Tiêu đề 01 # Literature, Theory, Criticism.pdf ✅

All theory, dear friend, is grey, but forever green is the tree of life. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Theory could be defined as a contemplative and rational type of abstract thinking; or the results of such thinking. Depending on the context, the results might include generalised explanations. A theory can be a body of knowledge, which may or may not be associated with particular explanatory models. To theorise is to develop this body of knowledge. As found in Aristotle’s definitions, theory is very often contrasted to “practice” (from Greek praxis, πρᾶξις) a Greek term for doing. Praxis is opposed to theory because pure theory involves no doing apart from itself. A classical example of the distinction between “theoretical” and “practical” uses the discipline of medicine: medical theory involves trying to understand the causes and nature of health and sickness, while the practical side of medicine is trying to make people healthy. These two things are
related but can be independent, because it is possible to research health and sickness without curing specific patients, and it is possible to cure a patient without knowing how the cure worked. In modern science, the term “theory” refers to scientific theories, a well-confirmed type of explanation of nature, made in a way consistent with scientific method, and fulfilling the criteria required by modern science. Such theories are described in such a way that scientific tests should be able to provide empirical support for, or empirically contradict (“falsify”) it. Scientific theories are the most reliable, rigorous, and comprehensive form of scientific knowledge, in contrast to more common uses of the word “theory” that imply that something is unproven or speculative (which in formal terms is better characterised by the word hypothesis). Scientific theories are distinguished from hypotheses, which are individual empirically testable conjectures, and from scientific laws, which are descriptive accounts of how nature behaves under certain conditions. The English word “theory” derives from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek. It is related to words for θεωρός theoros “spectator”, θέα thea “a view” + ὁρᾶν horan “to see”, literally “looking at a show”. As an everyday word, theoria, θεωρία, meant “a looking at, viewing, beholding”, but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things, such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled orators or artisans. English-speakers have used the word “theory” since at least the late 16th century. Modern uses of the word “theory” derive from the original definition, but have taken on new shades of meaning, still based on the idea of a theory as a thoughtful and rational explanation of the general nature of things. Although it has more mundane meanings in Greek, the word θεωρία apparently developed special uses early in the recorded history of the Greek language. In the book From Religion to Philosophy,
Francis Cornford suggests that the Orphics used the word theoria to mean “passionate sympathetic contemplation.” Pythagoras changed the word to mean a passionate sympathetic contemplation of mathematical knowledge, because he considered this intellectual pursuit the way to reach the highest plane of existence. Pythagoras emphasised subduing emotions and bodily desires to help the intellect function at the higher plane of theory. Thus it was Pythagoras who gave the word “theory” the specific meaning that led to the classical and modern concept of a distinction between theory (as uninvolved, neutral thinking) and practice. Theories are analytical tools for understanding, explaining, and making predictions about a given subject matter. A theory can be either descriptive as in science, or prescriptive (normative) as in philosophy. The latter are those whose subject matter consists not of empirical data, but rather of ideas. A metatheory or meta-theory is a theory whose subject matter is some theory. All fields of research share some meta-theory, regardless whether this is explicit or correct. In a more restricted and specific sense, in mathematics and mathematical logic, metatheory means a mathematical theory about another mathematical theory. Literature / Literary Criticism / Literary Theory Look up the term literature in any current encyclopedia and you will be struck by the vagueness of its usage as well as by an inevitable lack of substance in the attempts to define it. In most cases, literature is referred to as the entirety of written expression, with the restriction that not every written document can be categorised as literature in the more exact sense of the word. The definitions, therefore, usually include additional adjectives such as “aesthetic” or “artistic” to distinguish literary works from texts of everyday use such as telephone books, newspapers, legal documents, and scholarly writings.