Terry,

I couldn't have said it better myself!  It all comes down to the  
intention motivating the theory and  who is motivated by it. The  
subject matter and its interpretation is simply a matter of checking  
the coherence and consistency of the arguments as they apply to the  
thinkers application of them.

Warm regards,
Chuck

On May 18, 2010, at 9:40 PM, Terence Love wrote:

> So to explore your rubric, let's have a look.
>
> "An effective theory is one whose purpose is clear and that defines
> and relates its elements in terms of the situations it addresses. It
> clearly communicates this structured knowledge and supports the
> actions necessary to realize goals regarding the circumstances it
> models. It provides evidence of its own effectiveness and produces
> useful knowledge."
>
> We can start to take this apart and that starts to reveal the A, B,  
> C, D
> nature of it.
>
> 1. 'An effective theory' - Effective for whom? Effectiveness for  
> people in
> the A, B, C, D groups is very different.
>
> 2. 'Whose purpose is clear' - Clear to whom? How clear and what kind  
> of
> clarity depends on whether you are in A, B, C or D
>
> 3. 'Defines and relates its elements in terms of the situations it
> addresses' - What people see as the elements and situations being  
> addressed
> depends on which hat you are wearing (even for the D hat)
>
> 4. "Clearly communicates" -  What is clear to an A may be very  
> unclear to a
> C and vice versa.
>
> 5. " Supports the  actions necessary to realize goals regarding the
> circumstances it models" - The actions those wearing the A hat  
> (users?) are
> interested in are likely very different from those wearing the B hat
> (designers) and way different from those wearing the C hat and off the
> planet different from those wearing the D hat (and still sat in the  
> corner
> -sad).
>
> 6. " It provides evidence of its own effectiveness" - whether a  
> theory is
> effective depends on which of the hats you are wearing because it  
> depends on
> what you are interested in. Often for those wearing the A or B hats,  
> theory
> can have other roles that are really unrelated. An example, many  
> years ago I
> used to really enjoy designing and making furniture and especially  
> custom
> fine wood kitchens. At a certain point it became obvious that our  
> primary
> role was creating wonderful dinner party conversations and the  
> design of the
> furniture and kitchens was an incidental by product ( a friend went  
> further
> and suggested his primary task in life was creation of beautiful
> wood-shavings with the furniture and carvings being a bi-product).  
> Evidence
> of effectiveness depends on perspective and purpose of using the  
> theory.
> Providing evidence of effectiveness is not necessarily related to
> epistemological accuracy or avoidance of fallacy.
>
> 7. " It produces useful knowledge" - The kind of knowledge that is  
> useful
> depends on what is useful to each of us - regardless of the hats.  
> And the
> usefulness of the knowledge can be other than what is in the theory.
> Suhrawardi (the uncle) apparently said: I went to see a man and we sat
> talking. There was a camel plodding past and I asked him 'What does  
> that
> make you think of?' 'Food' he said. 'What? Since when was camel meat  
> food?'.
> 'No it is not like that' the man said. Everything makes me think of  
> food'.
> So it is with A, B, C and D.