In theory

[boyofbadgers]

Is praxis just an fancy synonym for practice? Or is it a bit more complicated than that?

Comments

[tansu]

Pretty much the practice of something, or the process of doing something. Praxis is, like, "doings" as opposed to "making stuff" or "finding out about stuff". It's from Aristotle originally, but it's probably got more specific nuances of meaning in different fields of thought, which other people would know a lot more about than I do.

[sbp]

Sounds like an insurance firm.

[ergotia]

My recollection from Aristotle is that praxis means culmination, turning point - the edge where theory becomes practice - and by extension orgasm and the Great Goddess :) But I have not read Aristotle for over twenty years.

I think in fields such as e.g. literary theory the "edge" aspect of praxis distinguishes it from practice - it is the place you cannot identify as a shade but where black becomes white, the date you cannot identify where a word chamges its common usage, the time you cannot identify when orgasm moves from gathering to inevitable. Derrida is keying into this with theories of "jouissance" i.e. the subversive function of language where meaning constantly both is and is not as texts are written and read. But again it is at least twenty years since I dabbled in any kind of theory so this may all be total bollocks.

[byebyepride]

Three dimensions of human existence (in Aristotle, reaffirmed in e.g. Arendt, The Human Condition where poesis becomes the more modern 'work'): praxis is action (spontaneous and inventive, e.g. characteristic of a statesman or warrior), theoria is detached contemplation (e.g. characteristic of a philosopher), poesis is making (according to a plan e.g. characteristic of a craftsman). Generates questions such as 'should politics derive from action or from making. Theoria cannot 'generate' anything

[byebyepride]

Didn't actually answer your question - which is probably 'that's how it's used, but it shouldn't be because it obscures more than it clarifies'.