Theory is Summarized Practice
All scientific
methods of research are essentially practical abstractions, summed up into a means of achieving a scientifically verifiable
theory. Theory is tested, verified, systemized, and summarized practice, whatever its form or content. A methodology
is a system of principles and systematic means of organizing and structuring theoretical and philosophical inquiry.
Research designs are a systematic approach to studying phenomena and processes of events and then interpret them within the
framework of humanity, notwithstanding class, sex, and geo-cultural schisms within the global African community.
Essentially,
philosophy is summarized theory. Method is the step-by-step, systematic procedures of arriving at that theory. If the
theory is scientifically substantiated, the method has to be scientifically valid, reliable, and repeatable. The primary
process-oriented method of the ancient world was to see research problems as processes that were unfolding in time and space.
As a result, objective conditions were to be precisely studied, calculated, weighed, and measured in order to isolate the
problem statement. If any scientific problem is to be understood thoroughly, one must go to the very beginning of that
problem. Next, the conditions that allowed that problem to develop must be systematically examined. In the process,
every single stage in the birth, growth, and development of the problem---its natural metamorphosis---must be examined until
the solution becomes clear. The solution to any scientifically defined problem is accurate in proportion to the precision,
validity, and reliability of the method used to research it.
The problem statement, clearly defined, holds
the elements of its solution within the problem statement itself. Frame the problem statement accurately and the answer
will be at the heart of the question. As a rule, from inception to infancy to youth, through maturity, to old age, to
death and eventually to replacement by something higher or lower, all processes can be researched holistically using interdisciplinary/intercultural
scientific research.
In the 20th century, empirically driven European philosophy, theory,
and method culminated in the thesis of positivism and its anti-thesis---the Kantian-Hegelian/Marxist dialectical system.
In these systems the entirety of socio-historical phenomena in its natural, historical, and intellectual form is represented
via (1) isolated Eurocentric analysis based on "positive" evidence embodied in sometimes subjectively constructed
variables and (2) unsystematic "dialectical" synthesis based on a sometimes opinionated assessment of a
process, i.e., as in constant motion, change, transformation, development---accept when the "absolute idea" and
communism is being studied. In short the intellectual magnet was broken in half, posed and counter posed, isolated,
and ultimately turned against the other. In the 1990's, the social system that produced
the Russian version of the Marxist dialectical ideology collapsed and therefore the Marxist system of thought collapsed with
it.
