Further Comment - Hollow Theory: A Reply to Rajagopalan

Abstract

I enjoyed reading Kanavillil Rajagopalan's article "On the Theoretical Trappings of the Thesis of Anti-Theory; or, Why the Idea of Theory May Not, After All, Be All That Bad: A Response to Gary Thomas" in the Fall 1998 issue of the Harvard Educational Review, and I am grateful to him for his thoughtful and detailed response to my article, "What's the Use of Theory?" (HER, Spring 1997). I am glad that we can agree on the pretensions of some kinds of theory and on its inhibiting effects on original thinking. I am pleased that he believes that I examine certain theories "with great skill and perspicacity" (p. 337), even if I am also guilty of "smug skepticism" (p. 346), "crypto-scientism" (p. 344), making an "impassioned harangue" (p. 336), and making a "fatal mistake" (p. 347) in my reasoning.

Rajagopalan's critique comes in two waves: in the first he tries to establish that theory's ambit is wide — indeed it is so wide that it encompasses anything to do with structured thought. A simple proposition follows: theory is any structured thought, ergo Thomas's structured thought is theory. Once this ground is established (that I'm a theorist), the way is easy for the second surge. Here, Rajagopalan claims that since I am a theorist I am guilty of grave contradictions and inconsistencies in my argument against theory.