This week has been about theory - what is theory and what types of theory are there? Is there such a thing as weak and strong theory, and what is meant by that?
We read two text and one article we chose ourselves. The first text was by Shirley Gregor and was called “The nature of theory in Information Systems”. It explained in an fairly easy way what different types of theory there are - how you can cathegorize and recognize different approaches in research journals.
The second text was by Robert I. Sutton and Barry M. Staw and was called “What theory is not”. Surprisingly, it was a very good way of telling what theory is by explained what it isn’t - what to think about not doing when writing a paper, wich in turn will actually provide better result and avoid some easily done mistakes.
The last article I read, that was of my own choice, was “The Benefits of Facebok “Friends”: Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network sites”, written by Nicole B. Ellison et al. This article was for applying what we’ve learned this week on a text.
Since my last blog post actually answered the questions for the theme, I’ll go straight to what I’ve discussed and learned at the seminar. In the beginning of the week, I actually didn’t think this theme would be as interesting as the previous ones, but it turned out to be a good discussion anyway. We discussed that theory actually never proves anything completely, which is a strange thought after so many years in school. We accept all these ideas of the world and how it works, but all we do is make research and generalizations. We examine relationships and come up with explanations, and we base this on observations we’ve seen so many times we consider them true. But what is true? How do we know that things don't just happen as a coinicidence, over and over?
We don’t. We make theories on assumptions we find credible, and we use this to build generalizations and new theories. It’s close to the disussion about knowledge - we build on the things we perceive, because that is our reality. We can’t explain the world in theories without using ourselves as a reference point. We trust our senses on what is happening. And to make sense out of our reality, we make cathegorizations and generalizations, and this is not truly objective. When we provide theory, we can't use the nominalistic point of view, because then we would never get any answers.
Is theory knowledge then? Well we can’t know for sure that theory is true so no not really.
Is knowledge built on theory? Yes, if you agree on the definition that theory is not something certain. So once again, we find ourselves finding out that all we know is that we don’t really know anything for sure.
Hi!
SvaraRaderaI agree with you that there’s some kind of discrepancy between what one believes to be theory, and that which is “real” theory. You describe this by mentioning the fact that “theory never proves anything completely”, which points towards the fact which (for me too) was quite thought provoking - that not even that which we deem “true” is in fact that. Furthermore it was interesting to take part in your entire discussion on this subject. The fact that we “make theories on assumptions we find credible” is basically the Kantian way of saying that we can only know that which is within the grasp of our forms of intuition and categories of knowledge. Thanks for a great post and keep up the great work!
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI like your discussion on truth and that you connect it with what we have learnt earlier in the course. I think that you have given an interesting perspective on how we develop theories by comparing this to the earlier discussions on how we develop knowledge.
To add to your discussion on having old theories and making new once, there is also the situations where the new theories replaces the old ones, which the term “paradigm shift” refers to.
Hi,
SvaraRaderaI like to read you paper and i all agree you said in your paper, what is the theory, what is the truth of theory? We actually even have an accurate answer like we did not know the truth of the world which we learnt from previous study. You make a good connective to previous study to justify your point of view, i can see that you have a good understanding for both this week study and earily study. I also approve that "we can't use the nominalistic point of view, because then we would never get any answers." Yes, even we don't know the true world or the true theories, but we are ongoing verification the existing theories again and again, for each time, a new theory born out and replace the old one, and we also closer to the truth. Thanks again, for you wonderful post.
Hey!
SvaraRaderaVery insightful post! This course really opens your eyes on the way how our knowledge is generated and collected. You can not but wonder what it would be if we took some other route, if the scientists, philosophers and others made different assumptions and hypothesis while developing their theories which would lead them different conclusions, different theories and different working models for the reality. What would our world look like than?!
I like your discussion about the connection between theory and knowledge. It's neat when we can connect back to the things we learned earlier.
SvaraRaderaI both agree and disagree with your conclusion that theory makes us unable to consider anything fact. Yes, there is always a risk that will be proven wrong,but that is not a reason to not consider things true right now. As you say, we perceive things from our senses. Since that is our reality it's all we can conceive. So I don't think theory is not true, but rather that credibility is all that we have.
I like your discussion about the connection between theory and knowledge. It's neat when we can connect back to the things we learned earlier.
SvaraRaderaI both agree and disagree with your conclusion that theory makes us unable to consider anything fact. Yes, there is always a risk that will be proven wrong,but that is not a reason to not consider things true right now. As you say, we perceive things from our senses. Since that is our reality it's all we can conceive. So I don't think theory is not true, but rather that credibility is all that we have.
You have pointed out well the difficulty of theory: that we cannot call a theory the truth. At least we cannot to this if we want to suggest objective truth by saying so. And I agree with you: saying so is quite provocative. But I guess we should not forget that we can at least declare something as a kind of subjective truth if we take the present context into account. You can view the context as a bunch of preconditions we have and which we use to make logical deductions. And statements we can deduce to truth under this preconditions are as good as we can come to truth. And that is no longer provocative, but reasonable.
SvaraRaderaHi Rebecka!
SvaraRaderaJust as you I found it odd to suddenly hear that theories are not complete. They cannot actually prove something completely. But when you think about it, there is always the possibility that all tests of a theory are random exceptions. We are also limited in our perception of the world. I liked your ending of this blogpost and agree that theory might not in itself be knowledge, but it can lead to knowledge.
Hi,Rebecka!
SvaraRaderaI find your reflections very interesting and inspiring! When I studies theme 3, I also found that 'theory is not always true, or not needed to be true.' After reading your writing, I think you did a better job on this perspective. As you said, 'We examine relationships and come up with explanations, and We make theories on assumptions we find credible.' and yes, ' we can’t know for sure that theory is true so no not really. ' It is great that you share your valuable opinions here and I have the chance to read them. Thank you for your good job. Well done!