Essay About Concept Of Labour And Sphere Of Sensuous Material Reality

Practice And Dogma
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Practice and Dogma by Danko GrlićPraxis 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 is expressed within co-ordinates of a
particular place and time, and not empty speculation and idle thought. Human
practice is thus distinguished from animal “practice” just because it is
purposeful, planned, ideally preconceived; a consequence of its having first
been theoretical. A frequently adduced proof of this argument is the well-known
quotation from Marx’s Das Kapital, though Marx is dealing with the analysis of
the concept of labour, not practice, and although the subject of Marx’s
objection is the narrower concept, which, at best, can only be part of universal
human practice: “We presuppose labour in a form that stamps it as exclusively
human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee
puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what
distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees, is this, that the
architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At
the end of every labour-process, we get a result that already existed in the
imagination of the labourer at its commencement. He does not only effects a
change of form in the material in which he works, but he also realizes a purpose
of his own that gives the law to his modus operandi, and to which he must
subordinate his will.” (K. Marx, Capital, vol. I, ch. 5)
This thesis of Marx, extended to all spheres, taken as absolute, lop-sidedly
interpreted as the basic characteristic of the total sum of human practice has
often resulted in theoreticians unconsciously taking as basic and preponderant
in defining the category of practice relationship theoretical-practical,
ideal-material, imagined-realized[1].
Regardless, however, of whether practice includes or does not include theory —
or whether both practice and theory can be comprehended only through same third
thing, which determines the possibility of establishing this relationship — the
question nevertheless arises: can practice be determined at all simply on the
basis of its relation (immanent or transcendent) to theory?
A particular concept may sometimes not be determined and wholly explained only
through a positive statement of the content immanent in it and it is extremely
important for the delimitation of its scope and the comprehension of its meaning
that it also be determined negatively towards that which is really opposed to it
as its counter-concept. What is, then, opposed to human practice?
If we intend to determine negatively this central concept of Marx’s thought
according to Marx’s fundamental views (although not always in accordance with
certain of his own observations and accidental distinctions,