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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2010
The identification of theory and practice is a critical act, through which practice is demonstrated rational and necessary, and theory realistic and rational (Antonio Gramsci).
In contemporary sociological and political theory the opposition of theory and practice refers to a number of aspects of the relationship between theories of various kinds and social life. It can refer, for example, to the relationships between the various sciences (particularly the social sciences) and their ‘objects’, between scientific knowledge and its necessary practical applications and broadly between social science and politics. Many Marxist writings since Lenin attempt to unite those three levels in a theory of the total society with a practical intent. This theory is intended to inform practical political activity in order radically to change the complex of social institutions which make the theory itself possible, in this way abolishing the theory in practice. That theory and practice in this sense can inseparably inform each other in this way within the politics of the labour movement, is one meaning in Soviet Marxism of the phrase ‘the unity of theory and practice’.
1 Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, edited and translated by Hoare, Quintin and Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971), 365.Google Scholar
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12 Theory, meaning a set of principles of an art or technical subject as distinct from its practice, were first juxtaposed in that sense in English in 1613. The opposition was used to refer to abstract knowledge opposed to practice in 1624. The use of the word ‘theory’ to refer to a mental scheme or conception of something to be done dates from 1597. The adjective ‘practical’ was opposed to theoretical, speculative or ideal from 1617 onwards. (Shorter Oxford Dictionary.)
13 Lobkowicz, Nicholas, Theory and Practice: History of a Concept from Aristotle to Marx (Indiana: Notre Dame University Press, 1967), 3–5.Google Scholar
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51 I am grateful to Aidan Foster-Carter, Ahmed Gurnah and Alan Scott for many stimulating discussions of this paper and to Zygmunt Bauman and Bill Rees for detailed comments on an earlier draft.