In Wholeness and the Implicate Order, in 1980, David Bohm said, looking at the etymology of theory, that “a theory is primarily a form of insight, i.e. a way of looking at the world, and not a form of knowledge of how the world is.” Albert Einstein said much the same thing in a letter to Jacques Hadamard in 1945, describing his creative experiences: “The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role in my mechanism (sic) of thought. … In a stage when words intervene at all, they … interfere only in a secondary stage.”
This understanding is essential when coming to develop the Theory of Everything, as a megasynthesis of all knowledge in all cultures and disciplines, at all times. For, the mavellous solution to the ultimate problem of human learning is resident within the Cosmic Psyche, available for everyone to see through introspection, when Life heals our fragmented minds and split psyches in Wholeness.
1597, ‘conception, mental scheme’, from Late Latin theoria, from Greek theōria ‘contemplation, speculation; a looking at, viewing; a sight, show, spectacle, things looked at,’ from theōrein ‘to consider, speculate, look at’, from theōros ‘spectator’, from theā ‘a seeing, view, sight, aspect, spectacle’, related to thauma ‘wonder, marvel; what excites admiration, astonishment; veneration’, possibly from PIE base *dhāu- ‘to marvel, see’, and oros ‘seeing’, from orān ‘to see, look, perceive, contemplate’, from PIE base *wer-³ ‘to perceive, watch out for’.
Sense of ‘principles or methods of a science or art’ (rather than its practice) is first recorded in 1613, and of ‘an intelligible explanation based on observation and reasoning’ is from 1638.