The concept of praxis, also known as the practical discourse in philosophy, has been expressed in different ways in different eras. However, the linkages from one era to another and from one paradigm to another are not well explicated in the nursing literature. Difficulties with translations of ‘praxis’ into ‘practice’ and the connotations of the word ‘practical’ in the English language and in nursing have influenced extrapolation of the linkages. More recently, further blurring of the linkages occurred from the popular (...) association of praxis within the emancipatory paradigm. Integral to the concept of praxis, since the time of Aristotle, is the notion of phronesis: a process of moral reasoning enacted to establish the ‘good’ of a particular situation, often referred to as practical wisdom. The purposes of this paper are twofold. Firstly to demonstrate a number of linkages and shifts in the evolution of praxis. This, I believe, will enhance understanding of the multiple expressions of praxis in contemporary nursing. Secondly, to promote and affirm the importance of praxiological knowledge development in the discipline. Furthermore, increased appreciation of the concept of praxis provides an important vehicle for the advancement of nursing as a moral endeavour and the nurse as moral agent. (shrink)

The project of critical management theory is based on a view of a theorist who intervenes in the activity of managers and employees aiming at their emancipation. It involves an image of subjectivity governed by structural determinants that render the subject incapable of freeing himself without a scholar's involvement. In the discussion that follows, I seek to explain how this image has been developed and how it paved the way to ethical–methodological necessity, which obliges the theorist to intervene in the (...) realities of the objects of their study. I contrast this with a view of subjectivity provided by Søren Kierkegaard. I explain how he theorizes its relationship with the ethical and the limitations in generating knowledge claims about the morality of the other. (shrink)

The project of critical management theory is based on a view of a theorist who intervenes in the activity of managers and employees aiming at their emancipation. It involves an image of subjectivity governed by structural determinants that render the subject incapable of freeing himself without a scholar's involvement. In the discussion that follows, I seek to explain how this image has been developed and how it paved the way to ethical–methodological necessity, which obliges the theorist to intervene in the (...) realities of the objects of their study. I contrast this with a view of subjectivity provided by Søren Kierkegaard. I explain how he theorizes its relationship with the ethical and the limitations in generating knowledge claims about the morality of the other. (shrink)

Critical management education typically assumes that management courses that emphasize critical reflection—that is, courses that critique problematic systems and structures, and ask students to dialogue about and actively reflect upon these critiques—will foster student transformation. In contrast, critical theory typically suggests that transformation requires praxis, that is, critical reflection plus practical action where students enact their new knowledge in their everyday lives. We empirically test these assumptions by measuring student transformation in management classes that emphasize critical reflection and in other (...) classes that emphasize praxis. We find no significant differences in three measures of student transformation in classes where only critical reflection is emphasized, but significant differences in all three measures when praxis is emphasized. In a content analysis of student praxis assignments, we find further evidence of the link between praxis and student transformation. Specifically, the majority of students value praxis, describe changes in their self-understanding/consciousness thanks to assignments that emphasize praxis, and plan to continue new behaviors that address concerns raised by critiques of problematic systems and structures. Finally, we find that the greater a student’s self-described effect of praxis, the greater that student’s transformation. Taken together, the results suggest that the practical application dimension of praxis is a key “missing ingredient” in the teaching of business ethics as students move from critically reflecting on ethical issues, to actually becoming transformed by their knowledge. (shrink)

The "Practice Turn" in the Contemporary Socio-Human Sciences The paper provides an overview of the current situation in the socio-human sciences, which is characterised by attempts to overcome traditional one-sided approaches and look for new alternatives. One of the latest alternatives to traditional approaches in the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences is the "practice turn". It is the turn to another, non-traditional approach to practice but also to Aristotelian phronesis. The author gives an account of three main tenets (...) of this turn with reference to both ancient Greek and modern conceptions of practice. (shrink)

ESSENTIALISM IN THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX by Scott Meikle LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1985. 195 pp., $24?95 Meikle emphasizes the roots of Marx's dialectical method in Aristotelian essentialism and organicism. This is shown to constitute a challenge to liberal scholars to rethink their methodological premises. Though many liberals claim Aristotle as their intellectual forebear, they haue not grasped the Aristotelian propensity for holistic analysis of social phenomena?as Marx did. In order to reclaim Aristotle's legacy, liberals must reformulate their economic (...) and political ideas within a broader context that takes account of historical, cultural and socio?psy?chological factors. (shrink)

In the course of developing a semantics with epistemological intent, Brandom claims that his inferentialism is Hegelian. This paper argues that, even on a charitable reading, Brandom is an anti-Hegelian.

The purpose of this article is to help educators and managers learn about a variety of win—win solutions to problems with ethical dimensions. The hope is that the larger the variety of win-win solutions we can consider, the higher the probability that we can find at least one that satisfies both ethical and material concerns. This article is motivated by the experiences of managers who have found that they need win-win solutions because it is very difficult to effectively advocate ethical (...) solutions to problems that lose money or do not make money for their organizations. The purpose of the article is not to build theory or a theoretical taxonomy of winwin solutions, but to gather from eclectic theoretical and applied sources a variety of win-win solutions that can help solve problems with ethical dimensions. Examples of the types of win—win solutions are illustrated. Ethical problems with win—win solutions are also considered. (shrink)

Crisis management can be simultaneously a content specific problem solving process and an opportunity for stimulating and enabling an organization's ethical tradition. Crisis can be an opportunity for ethical organizational development. Kierkegaardian "upbuilding" dialog method builds from within the internal ethical tradition of an organization to respond to crises while simultaneously adapting and protecting the organization's tradition. The crisis itself may not be a directly ethical crisis, but the method of responding to the crisis is built upon the ethical foundations (...) of an organization's tradition. A limitation of this method is that it may be less applicable to organizations with questionably ethical traditions. The concept of "upbuilding" dialog is derived from Kierkegaard, but here is applied to organizational crisis management. The method is illustrated and discussed in the context of a wrongful death crisis of the Dana- Farber Cancer Institute, a non-profit organization, and an economic survival crisis at Ben and Jerry's, a business organization. (shrink)

Action research is combined research and practical action where the researcher joins with and acts with practitioners to help improve practice and theory building. Action research can be a form of Aristotelian critical, ethical praxis that developmentally changes the action researcher and the external world. Bernstein’s and Eikeland’s interpretations of Aristotelian ethics praxis are considered. The Argyris et al. “action-science” and the van de Ven “engaged scholarship” forms of action research with their differently nuanced interpretations of Aristotelian philosophy as foundations (...) for action research are considered and compared as examples of action research as an ethics praxis method with respect to a key similarity with respect to joining of critical ethics and actionable knowledge; another key similarity with respect to action research practice that can developmentally change the action researcher and the external world; and a key difference with respect to academic literature versus practitioner-based theory building is also considered. Examples in the cases of the political economist and action researcher, Hirschmann’s “Exit,Voice, Loyalty” approach and Greenleaf’s “Servant Leadership” approach to action research as forms of Aristotelian critical, ethical praxis are analyzed. (shrink)

The paper compares John Dewey's pragmatism and cultural-historical activity theory as epistemologies and theories of transformative material activity. For both of the theories, the concept of activity, the prototype of which is work, constitutes a basis for understanding the nature of knowledge and reality. This concept also implies for both theories a methodological approach of studying human behavior in which social experimentation and intervention play a central role. They also suggest that reflection and thought, mediated by language and semiotic artifacts, (...) serve the reorientation of activity and is vital in the development of new, alternative ways of action. That is why Dewyan pragmatism and activity theory supply means of understanding organizational behavior and change in human activities better than the concepts of practice based on rule following, routines or embodied skills. (shrink)

The new social theories of practice have been inspired by Wittgenstein's late philosophy, phenomenology and more recent sociological theories. They regard embodied skills and routinized, mostly unconscious habits as a key foundation of human practice and knowledge. This position leads to an overstatement of the significance of the habitual dimension of practice. As several critics have suggested this approach omits the problems of transformative agency and change of practices. In turn classical practice theories, activity theory and pragmatism have analyzed the (...) mechanisms of change. Pragmatism suggests that a crisis of a habit calls for reflection. Through working hypotheses and experimentation this leads to a transformation of a practice. Activity theory introduced the concept of remediation. A collective elaboration of shared mediational artefacts is needed to transform an activity. (shrink)

Consumers occasionally buy commodity products without much thought but purchase high involvement products or services after rigorous information collection and detailed comparisons of the different options. At the core, research on consumer behavior comprises studies on the cognitive processes involved in consumer purchasing decisions and the way buying decisions are made. The discipline of consumer research and marketing has remained dominated by positivist, empiricist, and realist philosophies. Since consumer behaviour is a social phenomenon, the researchers have used logical positivist and (...) interpretivist philosophies to study and develop various theories about consumer behaviour. However, both of these philosophies have inherent limitations to capture the complete knowledge of consumer reality. Pragmatist philosophy is capable of providing solutions to real-life problems by starting with research question and exploring the issues from multiple perspectives. It is, therefore, suggested to explore the various aspects of consumer behaviour research from a pragmatist perspective and contribute more effective information to the body of knowledge in this discipline. (shrink)

The search for the best strategy in literacy education is a lingering phenomenon. From time to time one strategy is claimed to work best, only to be critically challenged and replaced by another. There is always debate about what the best strategy is. The belief that there is supposed to be only one best strategy is not consistent with the fact that there are diverse views on what it should be. This paper argues that the search for the best strategy (...) is not looking for the best among various practices. Instead, it calls for a critical examination of our underlying philosophical beliefs about it. Hence, the discussion of the best strategy is divided into three philosophical phases: objectivist, deconstructivist, and praxis. The search is argued to be taking a journey of philosophical investigations rather than finding a certain practice superior to all others. (shrink)

: Contemporary common sense holds that authenticity is an ethical ideal: that there is something bad about inauthenticity, and something good about authenticity. Here we criticize the view that authenticity is bad because it detracts from the wellbeing of the inauthentic person, and propose an alternative moral account of the badness of inauthenticity, based on the idea that inauthentic behaviour is potentially misleading.

This article explores an aspect of Karl Marx’s concept, praxis. Praxis is meaningful work, through which we fulfil ourselves by fulfilling others. The discussion draws on the author’s work with postgraduate student teachers, where both students and author were researching their own practice. Reflecting Marx’s conception of praxis as subjective fulfilment in the objective world, this activity was intended to trouble and complicate the categories ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’, whilst enabling students to become both more autonomous and other-oriented. The intention behind (...) this article is to develop the theoretical vocabulary of praxis available to educational researchers and practitioners. Some ideas from Lacanian psychoanalysis are introduced, followed by extensive discussion of Slavoj Žižek’s concepts, ‘act’ and ‘event’. The key argument is that in a nascent educative praxis, ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ perspectives can be understood not as fixed points of reference, but as dual orientations on a flow of signification. These ideas are developed alongside detailed examination of two university-based research sessions with student teachers. With reference to session activities, a rationale is provided for an emerging educative praxis, in which students explore creative tensions between ‘subjective’ and ‘objective’ perspectives on school-based practice. (shrink)

There is an essential tension in Hume's account of explanation in the moral sciences. He holds the familiar (though problematic) view that explanations of action are causal explanations backed by the laws of human nature. But he also tenders a rational and historical model of explanation which has been neglected in Hume studies. Developed primarily in the Essays and put into practice in the History of England, this model holds that explanations in the moral sciences cite agents? reasons for acting (...) in definite historical situations. Such explanations are context?dependent, social (not psychological) in content, essentially post hoc, and provide insufficient grounds for prediction. The tension between Hume's two models is considerable, not to say inconsistent. We would best understand him as trying to reconcile the two. Each provides different and equally important kinds of intelligibility. Until this is appreciated, the one?sided interpretation of Hume as a psychological reductionist and a covering?law theorist will continue. (shrink)

This study elucidates and appraises a conception of praxis developed by the Yugoslav Marxist Mihailo Markovi . This notion is first distinguished from everyday and alternative theoretical uses of 'practice', 'practical', and 'praxis' . Markovic's view is then characterized as a normative, pluralistic theory of both human being and doing. Praxis , for Markovi , is activity which realizes one's best potentialities: (i) the humanly generic dispositions of intentionality, self-determination, creativity, sociality, and rationality, and (ii) one's relatively distinctive abilities and (...) bents compatible with (i). Following a critical analysis of Markovic's attempts to justify praxis as norm, two substantive criticisms are advanced. The theory needs (i) priority rules for the relative weighting of praxis components when they cannot all be (fully) realized in an action, and (ii) a specification of the genus praxis so as to recognize important differences among optimal activities which shape things, construct theories, rear children, and share with mature persons. (shrink)

Professor Whitty has endorsed the consensus that research into education is empirical social science, distinguishing ‘educational research’ which seeks directly to influence practice, and ‘education research’ that has substantive value but no necessary practical application.The status of the science here is problematic. The positivist approach is incoherent and so supports neither option. Critical educational science is virtually policy-inert. The interpretive approach is empirically sound but, because of the value component in education, does not support education research either, or account for (...) this component.A solution to the latter problem is sought in the debate between Carr and Hirst on the relationship between philosophy and education. This shows Carr making claims that rely on a conception of philosophy that he rejects, while Hirst insists on this conception, uses it to justify practical claims, but denies that this is possible.To achieve a practically relevant analysis of educational research, both need to include second-order, normative, conceptual enquiry into the philosophies that drive educational policy-making and partly regulate teaching methodology. Deweyan, first-order, ‘reflective practice’ needs, then, to be supplemented with second-order reflection.Educational research is philosophy- not science-driven, and is value-led. Consequently, it has the status not of scientific discovery but of practical recommendation. (shrink)

Wilfred Carr; What is an Educational Practice?, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 21, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 163–175, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14.

Wilfred Carr; Theories of Theory and Practice, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 177–186, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.146.

This article attributes the many conflicting theories about the nature and direction of contemporary technological society to the revolutionary and paradoxical character of technology itself. Commentators come to very different conclusions about the same basic phenomena; but their differences, while reflecting divergent assumptions and intellectual styles, also reveal contradictions within the subject matter. Dialectical and historical methods are introduced as ways to redefine the basic terms involved, augment traditional studies, and indicate directions for authentic interdisciplinary research. A neo-Hegelian approach can (...) help resolve problems of method and interpretation in the field of science, technology, and society, and reveal new possibilities for rational action and effective social control. (shrink)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1991.

The article identifies a problem in socio-cultural-historical activity theory (SCHAT) with ignoring how hope and power constitute the theory itself, and suggests that this is why the tradition faces a bad choice between functionalist or utopianist reductions of its own social relevance. Currently, remedies for this kind of (perhaps shammed) innocence can be found in Foucauldian and Latourian approaches to knowledge. However, since these appear to presuppose the (often feigned) cynicism of a purely negative standpoint that fits all too smoothly (...) into the neoliberal management it describes, this presents us with an impossible choice or oscillation at another level. To get beyond it, we need the frankly self-reflected standpoint of ideology critique and the articulation of ‘concrete utopia’, i.e. real possibilities for social transformation. The approach is then realized and exemplified as part of an emergent practice research in the field of drug treatment. The field is broadly described as moving toward certain kinds of recognition of users’ standards, but also as filled with paradoxes that allow us to intervene with theory. One of these (sets of) paradoxes concerns the relations between state and civil (bourgeois) society that are played out in drug treatment. Contrary to the doxa of New Public Management, the (welfare) state’s normative power has not dissolved, only hides from itself. An immanent critique of practices and ideas in the field leads to the suggestion that its forms of recognition imply both submission of users, and the creation of positive standards and collectives. To intervene in this set of issues, we must expand the SCHAT reading of its own Hegelian-Marxist legacy, against the dominant liberal and scientistic trend, to engage with theories of recognition. A contemporary, participatory concept of recognition is sketched, which seeks to sublate (include and supersede) submission into the building of the generalizing ethics of a collective. (shrink)

The primary question addressed in this article is how to understand and produce praxis development in the complex and contentious field of street communities of young marginalized men, an area highlighted almost on a daily basis in the Danish media under headlines with terms such as ‘foreigner problems’, ‘ghetto problems’, ‘gang conflicts’ and ‘gang war’. Since 2009, activists and professionals related to this field have gathered at Grundtvigs Højskole where they initiated and inspired community building activities in relation to the (...) recent gang conflicts in the Copenhagen area of Denmark. The article explores these practices and changes, including some of the communal initiatives arising in response to the escalating gang conflicts. The conflict and community building activities are contextualized in terms of broader tendencies and changes in Danish society, from enduring struggles with ethnic othering of young minority men since the late 1990s, to other societal changes escalating ‘gang-conflicts’ to ‘gang-war’. The article examines how these changes produce new dynamics, tensions and dimensions of binary thinking, which in turn creates new dilemmas in the everyday lives of the people involved in social work practice, community building activities and praxis research. (shrink)

This paper reports experiences of health and well-being common to actors in community gardens in Berlin and Paris. Community gardening has become an ever growing phenomenon since the 1990s, and to a larger extend since 2000 in western European cities. Despite the promising research from the US that has shown that community gardens have a potential for health promotion, there is a dearth of evidence from Europe. This study tries to fill this gap and maps the potential of community gardens (...) for health and well-being as explained and experienced by the gardeners. The effect of community garden projects on human health and well-being cannot be reduced to the effect of nature on health alone. This study shows that there are at least two other major mechanisms at play, if we want to understand the phenomenon or evaluate its effects, namely the effects of community and 'free and open spaces'. Gardeners report health-related experiences with green space, such as stress relief and feeling of calm and vitality and increased well-being through sensual experiences and observing nature. Furthermore the garden projects open up a social space, which for many gardeners creates experiences of health through regular social contact, experiences of joy of sharing and having activities together. Furthermore, the community garden project was proposed to create a context and opportunities for flow, creativity and self-efficacy if it is a free and open space. However, not all experiences on well-being in CGPs are postive, and to all these spaces and their effects there are also certain limitations and conditions. Moreover, this study makes a theoretical contribution to the concept of health and well-being on the basis of the fuzziness around the concept of health encountered in the field. I propose that a holistic concept of health might be most suitable to describe health related to bottom-up community action like community gardens. To assess the effects of such projects in terms of well-being, this concepts should be dissentagled into the concept of health and happiness, whereas happiness in turn relates not only to life satisfaction but also to eudaimonian happiness related to meaning and doing good. Although this research project could not be comprehensive enough to provide all necessary evidence to evaluate health effects of community gardens, we believe that it provides viable paths for investigations into community driven health promotion and emerging healthy settings. (shrink)