees ‘without seeing’ and knows ‘without knowing’.”11

2. Theory, practice, and technique There is another aspect of the concept of theory in the work of Aristotle which moves us closer to the pillar of the contemporary notion of what a theory is. In both Metaphysics and Nicomachean Ethics, he distinguished between theoretical, practical, and technical knowledge.

Through theory one could observe reality – beholding – while practice had to do with the relationships between people, and technique dealt with producing or otherwise accomplishing something using one’s craftsmanship.

Theory applied to things we were unable to change: the laws of nature, or the like, to which, according to Aristotle, we could only relate as observers. The stars traversed the firmament, a stone fell to the ground, and we were unable to impact the course of these events. What we were

10 Schlick, Moritz (2002 [1985]) General theory of knowledge (second printing). La Salle, Illinois: Open Court, p. 80.

11 Merton, Thomas (1961). New seeds of contemplation. New York: New Directions Books, p. 1.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

able to do, however, was to investigate it and understand it. That was the way of theory, the way of the onlooker.12 In the above, we come much closer to scientific exploration, particularly of nature. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, upon which Aristotle was highly influential, the notion that knowledge of nature did not offer us any clues to why technical development became dominant. The world of nature was regarded as distinct from all that mankind was able to produce. The entire notion of technical progress was actually completely alien to the Aristotelian way of thinking. Men were only capable of developing the form that was already inherent in the material: clay could be used for the creation of vessels, wood to make tables or chairs, but any further manipulation was inconceivable.

For those who were closer to Plato, things did not look very different.

To Plato himself, nature was as we could observe it, shaped on the basis of eternal, immutable patterns. However, in the work of Plato, the opposition between theory and technique did not appear equally definitive. During the Middle Ages, when scholarly views began to change, the Platonists rather than the Aristotelians were the ones who slowly began to think in new ways.

In the interim, technical development had been considerable. Agriculture, mining, seafaring, and many other sectors had undergone dramatic developments. However, new ways of thinking were also needed if it were to be possible to seriously challenge the view of theory as the observation of nature, which, in principle, would not be influenced.

This change was a gradual one, the first indications of which can be traced back to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; although it was not until the early seventeenth century that it could be described as definitive. In this respect, Francis Bacon took an extreme stand, attacking everything he perceived as untenable but firmly-rooted convictions which alienated mankind from reality. He referred to these convictions as idols. One example of this category was “Idola theatri, sive theori12 The best brief summary of Aristotle’s view of theory contra practice is to be found in an article by Bien, R. (1989).

“Praxis, praktisch” in J. Ritter, & K. Gründer (eds.) Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie (Band 7 P-Q). Basel: Schwabe, column 1277 ff.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

arum,” or the idols of the theater or of theories. According to Bacon, these traditional philosophical theories encouraged people to continue thinking in the old ways, without consulting their own experience, for the simple reason that they had authority on their side. He went on to assert a desire to see all theories done away with because they were constructions, alien to reality.13 However, he himself had previously attempted to establish a theory of the universe. His notion of theory was that it was close to experience, and really just an extrapolation of observations.14 The work of Bacon represents an increasingly powerful opposition to the prevailing traditionalism, in which the authorities of Antiquity were considered impossible to outdo. Bacon, in contrast, considered the ancient Greeks children with childish notions, while the people of the seventeenth century were adults.

Specifically, Bacon represented one type of opposition to traditionalism, whose proponents stressed experience and, not least, practice.

Another type of opposition was represented by those whose holding ground was human reason per se. The most renowned representative of this rationalistic school of thought was René Descartes, whose view was that we could only attain the type of certainty granted to us in mathematics through pure thought, unsullied by prejudice. On the basis of a few given axioms – the most fundamental of which was “Cogito, ergo sum,” the building blocks of the nature of reality could be ascertained.

In one way, the theories of Isaac Newton – particularly his theory of gravity – represented a synthesis of Bacon’s empirical and Descartes’ rationalistic approaches. Newton drew a clear line of demarcation between theory and hypothesis – hypotheses being (at least for the moment) assumptions untested by experience, while theories had to agree with observations. At the same time, Newton’s theory was structured as an axiomatic system totally in line with the demands of mathematics, and of the rationalists. He began with a number of definitions, and went 13 Bacon, Francis (2000 [1620]) The New Organum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

14 Bacon’s Thema coeli (“Theory of the heavens”) was written in 1612 but was only published posthumously, in London in 1653: Bacon, Francis, Edwards, Michael & Rees, Graham. (1996). Philosophical studies: c. 1611 - c. 1619.

Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

on to build up a system of increasingly empirically-rooted conclusions.

Thought and observation appear to have been in harmonious interplay, the rest being precise calculations of the motions of planets and projectiles through the atmosphere.

Newton’s theory, like all his work, left its mark for the foreseeable future on notions of what the ideal theory would be. In one sense, it was a theory that was in agreement with the classical thought of capturing the entire universe, or at least all mechanical movements wherever they took place in the cosmos. And yet, it was not lucid in the way the Greek philosophers conceived that a theory should be. A theory only existed to trigger the imagination in terms of the thesis of absolute space and time, and then only moderately: space was imagined as a huge system of coordinates and time as a straight line extending from the Creation of the world to its destruction.

One of the most significant features of Newton’s theory of gravity was that it made exact predictions possible. For instance, if one had certain specific data, it would be possible to calculate precise projectile orbits. Over time, predictability became one of the hallmarks of exact – and in the view of many philosophers the correct type of – theories.

If predictions turned out to be accurate, this proved the correctness of the theory.

However, the word had other meanings even then. Johan Amos Comenius, a headstrong but brilliant educational reformer, had already attempted to combine theory and practice a generation before Newton, in his great work Didactica Magna. Quite contrary to the Aristotelian order of things, he considered practice superior to theory. In his view, theory merely asked the introductory question in relation to any discipline to be investigated: What? The next phase resulted in the question: Through what? But the decisive question was the one posed by practice: For what? By following this series of questions, one ultimately arrived at the purpose of the efforts, i.e. wisdom. 15

15 Comenius, Johan Amos (1957) Opera didactica omnia: edition anni 1657 lucis ope expressa Commentationes.

Prague: Academia Scientiarum Bohemoslovenica, pp. 84–87.

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It is evident from Comenius’ line of reasoning that he considered the practical to be what Aristotle and many of his followers called technique, although he did not exclude actions between one human being and another, or what soon came to be exclusively considered the sphere of ethics and morality. The original meaning lives on in terms such as “practical philosophy” and “practical reason,” but it is also clear that even Kant – the author of Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1787) – was really writing about practical-technical activities. In other words, even in the work of Kant, practice had snuck up close to the technical or, to put it more correctly, to what is done using hands, tools, or machinery.

As regards theory, Kant was, in one way, more ambivalent. On the one hand, he asserted that a theory could only apply to nature,16 while on the other, he wrote of theories in a much broader sense of the word.

It was in the first sense that during his very early days – long before his great, critical writings – he was able to write his Allgemeine Naturgeschichte und Theorie des Himmels (1755). In it, he depicted the development of the universe, on the one hand, while on the other demonstrating how this development could have taken place in accordance with Newton’s laws of celestial mechanics; it was to these very laws he was referring when he used the word “Theorie” in the title.

Kant wrote about theories in a much broader sense in his “Über den Gemeinspruch: das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis” (Theory and Practice). This title implies that the word “theory” is used in a general sense, in which it refers to a more or less systematic view of an area of direct, practical significance. This is the same way in which Kant uses the word in the article itself: the theory is a collection of “practical rules” that are “thought with a certain genuinity.”17 This broader, or perhaps, more correctly, more ambiguous concept of theory has become the clearly dominant one during more recent centuries. A theory may raise requirements concerning exactitude, and it can also pave the way for precise predictions; in this sense, theories are 16 Kant, Immanuel (1902–1955) Gesammelte Schriften: Herausg. von der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. Berlin: Georg Reiner, p. 217.

17 Kant, Immanuel: “Über den Gemeinspruch: das mag in der Theorie richtig sein, taugt aber nicht für die Praxis,” in I. Kant (1977) Werksausgabe in 12 Bänden. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, p. 127.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

mainly associated with the natural sciences. However, the word “theory” may also be used in a more general sense to mean a well-reasoned way of thinking, preferably based on adequate experience and embracing more or less extensive aspects of reality.

In the tradition immediately following Kant, this diversity becomes evident. For instance, Samuel Maimon, one of Kant’s most astute successors, wrote about a Theorie des Denkens, a theory of thinking in the sense of thinking as self-reflection.18 In the work of Hegel, the concept of theory was used extremely comprehensively. In this respect, he was close to Aristotle in his reasoning, even quoting, in both the second and third editions of his Enzyklopädie der Wissenschaften, Aristotle’s words about theory in the sense of thinking about thinking as an implication of the greatest bliss (quoted by him in Greek and without a translation).19 Theory had to do with the intellect, practice with the will. The practical is even more extensive than the theoretical: the practical basically embraces the theoretical. Thus, according to Hegel, the two are not to be kept separate, as so many other thinkers asserted. Anything at all that may be considered to make up part of the specific content of the practical belongs to what Hegel refers to as the theoretical. One conceives of something perceived to be desirable and then tries to put it into effect through an act of will.20 Marx, who wished to stand the work of Hegel on its head, or rather to stand his idealism on its head, claimed something more along the lines that practice – in the wider sense of mankind’s way of producing the necessities of life and organizing societies – determined theory. He put it simply and clearly in the eighth of his Thesen über Feuerbach (1845): “All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries, which lead theory 18 Samuel Maimon (1794) Versuch einer neuen Logik oder Theorie des Denkens. Berlin.

19 Hegel, Friedrich (2000 [1830]) Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften (third edition). Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. The quotation from Aristotle is from his Metaphysics 1072b 20-23. In Hugh Tredennick’s English translation it reads: “And thought thinks itself through participation in the object of thought, for it becomes an object of thought by the act of apprehension and thinking, so that thought and the object of thought are the same, because that which is receptive of the object of thought, i.e. essence, is thought.” – Aristotle & Tredennick, Hugh (1947) The Metaphysics: books I-IX. London: Heinemann, The Loeb Classical Library, p. 149ff - Concerning Hegel and Aristotle, see Ferrarin, Alfredo (2000) Hegel and Aristotle. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

20 Hegel, Friedrich (1970 [1820]) “Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts oder Naturrecht und Staatswissenschaft im Grundrisse” in Werke. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, p. 47 as well as the comment on p. 49.

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Chapter 2. Beholding, explaining, and predicting – The history of the concept of theory

to mysticism, find their rational solution in human practice, and in the contemplation of this practice.”21 He remained convinced of this while going on to develop theories of his own, not least the theory of capital found in Das Kapital (Volume I in 1867, vols. II–III posthumously, in 1885 and 1894). These theories are of the nature of criticism, as Marx uses that word. To begin with, he was seeking the prerequisites of the society he was studying; moreover, he was studying how that society generated its dominant notions concerning its own nature. Thus, he considered it appropriate to use a method that would help him capture the quintessence of the entire societal complex. He wrote with pride in the preface to the first volume that he welcomed “every opinion based on scientific criticism,” but that it was his intention, in relation to the prejudices permeating public opinion, to act in accordance with the words of Dante: “Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti!” (Follow your own road and let the people talk!). In short, he distinguished very thoroughly between scientific theory and criticism, on the one hand, and opinions directly and uncritically rooted in prevailing societal conditions, on the other.22

3. The dream of the exact theory In the Anglo-Saxon world of the mid-nineteenth century, a major battle was ongoing concerning the meaning of the word “science.” Etymologically related to the Latin “scientia,” a general word for knowledge and also for familiarity, to many people the word denoted systematic knowledge, specifically in the disciplines pursued at universities. Examples of this use of the word can be found in the work of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who claimed that “the science of Theology” comprised “the root and trunk of the knowledge that civilized man.”23 21 Marx, Karl (1962 [1845]) “Thesen über Feuerbach” in K. Marx & F. Engels. Werke (Band 3). Berlin: Dietz Verlag, p. 7.

22 Marx, Karl (1987 [1867]) “Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Ökonomie (Band 1)” in K. Marx & F. Engels.

Gesamtausgabe. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, p. 68.

23 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor (1976 [1830]) “On the Constitution of the Church and State: According to the Idea of Both” in Colmer, John (eds.) The collected works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge. London: Routledge.

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What is theory?

There is no consensus in the social and cultural sciences on what theory is, and that is as it should be; a consensus would be outright dangerous for the diversity of intellectual life.

The volume consists of a multidisciplinary collection of essays that are tied together by a common effort to tell what theory is. These essays are also paired as dialogues between senior and junior researchers from the same or allied disciplines to add a trans-generational dimension to the book’s multidisciplinary approach.

What is theory? has been designed for third year undergraduate students, master’s degree students, and postgraduates in the social sciences and the humanities, but it should be of interest to anyone who has felt that the question of what theory is can be more easily asked than answered.

HERVÉ CORVELLEC is the editor of this book. He is a professor of business administration at the Department of Service Management and Service Studies, Lund University, Sweden. Other contributors come from the disciplines of history of ideas, theory of science, science and technology studies, organization theory, sociology, history, European ethnology, economics, economic methodology, political science, human geography, philosophy, and rhetoric.

What is theory?

The perspectives represented in What is theory? show that theory can be understood as plot, hope, beholding, doxa, heritage, a stalemate, disappointment, personal matter, or family concept. But even if theory can be defined in many ways, it cannot be defined in any one way. Beyond disciplinary and epistemological differences, theory has the steadfast characteristic of being what academics, including students, work with. More than an epistemological matter, the book’s title question is an entry into the dynamics of academic practice.

Hervé Corvellec (ed.)

Answers from the social and cultural sciences

Hervé Corvellec (ed.)

What is theory?

Answers from the social and cultural sciences

”This highly original, lively and refreshing book is more than welcome: it is needed. In a world of social and management sciences where theory is often reduced to some abstract, cold and normative rules that scholars have to blindly cope with, the contributors’ insights, passion and diversity fully restore the creative value of theorizing as a way to grasp, understand and more importantly shape the world.”

Franck Cochoy, Professor of sociology, University of Toulouse “What is theory? is a unique and fascinating endeavour to make sense of theory with the help of those who professionally practice theorizing in social and cultural studies. Hervé Corvellec has organized an inspiring and yes, epic, journey, which he, together with a group of authors from a variety of disciplines embarked upon. Rather than wonder if there is a final answer to the question asked in the title, one may, as I did, happily collect all the artifacts, ideas, and insights that this journey abounds in. Enjoy!”

Monika Kostera, Professor Ordinaria, University of Warsaw ”What is theory? is a fantastic book. Lively and accessible it presents a diverse collection of essays from across the social sciences about how to think with, and think about, theory. Next time anyone tells you they just don’t understand theory, just point them in the direction of this engaging collection.”

Alan Latham, Senior Lecturer, University College London

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Liber Copenhagen Business School Press

2013-03-07 09.38