Classifying Theories

The classification of theory types is developed in Szostak, Classifying Science, 2004.

The following text from Szostak and Gnoli (2008), “Classifying by phenomena, theories, and methods: examples with focused social science theories,” in Culture and identity in knowledge organization, proceedings of the 10th international ISKO conference, Montréal, Würzburg: Ergon,) summarizes how theories can be classed both individually and as theory types (the notation used is not the same as that applied here):

046 Who is the agent? There are two immediate distinctions here: non-intentional (including volcanoes or institutions versus intentional agency (of beings that can act on purpose), each of which can

take the form of individual, group, or relationship agency. This can be represented by specific classes, taking their notation from ILC main classes (extra-defined foci: see Gnoli 2006) like 046g matter, 046p

persons, 046s groups, 046t institutions, 046w artifacts, etc.

043 What does the agent do? There are three broad answers: 043e passive reaction, 043i active action, 043n changes in attitude.

045 Why does the agent do this? With non-intentional agents, action can only be understood in terms of 045b their inherent nature. With intentional agents, scholars can explore the five distinct types of

decision-making: 045y rational, 045i intuitive, 045p process (virtue) oriented, 045v rule-based, and 045w tradition-based. For groups and relationships, scholars can also ask how individual preferences are

aggregated.

040 Where does the causal process occur? How generalizable is the theory?: there is a continuum from 040o nomothetic (highly generalizable), through 040m half generalizable, to 040k idiographic

(situation- or causal-link-specific) theory.

047 When does the causal process occur? Though inspired by the temporal question ‘when?’, the possibilities refer ontologically to directions of change. There are five broad time-paths that a causal

process might follow: 047b return to the original equilibrium, 047c cyclical oscillation, 047e movement to a new equilibrium, 047p change in a particular direction, or 047s stochastic/uncertain.

As the discussion above suggests, theories may occupy multiple cells in the typology. This may occur because a theory has changed through time, or because theorists have not provided clear answers to one or

more of these questions.

Well-known and consolidated theories, like Classical political economy or Marxism, can be assigned a specific theory notation: sf)04um will mean “families studied by Marxism”, while tn)04um “states

studied by Marxism”.23 Their characterization in terms of theory types can be recorded as a relation of dependence (Gnoli et al. 2007) on the appropriate types 047e 046s 043i etc. On the other hand, works

applying innovative, not well-agreed or more narrowly focused theories can be classified only in terms of theory types: u047e046v “economies studied by theories postulating movement to a new equilibrium and

institutional agents”.