Theories and Their Uses

Abstract

There are indeed so many ways of thinking. Each of us may have several of his own. In our study of the social cosmos, if it is to be realistic, we must be careful to discriminate between what with us is a matter of conviction and what a mere matter of convention; and between those convictions born of observation and reason and those that we hold as articles of faith. And we may try likewise to distinguish between these several possibilities in the status of what others have to say. Indeed it may be opportune to reflect here a little further on the variety of the purposes to which, in whatever sort of society, men’s propensity for theorising may be seen being put. It is a variety surprisingly wide.