theoria and “theory”
theory as idea; idea as the means and end of seeing
I would like to welcome all readers to the journey undertaken through this newsletter.1 In pith, the task of theoria-press is to transform our means of seeing to the end of seeing, which is an apprehension of the truth of things. In my Rolfing practice (though I am obliged to address any acute questions or concerns that may be present from the outset of a session) I have discovered that the most effective introduction to the task is achieved through a retrospect on what has already been accomplished. Similarly, it would be comparatively futile to explain the flavor of a tangerine if it were possible to merely take a bite of it. For this reason, I have dived into the subject matter at hand and trusted that the meaning and spirit of the journey would show itself, upon reflection, to have been serving as a guiding presence from the very start, assisting us in the task
of transforming what we see
by transforming how we see
by transforming why we look
by transforming who we are. Pascal observed that:
In speaking of human things, we say that it is necessary to know them before we can love them.... the saints on the contrary say in speaking of divine things that it is necessary to love them in order to know them, and that we only enter truth through caritas.2
Through our love for particular things, we necessarily become loving and are, hence, changed from within ourselves. Our perception is, as a result, transformed from one motivated by the promise of some utilitarian payoff to ourselves to one of pure concern for, and interest in, the object. When our reason for seeing changes, so too will our manner of seeing. And, since what we see in something is a function of what light we can shed on it, a change in our seeing will evoke a correlative change in the object of our sight. Blake is supremely expressive on this point:
And I know that this world is a world of imagination and vision. I see every thing I paint in this world, but everybody does not see alike. To the eyes of a miser a guinea is far more beautiful than the Sun, and a bag worn with the use of money has more beautiful proportions than a vine filled with grapes. The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity, and by these I shall not regulate my proportions; and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself. As a man is, so he sees.3
Hence, everything begins in how we see. Theoria (from the Greek θεωρία, thea “a view, a sight” + horan “to see”) is the term I have settled on to designate the energy and experience of vision. The discovery of a conceptual, intelligible, or noetic essence that is already present in everything perceptual is an entry point into theoria. It’s connection to the familiar English word “theory” will be apparent and for this reason, I present a brief inquiry into the term below.
A theory is not only intended to explain what can be readily observed. Instead, the function of theory is more elementary than this. To wit, a theory is intended to disclose specific phenomena, patterns, and relations that may otherwise escape notice. Put another way, the function of a theory is to reveal the logic and lawfulness in what would appear mere happenstance to the untutored eye. Indeed, therefore, it is only in light of the proper theory that anything can be perceived, to begin with, and subsequently explained. Hence, it should be clear that a theory must be more than an explanation of what can be readily observed since the theory was also present as a necessary condition for observation as such. Since the meaning of the term “theory” has contracted over the years (especially since the Scientific Revolution), it will be necessary to recover an older, broader understanding of the term.
Learned persons are often heard drawing a distinction between the vulgar use of theory as “a guess,” and the scientist’s technical use of the term to designate a hypothesis that has some evidential support and has survived some unspecified number of bona fide attempts at falsification. This distinction, though incomplete and somewhat facile, nevertheless serves as a helpful entry point into a more robust understanding of the term, for it highlights the fundamentally different relation that each of the meanings above bears to evidence. The word “evidence” combines the Latin prefix ex-, which is “out of” or “from” with the stem video, which is “I see” and which has been naturalized into English in the words “vision” and “video.” Interestingly, the Latin video or videre shares an etymological relation with the wis- in the Saxon word “wisdom” was well as the Greek word eidos (εἶδος) or idea (ἰδέα), which are the masculine and feminine forms, respectively, of a single term which is essentially synonymous with “theory.” Evidence, then, indicates the locus or medium “out of” or “by which” something is “seen.” As we will see, the theory or idea is both the means and the end of this seeing.
Returning to the two designations of theory indicated above, in the first instance (i.e. theory as guess), the relation between theory and evidence is not to be found because the theory is advanced irrespective of evidence. In the second (i.e. theory as exalted hypothesis), the relation between theory and evidence is present, despite being abstract. This is to say that it is possible to make a guess in the absence of evidence but it is, strictly speaking, not possible to assert with any credibility that a theory is valid in such conditions. A theory without evidence is not a theory but a hypothesis. And this is precisely why a distinction between these two terms should be recognized and maintained. As noted above, the union of theory and evidence, though present, is abstract in the scientific usage of this term in that the theory is often imagined as a sort of container into which evidence can be subsequently poured or laden. At the same time, people often imagine that other evidence could be gathered and subsequently laden into the theory in the same way. Hence, a theory bears only an abstract or circumstantial relation to any given datum of evidence; the theory and the evidence are conceived abstractly and hence imagined to subsist independently of one another.
But this largely conventional view of the relation between theory and evidence subtly falls prey to the empiricist conceit of perception, which imagines that we merely open our eyes and the world climbs in. Merleau-Ponty illustrates the problem with this view when he observes that “Empiricism cannot see that we need to know what we are looking for, otherwise we would not be looking for it.” Of course, the by the same token, it does no good to imagine that we need not bother to look: “intellectualism fails to see that we need to be ignorant of what we are looking for, or equally again we should not be searching.”4 Fichte sums up the situation when he affirms that “We should not desire to see without eyes, but neither should we assert that it is only the eye that sees.”5 In other words, we need our eyes and other senses to provide evidence of a phenomenon, but it is only in light of the proper theory of that phenomenon that the evidence our sense provide can be recognized as such. Inversely, without a theory to disclose its relevance and meaning, evidence is indiscernible from mere data, of which there is a virtually infinite amount—after all, there is, in principle, no limit to the number of measurements or observations that could be performed in respect to any given phenomenon or object.
It can be seen, therefore, that it is only by way of a theory that a “signal” can be extracted from “noise.” Hence, evidence is always a function of an idea or theory that it can be evidence for. The terms are correlative. I must know, theoretically, what a lynx is in order to perceive evidence of the existence of any given lynx. For this reason, it is helpful to distinguish another, more comprehensive understanding of theory; one which does not abstract the means of vision from its end or object. To grasp the manner in which theory continually embodies itself, as it were, within every object of perception is to discover a concrete and integral relation between theory and evidence that intensifies the meaning of the term in question beyond the manner in which it is typically employed, even in scientific contexts. Whereas in the second instance, it is imagined that evidence is simply discovered irrespective of any theory and subsequently loaded into it, in the concrete understanding of the term, all evidence is “theory laden” from the outset, and the theory could no more be removed from the evidence than a leopard could be removed from its spots or a lynx from its tufted ears and slightly ungainly proportions. Indeed, the “theory-ladenness” of evidence was a primary concern for philosophers of science in the latter half of the twentieth century like Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend, who contributed a great deal toward advancing a more sophisticated understanding of the scientific method than had obtained to that point.
To follow the transformations of the meaning of theory outlined above—from “conjecture” to “hypothesis with evidential support” to “means and end of seeing”—is, in a sense, to retrace, in reverse order, an etymological evolution that has transpired over the course of millennia. The first designation above was the last to arrive in time. The common contemporary notion of theory is a derivative of its scientific usage, which in turn developed from the post-Nominalist notion of theory as an idea in the subjective mind. Originally, however, the English word theory meant “to see.” The English term was borrowed from the Greek word theoria (θεωρία, thea “a view, a sight” + horan “to see”). The Latin translation of theoria hints at the original power of the Greek word, since the term is not translated as coniectura, sententia, or hypothesi, but as contemplatio, from which we derive our English word “contemplation.” Theoria is the union of the seen with the act of seeing. That Theos (θεός) also means “God” in Greek, and that the Latin contemplatio shares the root of “temple,” together indicate the implicitly transcendent nature of theoria. The evolution of the Greek word idea (ιδέα) follows a similar trajectory, from Plato’s conception of the Ideas, sometimes rendered in the Latinate term “Forms,” as the transcendent principles of the cosmos, to Aristotle’s conception of ideas as the immanent principles of reality, to Aquinas’ conception of ideas as the formæ or species intelligibilis of entities, to the modern conception of an idea as a merely subjective notion. A quote from Francis Bacon’s The Advancement of Learning, a seminal work that would become something of a keynote for the nascent tradition of modern empirical science, enunciates this concept of “idea” in no uncertain terms. Bacon uses the Latin translation of the Greek word in its plural form and hence he does not speak of “Ideas” but of “Forms.” The basic outlook, however, is unequivocal: “Matter rather than Forms should be the object of our attention…for Forms are figments of the human mind.”6
Taken alone, the above description of these words’ development may or may not interest the reader. But taken in a wider context, the concrete history of the terms “theory” and “idea,” as it has been deposited in a diverse etymological strata, testifies to a history of ideas in which these terms took part. And this history of ideas testifies in turn to an evolution in consciousness.7 It is precisely when contemplated in light of the proper theory that this evolution of consciousness “shows forth out of” the available historical evidence.
The above is a slight reworking of a section from What Barfield Thought, of which I was a co-authored together with Landon Loftin. The book was intended as an introduction to the philosophy of Owen Barfield with specific reference to his theory of the evolution of consciousness, which was substantially informed by Steiner’s anthroposophical teachings. The evolution of consciousness has been treated elsewhere at this site, like here, for instance.
This is, in many ways, a continuation of the path that I was traversing at the WordPress site. But this also represents a new beginning. In this way, I intend the new iteration of Theoria-press to be an evolution and not a departure or a revolution from its ancestor.
Pascal, The Art of Persuasion, 406. Caritas, is, as many readers may know, the common Latin translation of the Greek ἀγάπη, or “divine love.”
William Blake, letter to John Trusler, August 23, 1799.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenology of Perception, 28.
J.G. Fichte, Wissenschaftslehre.
Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning.
The evolution of consciousness was a primary theme of my 2019 doctoral dissertation entitled The Redemption of Thinking: A Study in Truth, Meaning, and the Evolution of Consciousness, which, as may be discovered by following the link, I have published, in a slightly revised form, through the KindleDirect publishing service. It is also a primary subject of the book from which the article above was repurposed,For anyone with interest, a video recording of the proceedings is available here. The evolution of consciousness has also been treated on other occasions at this site, like here, for instance.