From: "Tobin Nellhaus" <nellhaus-AT-gwi.net>
To: <bhaskar-AT-jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU>
Subject: BHA: Re: theorya/theoryb
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 1997 00:37:21 +0300


Howard--

At first I was puzzled by your comments on theory evaluation, but then I
think I got your drift--well, part of it, anyway.  It helped to concretize
by coming up with a Theory B which explained more but was less valuable
than a Theory A; though perhaps my examples are overly exaggerated, they
suggested a couple things.  My Theory A is almost anything--an account of
projectile motion as governed by gravity, the production of surplus value
within capitalism, whatever.  My Theory B explains things by stating that
things are the way they are because God made them so--a very nice theory
since it can explain absolutely everything.  It's also completely useless
for exactly the same reason, because in fact it explains nothing. 
Judgmental rationality should make us prefer Theory A, even though it
explains "less."

Rather than bothering with the quantitative notions of explaining "more" or
"less," the real issue concerns our understanding of what constitutes an
"explanation."  However, I'm not sure there are any hard and fast criteria
about that; probably the criteria vary somewhat according to the field. 
But there should be a few rules of thumb.  One is that a good theory has
limits, because it concerns a specific entity or class of entities.  While
Theory X may be suggestive and/or provide analogies for Theory Y (in some
other field), direct application of X to Y is inappropriate and probably
misleading (or worse), unless one can show that similar mechanisms really
are involved.  One reason for preferring realist explanations over
positivist or conventionalist explanations (if the latter two can even be
said to provide explanations) is that, because its theories concern the
causal powers and susceptibilities of a specific (class of) entity, its
analyses are better focused than the instantiations of covering laws or
social conventions that P and C work with.

I'm not convinced, however, that "Judgmental rationalism is forced on us by
the need to act."  This seems like a pragmatic or instrumentalist approach
to the issue.  Such issues shouldn't be excluded, I don't think, but in any
case the liberatory or even explanatory potential of a true theory may not
be recognized for decades, and indeed may never be known--that's a wholly
contingent matter.  (Somewhere Brecht says something like, "The truth won't
win out--unless we fight for it.")  I also have difficulty with your
suggestion that "Commitment to a theory is generally not because it
explains more but because it allows for a problem field to be
reconceptualized"--this would indicate that people seek reconceptualization
for reconceptualization's sake, whereas people usually have to be
persuaded.

---
Tobin Nellhaus
nellhaus-AT-gwi.net *or* tobin.nellhaus-AT-helsinki.fi
"Faith requires us to be materialists without flinching": C.S. Peirce



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