ABSTRACT
This chapter attempts to formulate the fundamentally reflexive aspect which would seem to be an essential element of any theory having the status of philosophical necessity. The demand that a philosophically necessary theory be comprehensive requires that it be concerned with all the areas of sensuous and non-sensuous experience of which we are aware to date. A truly comprehensive theory would have to be ‘reflexive’. The experiential testing of evaluative theories again requires compatibility. Logical tests require a theory to be clear, coherent, and simple. It has already been asserted that in some cases ‘an evaluative theory also becomes a prescriptive theory’, that ‘a knower’ must ‘logically’ become ‘an actof seeking ‘to change some factors in a situation in the direction of how they should be’. ‘Compatibility’ requires a descriptive theory accurately to report the concrete area of experience concerned and to present a fully adequate abstract description of this area.
