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Here is the introduction to the term “theory” from Wikipedia. It is fine for our purposes save one error which I will explain below:
“A theory is a contemplative and rational type of abstract or generalizing thinking about a phenomenon, or the results of such thinking. The process of contemplative and rational thinking often is associated with such processes like observational study, research. Theories may either be scientific or other than scientific (or scientific to less extent). Depending on the context, the results might, for example, include generalized explanations of how nature works. The word has its roots in ancient Greek, but in modern use it has taken on several related meanings.
In modern science, the term ‘theory’ refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that scientific tests should be able to provide empirical support for it, or empirical contradiction (‘falsify’) of it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge, in contrast to more common uses of the word ‘theory’ that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which in formal terms is better characterized by the word hypothesis). Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and from scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of the way nature behaves under certain conditions. Theories guide the enterprise of finding facts rather than of reaching goals, and are neutral concerning alternatives among values. A theory can be a body of knowledge, which may or may not be associated with particular explanatory models. To theorize is to develop this body of knowledge.”
This sentence is, I believe (along with a handful of contemporary philosophers) to be mistaken:
“Theories guide the enterprise of finding facts rather than of reaching goals, and are neutral concerning alternatives among values.”
This makes an untenable separation between facts and values, and thus values and theories, values and rationality, values and truth. The late Hilary Putnam, for example, quotes E.A. Singer saying four things:
“(1) knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of values; (2) knowledge of values presupposes knowledge of facts; 3) knowledge of theories presupposes knowledge of facts; and 4) knowledge of facts presupposes knowledge of theories.”
Here we see a “triple entanglement” of theory, fact, and value. Another way of saying this is to argue that facts, values, theories, rationality and truth are more or less interdependent notions. Thus, while we can—and often have perfectly valid reasons for doing so—make distinctions between these three concepts (or conceptions thereof), there is no impermeable boundary or dichotomy between them, and thus to claim that theories “are neutral” among possible values is simply wrong, for values are implicated in both facts and theories (which, in turn, involve presuppositions or assumptions about truth), as Putnam famously illustrated in the passage, “the cat is on the mat” from his book, Reason, Truth, and History (Cambridge University Press, 1981). Other philosophers have likewise helped us appreciate the aforementioned entanglement, including David Wiggins, Iris Murdoch, Amartya Sen, and Michael P. Lynch.
Consider this extract from one of Murdoch’s books:
“The moral point is that ‘facts’ are set up as such by human (that is moral) agents. Much of our life is taken up by truth-seeking, imagining, questioning. We relate to facts through truth and truthfulness, and come to recognise and discover that there are different modes and levels of insight and understanding. In many familiar ways, various values pervade and colour what we take to be the reality of our world; wherein we constantly evaluate our own values and those of others, and judge and determine forms of consciousness and modes of being.”
Finally, related thoughts from David Wiggins:
“The concept factual judgment or judgment with a truth-value and the concept of ethical judgment will be different concepts—such a distinction is there to be made, just as the concept mouse and the concept mammal are different concepts—but the distinctness does not preclude a judgment’s being both a factual and an ethical judgment. Compare the way in which the distinct concepts mouse and mammal will each collect any particular mouse you please, Timmy Willy or Johnny Town or whichever, within their extensions. Ethical judgments could be a subset of factual judgments even if they were an utterly special and essentially contestable subset. In this way, we can have a clear difference between the ethical-as-such and the factual-as-such without any dichotomy between their property provinces. The hope of making good a claim of this sort is the characteristic hope of ethical objectivism or moral cognitivism.”
I’ve provided this material for your consideration because I am still bothered by the fact that all relevant parties in the mass media as well as the rest of us continue to refer to QAnon as a “a far-right conspiracy theory,” one that peddles any number of such “theories” (that is, myths, phantasies, delusions, illusions, etc.). As I wrote in a blog post in October of last year,
“We should get rid of the word ‘theory’ in this description or definition (at best, it is a pseudo-theory). It accords this specific (and ever-changing) cluster of socially or culturally and politically incoherent and irrational ideas with some semblance of respectability: calling to mind the rationality, facts, hypotheses, evidence, abstract or principled thinking that bear upon or directly involved in explanation and understanding, not only in the sciences, but in everyday life and practical reasoning as well (e.g., no part of this putative ‘theory’ is based on fact). QAnon is not a theory, a term that accords this clusterfuck too much credence or plausibility when it is, in fact, completely bereft of same. It is rather a full-fledged collective phantasy (unfortunately, there is comparatively little literature on this subject) … and that is how it should be described.”
QAnon is not a theory of any kind, so let us (with James Brown: ‘please, please, please’) stop calling it such. Today, and for good reason, we often hear the refrain “words matter.” Here is an opportunity for us to demonstrate the veracity of our belief in that maxim.
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