I recently read a physicist saying he was skeptical of reading art theory since, as a physicist, he had a high regard for something called theory and didn’t expect the art critic to approach that level of skill and discipline.

I asked him if he would require the physicist to apply the same means to his theory as a critic or historian does to his product. Why expect the same use of a word when the context difference is apparent. The word can have an instantiation that is different from the abstract object version.