Quotes About Theory

One outcome of this lack of appreciation of the relevance of epistemology for the study of psychology and psychological development is that epistemological assumptions often remain tacit. Practically, this amounts to many psychologists basing their theories on assumptions that originate in the empiricist tradition (Piaget, 1970/1972a, p. 10).

Baillargeon's theory conceptualizes the mind as passive and relations between infants and the world as external, whereas Piaget's theory conceptualizes the mind as active and the relation between infant and world as internal.

From an epistemological perspective, a person is a uniform being who interprets the different parts of her conscious knowledge in a coherent fashion (or at least tries to do this). How do modular theories explain this search for coherence? And how do they explain necessary knowledge, which hardly can be domain-specific (Smith, 1993, p. 5)?

Piaget, J., & Garcia, R. (1989). Psychogenesis and the history of science. New York: Columbia University Press. (Original work published in 1983)

Glansdorff, P., & Prigogine, I. (1971). Thermodynamic theory of structure, stability and fluctuations. London: Wiley.

Because psychologists generally take knowledge as unproblematic, the complexity of Piagetian theory seems simply superfluous.

Piaget's account of equilibration is not only crucial for understanding his approach, it also sets his theory apart from most other theories concerning cognitive development.

Whatever the theory, it is important to note that clinicians such as Kluft draw attention to the clinical error of insisting that all alters talk as one or that only the alter with the legal name should be validated. 'Such stances are commonly associated with therapeutic failure'.

Kuhn, Feyerband, Polanyi, and others have convincingly argued that modern science is not practised according to a well defined and stable scientific method; all that can be granted it is that it is a single mode of thought, among many.

The odd conjuncture of psychoanalysis with literature dramatizes the perplexing deconstructions and inversions that can occur as Theory, capital T, meets "primary" texts in classrooms.

Though his invention worked superbly [...] his theory was a crock of sewage from beginning to end.

Therefore, according to activity theory, the ultimate cause behind human activities is needs. Needs

For me theory is only a hypothesis, not the Holy Scripture. It is a tool in our daily work

A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data.

It is more important to have beauty in one's equations than to have them fit experiment.

The ultimate arbiter of truth is experiment, not the comfort one derives from one's a priori beliefs, nor the beauty or elegance one ascribes to one's theoretical models.

In aesthetic theory it might be extremely difficult, if not quite impracticable, to draw a line between the canon of classicism, or regard for the archaic, and the canon of beauty.

Theoretical physicists accept the need for mathematical beauty as an act of faith... For example, the main reason why the theory of relativity is so universally accepted is its mathematical beauty.

We want best efforts guided by theory.

The best practice is inspired by theory.

Relativity applies to physics, not ethics.

The theory of the determination of wages in a free market is simply a special case of the general theory of value. Wages are the price of labour.

You can't run a business or anything else on a theory.

Theory is splendid but until put into practice, it is valueless.