Learning and Using Theories

This page discusses the question, how does one learn and use theories? Without a good answer to this question, one can't have a good answer to the question, How does one do political theory?

Learning and Using Theories: Theories, Models, Analogies

Minimalist Models of Philosophical Theories: The Philographics of Genis Carreras

(Ordinary Silly; fair use, click to enlarge; you can buy the posters here)

If political philosophy does anything, it builds, uses, evaluates, and defends theories. What is a theory? We might better ask: What does a theory do? A theory answers a question about which there is, has been, or probably will be serious rational disagreement. A theory must, in other words, have rivals: rival answers to the question to which it is an answer. Suppose you say, "He accepted Darwin's theory of the evolution of species by natural selection." On this analysis, you thereby imply both that he accepted that theory, and that he did not accept a rival theory like Lamarck's, which would explain species-evolution by increasing intake of calories and electricity allowing for transformation of one species into another. Moreover, the disagreement among advocates of these past, current, or possible rivals must be serious and rational. They must be disagreeing about a matter of importance; and there must be, or must have been, decent reasons for doubting that any of the possible rivals was obviously and unimpeachably true. Today, of course, we think Ptolemy's theory that the sun and planets revolve around the Earth is obviously and conclusively false. But it was not so in Ptolemy's time: there were decent reasons for accepting such geocentrism, and for denying that the Earth orbits the sun. So Ptolemy's theory still counts as a theory for us, even though nobody today has good reason to hold it. Theories, in short, answer rationally contested questions: questions that were contested in the past, or that are contested now, or that probably will be contested in the future.

So much on what theories are and what they do. But how does one go about understanding and grasping them? Theories, after all, can be imposing intellectual edifices. They often bristle with big words ending in "-ism" or "-ity" or "-tion." Moreover, they often do more than give just one answer to just one rationally contested question. Many of the theories produced and discussed by intellectuals--and especially by academics--do not just answer a single question. They may also justify that answer by deriving it from an answer to a higher-level question. Or they may derive from the central answer answers to other questions. Often, they do all three.

To see this, take two examples. The first is of a theory that justifies its central claim by appeal to another theoretical claim. The second, a theory that derives theoretical claims from its central claim. Take, as our first example, what people often sloppily call "Darwin's theory of evolution." This theory answers one question: why is there such an incredible diversity of species--both living and extinct--on this planet? Its answer is: because species evolve. In The Origin of Species, Darwin shows how that answer explains enormous amounts of data about diverse species, and that data itself is not part of the theory. But to help justify the claim of the evolution of species, Darwin's theory also argues that species evolve by means of natural selection. The idea is that if we have a theory of how x happens, we have better reason to think that x does in fact happen, than if we have no theory of how x happens. This argument does not produce empirical data: it is itself a theoretical claim. Darwin's theory has, then, at least two levels. One level concerns how to explain the enormous diversity of species: its answer is that species evolve. The second level concerns how, if species do evolve, precisely they do so: this level's answer is natural selection. the theory's explanation is right. The first level makes the theory's central claim, that species evolve; the second helps justify that claim, by saying that evolution occurs by natural selection. (As biologists say, evolution, not natural selection, is the most important concept in biology.)

Turn now to our second example, of a theory that derives consequences from its central claim. Kant's moral philosophy notoriously claims that morality is freedom. From this central claim, Kant derives many consequences, including the consequence that lying is always wrong. Kant's moral philosophy, then, is one theory: a particularly big and complex theory we can call a system of moral philosophy.

With these examples in hand, we can see better how many theories work on more than one level, either by justifying the theory's central claim with another theoretical claim, or by deriving from it other theoretical claims, or both. Let's call all such theories--theories that work on more than one level--multi-level theories. Many of the theories produced and discussed by academics are multi-level theories, and this is especially true in philosophy. Indeed, many philosophers would say that any genuine philosophical theory is a multi-level theory. It is partly because many of the great theories have a multi-level character that people find it difficult to learn and understand theories. For such theories necessarily deal with grand and abstract themes, and, in addition, they are necessarily complex. But if you remember that every multi-level theory is composed of single-level theories and inferential relations between them, things become much easier.

So how to start understanding theories, whether single- or multi-level? Here is one way. Think of understanding a theory as a process divided into different stages, except that there is no one correct way of ordering these stages. You can start the process at almost any stage, and then proceed to the others. So here then are some crucial stages, in no particular order. Together, they offer a canon for learning and understanding theories.

• 1. Understanding what the theory is about: its target entities. All theories tell us something about something else. For example, Darwin's theory is telling us something about evidence that suggests that species have evolved: that evidence is his target. So what are the target entities of the theory you're dealing with? Have you really thought about them carefully in themselves? Can you come up with some clear examples of them? Can you come up with some clear non-examples? (E.g., suppose you're trying to understand Hegel's theory of the pattern of history. Forget Hegel's ideas for a moment. Ask yourself: what is a potential pattern of history? What would it be for history to have a pattern? What would it be for history to have no pattern? What is history anyway?)

  2. Understanding the theory's concepts: All theories try to illuminate their target entities by interpreting them with theoretical concepts: general ideas that explain and interpret those entities. Theoretical concepts are the engines of theories: they are what drives the theory's process of illuminating entities and answering questions. For example, Hegel's theory of history tries to illuminate the course of history by interpreting it in the light of the following theoretical concepts: Geist or Spirit, Reason, and Freedom, among others. All of these concepts, as Hegel uses them, have a particular technical content. He does not use them in their everyday senses. In Darwin's theory, the master theoretical concept is of course natural selection, which Darwin uses to explain and interpret the evolution of species. To understand the theoretical concepts of a theory, you need to be able to use them accurately—which minimally requires being able to accurately pick out what they refer to, and—better—being able to define them. This is why your course in Introduction to Microeconomics spent so much time defining and applying the concept of marginal utility, since that is the master theoretical concept of neo-classical economics.

  3. Understanding the basic model that the theory articulates and makes more precise; All theories refine and elaborate some basic model that they explicitly or tacitly propose. That model takes the form of a picture or an image, and it portrays the relations between the theory's target entities and its theoretical concepts. For example, Hegel's model of history is roughly this: Orient, Classic World, Germanic World = One is free, some are free, all are free; all underlain by the self-development of Geist or Spirit toward universal freedom by means of Reason.

  4. Understanding the main proposition or propositions of the theory: the main claims that it makes. A theory refines and elaborates its model by describing the relations between the target entities and the theoretical concepts in terms of propositions. For example, in Hegel's theory of history, the main claim is that in history what we see is Spirit's self-development by means of Reason to a condition of general freedom for all people.

  5. Understanding the analogy or metaphor that underlies the theory's model: what is the thing that the model suggests the theory's subject matter is significantly like? And what are the features of that thing that the metaphor says the theory's subject matter also has? (E.g., Hegel's idea that history should be seen as the story of freedom; see also this quote from Isaiah Berlin)

  6. Being able to accurately apply the theory's main propositions to cases or instances.

  7. Understanding what the theory’s original builder took to be its implications or applications.

  8. Understanding the problem to which the theory is a solution: What are the conflicting commitments to which it responds? What is the question it asks? What did its original builder think that question was? What do we lose by not having a good answer to that question? (Always remember John Dewey's maxim: "A problem well posed is half solved.")

  9. Understanding the definitions—if any—of concepts offered by the theory.

  10. Understanding the theory's rivals: theories which offer rival solutions to the problem (see 1-8).

  11. Understanding the main arguments which have been offered to justify the theory. Do these arguments move from more general and abstract propositions to those of the theory? Or do they instead point to the appeal of the theory’s applications?

  12. Understanding the main arguments which have been offered to challenge the theory. Same questions as in (11).

So on this view, a theory articulates and makes precise a basic model of certain target entities: the things the theory tries to illuminate. This basic model is underlain by a metaphor: a suggestion that we see the theory's target entities as significantly like something else. Following Max Black, let us say that in a metaphor like "The moon is a ball of green cheese," "a ball of green cheese" is the metaphor's focus; the rest of the sentence, its frame. Darwin, for example, famously proposed that we see the incredible diversity of species as being like an evolutionary tree of life. Here, the incredible diversity of species is the metaphor's frame; its focus is the tree of life. Then, in the second level of his theory, Darwin even more famously proposed that we see the evolutionary process as being like Malthusian competition among people in a society in which there is not enough food and resources for everyone to survive. Here, the frame is the evolutionary process, and the focus is Malthusian competition to survive. Darwin's model, in turn, articulates and precisifies the two metaphors by introducing theoretical concepts, like evolution of species and natural selection. Darwin uses these master theoretical concepts to illuminate his target entities: the incredible diversity of species, living and extinct.

Note that a good theory, like Darwin's, will always try to distinguish between its target entities and its theoretical concepts. This is why theoretically-minded people frequently make the same complaint about Edward Said's justly celebrated book Orientalism (1978). They say that although the book puts illuminating new questions and offers brilliant insights, its theoretical framework is shaky at best and amorphous at worst. This is chiefly because Said uses the same word, "Orientalism" to refer both to his target entity, and to his master theoretical concept. Said proposes to illuminate Orientalism--the field of study of "the Orient"--in terms of the theoretical concept he calls Orientalism--an ideology of the relations between West and East, in which the West is considered essentially superior and enlightened than the East. So there is always ambiguity when Said speaks of Orientalism, and often in the book the two concepts bleed into one another. Moreover, the book does not clearly offer any other theoretical concepts to take up the slack. Now, these defects in the book's theorizing do not cancel out its profound and illuminating questions and insights. But when you are using or building theories, keep these issues in mind.

Let us apply this canon for understanding theories to John Rawls's famous theory of justice. The target entity is therefore justice. Moreover, Rawls's theory wants to answer a particular three-part question about justice: What is justice, what does it fundamentally require, and what justifies those requirements? (Think about that for a bit: can you think of some examples of failures to meet the requirements of justice?) The theory proposes that we think of justice as fairness (the metaphor, the focus of which is fairness). The theory then articulates that metaphor in a model: there are two basic principles of justice, and these flow from what Rawls calls "the original position"; this position attempts to capture and systematize some of our ideas about what makes agreements fair. Rawls's theory of justice then fleshes out that basic model. It shows how the two principles are derived from the original position, and what exactly the two principles say and imply. And A Theory of Justice, the book in which he presents the theory, considers rival theories of justice like utilitarianism and perfectionism, and argues against those rivals. Hence Rawls's answers to his three questions are as follows. First, (social) justice is adherence to those principles for regulating the basic structure of society that would be agreed upon by everyone in a fair procedure (the original position). Second, what (social) justice fundamentally requires is Rawls's two basic principles of justice. Third, what justifies those requirements is that they are correctly derived from the original position, a device for fairly selecting rules for regulating the basic structure of society.

So if you are having difficulty understanding a theory, ask yourself: what is the model that the theory articulates and turns into a structure of propositions? Think of this model as a diagram or a three-dimensional figure. Once you have the diagram in mind, ask yourself: "Does the theory make explicit what the metaphor is that underlies this model?" If yes, then check your account of the model against what the metaphor suggests are the analogies between the features of the target entities (in Rawls's case, justice) and the features of the metaphor's analogue (in Rawls's case, fairness). If no, then try to draw out the metaphor from the model, and then check your account of the model against that metaphor.

If on the other hand you can't envision the theory's model, then work from the metaphor to the model. Does the theory say what its metaphor is? Then reconstruct its model from that. Does it not tell you what its metaphor is? Then try to identify the theory's main propositions; and then see if they articulate a controlling metaphor aimed at the target entities. And if you can't identify its main propositions, then ask yourself what question the theory is asking about its target entities. The theory's basic answer to that question will incorporate most of the model, if not all of it.

If you are curious about the role that models play in theorizing, read the paper by Max Black, "Models and Archetypes," which is at the bottom of this page. You can glean from it good tips about how to improve your grasp of theories. If you want to know more about how metaphors illuminate their objects, read Black's paper, "Metaphor," also at bottom.

So you'd like to see this method put to work? Want to see someone boiling a theory down to its metaphor? You can read at bottom four pages from a chapter by George Boas on "Systems of Ideas." In these four pages, Boas boils down Schopenhauer's system of philosophy into a model, and then boils down that model into one key metaphor of "the will as a living being seeking to perpetuate itself."

It helps to have masters to imitate. At describing in striking prose the model or philosophical picture that undergirds a philosophical theory, few are better than Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein, John Plamenatz, Alasdair MacIntyre, Charles Taylor, Michael Walzer, and Ronald Dworkin. What particularly distinguishes them is that they are equally good at doing it with theories that they reject and dislike. So they exemplify how to dig up and describe such models. As to the metaphor and suggested analogies in a philosophical theory? At describing and bringing these to vivid life, and from these sketching the theory's model or picture, we should mention three masters. They are Russell, the later Wittgenstein, and, above all, Isaiah Berlin. (Notice that the philosophical works of each of the thinkers mentioned in this paragraph have been widely read and found useful by laypeople. Whereas the works of many of their contemporaries in philosophy--equally or even more distinguished among philosophers, and working on the same problems as those mentioned above--have been found impenetrable by the same laypeople. This has to do, I suggest, with the first group's distinctive mastery at describing and communicating models and metaphors. As Berlin quotes Russell to say: "The central visions of the great philosophers are essentially simple."*)

* Isaiah Berlin and Bryan Magee, "An Introduction to Philosophy," in Men of Ideas, ed. Bryan Magee (1978): 14-41, p. 41. Berlin continues, now speaking for himself: "The elaboration [of these visions] comes in defending the[m] against real or imaginary objections. There, of course...a lot of technical language come[s] in; but this is only the elaborate armament, the engines of war on the battlements...the citadel itself is not complex. [The] central vision itself...is clear, easily grasped, comparatively simple. No one who reads them attentively can have much doubt of what is in the heart of Plato's or Augustine's or Descartes' or Locke's or Spinoza's or Kant's conceptions of the world."