Unfortunately, I would say I get even more confuse after attending the Seminar. The lecture is clear, the explanation, the presentation, and even the small group talk have same aim, which is to understand what is theory, how can we make our perception more reasonable, it is theory, as my understand.
It’s nice we have a group talk about “What is man(human beings)?”, and everybody has different answer, we all think from different directions, just to give a reasonable explanation which can support our perception, it may be a theory. We need to use fact, experience, what we see, and everything we can use to explain it, it is not enough to just raise a name of perception, since people think from different directions.
From the lecture, I learnt that theory is not about doing something, practice is. Some articles write about practice analysis that is not a theory based article. Even they have digram, chart, data and hypotheses, those are not theory. And I also learnt there are different types of research, scientific research is gathering data, data doesn't be produced by nature. Applied research is use theories, not produce theories. Artistic research is design, as practice-based research.
And in the lecture, I noticed that theory doesn’t mean it is truth, the truth is related to knowledge we understand nowadays. As the example in the Seminar, if we say “there is god in the world”, it may not be truth, because we all don’t know, but it can be theory, if we have good expiation, that support this perception.
After the seminar group discussion, I’m getting more understand the categories of theory that the article gives, I still believe my chosen paper is using Manipulation or teleological causal analysis, which is in the category called “Explanation and Prediction”, even though I thought the limitation of this type is lack of evidence, prediction is too abstract. After discussion, I think theory can perfectly clear this lack, just use good explanation. This become a theory explanation leads to a result, not just simply assume what will be.
This reflection is based on my understanding of theory, maybe it’s not so. I said I’m getting more confuse, since both lecture and seminar, even the article, are keeping establishing and breaking my understand of theory, until now, I don’t know if I am walking in the right way.
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ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteI like that you very well summarized points about the researches. That's what I have missed in other blogs so far. I would just one more research category - research in humanistic tradition which concentrated on meaning and how it is established. Thanks for your clear explanation about practice and theory. I did not make a note about that during the lecture, but I highlighted that theory is a form of practice and in my opinion if you carry out the investigation for instance that might be resulted in new theory. So maybe we could not state that in all cases practice is not the theory.
As you say, theory is not the absolute truth but it is the best explanation we've got in this position in time and space. If some new theory is brought forth that disproves the theories we have today, that theory will be our new "truth".
ReplyDeleteThis means that the theories we have are used as a framework for research, and can be illustrated as a skyscraper we are building:
New theories based on those we have will be added to the skyscraper of theories, but if a theory that disproves one of the "base" theories—which we've built other theories upon—comes along, we have to wreck part of the skyscraper and start building from the new base.
I agree that this theme was a little bit confusing. It is strange to find that it is hard to provide such a common term as theory with a satisfying general definition and that it has different meanings to different fields of study.
ReplyDeleteI think that you got most all of the concepts right, but I would disagree on just one thing. This thing is that theory doesn't include doing something, only practice does. I think that is not the case, both theory and practice go hand in hand and there is no clear distinction between them. When you try to research or prove a theory, you definitely have to make some practical tasks in the process.
I have come to an understanding that you are not alone to think that this theme was a bit abstract. Nice to see that you guys had a good talk about the papers we had read to the seminars. I agree that the latest seminars, including the seminar for theme 3, hasn't been as good as the first two.
ReplyDeleteHi Chenchen, although you said repeatly that you are getting more confused, you still successfully draw some clear conclusion and show a good understanding of the theme. It is a smart departure point to think what theory is with comparison to practice. I agree with you that ' theory is not about doing something, practice is.' Additionally, you make good example on different types of research, such as artistic research and applied research. It is exactly what I learned from the lecture too. For the 'truth' issue, I think it is quite tricky, and you make a good point on that. Very good job on your reflection! Thanks for your sharing.
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