Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavour to make the mesh ever finer and finer, (Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 59).
Theory, although impossible to define precisely, is the source of practical applications of human observation in this complex world. Human intellectual adventure throughout the history of humankind has proved that encapsulating and confining our experiences, anecdotes, and experiments to specific variables in a defined framework can result in confounding discoveries. The construction of theories, of generalizing statements, is a significant component of both everyday life and science. It is our only means of approaching ‘reality’, it can also be a logical framework of facts that explain a natural phenomenon. The Anglo-Austrian philosopher Karl Raimund Popper (1902–94) expressed this elegantly, though not much differently from Charles Sanders Peirce. Theories are nets cast to catch what we call ‘the world’: to rationalize, to explain, and to master it. We endeavour to make the mesh ever finer and finer (Popper 1959: 59). The goal of scientific endeavour is not to produce generalizations of just any kind. Prejudices are also theories. They are also generalizations, albeit highly problematic or erroneous ones.
But prejudices are the very thing that scientists and social scientists claim not to produce; their concern is to formulate accurate generalizations based on individual cases or to explain individual cases accurately based on theories (‘deduction’ – inferring individual cases from a generalization). When we make abstract statements such as these, we are therefore doing nothing other than utilizing a theory. You might also say that we are putting forward a hypothesis. The American logician, semiotician, and philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914) have shown the impressive effect that our entire perception of everyday life and our actions rest upon nothing but a wickerwork of hypotheses (or abductions as he calls them), without which we would be quite unable to live a meaningful life:
Looking out of my window this lovely spring morning I see an azalea in full bloom. No, no! I do not see that; though that is the only way I can describe what I see. That is a proposition, a sentence, a fact; but what I perceive is not a proposition, sentence, or fact, but only an image, which I make intelligible in part by means of a statement of fact. This statement is abstract, but what I see is concrete. I perform an abduction when I so much as express in a sentence anything I see. The truth is that the whole fabric of our knowledge is one matted felt of pure hypothesis … Not the smallest advance can be made in knowledge beyond the stage of vacant staring, without making an abduction at every step (Sebeok & Umiker-Sebeok 1979).
Part II
Feminism: The Theory that changed the World for Good
Feminism as a value system demands equity in representation, resource allocation, and domination of its discourse, for women and queer in a heteronormative world. During Enlightenment, women in England began to demand social reform through the implementation of liberty, equality, and natural rights for both sexes as they were subjected to exploitation in domestic and public spheres. In one of the earliest seminal English language feminist works published in England, Mary Wollstonecraft challenged the notion of women existing only to please men and demanded equal opportunities in work, education, and politics. Her book became an entry point to normalizing ‘seeing’ women as rational beings like men (Wollstonecraft 1792).
Gender justice, (often differentially defined, often contested) was however an essential element in the many social reforms of 19th-century India. It remained central in the early women’s organisations and movements in the first part of 20th century India. Tarabai Shinde’s Stri Purush Tulana: A Comparison of Men and Women (1882) and what later came to be heralded as the first feminist utopia Sultana’s Dream by Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain (1905) were only two of the many feminist texts that theorized or made sense of the world centre staging patriarchy in intersection with other institutions. Women’s experiences and observations of gender subjection and various forms of oppression made them carve out a method of protest, which although seemed utopian and simple, gave pre-independent India a tool to be reckoned with by the strongest patriarchs of the time. A simple template of feminist interventionist methods, drawn through a human lens by perceiving the state of the world, and the reality that is human will, made society a better place. It was simple enough to be understood by the whole spectrum of human conscience and brute enough to oust horrid forms of patriarchy within India and various other countries alike that used this method and continue to understand systems of oppression through the feminist framework.
Part III
Economic History of the World: A ‘Theoretical Adventure’
This can be understood in the economic context of the progress of nations. The history of ‘economics’ stands as a perfect example of the importance of theories in all spheres of time.
For example, ‘capitalist theory’ emerged in the famous work of Adam Smith in his book ‘The Wealth of Nations’ (Smith 1776). He stressed the division of labour in an environment of non-interference by the government and proposed that the ‘invisible hand’ of ‘market forces’ will bring a state of equilibrium in the economy. However, a different theory of ‘economic progress’ was advocated by the German philosopher Karl Marx known as the ‘socialist economy’ which emphasized collective ownership of the means of production and proposed a large role of the state in running the economy (Marx 1959).
Based on the application of both the above theories in different jurisdictions, the scholars were able to learn that there are certain problems with both types of economies, and thus emerged a new theory of an economy based on mixed features of both. Thus based on both the above theories, a new theory i.e. of a ‘mixed economy’ was created. This theory was a good mixture of both theories and this was called ‘market socialism’ by the great economist Oscar Lange (Lange 1994).
Thus, via the example of historical economic progress, we can measure the importance of theories. It must be noted that a theory of progress has always been there, irrespective of its form. The only constant in the above examples is a theory, while its form (capitalist, socialist, or mixed) does keep changing. It must be noted that human beings are always in the quest for development and in the absence of theories, such quests of development shall be experiential exercises in a vacuum and futility.
The Value of Observation
In 1847, long before germ theory, scientist Ignaz Semmelweis (1847) suggested that doctors could save the lives of many maternity patients by washing their hands before clinical examinations. But Semmelweiss couldn’t explain his descriptions, eluding the benefits of hand-washing. Moreover, doctors were also offended by his description and rejected it. Secondly, in 1847, two physicians Albert Michelson and Edward Morley designed an experiment to detect luminiferous ether (which was used as a medium for the transmission of light). The Michelson-Morley experiment failed to detect ether, which left physicists confused as ether was an essential component of theories at that time (Michelson and Morley 1887).
While Semmelweiss offered general advice by evaluating his experimental results, he wasn’t able to explain them. Semmelweis’s description was correct and could have saved many lives. This case overemphasizes the role of explanations of theories. In the Michelson-Morley experiment, a prevailing theory was contradicted by a description (experiment), which made scientists realize that they did not have a precise working model for their theory. These two examples highlight that without theory, evidence is not science, and without evidence, theory is not science. Unfortunately, there is unanimity in science on the issue of observed data, which states that data is meaningless except in the context of a theory. It is because of this conjecture that observations should either support or refute a theory, so much of observed data is disregarded.
Conclusion
Theories provide a basis for progress i.e a roadmap on which human development can take its course. Theories, which are based on the success and failures of the past, provide a blueprint for the direction of human efforts in the future. Theories are important across the spectrum of human development efforts. In the absence of theories in the past, the theories of the present would not have been there and there would be no theories in the future. The theories of yesterday are instrumental for theories of today and the theories of tomorrow. Thus, the importance of theories can be understood from the fact that theories (irrespective of whether the theories are right or wrong, effective or ineffective) have been important in all spheres of time. From a sociological perspective, theories hold immense instrumentality in the manner they describe the macro and microstructures and functioning of the social world.
References:
Chaudhuri, Maitrayee. (2004). Feminism in India. Delhi: Women Unlimited and Kali.
Popper, Karl. (1968). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. New York: Harper & Row.
Sebeok, Thomas A. & Umiker-Sebeok, Jean (1981). “You Know My Method”; A Juxtaposition of Charles S. Peirce and Sherlock Holmes. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society. 17 (2):182-185.
Wollstonecraft, M. (1792). A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects.
Shinde, T. (1882). Stri Purush Tulana: A Comparison of Men and Women. Maharashtra. Marathi Press.
Hossain, S.R. (1905). Sultana’s Dream. Madras: The Indian Ladies Magazine.
Smith, Adam. (1776). The Wealth of Nations. London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. (1959). Das Kapital, A Critique of Political Economy. Chicago: H. Regnery.
Lange, O. (1936). On the Economic Theory of Socialism. The Review of Economic Studies. 4(1): 53–71.
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Shainal Verma is a doctoral fellow at the Humanities and Social Sciences Department of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi.