What's in a good theory?

Nozick only imagines what a perfect philosophical argument would entail because none has ever existed.

Theories are collections of arguments developed from a few basic premises. They provide frameworks for understanding complex phenomena.

While reading René Girard's The Scapegoat, I encountered his familiar theoretical adversaries: Marx and Marxists, Freud and Freudians, Nietzsche and Nietzscheans, along with contemporaneous French theorists like Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Derrida.

Girard centers his work on the origins of pagan religions. From this foundation, he constructs a grand theory explaining how these religions emerged and dissolved, ultimately giving rise to Christianity and modernity. Unlike Kant, Hegel, or Heidegger, Girard presents his metaphysical theory through anthropological methods—a choice determined by his own metaphysical commitments that reject traditional philosophical forms.

Girard captivates and polarizes readers because he operates as a grand theorist. After reading him, you either believe he's correct about everything—making him the last author you'll ever need—or you continue reading other books only as his disciple and defender.

This grand theoretical approach has largely vanished from philosophy departments, migrating instead to English, Art, and History departments across America. Modern philosophers treat historical metaphysicians merely as stepping stones toward contemporary philosophy's ideals: precision, concision, clarity, and piecewise advances.

Yet across disciplines—from architecture to sociology, literature to psychology—academics still devote their careers to specific theorists. Only in the "hard sciences" does this devotion diminish, replaced by collaborative problem-solving within larger organizational structures, each researcher addressing distinct questions to advance the field.

In this scientific approach, theory functions as a guiding vision rather than doctrine—precisely the model Rudolf Carnap advocated for philosophy (a wish largely fulfilled today).

With Carnap's theory of metaphysics, or anti-metaphysics, there are sets of puzzles and problems that need exploring and clarification. Under this framework, even negative results contribute valuable insights to the field's development.

With Girard, while reading, I get the impression that I should throw away my Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche or my Girard. If Nozick’s “perfect argument” has a realistic version, it would be this. This measure of theory already exists to some degree. The archetypal example would be something like Saul’s conversion to Christianity. A disciple of Girard would, in the most extreme example, throw away their Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche. Why keep around a theory that is partial at best, deceptive at worst?

As I look over at my near one-thousand book library in my small New York City studio, the idea of purging many books has a certain appeal.

I have never read anything that has made want to get rid of any other books.

What I have experienced, however, are works that discourage me from acquiring or reading certain other books.

Consider Žižek's debate with Jordan Peterson. Any objective observer would recognize that Peterson arrived woefully underprepared, offering only recycled anti-communist platitudes. Ironically, Žižek—himself a communist sympathizer—could formulate more devastating critiques of communism's historical failures than Peterson, with greater force and clarity. After such a performance, our objective observer would have little reason to engage with Peterson's work except for purely research purposes—as means rather than end.

Similarly, Girard has permanently dissuaded me from reading Frazer's The Golden Bough, despite encountering it in bookstores countless times. According to Girard, Frazer's work exemplifies precisely the naive anthropological approach he systematically dismantles. Why invest in reading something when Girard has not only refuted its arguments but also deconstructed the very intellectual conditions that made such a book possible?