A conception of theory is part of the framework model of explanation. This conception has strong ties with a realist view of theory. Theory in the framework model operates with structures in order to be able to explain stimulus causation. However, we find in much recent social and political thought an antipathy for theory in this sense. How does the framework model fare against these antitheoretical currents?

Politics and theory

What is the place of theory in our overall social existence? Gramsci's answer to this question merits our consideration. He started from the assumption that people would not organize around their interests, and ultimately use the state as an instrument for advancing their interests, if they saw no possibility in the way things are of their interests ever being realized. There is, then, a need for demonstrating the feasibility of realizing their interests within a certain conception of the world. This conception of the world is a theory, and theoreticians are to be valued for the indirect role they play in getting people organized to pursue their interests.

Gramsci insisted that a movement of one class to take control of the state from another required a theoretical underpinning. The ruling class being challenged would have its own family of conceptions of the world. Part of the success of these conceptions was their identification of the goals of the ruling class as those of the society as a whole.