As science and scholarship go about their business, discovering unexpected things about humanity and the universe, they are very self-conscious about the use of language.

Reflecting on language

Reflecting on language is an essential element of science. Therefore, it is an essential element of Public Administration. This reflection is an ingredient of a group of scholarly undertakings with various branches and names such as ‘meta-theory’, ‘meta-science’, ‘Philosophy of Science’, and ‘Theory of Science’. As a scientist theorises about the field or object studied, it is possible for the scientist to theorise about the theorising as well. We call this activity ‘meta-theory’. Interest in meta-theoretical issues is often a sign of maturity in a scientist – a master craftsperson is interested in the tools of the trade. Science involves the building of symbolic structures that can be used to know and understand its objects of study. In Public Administration, which is the scientific study of public administration, much use is made of the symbolic system of ordinary language.

We have found the convention of using the upper case in ‘Public Administration’ to denote the subject, and the lower case in ‘public administration’ to denote that which is investigated by the subject, useful and necessary as university teachers. We would like to use this as an example to illustrate the fact that technical language sometimes needs to be different from ordinary language because technical language must perform a specific job in a specific context. The terminological distinction between ‘Public Administration’ and ‘public administration’ enables us to keep the differences between the two crafts or trades – sometimes called ‘theory and practice’ – clearly in mind. It also helps us to distinguish between ‘Theory of Public Administration’ and ‘Theory of public administration’, that is, between Public Administration and its meta-theory. The difference between a subject and its meta-theory is perhaps not as marked as the difference between the subject and its object (‘theory and practice’, if you insist), but it is still important. The subject is scientific and the meta-theory is philosophical. Science and Philosophy are different. Science seeks truth; Philosophy seeks conceptual conversion.