What is the difference between principle and theory?
principle | theory |
A fundamental assumption.
* {{quote-web, date=2011-07-20, author=Edwin Mares, site=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, title=
, accessdate = 2012-07-15}}
A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.
(usually, in the plural) Moral rule or aspect.
(physics) A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.
* {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author=
, title= A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.
* Gregory
(obsolete) A beginning.
* (Edmund Spenser)
A source, or origin; that from which anything proceeds; fundamental substance or energy; primordial substance; ultimate element, or cause.
* Tillotson
An original faculty or endowment.
* Stewart
To equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.
* L'Estrange
* Locke
(obsolete) Mental conception; reflection, consideration.
* 1646 , (Thomas Browne), Pseudodoxia Epidemica , VII.19:
(sciences) A coherent statement or set of ideas that explains observed facts or phenomena, or which sets out the laws and principles of something known or observed; a hypothesis confirmed by observation, experiment etc.
* 2002 , Duncan Steel, The Guardian , 23 May 2002:
* 2003 , (Bill Bryson), A Short History of Nearly Everything , BCA, p. 118:
* 2009 , (Richard Dawkins), The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution , Bantam, p. 10:
* {{quote-magazine, date=2012-01
, author=Michael Riordan
, title=Tackling Infinity
, volume=100, issue=1, page=86
, magazine=
(uncountable) The underlying principles or methods of a given technical skill, art etc., as opposed to its practice.
* 1990 , Tony Bennett, Outside Literature , p. 139:
* 1998 , Elizabeth Souritz, The Great History of Russian Ballet :
(mathematics) A field of study attempting to exhaustively describe a particular class of constructs.
A hypothesis or conjecture.
* 1999 , Wes DeMott, Vapors :
* 2003 , Sean Coughlan, The Guardian , 21 Jun 2003:
(countable, logic) A set of axioms together with all statements derivable from them. Equivalently, a formal language plus a set of axioms (from which can then be derived theorems).
In obsolete terms the difference between principle and theory
is that principle is a beginning while theory is mental conception; reflection, consideration.As nouns the difference between principle and theory
is that principle is a fundamental assumption while theory is mental conception; reflection, consideration.As a verb principle
is to equip with principles; to establish, or fix, in certain principles; to impress with any tenet or rule of conduct.principle
English
Noun
(en noun)Propositional Functions
- Let us consider ‘my dog is asleep on the floor’ again. Frege thinks that this sentence can be analyzed in various different ways. Instead of treating it as expressing the application of __ is asleep on the floor'' to ''my dog'', we can think of it as expressing the application of the concept
''my dog is asleep on __''
to the object
''the floor''
(see Frege 1919). Frege recognizes what is now a commonplace in the logical analysis of natural language. ''We can attribute more than one logical form to a single sentence . Let us call this the principle of multiple analyses . Frege does not claim that the principle always holds, but as we shall see, modern type theory does claim this.
Sarah Glaz
Ode to Prime Numbers, volume=101, issue=4, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=Some poems, echoing the purpose of early poetic treatises on scientific principles , attempt to elucidate the mathematical concepts that underlie prime numbers. Others play with primes’ cultural associations. Still others derive their structure from mathematical patterns involving primes.}}
- Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna.
- Doubting sad end of principle unsound.
- The soul of man is an active principle .
- those active principles whose direct and ultimate object is the communication either of enjoyment or suffering
Usage notes
Principle is always a noun ("moral rule"), but it is often confused with (principal), which can be an adjective ("most important") or a noun ("school principal"). Consult both definitions if in doubt. Incorrect usage: * He is the principle musician in the band * She worked ten years as school principle A mnemonic to avoid this confusion is "The principal'' alphabetic ''principle'' places ''A'' before ''E ".Synonyms
* (moral rule or aspect) tenetDerived terms
* agreement in principle * anthropic principle * Aufbau principle * Bernoulli's principle * correspondence principle * cosmological principle * Dilbert principle * dormitive principle * equivalence principle * extractive principle * first principles * Huygens' principle * IBM Pollyanna Principle * Le Chatelier's principle * Mach's principle * matter of principle * Matthew principle * Mitchell principle * on principle * Pareto principle * Pauli exclusion principle * Peter principle * pigeonhole principle * precautionary principle * principle of least action * principle of substitutivity * principled stance * programming principle * reciprocity principle * strong equivalence principle * superposition principle * uncertainty principle * verifiability principleVerb
- Governors should be well principled .
- Let an enthusiast be principled that he or his teacher is inspired.
External links
* *theory
English
Noun
- As they encrease the hatred of vice in some, so doe they enlarge the theory of wickednesse in all.
- It was only when Einstein's theory' of relativity was published in 1915 that physicists could show that Mercury's "anomaly" was actually because Newton's gravitational ' theory was incomplete.
- The world would need additional decades [...] before the Big Bang would begin to move from interesting idea to established theory .
- Scientists and creationists are understanding the word "theory'" in two very different senses. Evolution is a '''theory''' in the same sense as the heliocentric '''theory'''. In neither case should the word "only" be used, as in "only a ' theory ".
citation, passage=Some of the most beautiful and thus appealing physical theories', including quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, have been dogged for decades by infinities that erupt when theorists try to prod their calculations into new domains. Getting rid of these nagging infinities has probably occupied far more effort than was spent in originating the ' theories .}}
- Does this mean, then, that there can be no such thing as a theory of literature?
- Lopukhov wrote a number of books and articles on ballet theory , as well as his memoirs.
- Knot theory classifies the mappings of a circle into 3-space.
- It's just a theory I have, and I wonder if women would agree. But don't men say a lot about themselves when a short-skirted woman slides out of a car or chair?
- The theory is that by stripping costs to the bone, they are able to offer ludicrously low fares.
- A theory is consistent if it has a model.