Practice Theory
“Practice theory” is a theory of how social beings, with their diverse motives and their diverse intentions, make and transform the world in which they live. It is a dialectic between structure and human action working back and forth in a dynamic relationship Practice theory, as outlined by Sherry Ortner, "seeks to explain the relationship(s) that obtain between human action, on the one hand, and some global entity which we call 'the system' on the other." The approach seeks to resolve the antinomy between traditional structuralist approaches and approaches such as methodological individualism which attempted to explain all social phenomena in terms of individual actions.
Read more about Practice Theory: Pierre Bourdieu, Anthony Giddens, Michael Foucault, Key Terms, Other Important Theorists
Famous quotes containing the words practice and/or theory:
“In the case of all other sciences, arts, skills, and crafts, everyone is convinced that a complex and laborious programme of learning and practice is necessary for competence. Yet when it comes to philosophy, there seems to be a currently prevailing prejudice to the effect that, although not everyone who has eyes and fingers, and is given leather and last, is at once in a position to make shoes, everyone nevertheless immediately understands how to philosophize.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“every subjective phenomenon is essentially connected with a single point of view, and it seems inevitable that an objective, physical theory will abandon that point of view.”
—Thomas Nagel (b. 1938)