Theory is defined as the critique of immediacy.

Evidence

To fathom this negation more genealogically, recall that theory originates in the critique of immediacy. Definitionally, theory objectivates philosophy, critically interrogating the place from which philosophy is seeing in order to expand the philosopher’s sight-line from “being and the world” to a meta-level of reflection upon the problem of how to know being and the world. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 253

Categorization

• DEFINE: Establishes theory itself as meta-reflection that interrogates the position of the philosophizing subject.