The relation between theory and object in research practice has always caught my curiosity.

For some, research must be constructed from objects, and they fiercely defend their position, criticizing the scholars who tend to build their work starting from theories. From them I hear “I like theory but only when applied to objects” which is the politically correct term to “I think that theory inclined scholars are crazy people disconnected from reality”. I also heard once “I hate these people who think they can force their favourite theory to any object”, as if applying theory to reality would be an ideological/intellectual violence on some sort of real truth or nature that could emanate from the object.

In contrast, theory inclined scholars usually despise their counterpart. I’ve heard once: “these guys take whatever theory fits to make a lame conceptual explanation to their personal argument”, negatively qualifying the search of an adequate theory. Another: “to make social sciences and humanities research centralized on objects is the equivalent of practicing specialized journalism”. I have also heard that to make research centralizing on objects without a solid theoretic and methodological basis from the researcher is to be at risk of producing object information generated through framework variations of the Cartesian model.