Adding facts to theorys

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If i were to put facts into what is only explained in my mind right now. How would i go about doing that? My theory is based on human behavior. What kind of test would i need to do in order to make it facts instead of philosophy?

-- Enos Michael Nicholas (Owl_The_Wise@hotmail.com), March 05, 2003

Answers

What makes you think (all) philosophy isn't based on facts (connected together by logical steps, of course)?

-- Christopher Green (christo@yorku.ca), March 06, 2003.

Hi Owl, well your request kind of covers a lot of area of a subject that for the lack of a better term we can call the theory of science. I'm trying to figure out an approach to your question that will give us a tidy answer. I think that for the sake of a tidy answer I may do an injustice to your question. In which case some one else can come to your aid.

OK, I think you can look at facts and theory as the two sides of the same coin. I don't know how you have one with out the other. Billy at work told me about a guy he knew that always wanted to spend both sides of the same coin independently, thus making a dime worth twenty cents. But that is another story. Back to facts, you can look at facts as something in your environment, something that catches your eye; and this thing that catches your attention them creates a interest in you that demands satisfaction. Next, you make up a story to explain these facts; that story is your theory. Next you are going to test your theory against a prediction. And in light of the results of that test, or experiment, you are going to re-evaluate your theory to see if it still provides statisfaction to you. If your theory fails the test, well you have to look harder at those facts in front of you eyes, and you have to come up with another story to explain those facts.

There is really no test that makes something a fact or not a fact. Facts are relivent to the stiuation under consideration. Facts are often defined by two people or more aggreeing with each other that what they are jointly looking at is a fact. So it is a fact that I have two dollars in my savings account, that much my banker and I aggree on, and that fact is relevant in our "theory" of economics when I go to the grocery store.

And that's the short course in facts and theories. I hope this helps. Good luck, David

-- david clark (doclark@yorku.ca), March 05, 2003.


Two points to add: 1) Even if you did gather empirical evidence for your theory, this does not allow you to dismiss philosophy. If you based conclusions on your theory fitting data, then you are implicitly endorsing an empirical philosophy. That is, there is a "philosophy of knowledge" underneath your "facts." Consequently, I don't think the "facts versus philosophy" distinction you make works very well, and could easily be challenged. 2) To add to David's response, a theory may fit the data extremely well, but it does not mean another theory wouldn't fit the data equally well or even provide a better fit. In this sense, as Box has argued, "all models [i.e., theories] are wrong, but some are useful."

-- Daniel J. Denis (dand@yorku.ca), March 06, 2003.

Well i put my question in without much thought. What i am trying to say is i have a theory that sounds more like philosophy then it does psychology. I feel that it is good enough to be seen as psychology. Should i put my thoughts into alot of text to explain in many details? should i make test and get people to complete them and then i review them? should i make predictions to actions after studying and finding out what type of person the test subject is? What does it take to convince people that a theory has enough test to become worth considering as psychology.

-- Enos Michael Nicholas (Owl_21@hotmail.com), March 07, 2003.

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