Comments on: How One Begat the Other: On Theories and Networks

By: When is a theory a theory?

When is a theory a theory? — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:46:01 +0000

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By: rdrunner

rdrunner — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:25:30 +0000

My thinking is that we develop theories to try and make sense of the world around us. The more we learn, the more refined our theories become. So I think it is not just about stacking theories one upon the other, but in some cases replacing theories (do you still think the world is flat? – oh perhaps that is a bad example).

The other point that Driscoll makes is that often theories are developed in a particular scholarly area which gives a perspective to the theory. For example, we could explain learning from a psychological, educational, biological or computer science perspective. No one perspective may be inaccurate, but the more complete theory would consider all 4 perspectives. At the point of intersection of all 4 perspectives we have a richer view.

So I would say yes, it is good practice to build one theory from other(s).

By: Tom Whyte

Tom Whyte — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 03:23:38 +0000

Mentioned the above conversations to my wife today, and her response to my inquiry was “Isn’t that what Science is? Building theories upon theories?”.

Easy answer I guess… or is it Arkum’s Razor?

By: Tom Whyte

Tom Whyte — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:23:14 +0000

First off, you should have joined the conversation, as if myself and @injenuity know what were talking about : )

Thanks for the new insight regarding one of my earlier concerns regarding my course CCK08. I agree that it will need to fit the model proposed to be a learning theory. Regardless of that fact, if we start stacking theories upon theories, just like a deck of cards, it will not take that much to cause the tower to tumble.

So on a different note, is it good theory, or practice, to build a theory upon others?

By: rdrunner

rdrunner — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:27:15 +0000

Tim, I don’t profess to be an expert but it seems that often new theories arise from the need to explain anomalous findings. And theories would also evolve. Just as they start from an hypothesis, they would continue to develop (or not) on the basis of evidence to support them.

By: mystictim

mystictim — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 17:05:30 +0000

I’ve recently come across the ideas of Evolutionary Epistemology and have been trying to see if could be used to build a learning theory. From what your saying such a thing would have to account for all the findings of previous learning theories and explain a large number of the anomalous findings. So I guess I should have started by looking at what evidence has already been established about learning.