Almost Make Sense

Are Known Without Being Taught

Don't Hold Water

Exist Only As Records

Exist To Be Tested

Hold Water

Look Good On Paper

Sound Good On Paper

theory

impossible

possible

proof

one-liner

philosophy

practice

is a 'regional system' of struggle against power whose aim is to sap power, not to awaken 'consciousness' (which we know is a 'form of knowledge').

This is a struggle against power, a struggle aimed at revealing and undermining power where it is most invisible and insidious. It is not to 'awaken consciousness' that we struggle (the masses have been aware for some time that consciousness is a form of knowledge... and consciousness as the basis of subjectivity is a prerogative of the bourgeoisie), but to sap power, to take power... it is an activity conducted alongside those who struggle for power, and not their illumination from a safe distance. A 'theory ' is the regional system of this struggle. (Foucault in Deleuze 1972 : 1).

is a term applied to works that offer novel and persuasive accounts of signification.

works that . . . offer novel and persuasive accounts of signification.' Theory was 'attractive because [it] offered richer conceptual frameworks than did the New Criticism for expounding the complexity of literary signification.'

is always an irreducibly political practice, whether it confirms or challenges existing relations of power.

For Foucault, theory is always an irreducibly political practice, whether it confirms or challenges existing relations of power.

is always full of holes if you look close enough.

There's always a hole in theories somewhere if you look close enough. Mark Twain

is an approach which serves to ferret out the unapparent import of things. Not to codify abstract regularities but to make thick description possible. The aim is not to gernealize across cases but to generalize within them.

The essential task of theory building. . . is not to codify abstract regularities but to make thick description possible, not to generalize across cases but to generalize within them. To generalize within cases is usually called, at least in medicine and depth psychology, clinical inference. . . .In the study of culture the signifiers are not symptoms or clusters of symptoms, but symbolic acts or clusters of symbolic acts,and the aim is not therapy but the analysis of social discourse But the way in which theory is used-- to ferret out the unapparent import of things-- is the same (Geertz, 1973:26)

is both dangerous and impotent that we should be wary of as most theoretical projects, on the one hand, require a coherence of thought and purpose that is often authoritarian in its demands, and on the other, they fail to grasp power at the level of exchange.

Wolin claims that for Foucault theory is 'both dangerous and impotent' (OT 191). Foucault is wary of most theoretical projects because they require a coherence of thought and purpose that is often authoritarian in its demands. And he did think that much theorizing about politics, and particularly about power, was wasted effort that never grasped power at the level of exchange and so was politically ineffective.

is composed of four stages of acceptance. First it is seen as worthless nonsense, then as is an interesting but perverse, then true but unimportant, and lastly it is taken to have always been so.

Theories have four stages of acceptance: i) this is worthless nonsense, ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view, iii) this is true, but quite unimportant, iv) I always said so. (J. B. S. Haldane)

How empty is theory in the presence of fact! Mark Twain

theory, n.One-Liners

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