Praxis

Original Praxis

In ancient Greek, praxis was associated with politics. But major institutional differences make politics in ancient republican city states different from its modern namesake. Originally, politics concerned actions, rights and duties connected to active citizenship—in other words, to citizen (polítês) membership in the immediate community or pólis (city state). Today, political membership and eligibility are widened. But in spite of slavery being widespread, the inferior status of women and the privilege of ethnicity in delimiting citizenship, the ancient pólis, citizenship and politics were considerably more directly participatory and egalitarian for those (adult native males) eligible for full inclusion. Primarily, politics concerned the activities citizens or community members shared and had in common as peers, and so did praxis. Hence, in the thinking of Aristotle (384–322 BC), praxis became a technical term designating a particular way of knowing (gnôsis) based on a certain form of activity.

Currently, there are two major waves re-appropriating praxis from its original Aristotelian context. The first springs from Marx and Marxism in the nineteenth century, and the second from Martin Heidegger's reading of Aristotle in the twentieth century, from his students Hans-Georg Gadamer and Hannah Arendt and from Jürgen Habermas.

First Wave: Marxist Praxis

The starting point for Marxist attempts at distinguishing praxis is particularly Marx’ Theses on Feuerbach—that is, from 1845. Here, Marx attacks the passive and receptive thinking of earlier materialism for leaving the subjective and active side to idealism, for over-focusing on contemplative (spectator based) theoretical activity and for not understanding human activity as material and sensual. Questions about truth are not theoretical, he claims (nor are they passively perceptual), but practical. Human beings are not merely determined passively by their circumstances. The circumstances themselves are created by human beings. This means that human beings can take conscious control. Reflectively and consciously changing themselves and their surroundings is revolutionary praxis according to Marx.

In subsequent thinking inspired by Marx, then, the conscious analysis and change of social conditions by the practitioner-knowers themselves transforms ordinary practice as mere predetermined execution or conventional performance into praxis. Hence, praxis implies or presupposes a special form of theoretical understanding in practitioners, penetrating, distinguishing and enlightening social conditions—expressing social conditions as human practices in ways that bring forth unrealized, immanent human potentials for shaping and reshaping both themselves and their surroundings. Among others, Paulo Freire has emphasized this element and made it explicit as reflectivity and conscientization through critical dialogue.

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