Practice and Dogma by Danko GrlicPraxis 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 — from this paint of view — 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 ...