ABSTRACT
So far, two important things about theory have been stated as it is used to negotiate the physical and social world. The first says that a particular phenomenon may receive different explanations according to different theories. The second alerts us to a fascinating and profound notion. It is this. Either, theories seek to discover the real objective nature of things. Or, theories simply reflect the subjectively generated explanations of what things might mean for people who make them. In one scheme we seek to discern the inherent order of the universe. ‘Reality’ is external to the individual, ‘imposing itself on individual consciousness from without’ (Burrell and Morgan 1979, p.1). In the other, the human mind imposes its own order on the world as perceived. As it perceives, so the mind conceives. Indeed, as it conceives so it also perceives. It conceives patterns and regularities within and between things, within and between people. The mind does not receive objectivity, it confers it (Cupitt 1985, p.247).
