Common Scientific Questions

THEE as an ordered unified whole is new, and some ideas may well be new for you. Nevertheless, the frameworks contain virtually no new observations or concepts. The elements are either widely accepted and obvious observations, or a form of perennial wisdom, or well-established phenomena based on social science research. Those professions dedicated to self-help, personal advice, management consulting and organizational development generally use taxonomic principles without knowing it.

At present, crucial taxonomic observations are often barely accessible to scientists because they are distributed very widely in diverse and distinct disciplines and practices. This leads to unnecessary misunderstandings, duplications, and recycling of old findings with new names.

A: On this website, in life all around you, in your head, and in the literature.

However, remember that evidence typically relates to a conjecture. The Taxonomy is not itself a conjecture. It is a pattern found in impartial observations.

You have a right to regard any specific taxonomic formulation or ordering as conjectural. If so, I would encourage you (and others) to independently check both the observations and the architecture.

Criteria relevant in evaluating Frameworks include: correspondence, precision, simplicity, applicability, fertility, elegance, illumination, problem resolution, prediction, and structural integrity.

The brain tends to prefer wholes to details, and concepts to things. However, a taxonomy is necessarily about details and things. So expect it to feel strange. We take most details of living and working for granted, and do not usually reflect on our own functioning in a precise or scientific way.

THEE is the result of an arduous, uncertain voyage to a previously undreamed of destination: a comprehensive specification of the forms of personal and social existence. But it's only been a few decades: how can it be complete at this point?

Many of the more fundamental parts have been clarified. However, despite recognition and development of many Frameworks covering most of the Domains, many more remain to be identified and developed.

It is also unlikely that the architecture of THEE is fully worked out.

Not the way it currently functions. However, it can and should explain them. The problem is that academic disciplines start with concepts, not with brute observations. Experiments are set up using concepts. Experimenters select and organize observations that operationalize those concepts. Researchers then manipulate these concept-drenched observations to test hypotheses within established theories.

Due to the limitations intrinsic to social science disciplines, increasing numbers of para-academic institutions and innovative consultancies are being formed to deal with practical themes and social problems. They invariably (re-)discover parts of THEE. See inquiry differences tabulated here.

Yes: they can and should. Any taxonomy, including this one, is an objectivist product. It is a typical result of scientific enterprise. It only differs from usual research in studying subjectively determined realities, products of awareness or consciousness, not the physical world. Its taxonomic categories (elements)could and should be viewed as concepts for research purposes. Frameworks can be used to develop meaningful hypotheses.

Sensibly: by location within the Taxonomy as known, or by offering the potential for an expansion of taxonomic understanding.

Intelligent social scientists, popular writers and reflective practitioners regularly claim to make new observations and offer new design insights. Mostly these new ideas are as old as the hills. The value of such work stems from these old ideas not being given sufficient attention. They therefore deserve re-articulation in a modern voice. At other times, the new model is a combination of old ideas.

However, there have been genuinely new ideas and models. Some of these have led to the elaboration of previously undiscovered or undeveloped frameworks e.g. see how I handled the 'core group' idea of Art Kleiner. Another example is appreciative inquiry, which is currently being located within the Taxonomy in a different way.