Praxis (word)

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Praxis is the process by which a theory, lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced.

1 Origins
2 Political science
3 Education
4 Spirituality
5 Organizations
6 Further reading
7 External links

[edit] Origins

In Ancient Greek the word praxis referred to activity engaged in by free men. Aristotle held that there were three basic activities of man: theoria, poiesis and praxis. There corresponded to these kinds of activity three types of knowledge: theoretical, to which the end goal was truth; poietical, to which the end goal was production; and practical, to which the end goal was action. Aristotle further divided practical knowledge into ethics, economics and politics. He also distinguished between eupraxia (good praxis) and dyspraxia (bad praxis, misfortune).

[edit] Political science

The concept of praxis is important in Marxist thought. In fact, philosophy of praxis was the name given to Marxism by 19th century socialist Antonio Labriola. Marx himself stated in his Theses on Feuerbach that "philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it." Simply put, Marx felt that philosophy's validity was in how it informed action.

Georg Lukacs held that the task of political organization is to establish professional discipline over everyday political praxis, consciously designing the form of mediation best suited to clear interactions between theory and practice.

[edit] Education

Praxis is used by educators to describe a recurring passage through a cyclical process of experiential learning, such as the cycle described and popularised by David Kolb^[1].

[edit] Spirituality

See also: Praxis (Eastern Orthodoxy)

Praxis is also key in meditation and spirituality, where emphasis is placed on gaining first-hand experience of concepts and certain areas, such as union with the Divine, can only be explored through praxis due to the inability of the finite mind (and its tool, language) to comprehend or express the infinite. In an interview for YES! Magazine, Matthew Fox explained it this way:

Wisdom is always taste -- in both Latin and Hebrew, the word for wisdom comes from the word for taste -- so it's something to taste, not something to theorize about. "Taste and see that God is good," the psalm says; and that's wisdom: tasting life. No one can do it for us. The mystical tradition is very much a Sophia tradition. It is about tasting and trusting experience, before institution or dogma.^[2]

In fact, the Hebrew word for reason ("ta'am"), not wisdom ("chochmah"), is the same as the Hebrew word for taste ("ta'am").

[edit] Organizations

While praxis usually refers to the process of putting theoretical knowledge into practice, the strategic and organizational usage of the word emphasizes the need for a constant cycle of conceptualizing the meanings of what can be learned from experience in order to reframe strategic and operational models.^{[citation needed]}