A Coherent Metatheory for Dynamic Systems: Relational Organicism-Contextualism

摘要

A metatheory is a coherent set of interlocking principles that both describes and prescribes what is meaningful and meaningless, acceptable and unacceptable, central and peripheral, as theory - the means of conceptual exploration - and as method - the means of observational exploration - in a scientific discipline. In other words, a metatheory entails standards of judgment and evaluation. Scientific metatheories transcend (i.e., 'meta') theories and methods in the sense that they define the context in which theoretical and methodological concepts are constructed. Theories and methods refer directly to the empirical world, while metatheories refer to the theories and methods themselves.