The cautious man speaks:

There is a sort of theory that different 'sciences'/discourses/points of view seem to disagree when in fact they are all talking about different things, and it is only the abstractions from their specific objects of study that disagree. A simple example of this might be sociology and anthropology whose theories might seem to contradict each other, but then when we see where the theories came from (their objects of study) we can see that what is required is not a battle, but another science that includes both anthropological phenomena and sociological, the existence of which I do not know of.

This can be extended to look at three phases of French thought: Sartre, Althusser and Foucault, or existentialism, structuralism and post-structuralism and see whether in fact they disagree. Briefly, Sartre dealt with individuals whether 'in group' or in isolation, his object of study was the individuals point of view, his experience of the world, especially in relation to freedom. Now Althusser never looked at this phenomenon, he talked about structures, generalities, theory and ideology, and this was not how these related to the individual but how they fitted together. He was looking at the conditions in which the individual lived. Next Foucault studied power. This differed to structures because he was not so general, he wasn't interested in grouping ISA's (church,school,judiciary etc) all together, but in studying those specific mechanisms of power - the prison, the mental hospital, why certain types of sexuality were declared taboo.

Now this is not to say that in fact Sartre, Althusser and Foucault and anybody else all fit happily together because they were all studying different phenomena, but just to take a cautious first step in understanding why they differed. Before going any further it is necessary to point out that it is not my intention to go on about throwing the baby out with the bathwater and pick and choose the wheat from the chaff. You can't pull together a number of different theories, pick what seems right and build some metatheory so include all the good bits. On the other hand when approaching a specific question (especially a political question) and using these theories as guides it is important (a) to judge whether one stance is actually a better starting point than the others, and (b) what sort of answers the different theories will be giving us. I think it's best to stop there because I can see arguments that would say that the bigger your frame of reference the truer your answer is, ie Sartre would only include items from a personal point of view, whereas Foucault will actually bring those facts and more in and so will be able to limit the effectiveness of Sartre's reply, rather like pacifism's arguments all tend to be very personal while anti-pacifism arguments bring in more facts - the military situation etc.

One further point about error in these arguments- these thinkers are all quite distant from each other, but if some common object is reached by two thinkers, it is possible to choose between them, perhaps Merleau-Ponty, for example would actually be able to bring a counter-argument to Sartre, or Poulantzas against Althusser.

Another thing about starting points is that doesn't deconstruction say, ok I'll take your starting points and show you where your conclusions contradict your premises ? And hold that given any structure there will be a contradiction within it ?

Another way of disagreeing with a theory is to bring up related phenomena, that the theory should explain but doesn't. This would give a 'dialectical' approach, where theory1 explains phenomena a, b and c, but then we come up with phenomena d, which contradicts theory1, so we have to adapt it, and come up with theory2. Now this is a difficult requirement in social sciences because usually the phenomena are already there and it all depends on whether you can bring all the relevant items to mind, or how well you can argue the case to exclude them, nevertheless new phenomena is an important part of changing a theory.

Another point is what to do about the Great Thinkers, who have thought about a number of different topics and written a metatheory about them. I said at the beginning that I didn't know a theory that included anthropology and sociology, but someone (say, objecting to Levi-Strauss' structuralist claims) might argue that Marxism was just such a theory, many philosophers have written on a number of subjects and attempted to unify them (perhaps that could be a definition of philosophy, eg the pre-socratics 'all is fire' type claims, but then on the other hand we don't want to take the history out of it, as the importance of the pre-socratics is not that they provide an available option for us, but that they were materialists, the importance of their argument is what it was denying rather than what it was supporting, that it claimed that the universe was not full of gods or souls, but that it could be explained rationally) for example Hegel, Bertrand Russell, Plato, Marx etc but there is something to look for here. Many philosophers have written on lots of topics, have had an opinion on everything it is possible to have an opinion on, yet isn't it often the case that they have some clever theory that they just apply to various phenomena ? eg Plato's World of Ideas theory appears as as part of the mind/body problem, epistomological problems, the state, morality etc similarly it might be argued that Marx makes his mind up about the class struggle and applied it to politics, morality, philosophy etc yet couldn't it be said that there are certain lines of enquiry that bring us objective knowledge that could then be applied to areas where scientific enquiry is difficult, eg psychoanalysis teaches us about the mind, then we can apply this knowledge to other situations, away from the couch where the theories were formed. It seems that you can go back and back, and then you reach a knot, and have to wait until another approach comes to mind (eg we can say the economic crisis of the 70s was caused by the rise in oil prices, but why exactly oil prices rose is a tricky and complex question and cannot yield the same sort of answer as the question about the economic crisis). Is is possible to articulate what the problem is we have reached ? It is how can a theory, formed by abstracting from one set of phenomena, be applied to another set of (apparently) related phenomena ?

Can we summarise our answers to our original problem ?

Yes, it seems likely that a proportion of disagreement amongst various theories comes from the phenomena they take to be their starting points. There are a number of factors that we could take into account in weighing up what size the proportion is. The main problem is with metatheories: what objective information do they yield in areas which they haven't specifically studied ?

The Hypocrite speaks:

Thou fool, can you not see that theories come from those who are ridden with corrupt values, they construct visions of their own filthy souls. Christianity's God is not some noble hope for truth, but an envious sickness from the weak. Theories are made by men who cannot bear the truth, do you not know that creating your own language, a well known practise of philosophers, is a sign of a sick mind ? You are starting from the wrong premise if you believe these cheaters claims to be searching for truth, look at the souls, not their minds, then you will know what they really desire !

The Deceiver speaks:

Theories come from people in a certain environment, a given situation, and unless we can recognise this fact - we are not God, all present and all knowing - that we are conditioned by our environment, the closure of our ideology, the limits of what we can see, then we will not take into account why we believe one thing and not another, we must admit I believe it BECAUSE I am bourgeois, because I live in the twentieth century. The criticism of all dogma is the history of dogma, there is no linear development, no growth from a child to a man, but an adapting to a new time, a new place. We cannot burn off our cultural armour, no matter how hard we will it.

Job:

Kala nupe te lana pele kanta lena dela mensta dante mena clete frenso mela sumpe kante nele ... beyond the abyss there is truth. Beyond evil there is light. God is our weakness and sin, pulling us down into heaven. Amen.