5

What is the difference between a conception of something and a theory of something? Is the conception more extensive in content or less?

Example: iterative conception of sets and ZFC

lalessandro
  • 441
  • 2
  • 12
  • 1
    This is a great question. The difference, I think, is between constructive vs axiomatic approaches to explication. With regards to sets, for example: you can either assume some primitive objects (urelements) and construct the rest of the universe out of them by some recursive procedure (this is the constructive/iterative-conception approach) or you can assume primitive theorems (axioms) and reduce the rest of the truths about sets to those axioms (this is the axiomatic/ZFC approach). Boolos and Parsons have a couple of nice papers on this worth checking out. – Hunan Rostomyan May 22 '14 at 17:06
  • @HunanRostomyan: Does this have any relation to [structural realism vs. scientific formalism](http://philosophy.stackexchange.com/q/9940/2014)? – Geremia May 23 '14 at 02:28
  • @Geremia It might. What do you think? – Hunan Rostomyan May 23 '14 at 04:33
  • @HunanRostomyan: "constructive approach to explication" → scientific formalism. "axiomatic approach to explication" → scientific realism. ? – Geremia May 23 '14 at 05:30
  • @Geremia I had the opposite pairing, but sure. You just have to narrow the definitions down to the essentials and see if you get anywhere. Could lead to an interesting research paper if there is indeed an interesting connection. – Hunan Rostomyan May 23 '14 at 05:40
  • @HunanRostomyan: Yes, indeed! I could see why you'd pair it oppositely. – Geremia May 23 '14 at 05:55
  • @HunanRostomyan I like your analogy but some philosophers claim that the distinction is not a matter of direction in the explanation process (from simple elements to complex ones, for constructivist, and from complex elements to axioms, for axiomativist) but that they are levels of explanation of different quality, they see theory as a sharper kind of conception. – lalessandro May 23 '14 at 13:03
  • @alessandro You're right I think. – Hunan Rostomyan May 23 '14 at 15:46
  • There is a formal definition of what it means to be a theory in mathematical logic - it's a set of sentences in a formal language. Not sure if this is relevant to your proposed notions, though! – Paul Ross Jul 13 '14 at 16:10

1 Answers1

1

I think conception of something generally refers to those things that we abstract from approved writings or sometimes through unreliable source which might not be authentic.That might be a reason , we sometimes realize that we are understanding that particular thing differently than what it really is.Conception of something depends on our way of understanding that something and setting it in our mind.

Meanwhile, theory of something is proved, reliable ,authentic, practised writings which is outcome of long term rational analysing and processing of different hypothesises .Theory of something might be universal as well.Its one of the major sources of gaining conception of that thing.

Making conception of a thing is a lot easier than making it recognised as a theory.