Idealized Subject of Theory and its Logic: Relationship Model

The paper explores the relationship between two levels of theory, i.e. its initial theoretical basis and its logic. The author describes three possible states of the initial theoretical basis: the potential, the state of the hypothesis, and the formation state. These states presumably differ in the degree of internal correlation of ingredients, which depends on the activity of the researcher’s mind. The author tries to determine the ontological location of the original theoretical basis. An analysis of historical and philosophical literature revealed the following characteristic positions, i.e. objective idealism, representationism, praxeological apriorism, praxeological subjectivism, and culturological transcendentalism. Each of the positions has its own argument and rational grounds. After a brief comparison, the author focuses on the last one. He analyses the possible mechanisms of the epistemological genesis of the idealized subject of theory from a potential initial theoretical basis, i.e. choice, invention, and transfer. In this paper, the methodological level of theory is understood as a set of its interpretations, i.e. in practical experience, semantics, and spiritual-theoretical space. Then the author identifies the main forms of interaction of the initial theoretical framework and the logic of theory. First, scientists, often unaccountably, shape the potential space of the original theoretical basis through the methodological operations of idealizations, design, and hypothetical input. In addition, theorists, who purposefully develop a theory, conceptualize the corresponding specific methods through the empirical projection of the theory, by introducing definitions of certain terms of the theoretical language in terms of the empirical language and vice versa. Finally, the author summarizes that the initial theoretical foundations formed into conceptual frameworks are prescriptions of scientific activity and operators of reflexive acts. Thus, rationality is a constant search for proportion and equilibrium between the postulated order (the ontological scheme) and the order of judgments about it (the methodology).