Theories consist of two things: a) definitions of concepts (i.e., classes, categories, or families of events), and b) propositions (i.e., statements of relationships among concepts).

A. Definitions

There are two general kinds of definitions: conceptual and operational.

1. Conceptual definitions are abstract. They stipulate the general features of a concept. Proper conceptual definitions are statements in the form of genus and difference. For example, "Aggression (the concept to be defined, or definiendum) is behavior (the genus of which aggression is a part) that is intended to injure (intention to injure is the difference between aggressive and nonaggressive behavior).

2. Operational definitions are concrete. They are deduced from conceptual definitions. They give examples (empirical referents) of the concept. For example, if aggression is conceptualized as behavior (genus) that is intended to injure (difference), then the operational definition might include hitting, kicking, and insulting (which are attempts to injure).

B. Propositions

There are at least two kinds of propositions: categorical and hypothetical.

1. Categorical propositions assert relationships of inclusion and exclusion. These relationships can be depicted with Venn diagrams. For example,

a. "Social order is fragile." All things in the category "social order" are also in the category "things that are fragile."

b. "Some authority is based on tradition." Part of the set/circle that contains "examples of authority" is in the set/circle that contains "things based on tradition." This implies that some authority is based on something other than tradition.

c. "No good deed goes unpunished." Nothing in the category "good deeds" is in the category "things that are not punished." By implication, all things that are in the category "good deeds" are also in the category "things that are punished."

2. Hypothetical (causal or functional) propositions assert that events in one category (dependent variables, effects, consequences) are somehow contingent upon, dependent upon, or predicted by events in another category (independent variables, antecedent variables, predictor variables, "causes").

3. Independent (causal, antecdent, predictor) variables might be seen as:

a. necessary conditions (i.e., the dependent variables cannot change unless the antecedent variable exists or changes);

b. sufficient conditions (i.e., whenever the antecedent variable exists or changes the dependent variables come into being or change);

c. intervening variables (i.e., a main independent variable will have its effect only if another [intervening] variable exists or changes);

d. contributing condition (i.e., variables that affect the form of dependent variables).

4. Hypothetical propositions may assert direct relationships (i.e., variables are changing in the same direction) or inverse/indirect relationships (i.e., variables are changing in opposite directions).

5. Hypothetical propositions may assert proximal or distal relationships--in the sense of time lag and/or the number of intervening steps (as in a sequence or a causal chain).

6. Relationships may be unilateral (one way) or bi-lateral/reciprocal (i.e., causation is in both directions). Bi-lateral relationships involve either positive feedback loops (acceleration, amplification) or negative feedback loops (deceleration, damping). Bi-lateral relationships also may be dialectical; i.e., eventually, the reciprocal influence alters the nature of the variables and their relationship (e.g., eventually a child changes from "good but spoiled kid" to "bad kid."), and the nature of the relationship between the variables (e.g., parents' and children's roles) changes qualitatively.

7. Relationships may be linear; i.e., there is no change in the output-input ratio (change in y as a function of change in x), or in the slope of the line that describes the relationship. Or relationships may be curvilinear; i.e., there is acceleration or deceleration in the rate of change (or in the ratio of outputs to inputs) towards a maximum (e.g., tolerance of despotism) or minimum (e.g., a marriage is over), change. Acceleration and deceleration suggest positive or negative feedback loops.

8. Relationships may be seen as sequences (in time); as hierarchies or nestings of levels or units (buildings consist of walls and roofs; walls and roofs consist of bricks and tiles; bricks and tills consist of clay, limestone...); and configurations (webs, networks, ecological systems).

Exampes of proper propositional form include the following.

1. "If and only if X, then Y." X is asserted to be a necessary condition.

2. "Whenever X, then Y." X is asserted to be a sufficient condition.

3. "If and only if X, in the presence of (or following) W, then Y." X is asserted to be an intervening variable.

4. "The (more/less often, faster/slower, sooner/later, greater/lesser intensity) X, the (more/less often, faster/slower, sooner/later, greater/lesser intensity) Y."

Following are excerpts that contain definitions and propositions. Find these and then state them in proper propositional and definitional form. Note that many propositions and definitions are implicit; e.g., the logical flow from proposition 1 to proposition 2 requires another (unstated) relationship or a definition.

1. ...a state is a human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory. [Max Weber. "Politics as a vocation." 1918]

2. ...suicides are found to be in direct proportion to the number of Protestants and in inverse proportion to that of Catholics [Emile Durkheim, Suicide. 1897]

3. No living being can be happy or even exist unless his needs are sufficiently proportioned to his means. [Emile Durkheim, Suicide. 1897]

4. If the state is to exist, the dominated must obey the authority claimed by the powers that be. [Max Weber. "Politics as a vocation." 1918]

5. ...the term suicide is applied to all cases of death resulting directly or indirectly from a positive or negative act of the victim himself, which he knows will produce this result. An attempt is an act thus defined but falling short of actual death. [Emile Durkheim, Suicide. 1897]

6. If therefore industrial or financial crises increase suicide, this is not because they cause poverty, since crises of prosperity have the same result; it is because they are crises, that is, disturbances of the collective order. [Emile Durkheim, Suicide. 1897]

7. Where the State is the only environment in which men can live communal lives, they inevitably lose contact, become detached, and thus society disintegrates. [Emile Durkheim. The Division of Labor in Society. 1893]

8. There is the authority of the extraordinary and personal gift of grace (charisma), the absolutely personal devotion and personal confidence in revelation, heroism, or other qualities of individual leadership. This is charismatic domination... [Max Weber. "Politics as a vocation." 1918]

7. Men make their own history, but they do not make it...under circumstances chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly found, given and transmitted from the past...And just when they seem engaged in revolutionising themselves and things, in creating something entirely new, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service and borrow from them names, battle slogans and costumes in order to present the new scene of world history in this time-honored disguise and borrowed language. [Karl Marx. The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. 1851-52]

8. He who lets himself in for politics, that is, for power and force as means, contracts with diabolical powers and for his action it is not true that good can follow only from good and evil only from evil, but that often the very opposite is true. Anyone who fails to see this is, indeed, a political infant... [Max Weber. "Politics as a vocation." 1918]

10. Man seeks to learn and man kills himself because of the lack of cohesion in his religious society; he does not kill himself because of his learning. It is certainly not the learning he acquires that disorganizes religion; but the desire for knowledge wakens because religion becomes disorganized. Knowledge is not sought as a means to destroy accepted opinions but because their destruction has commenced. To be sure, once knowledge exists, it may battle in its own name and in its own cause, and set up as an antagonist to traditional sentiments. [Emile Durkheim. Suicide. 1897]