Define "Theory" with a capital "T"

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... as an outgrowth of the Derrida thread. In what way is it different from philosophy? Either on its own or following literary, queer, feminist etc. Is there something about Barthes that makes him "Theory" while Leavis is not? Is there something about Derrida that makes him "Theory" while Wittgenstein is not? Or is it just a temporal thing and all people writing about certain subjects after 1960 are automatically writing Theory as opposed to philosophy, sociology, literary criticism etc.?

― Jonathan Z., Monday, 10 November 2003 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

part of the reason: the hugely increased number of people going into tertiary ed after the 60s, plus a fairly complex shift in demand in ref the "relevance" (or political up-to-dateness or whatever you want to call it) (there's generous and ungenerous ways of discussing this change) of the syllabus led to the rise of a large number of new topics breaking free (or attempting to) from the dominance of established departments

i suspect that terms like "theory" arrived during the process of rationalising and winnowing out - ie once a department had to justify their existence above and beyond the liberating spasm of 68-er novelty (that sounds a bit more cynical than i am about it)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 10 November 2003 14:47 (twenty-one years ago)

Isn't 'Theory' just another of those catch-all terms designed to enable the person using it to avoid having to make any tiresome distinctions between elements of a highly diverse body of work which they haven't read? Doesn't strike me as a useful term at all.

― alext (alext), Monday, 10 November 2003 16:31 (twenty-one years ago)

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