Kind Of Theory Research Articles

In Praise of Realism (and Against 'Nonsense' Jurisprudence)

(This is a significantly revised version of a paper first posted in March 2008.) Ronald Dworkin describes an approach to how courts should decide cases that he associates with Judge Richard Posner as a School of anti-theoretical, no-nonsense Since Professor Dworkin takes his own view of adjudication to be diametrically opposed to that of the Chicago School, it might seem fair, then, to describe Dworkin's own theory as an instance of pro-theoretical, nonsense jurisprudence. That characterization is not one, needless to say, that Professor Dworkin welcomes. Dworkin describes his preferred approach to jurisprudential questions, to be sure, as theoretical, in opposition to what he calls the practical orientation of the Chicago School. But while there is a real dispute between Dworkin and Posner, it is not one illuminated by the contrast between theory and practice. It is, rather a dispute about the kind of theory that is relevant and illuminating when it comes to law and adjudication. And the fault line marked by this dispute is profound indeed, one that extends far beyond Dworkin and Posner and has a venerable and ancient history that includes Thucydides and Plato, Nietzsche and Kant, Marx and Hegel, up to Geuss and Rawls in the present. I shall describe it, instead, as a dispute between Moralists and Realists, between those whose starting point is a theory of how things (morally) ought to be versus those who begin with a theory of how things really are. The essay endeavors to show that our contemporaries, Ronald Dworkin and Richard Posner, are reenacting a version of the dispute between the paradigmatic philosophical moralist Plato and the paradigmatic historical Thucydides. The paper concludes by connecting the Posner-Dworkin dispute with recent realist critiques of Rawlsian political philosophy, trying to clarify the grounds for skepticism about the practical relevance of such theorizing.

Another planning theory? Rewriting the meta-narrative

This essay proposes to frame the persistent scientific/literary genre known as `planning theory' as a peculiar meta-narrative whose ideological underpinnings are seldom faced even by its critics in the discursive field. Although self-referred to as theory, its consistent ignoring of the material and concrete in planning practice on the one hand, and the subservience to the political role of the state by unquestioned professionalism, makes its complicity with power obvious. This kind of theory or theorizing, in spite of its negation of practice as object for analysis, is therefore to be seen as praxis itself. The proposed re-evaluation of this meta-narrative restates past critiques and reviews the historical and material genealogy of planning as a spatial apparatus of the modern state. A critical deconstruction of the dominant discourse of planning suggests challenging its foundational traits: authoritarianism, hierarchy, anonymity and time/space absolutism. Finally, the essay calls for a re-imagining of planning as a counter-hegemonic project.

A New Argument Against Rule Consequentialism

We best understand Rule Consequentialism as a theory of pattern-based reasons, since it claims that we have reasons to perform some action because of the goodness of the pattern consisting of widespread performance of the same type of action in the same type of circumstances. Plausible forms of Rule Consequentialism are also pluralist, in the sense that, alongside pattern-based reasons, they recognise ordinary act-based reasons, based on the goodness of individual actions. However, Rule Consequentialist theories are distinguished from other pluralist theories of pattern-based reasons by implausible claims about the relative importance of act-based and pattern-based reasons in different cases. Rule Consequentialists should give up these claims. They should either embrace some other pluralist pattern-based view, or reject pattern-based reasons altogether. Note, though, that these arguments apply only to compliance-based, rather than acceptance-based, versions of Rule Consequentialism. This suggests that these two kinds of theory are more different from each other than we might previously have realised.

Flexural wave propagation and localized vibration in narrow Mindlin's plate

In this paper, based on Mindlin's theory of thick plates, using Hamiltonian formulism, the elastic wave propagation and localized vibration in narrow plates with free boundary conditions are investigated. The existence of localized vibration mode and propagation mode is analyzed. The dispersion relation of propagation modes in strip plates is deduced from eigenfunction expansion method. And it is compared with the dispersion relation that is gained using Mindlin's thick plate theory. Based on the two kinds of theories, dispersion relation curves differ much under short wave. Cutoff frequencies are higher under Hamilton formulism. But dispersion curves are almost same under long wave.

Theories of natural kind term reference and empirical psychology

In this paper, I argue that the causal and description theories of natural kind term reference involve certain psychological elements. My main goal is to refine these theories with the help of empirical psychology of concepts, and to argue that the refinement process ultimately leads to the dissolution of boundaries between the two kinds of theories. However, neither the refined theories nor any other existing theories provide an adequate answer to the question of what makes natural kind terms rigid. To provide an answer to this question I conclude my paper by introducing a framework of a unified theory of natural kind term reference that is built on the empirical psychology of concepts.

Structural realism and Davidson

Structural realism is an attempt to balance the competing demands of the No Miracles Argument and the Pessimistic Meta-Induction. In this paper I trace the development of the structuralist idea through the work of one of its leading advocates, John Worrall. I suggest that properly thought through what the structuralist is offering or should be offering is not an account of how to divide up a theory into two parts—structure and ontology—but (perhaps surprisingly) a certain kind of theory of meaning—semantic holism. I explain how a version of structural realism can be developed using Davidson’s theory of meaning and some advantages this has over the Ramsey-sentence version of structuralism.

Bajo el signo de la moral. ¿Son útiles los incentivos morales para explicar la acción colectiva?

The aim of this article is to shed light onto a fundamental issue to the study of collective action: the centrality of moral issues to the explanation of patterns characterizing the collective action of New Social Movements. First, we review the accounts that social movement theory has given of the motivations for collective action. Second, we analyze the way in which formal theories of collective action have tried to explain the role of moral incentives. We then show the difficulties met by this kind of theories given their dependence on instrumental motives. Next we introduce a selection of recent theoretical attempts to overcome the dependency of formal theories to instrumental motives. We conclude by underlining the importance of a broader formal theory of collective action capable of realistically accommodating moral motives.

Dramatic Irony, Narrative, and the External Perspective

There is a frequently asked philosophical question about our ability to grasp and to predict the thoughts and feelings of other people, an ability that is these days sometimes given the unfortunate name of ‘mentalising’ or ‘mind-reading’—I say ‘unfortunate’ because it makes appear mysterious what is not mysterious. Some philosophers and psychologists argue that this ability is grounded in possession of some kind of theory or body of knowledge about how minds work. Others argue that it is grounded in our capacity to take on in imagination the perspective of others; sometimes called simulating or centrally imagining another person, we entertain in our minds what the other person is thinking about and feeling: if he is thinking ‘p’ and ‘if p then q’, then we think ‘p’ and ‘if p then q’, and if he is feeling angry with someone, then we imagine feeling angry with that person. We thus recreate as well as we can in our imagination his mental life as it is ‘from the inside’. We can do this in two different ways: I can put myself in the other's shoes, simply imagining what I would do were I in his situation, or I can empathise with him, imagining being him, taking on in imagination his relevant traits and other mental dispositions; I will from now on use the term perspective-shifting to cover both of these imaginative activities.

Neutral Monism and the Social Character of Consciousness

mind-body problem today resembles a battle-zone in which warring camps, including physicalists, property dualists, panpsychists (Shan 2003), and emergentists (Gonzalez, Broens, and Haselager 2004) clash on a darkling plain, each side regarding others' positions as radically unacceptable. Amid this struggle, neutral monism lies as a neglected option, treated as a historical position that has somehow failed. purpose of this essay is suggest that neutral monism is indeed solution to problem, and to outline a form of that theory which avoids some of drawbacks of previous versions. Defining Physicalism In affirming neutral monism, I shall be denying physicalism, and therefore it would be good to know that denial (and affirmation) of physicalism has content. More trouble has been generated than necessary over vagueness in term physicalism. Critics have pointed out that to assert that mind can be explained in terms of present-day is a booby-trapped theory, inasmuch as historical extrapolation strongly suggests that our physical theories will eventually be discarded in favor of new theories. Therefore it has been suggested that physicalism is doctrine that consciousness will be explicable by a physics.1 But there is no reason to think that there is or ever will be such a thing as a completed We could as well say that solution to mind-body problem is whatever answer Santa will bring us this year. Yet to say more vaguely that mind will be explained in terms of some future is still an empty position, since we do not know what conceptual transformations (that is, future science that will be called physics) will undergo.2 Therefore this physicalism reduces to saying that mind will be explained in terms of something or other. We should note also a graver danger than vagueness. We can foresee possibility that mind will be explained physically by cheating; that is, that palette of fundamental ideas used in will be enlarged by addition of mental entities. That new, augmented will be able to account for mind will produce bogus appearance that some epoch-making reduction has occurred. But semantic changes wrought by future generations are not our concern. We are no more responsible for applications our grandchildren may make of term physics than Kant was for crop of occult books that currently resides beneath label Metaphysics in bookstores. Yet a perfectly coherent and meaningful theory can be formulated by humbly adopting a definition of physics from American Heritage Dictionary (3rd ed.) and defining physicalism as: The doctrine that mind can be explained in terms of science of matter and energy and of interactions between two. This is clear enough, at least if we remember to use physicists' definition of energy: the capacity for doing work, and steer clear of New Age use in which energy is a modish re-labeling of supernatural force that anthropologists call mana.3 As for matter, I stress that it is essentially an object, that is something derived from perception by abstracting away subject. proposed definition of physicalism avoids two perilous shoals. On one hand, it disentangles us from responsibility for how our descendants use word physics. On other hand, by refraining from specifying any particular physical theory, but only mapping out a kind of theory, definition does not tie us to any perishable propositions.4 Having defined physicalism, it is now possible meaningfully to deny it and seek a better alternative. Problems with Physicalism I shall not attempt a comprehensive refutation of physicalism here. My aim is different. I shall only refer to a couple of points that may be made against physicalism as a way of motivating alternative theory I wish to present. …

Theory and method in automatic evaluation of spoken language proficiency

Several kinds of theory (linguistic, psycholinguistic, and sociolinguistic) have been used to justify different methods of language proficiency assessment or to explain patterns of performance observed in proficiency tests. After reviewing some traditional methods of testing spoken language performance (e.g., structured interviews, listening comprehension, word identification in noise, and elicited imitation), the assumptions underlying these methods are compared. When the practicality, reliability, and validity of assessment methods are evaluated, differences in the associated theories become clearer. A low perplexity testing method is presented that scores a set of context-free speech-interactive tasks using speech recognition and analysis techniques to measure aspects of the linguistic and phonetic content of spoken responses. Data from several experiments comparing interview testing with low-perplexity testing on populations of second language speakers (of English, Spanish, and Dutch) suggest that nearly all the information that expert judges extract about levels of communicative competence can be accounted for in terms of automaticity of spoken language processing. Furthermore, measurement techniques that are feasible in low-perplexity testing provide much greater precision in the spoken language proficiency reporting scale than was previously feasible, opening up a range of new applications.

Theory and Diplomatic History

November/December 2006 Historically Speaking 11 International Relations Theory and Diplomatic History THE ROLE OF THEORYIN HISTORICAL INQUIRY HAS BEEN much debated. Comfortable with the intuitive instincts honed by long hours spent with primary documentation, many historiansdo theirbestto avoidtheory. Butstrictavoidance of theory is impossible. British historianMary Fulbrook,forexample, arguedin thesepages back in November 2003 that "all historicalaccounts are inevitably theoretical . " The issue, rather, is how bestto utilise theory in historicalanalysis. In no subfield is this more important than in diplomatic history, which has a large body of international rehtions theoryfrom which to draw. Distinguished UCLA diplomatic historian Marc Trachtenberg explores these matters in his The Craft of International History: A Guide to Method (Princeton University Press, 2006). In the essayprinted below, Trachtenberg argues that both diplomatic historians and internationalrelations theorists couldprofitfrom talking more to each other. We askedagroup ofprominentinternationalrektionsscholarsandhistoriansto respondto Trachtenberg, afterwhich he supplies a rejoinder. Theory and Diplomatic History Marc Trachtenberg Ahistorical interpretation has to have a conceptual core. The facts—and this is a point that the distinguished philosopher of science N.R. Hanson made with great force many years ago—never really just "speak for themselves." The historian thus has to make them "speak" by drawing on a kind of theory—by drawing, that is, on a certain sense for how things work. But what does this mean in practice? What role does theory in that broad sense play in actual historical work? In very general terms, the answer is simple : theory is above all an instrument of analysis , and, depending on what that analysis reveals, it can also serve as the basis for interpretation . But that point is very general, so let me explain what I mean by giving a specific example . It relates to a passage in an article written over seventy-five years ago by the French historian Elie Halévy, perhaps the finest historian of his generation. Halévy in that article—it was actually one of the Rhodes lectures he gave at Oxford in 1929—summed up the origins of the First World War in a single but quite remarkable paragraph. By 1914, he wrote, Austria's leaders had come to believe that the problem of Slav nationalism could be dealt with only if Serbia were crushed militarily. "But everyone knew, who chose to know, that, whenever Austria declared war upon Serbia, Pan-Slavist sentiment would become too strong for any Russian government to resist its pressure," and "everyone knew, who chose to know, that whenever Russia gave so much as a sign of declaring war upon Austria, PanGerman feelings would compel the German government to enter the lists in its turn." "It was likewise common knowledge," he said, "that Germany , whenever she declared war upon Russia, was resolved not to tolerate the existence in the west of "The Prussian Bully invades an inoffensive Neutral Country." Punch, August 12, 1914. an army that was after all the second best army in Europe; that she would first march upon Paris and annihilate France as a military power, before rushing back to the east, and settling matters with Russia ." It was also clear that in order to implement that plan, the German army felt it would have to march through Belgium. But "everybody understood that if ever the Belgian coast and the northern coast of France were to fall under the domination of Germany , Great Britain, feelingher prestige and her security in danger, would enter the war on the side of Belgium and France." What all this meant was that by 1914 war had become virtually inevitable: "everyone knew, who wished to know, not only that a European war was imminent , but what the general shape of the war would be."1 Halévy was a truly great historian, and it is amazing how much he was able to pack into that one paragraph. A mere decade after the fighting had ended, he was able to analyze the coming of the war with Olympian detachment . He had a sense of tragedy. Events unfolded in accordance with a certain inexorable logic, and it was the historian's job not to blame one side or the other for the war, but simply to show what that...

Theory in Applied Social Psychology

Across the last four decades, applied social psychology has sought to apply theories to ‘real world’ social problems, hoping for some insight into intractable social issues. This paper reviews applied social psychology discourse on the application of theory in the resolution of social problems, with a focus on the ‘post-crisis’ literature. This analysis suggests that much of applied social psychology lacks serious theoretical analysis and has yet to use the kind of theory needed to understand social problems. While exceptions to these trends are noted and discussed, current mainstream applied social psychology, as exemplified by a survey of recent texts, seems highly individualistic, rarely focused on important social issues, and generally atheoretical. Two themes, which run counter to these trends—the emergence of critical psychology and renewed attention to the limits of generalizability, along with the importance of knowing contexts—may set the agenda for further theoretical efforts in applied social psychology.

Correspondence truth and scientific realism

I argue that one good reason for Scientific Realists to be interested in correspondence theories is the hope they offer us of being able to state and defend realistic theses in the face of well-known difficulties about modern physics: such theses as, that our theories are approximately true, or that they will tend to approach the truth. I go on to claim that this hope is unlikely to be fulfilled. I suggest that Realism can still survive in the face of these difficulties, as a claim about the kind of theories we want to aim for. I relate this conception of Realism to various contemporary discussions, both by realists and antirealists.

The psychodynamic perspective in organizational research: Making sense of the dynamics of direction setting in emergent collaborative processes

This paper demonstrates how the psychodynamic perspective can contribute to the study of organizing processes. Research from this perspective provides a complementary insight in what actually happens in an unfolding collaborative process, both on the manifest and latent level, and how subjectivity is expressed in the organizing process. First, the paper addresses the specific nature and challenges of ‘multiparty collaboration’. Then it describes how the psychodynamic approach can be used in organizational research and the kind of theory it generates. The author presents a case study in the domain of foster care, where five independent organizations tried to develop a scenario for future collaboration. The case analysis focuses on three critical issues with which the participants and consultants were struggling. It discusses how the dynamics that emerged around those issues set the direction of the process. The paper concludes with the benefits of using a psychodynamic perspective in organizational research. Its main contribution is a better understanding of the paradox between the intention and societal necessity for creative collaboration, and the emotional and defensive responses when participants are confronted with the tensions of collaborative work.

Institutions in cosmopolitan justice

This paper focuses on a distinction between two kinds of theories about the role of institutions in cosmopolitan justice. Some philosophers claim that principles of egalitarian justice apply to institutional schemes only, and do not apply to the actions of individuals. Others think that principles of egalitarian justice apply also to the actions of individuals. The purpose of this article is to clarify this debate with a view on cosmopolitan justice by examining whether institutions can make a non-instrumental difference to what people ought to do with regard to distributive justice. The starting point is the outlining of two strategies arguing for the special significance of institutions in cosmopolitan justice. The first strategy demands the global application of principles of justice on the basis of regarding institutions as possible channels of collective harm. The second strategy argues that institutions enable a more effective discharging of individual duties that we have independently of participation in institutions. In contrast to these two strategies, the argument is made for regarding institutions as making a non-instrumental difference to what people ought to do with regard to cosmopolitan justice. The argument emphasising the constitutive role of global institutions in distributive justice is based on the conditional character of moral duties and on the systematicity of institutional schemes. The thesis is justified by reference to institutions' capacity to solve coordination problems and conflicts raised by the fact of disagreement, and their capacity to determine a unique set of just distributive rules, given the essentially underdetermined character of the demands of justice.

Flexural wave propagation in narrow Mindlin’s plate

Appling Mindlin's theory of thick plates and Hamilton system to propagation of elastic waves under free boundary condition, a solution of the problem was given. Dispersion equations of propagation mode of strip plates were deduced from eigenfunction expansion method. It was compared with the dispersion relation that was gained through solution of thick plate theory proposed by Mindlin. Based on the two kinds of theories, the dispersion curves show great difference in the region of short waves, and the cutoff frequencies are higher in Hamiltonian systems. However, the dispersion curves are almost the same in the region of long waves.

Creativity: Method or Magic?

Creativity may be a trait, a state or just a process defined by its products. It can be contrasted with certain cognitive activities that are not ordinarily creative, such as problem-solving, deduction, induction, learning, imitation, trial-and-error, heuristics and “abduction”, however, all of these can be done creatively too. There are four kinds of theories, attributing creativity respectively to (1) method, (2) “memory”(innate structure), (3) magic or (4) mutation. These theories variously emphasize the role of an unconscious mind, innate constraints, analogy, aesthetics, anomalies, formal constraints, serendipity, mental analogs, heuristic strategies, improvisatory performance and cumulative collaboration. There is some virtue in each, but the best model is still the one implicit in Pasteur's dictum: “Chance favors the prepared mind.”And because the exercise and even the definition of creativity requires constraints, it is unlikely that “creativity training”or an emphasis on freedom in education can play a productive role in this preparation.

Use, Meaning, and Theoretical Commitment

This paper is on theoretical commitments involved in connecting use and meaning. Wittgenstein maintained, in his , that meaning more or less 'is' use; and he more or less proclaimed that in philosophy, we must 'not advance any kind of theory' (PI § 109). He presented a connection between use and meaning by describing a sequence of language-games where richness of vocabularies and complexity of embedding behaviour grow simultaneously. This presentation is very in the sequence of PI §§ 2, 8, 15, and 21, even if it needs sympathetic touching up. If supplemented, the presentation makes a for claiming that there is a connection between use and meaning in the following sense: This may be a very modest statement of the meaning-is-use connection. However, , as sober analysis of the sequence presented by Wittgenstein will reveal. This is not to say that the modest statement is in any way fishy. Rather, I want to remind readers of how desirable it is to restrict the interpretation of Wittgenstein's famous hostile remarks on theories to that kind of metaphysical misunderstandings of our everyday language which the context of PI § 109 is about. In (1) I characterize, by way of listing examples from the , the area of what I think Wittgenstein regarded as innocent, everyday meaning talk, talk that is not yet infected by bad philosophy. In (2), I argue that what Wittgenstein wanted to show was that such talk is in some sense replaceable by use descriptions, i.e. by descriptions of language-games. In (3), I argue that not all kinds of language-games are relevant; in particular, those of teaching and explaining words have to be excluded. As I restrict myself to the four remaining 'primitive' language-games in PI §§ 2, 8, 15, and 21, I have to defend my approach, in (4), against Joachim Schulte's case for reading Wittgenstein's comparison of these language-games with real languages as ironical. How the invitation to regard such a language-game as a complete, primitive language should in fact be construed is a question I discuss in (5), defending my interpretation against Richard Raatzsch in particular. How increases of expressive power are brought about by increases of the use repertoires is shown by an analysis of modified versions of the language-games in question, and of alternatives thereof, in (6), (7), (8), and (9) respectively, pointing out the places where theoretical commitments enter. Section (10) sums up commitments that have emerged from a sympathetic defence of a modest reading of the meaning-and-use connection.

The Articulation of Indigenous and Exogenous Orders in Highland New Guinea and Beyond

One of the leading challenges for contemporary anthropology is to try to contribute to an understanding of the interaction between indigenous and exogenous socio‐cultural orders, especially at the frontiers of globalisation. Here I review three recent attempts to do so: (1) a model of structural transformation as developed by Marshall Sahlins; (2) a model of articulation as developed by James Clifford; (3) a model of ‘adoption’ proposed by Joel Robbins. As a test case for these models, I consider them in relation to some recent developments in local segmentary politics and verbal art in the Ku Waru region of Highland New Guinea. I show that all three models are in certain respects inadequate for understanding those developments, and offer some proposals as to what kinds of theory might be more adequate to the task.

What Kind of Theory is Activity Theory?

The theoretical, research and practice perspective known variously as activity theory, the cultural-historical theory of activity, CHAT (cultural historical activity theory), socio-cultural psychology and cultural historical psychology has evolved bodies of literature in diverse areas, most notably developmental, educational and organizational psychology; psychotherapy; cognitive science; curriculum and teaching; literacy, writing and rhetoric; information technology and design; and geography. Theoretically, activity theory engages many of the same issues as do philosophical, postmodern and critical psychology, including philosophical and psychological dualism; the nature of reality, the self, identity and otherness; the dialogic, narrative, performative, collaborative and relational character of language; and consciousness and the formation of mind. There is no unified theory of activity theory, but a set of articulations that more often than not overlap rather than separate. In this special issue devoted to discussions of activity theory by contemporary theorists, historians and practitioners, the question ‘what kind of theory?’ runs through (sometimes indirectly) the contributions these authors make to critical debates on the philosophy and politics of current and possible future psychologies.