{The Life of Theories}[29th August 1988]

[Redbook5:333][19880829:1018]{The Life of Theories}[29th August 1988]

19880829.1018

I am sure this has been noticed before:* how a theory (such as the one in these Journals)** passes through stages (or changes gradually) from tentative and skeletal to confident and (relatively) complete (There comes a stage when the idea itself hardly develops: everything is application). At the beginning, the process is relatively open-minded, and receptive to new ideas; at the end, or at least later, acceptance is generally defined by previous acceptance [sic]. This tendency in development can outlive the original author of the theory, passing to his successors. Look at contemporary Freudianism: full of ‘new’ ideas, but all circumscribed by the original ideas.***

*[Ref unclear]

**[Unclear which theory exactly.]

***[Otherwise, presumably, they would no longer be Freudianism.]

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