Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 07 – 16 Every influential theory undergoes reinterpretation and revision. Later generations refine its concepts, introduce new terminology, extend its applications, solve new problems, modify empirical claims, and sometimes abandon assumptions accepted by its original proponents. The question therefore arises: At what point does a revised theory become aContinue reading “Excursus 150 — What Makes a Theory the Theory That It Is?”
Author Archives: Hossein Jorjani
Excursus 149 — On Explanatory Architecture and the Boundaries of Immanence
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 10 – 13 Whether something can properly be called dialectical depends first on what “dialectic” is intended to mean. The historical continuity of the word does not establish continuity of its function or criteria. As discussed in Excursus 087 and Excursus 117, dialectic has served epistemological, soteriological, and ontologicalContinue reading “Excursus 149 — On Explanatory Architecture and the Boundaries of Immanence”
Excursus 148 — On Semantic Shift, Semantic Slippage, Equivocation, and the Shifting Explanandum
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 10 – 15 Scientific and philosophical arguments depend upon the continuity of concepts and the stability of the questions being investigated. Yet neither continuity can be taken for granted. A word may retain its spelling while changing its meaning, and an argument may retain its general subject while changingContinue reading “Excursus 148 — On Semantic Shift, Semantic Slippage, Equivocation, and the Shifting Explanandum”
Excursus 147 — On Viewing Science from Different Sides
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 20 Modern science is divided into increasingly specialized fields. A scientist may spend decades acquiring intimate knowledge of a relatively narrow area while knowing little more than an educated outsider about many others. This is not necessarily a defect. Specialization is one of the conditions that makesContinue reading “Excursus 147 — On Viewing Science from Different Sides”
Excursus 146 — On the Secularization of the Absolute: From God to Society
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 13 The decline of theological and metaphysical explanations does not necessarily eliminate the explanatory position once occupied by the Absolute. The occupant of that position may change while something of its structural function remains. God once provided an ultimate ground from which the order of the worldContinue reading “Excursus 146 — On the Secularization of the Absolute: From God to Society”
Excursus 145 — On Philosophical Constructs and Scientific Entities
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 13 Explanatory systems frequently introduce concepts for things that cannot simply be identified with what is directly observed. Plato’s Forms, Fichte’s different forms of the I, Hegel’s Absolute Spirit, Freud’s id, ego, and superego, and Jung’s psychological types are very different examples, but they raise a commonContinue reading “Excursus 145 — On Philosophical Constructs and Scientific Entities”
Excursus 144 — On Authorial Intention and Intellectual Consequence
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 13 What a thinker intends to accomplish and what the thinker’s work makes possible are not necessarily the same. This distinction is particularly important in the history of ideas, where concepts and arguments may acquire consequences very different from those intended by their authors. Gurvitch’s discussion ofContinue reading “Excursus 144 — On Authorial Intention and Intellectual Consequence”
Excursus 143 — On Classification and Reality
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 12 Classifications are tools for organizing and understanding reality. They should not be confused with intrinsic properties of the things being classified. Reality provides the objects, processes, similarities, differences, and relationships with which classifications must contend, but the boundaries of our categories depend upon the criteria byContinue reading “Excursus 143 — On Classification and Reality”
Excursus 142 — On the One Ring of Epistemology
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 12 “One Ring to rule them all.” The danger described by this familiar image is not confined to political power. Something similar can happen in the organization of knowledge. An explanatory concept, method, or framework may gradually acquire such broad ambitions that it seeks to become theContinue reading “Excursus 142 — On the One Ring of Epistemology”
Excursus 141 — On the Materialization of Hegelian Dialectic
Hossein Jorjani First publication: 2026 – 09 – 12 Consider the familiar transformation: Ice ↔ liquid water ↔ water vapor Hegel used the different phases of water as an example of the transition from quantitative to qualitative change. A gradual alteration in temperature, he observed, does not merely make water progressively warmer or colder. AtContinue reading “Excursus 141 — On the Materialization of Hegelian Dialectic”
