Practice And Dogma

Practice and Dogma by Danko GrlićPraxis No. 1. 1965

Practice and Dogma

“Practice” is a term which in a colloquial sense is very widely and very

variously used. When we speak of a doctor’s “practice,” we have in mind a very

definite pursuit within a limited period of time; when describing a businessman

as “practical,” we think of him as being able, resourceful and shrewd; when

pointing out the value of our socialist “practice,” we emphasize historical

experience and assess developments which have taken place throughout a whole

country, even a whole system. When arguing for a general cession of abstract

theorizing and a commencement of “practical” action, we mean all concrete acts

in the sphere of sensuous material reality, as opposed to those in the sphere of

theory.

It would appear that the last, “most abstract,” most general, and, therefore,

probably, most philosophical” distinction, has somehow become crucial in certain

theses of contemporary philosophical thought.

Indeed it is just the determination of the relationship to theory that is basic

to many arguments about the meaning and purport of the idea of practice. Thus,

the related terms “theory and practice” are often taken as being fundamental,

even when attempts are made to characterize practice, from a Marxist position,

as a wider, more comprehensive notion into which theory can be subsumed, when

the fact that theory is immanent in practice is considered to be the specific of

human practice. Consequently, human practice вЂ" from this paint of view вЂ" is

always theoretical, and human theory is inconceivable without certain

“practical” repercussions, if it really is a “serious” theory, i. e. a thought

tending towards realization, and if it is expressed within co-ordinates of a

particular place and time, and not empty speculation and idle thought. Human

practice is thus distinguished from animal “practice” just because it is

purposeful, planned, ideally preconceived; a consequence of its having first

been theoretical. A frequently adduced proof of this argument is the well-known

quotation from Marx’s Das Kapital, though Marx is dealing with the analysis of

the concept of labour, not practice, and although the subject of Marx’s

objection is the narrower concept, which, at best, can only be part of universal

human practice: “We presuppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively

human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee

puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what

distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees, is this, that the

architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At

the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the

imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He does not only effects a

change of form in the material in which he works, but he also realizes a purpose

of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must

subordinate his will.” (K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, ch. 5)

This thesis of Marx, extended to all spheres, taken as absolute, lop-sidedly

interpreted as the basic characteristic of the total sum of human practice has

often resulted in theoreticians unconsciously taking as basic and preponderant

in defining the category of practice relationship theoretical-practical,

ideal-material, imagined-realized[1].

Regardless, however, of whether practice includes or does not include theory вЂ"

or whether both practice and theory can be comprehended only through same third

thing, which determines the possibility of establishing this relationship вЂ" the

question nevertheless arises: can practice be determined at all simply on the

basis of its relation (immanent or transcendent) to theory?

A particular concept may sometimes not be determined and wholly explained only

through a positive statement of the content immanent in it and it is extremely

important for the delimitation of its scope and the comprehension of its meaning

that it also be determined negatively towards that which is really opposed to it

as its counter-concept. What is, then, opposed to human practice?

If we intend to determine negatively this central concept of Marx’s thought

according to Marx’s fundamental views (although not always in accordance with

certain of his own observations and accidental distinctions,