A Comment on Developed Theory and Theory Development

The article focuses on the relationship between the (scientific) theory and practice of preparing a diploma thesis in academic education (specifically, in the field of social sciences, as illustrated by psychology). The study presented here is of a methodological and synthesizing nature/aims, and was prepared: (a) to fill the re-search gap observed in this area (especially in the absence of studies indicating the location of a (good) scien-tific theory on the Internet), (b) using the analytical-synthetic method and the existing data analysis method.The author discuss here a wide spectrum of aspects pertaining to such analytical problems as: (1) the essence and functional significance of a scientific theory (in science), (2) the location of a (good) scientific theory in the subject matter literature, (3) how to apply a scientific theory (while preparing a diploma the-sis), (4) the location of a scientific theory in online scientific search engines, (5) the methodology problems essential for the process of preparing a diploma thesis.

The methodology of “theory construction” developed in the U.S. around 1970 established an approach for the development of sociological theories. However, this methodology underestimates the value of studies conducted on classical sociological theories. According to Laudan's philosophy of science, the studies on the classical theories can develop current sociological theories by solving conceptual problems, identifying anomalies, and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of several sociological research traditions. By studying these classical sociological theories, we can find problems that require a solution and clues to solve these problems. However, it is very difficult to develop a theory only through studies on these classical theories because conceptual and empirical problems are closely connected to each other. In order to solve an empirical problem, we must gather and analyze data. Therefore, we must solve both conceptual and empirical problems simultaneously in order to develop sociological theories. This can be achieved through derivation and by joining a “good” research group.

Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy of the physical sciences is commonly understood to be committed to some form of scientific anti-realism and to an instrumentalist interpretation of scientific theories. It denies that the unobservable entities posited by the sciences exist; and it takes scientific theories concerning those entities to be little more than tools used in the prediction of empirical states of affairs. For that reason, many commentators have taken Husserl’s phenomenology to be of limited value in illuminating the rationality of the physical sciences as they exist today given their rapid expansion in the theoretical domain since the beginning of the last century. In this contribution I argue that Husserl’s phenomenology is compatible with a realist interpretation of scientific theories. I begin with the generally accepted distinction between scientific laws and scientific theories, and proceed to argue that Husserl’s phenomenology offers an instrumentalist account of scientific laws, not scientific theories. I then suggest that a phenomenology of the theoretical dimension of the physical sciences could be carried out as a description and analysis of the constitution of indicative sign consciousness, where the givenness of an observed entity or event comes to count as a sign of an unobserved (and in some cases unobservable) entity or event.

Any scientific theory in the natural sciences is an artificial, complex, and abstract construct, consisting of many components (ingredients, constituents, structural elements). It is developed by scientists to gain and comprehend experimentally verified new knowledge about its domain of study. It is helpful to distinguish between two meanings of the term “theory”. The application domains of specific theories include particular kinds of realities. Examples include Newton’s celestial mechanics and various classical, quantum, and quantum- relativistic theories of gases, fluids, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles (theory of atomic spectra, Bohr’s atomic theory, Planck’s quantum theory of black-body radiation, quantum theory of the hydrogen atom, quantum- relativistic theory of black holes, etc.). The names of specific theories usually include the names of the types of realities they study. Abstract theories serve as general frameworks for a group of specific theories of the same kind (in particular, macroscopic, microscopic, or megascopic kinds). Examples of abstract theories are classical mechanics, quantum mechanics, and the theories of relativity, which act as common frameworks for concrete theories from classical, quantum, and quantum- relativistic physics, respectively. The article compares concepts of complex structure and development of specific theories with notions of structure and development of automobiles. Such a comparison is more useful and heuristic than analyzing theories in terms of paradigms or interdisciplinary matrices, which, in any case, are not part of scientific theories. The work employed methods of terminological and content analysis of the original text of Newton’s Principia and the comparative method. The aim is to consider Newtonian celestial mechanics as the last universal common ancestor (LUCA) of all particular specific theories. The role of Euclidean geometry as a potential LUCA for abstract theories will be explored in another article. An analysis1 of Newton’s Principia showed that celestial mechanics encompasses a wider range of components than physicists and philosophers of science typically consider part of a theory. Main results. Taking this theory as a prototype for all specific theories, the article demonstrates the existence of sixteen types of components within it. Components of the same type form a specific subsystem of the theory as a polysystem. In any specific scientific theory, all these subsystems together constitute an interconnected whole that is necessary but not sufficient for generating new knowledge. Conclusions. The article is of a historical- scientific and theoretical- cognitive nature, and the results obtained can be applied in research on the history and philosophy of science, as well as in the teaching of natural science disciplines.

Jonathan H. Turner is the Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the University of California at Riverside and, for many decades, the world’s leading authority on sociological theory, with research interests in many other areas such as human and societal evolution, social stratification and inequality, philosophy of science, and historical sociology. Professor Turner has authored, co-authored, edited, or co-edited a number of works, including more than 43 influential books, which have been published in twelve different languages, including The Structure of Sociological Theory, The Emergence of Sociological Theory, and many others. He is a member of the American Sociological Association and a former president of the Pacific Sociological Society and the journal editor for Sociological Theory. Professor Turner received a B.A. with honors from University of California at Santa Barbara, a M.A. and a doctorate in sociology from Cornell University. The interview is Professor Turner’s critical reply to the arguments raised in the article “Against Grand Theories: A (Cautionary) Tale of Two Disciplines,” which presents the view that universally accepted grand theories in social sciences are not achievable because of the lack of a common methodology or a theoretical core which results in their multiparadigmatic nature, value-leadenness and insufficient objectivity. The interview took place on March 23, 2021 online.

In the opening chapter of Theory of International Politics Waltz makes an interesting distinction between scientific laws and theory construction. Recent special issues of this journal have suggested that this distinction allows Waltz to be read in different ways — for example, as a scientific realist who conceives of unobservable entities, or as a constructivist interested in how we create models. This contribution argues against both these interpretations by analysing the first chapter of Waltz’s book and suggesting that his distinction between theories and law-like statements is fully consistent with mainstream discussions in the philosophy of social science. It argues that Waltz’s position still depends on the identification of empirical regularities, something that makes him an empirical realist, but which undermines the claim that he is a scientific realist.

In this book, Ronald Giere seeks to resolve the opposition between objectivism and constructivism by suggesting a third way, perspectival realism, according to which both sides are partly right. To prove his case, Giere reconstructs some of the acknowledged puzzle pieces in the philosophy of science (theory, observation, etc.). To my mind, of most interest is the piece Giere calls “representional model.” Constituting the basis of every science, it functions as a template that governs data collection as well as theory development. Throughout the book, Giere illustrates his various propositions with examples taken from the natural sciences. I contend that the propositions are just as relevant for the social sciences and present some examples in order to indicate this. Especially, the concept of model is useful both for a better understanding of social science and for increasing its cumulativity.

As a historian and philosopher of science, I am interested in the process of the construction of new scientific theories. The hypothesis to be explored in this paper is that analogies may play an important role in the generation of new ideas that are built into new theories.In order to make clear the locus of my discussion, I would like to present an over-simplified view of the levels of organization of scientific knowledge. The three levels are the following: data, empirical generalizations, and explanatory theories. At the lowest level of generality are the data, particular statements about, particular facts. For example, if we consider data from genetics, in a cross between a yellow pea plant and a green pea plant, all the peas of the first generation of hybrids are yellow; if the hybrids are self-fertilized, the second hybrid generation has a ratio of three yellow peas to one green pea.

The Day in Court: Legal Education as Sociolegal Research Practice in the Form of an Ethnographic Study

Science represents natural phenomena by means of theories, as well as in many concrete ways by such means as pictures, graphs, table-top models, and computer simulations. This book begins with an inquiry into the nature of representation in general, drawing on such diverse sources as Plato's dialogues, the development of perspectival drawing in the Renaissance, and the geometric styles of modeling in modern physics. Starting with Mach's and Poincaré's analyses of measurement and Reichenbach's ‘problem of coordination’, this book presents a view of measurement outcomes as representations achieved in a process of mutual stabilization of theory and empirical inquiry. With respect to the theories of contemporary science, the book defends an empiricist structuralist version of the ‘picture theory’ of science, compatible with a constructive empiricist view, through an inquiry into the paradoxes that came to light in 20th-century philosophies of science. It is argued that indexicality enters irreducibly into the conditions of use and application of measurement, models, and theories. The book concludes with an analysis of the complex relationship between appearance and reality in the scientific world-picture, arguing against the completeness criterion that demands a derivation of the appearances from the theoretically postulated reality.

Popper's logic of scientific discovery and Kuhn 's paradigm switches in science have been considered competing schools of thought in the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge. In the present paper the author establishes a unified three-dimensional framework that synthesizes the quintessential ideas of these schools. Theories are tested for confirmation or falsification in the first dimension; their scope conditions are defined and redefined in the second dimension; and they replace their predecessors to become a dominant theory or possibly even a new paradigm in the third dimension. The development of fertility theory is examined in the three-dimensional framework. This framework helps us understand important aspects of theory construction, and thereby shed light on how to build viable sociological theory. Also discussed are majorproblems in formulating sociological theory. The overcoming of these problems is a necessary condition for a theory to be examined in the three-dimensionalframework, and thereby to become a candidate of a new theoretical paradigm.

Introduction: We have previously reported on the findings of a critical realist concurrent triangulated mixed method multilevel study that sought to identify and explain complex perinatal contextual social and psychosocial mechanisms that may influence the developmental origins of health and disease. That study used both Emergent and Construction Phases of a realist Explanatory Theory Building Method (1). The purpose here is to present The Thesis, Theoretical Framework, Propositions and Models explaining neighbourhood context, stress, depression and the developmental origins of health and disease. Theory/Methods: The analysis draws on an extensive extant literature; intensive (qualitative), extensive (quantitative) and multilevel studies used for phenomena detection, description, and emergent phase theory development; and the abductive and retroductive analysis undertaken for the theory construction phase. The theory construction methods used included: “1) defining stratified levels; 2) analytic resolution; 3) abductive reasoning; 4) comparative analysis (triangulation); 5) retroduction; 6) postulate and proposition development; 7) comparison and assessment of theories; and 8) conceptual frameworks and model development”. Results: Global, economic, social and cultural mechanisms were identified that explain maternal stress and depression within family and neighbourhood contexts. There is a complex intertwining of historical, spatial, cultural, material and relational elements that contribute to the experiences of loss and nurturing. Emerging are the centrality of social isolation and “expectation lost” as possible triggers of stress and depression not only for mothers but possibly also others who have their dreams shattered during life’s transitions. Discussion: The theoretical framework takes a critical realist perspective of perinatal social context, stress, depression and the developmental origins of health and disease and builds on the emerging literature on stress process, social isolation, social exclusion, social capital, segregation, acculturation, Globalisation, neighbourhood effects on health, perinatal adversity, and the developmental origins of health and disease. We draw on the philosopher Bhaskar’s (2) articulation of critical realism with its ontological stratification of reality. Such a stratified ontological perspective adds theoretical depth to the layered ecological models advanced by earlier social epidemiologists. Conclusions: The Thesis: In the neighbourhood spatial context, in keeping with critical realist ontology, global-economic, social and cultural level generative powers trigger and condition maternal psychological and biological level stress mechanisms resulting in the phenomenon of maternal depression and alteration of the infants’ developmental trajectory. Lessons learned: The meta-theory of critical realism is used here to generate and construct social epidemiological theory using stratified ontology and both abductive and retroductive analysis. The findings will be applied to the development of a middle range theory and subsequent programme theory for local perinatal child and family interventions. Limitations: The stratified levels of analysis in this study were predominantly social and psychological. The macro and meso levels were not fully analysed. Suggestions for future research: We will use the theories developed here for future confirmatory studies and realist programme theory development.

In this paper I shall be discussing three views concerning the cognitive status of theoretical entities in scientific theory, and three parallel views concerning the cognitive status of God in religious discourse. My aim will be to clarify the differences between the three views in scientific theory, so as to draw attention to parallel conclusions about religious discourse. (It is not my aim here to defend any one view either in scientific theory or in religious discourse.) I shall call weak scientific realism (WSR) the view that theoretical terms in science, like "electron," denote an entity which is real, just as chairs and tables are real, strong scientific realism (SSR), the view that theoretical terms denote the only real objects tables and chairs not being real on this view; and scientific instrumentalism (SI), the view that theoretical terms do not denote at all or that the question as to what theoretical terms denote does not arise. (For SI, theoretical terms are mere "symbolic devices" that enable us to make predictions in our common-sense perceptual framework.) In discussing the cognitive status of God in religious language (RL) it is possible to distinguish three corresponding views: weak theological realism (WTR), which maintains that "God" in RL denotes (or purports to denote) a real entity, while allowing that other entities exist as well; strong theological realism (STR) or pantheism, which says that God rather than anything else exists; and theological instrumentalism (TI), which maintains that "God" does not purport to denote at all, but that RL as a "symbolic device" is an "effective technique" for achieving certain goals, such as the motivating of morality, expression of deep emotions about the world, and the like. Philosophers have argued extensively the merits of the competing views in philosophy of science. In turn the debate has given rise to serious doubts about the meaningfulness of the distinctions involved. In what is perhaps the classic statement of the position, Ernest Nagel, in The Structure of Science goes so far as to argue that there is no substantive difference at all between what I have called WSR and SI.1 He claims that they are merely different "preferred modes of

The rapid growth of cultural evolutionary science, its expansion into numerous fields, its use of diverse methods, and several conceptual problems have outpaced corollary developments in theory and philosophy of science. This has led to concern, exemplified in results from a recent survey conducted with members of the Cultural Evolution Society, that the field lacks 'knowledge synthesis', is poorly supported by 'theory', has an ambiguous relation to biological evolution and uses key terms (e.g. 'culture', 'social learning', 'cumulative culture') in ways that hamper operationalization in models, experiments and field studies. Although numerous review papers in the field represent and categorize its empirical findings, the field's theoretical challenges receive less critical attention even though challenges of a theoretical or conceptual nature underlie most of the problems identified by Cultural Evolution Society members. Guided by the heterogeneous 'grand challenges' emergent in this survey, this paper restates those challenges and adopts an organizational style requisite to discussion of them. The paper's goal is to contribute to increasing conceptual clarity and theoretical discernment around the most pressing challenges facing the field of cultural evolutionary science. It will be of most interest to cultural evolutionary scientists, theoreticians, philosophers of science and interdisciplinary researchers.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have asked, “what kind of thing is a scientific theory?” The logical positivists answered: a scientific theory is a mathematical theory, plus an empirical interpretation of that theory. They also assumed that a mathematical theory is specified by a set of axioms in a formal language. Later twentieth-century philosophers questioned this account, arguing instead that a scientific theory need not include a mathematical component or that the mathematical component need not be given by a set of axioms in a formal language. In this chapter, the author surveys the various accounts of scientific theories in twentieth-century philosophy, trying to remove some misconceptions and clear the path for future research.