“The unique thing about human theories is that they have meaning and can conflict. Human theories include hopes, wishes, fears, criteria, values, unconscious states of mind as well as conscious ones, inexplicit ones as well as explicit ones, false ones as well as true ones, and conflicting ones as well as consistent ones.”
– Sarah Fitz-Claridge
From the archives: Posted on 1st January, 1995
There seems to be some confusion over my use of the word ‘theory’. I use it to describe much more than just ‘scientific theory’, say. As human beings, we are thinking creatures; we have theories. But in a sense, animals too have theories, as do inanimate objects. That is—one can think of a camera, say, as embodying theories about optics, economics, and ergonomics, for instance (although the origin of those theories is human). We might also say that genes embody theories, or that species embody theories, and we might speak of the process of evolution as embodying evolving theories. We might say that cultures embody theories (memes); and we can think of companies embodying theories—their ethos, say. We could even think of a falling object as embodying theories about gravity. But the unique thing about human theories is that they have meaning and can conflict. Human theories include hopes, wishes, fears, criteria, values, unconscious states of mind as well as conscious ones, inexplicit ones as well as explicit ones, false ones as well as true ones, and conflicting ones as well as consistent ones.
See also:
Sarah Fitz-Claridge, 1995, ‘The word “theory”’, https://takingchildrenseriously.com/the-word-theory