teòria

Teòria, often written teòria in some languages, refers to the systematic set of principles that explains a range of phenomena within a domain. The term traces back to the Greek theoria, meaning a view or contemplation, and has become a foundational concept in science, philosophy, and social thought. A teória provides a coherent framework that links observations, laws, and models into an integrated explanation of how and why things occur.

A teória is not merely a guess or a collection of facts. It is supported by a body of evidence and capable of making testable predictions. Theories are judged by criteria such as coherence, explanatory power, predictive success, and their ability to be tested and potentially falsified. They differ from laws, which describe consistent regularities, and from hypotheses, which are tentative explanations that require further testing.

The development of a teória typically involves formulating hypotheses, gathering and analyzing data through experiments and observations, and building models that capture essential relationships. Theories are refined over time through replication, peer review, and sometimes revision or replacement in light of new evidence. They remain provisional, subject to modification as knowledge advances.

Examples of well-known teòries include the theory of evolution in biology, the theory of relativity in physics, the germ theory of disease, the cell theory in biology, and various economic and social theories. Across disciplines, theories provide the lenses through which researchers interpret phenomena, predict outcomes, and guide further inquiry.