27 Observations Are Theory-Laden
An important lesson we would learn through our imagined study-abroad experience is that it is hard to speak at length about anything without making it obvious that we have a particular theory about the world. Imagine walking down the road three thousand years ago with your northern African friend, Akil:
You: Boy, is it hot today! The sun is really beating down.
Akil: It is indeed! It’s a good thing Re is so powerful.
You: Re? Oh, yeah, the sun. Why is it good that Re is powerful?
Akil: At night Re goes beneath the land to battle the forces of chaos. If he didn’t fight so fiercely, we would have many more problems—food shortages, rebellions, fighting, you name it. Re’s power helps to make sure life on the land continues as normal.
You: I agree the sun is really important. It sends energy to our planet, warming our atmosphere and giving the plants energy to grow.
Akil: You talk so funny! You make it sound like the sun is just a big disk of fire.
And it doesn’t move “beneath the land.” It’s just that the earth turns and makes it look as if the sun is moving.
Akil: Obviously not! (He holds his hand up against the sun—or Re.) While Re is massive and powerful, I would guess he is about a half setat in size—plenty big enough to give the forces of chaos a good fight! And I don’t know why you would think the land is moving. Do you feel it moving? In your view, why would a big sphere of fire care about us and make the plants grow and keep our life free from chaos?
You: The sun just burns. It doesn’t care about anything. It just does what it does. Look, sometimes chaos happens, right? Even when the sun is shining?
Akil: Sure. The battles go back and forth, and sometimes the forces of chaos get an upper hand but never for long. How would you explain the fact that chaos is always defeated? How do you explain how the “sun” in your view helps plants to grow?
You: It’s complicated. Chaos gets defeated just because—well, there are many different cases, but wars have to end sometime, and peace has to happen. People just get tired of fighting, I guess. Plants grow because of photosynthesis…
Akil: Foto Sin Theseus? Is he one of your gods?
We can imagine the discussion going much further and becoming ever more complicated as you and Akil try to fathom how you can both look at the one thing and see such different things. You see a massive star fueled by nuclear fusion, and Akil sees a divine person whose energy and concern for life infuses everything. In this sense, what each of you sees embodies a certain theory you believe. Philosophers call this “the theory-ladenness of observation.” It means that every observation carries some sort of theory along with it. The observation is connected to a background theory about what the observation is an observation of. More formally, we may say that “observations are theory-laden” means that the terms or concepts used in the observation have their meanings by virtue of some background theory.
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