5 - Practising Theorizing in Theorizing Praxis: Friedrich Kratochwil and Social Inquiry
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2022
Summary
[N]o one can pretend to be practically versed in a science and yet scorn theory without declaring that he is an ignoramus in his field, inasmuch as he believes that by groping about in experiments and experiences, without putting together certain principles (which really constitute what is called theory) and without having thought out some whole relevant to his business (which, if one proceeds methodically in it, is called a system), he can get further than theory could take him.
(Kant 1999 [1793], p 279)After theory had once arisen life does not go on just the same.
(Dewey 2015 [1919], p 2; emphasis in original)Concepts are, as Wittgenstein taught us, uses of words. Philosophers have long wanted to understand concepts, but the point is to change them so as to make them serve our purposes better.
(Rorty 2000, p 25)Introduction
The concepts of ‘theory’ and ‘practice’ may not figure as centrally in everyday life as they figure in academic life. Yet, as the title of Kant’s essay from which the introductory quote has been taken indicates, ‘common sayings’ such as that something ‘may be true in theory, but is of no use in practice’ also reveal that the duality of theory versus practice shapes our most fundamental ways of sense-making in everyday life. It also goes without saying that the practice of theorizing is nothing that practitioners beyond the ‘sciences’ worry too much about because their praxis is usually defined in terms of some practical choices which do not, at least in the first instance, relate to thinking about thinking. Academics, however, have to come to terms with ‘theory’ one way or another – or risk being spurned as an ‘ignoramus’ if they don’t. This is especially true for International Relations (IR), which, ‘even in the West … did not become a predominantly academic, formally theoretical discipline until after 1945’ (Buzan, 2018: 393) and has defined itself in ‘theoretical’ terms ever since (Wæver, 2013).
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- Praxis as a Perspective on International Politics , pp. 72 - 94Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2022