Introduction: A Time for Praxis

We have inherited a rich tradition of critical theories that has served us well to identify and analyze our contemporary crises. So much so that the terms “crisis and critique”—Krise und Kritik—have become today homologues. With regard to critical praxis, however, we are in a slightly different situation. The trajectory of critical praxis, although influenced by similar historical forces as that of critical theory, landed us in a somewhat different place. As a result, many contemporary critical theorists are disarmed today before the most fundamental and critical question of these critical times: “What is to be done?”

This predicament is the product of centuries or millennia of privileging philosophical inquiry, contemplation, and reason over what the Greeks referred to as πρᾶξις—praxis, or practice, the ethical and political form of being. The former, theoria, involved predominantly understanding and comprehension—in essence, knowing—and it was oriented towards wisdom. The latter, praxis, revolved around activity, action, performance—in essence, doing—and it was oriented towards proper behavior in ethical and political life.³

For the ancients, these were two different modes of engaging the world—two among others, poiesis being another—and these two categories have shaped human experience ever since. The early Christian writers drew on them in their struggle to square contemplative faith with acts of charity. Medieval scholars pursued the debates and refined an idea of the practical application of theoretical knowledge. With Enlightenment philosophy, from Descartes through Kant to the German Idealists, the privilege of reason tilted the field further toward the mind and away from praxis.⁴

Many critical thinkers during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries struggled to correct the imbalance—Marx, the first among them, as so strikingly encapsulated in his Theses on Feuerbach.⁵ The second thesis: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question.” The eighth: “Social life is essentially practical.” And, of course, the eleventh.

But Marx was by no means alone in his ambition to elevate praxis. Many critical thinkers followed in his footsteps. Hannah Arendt privilegeed the vita activa before turning, in her later years, to the contemplative realm in The Life of the Mind. Michel Foucault extricated critical theory from the dominant Socratic way—gnōthi seauton, “know thyself”—and took the path less travelled: practices of the self, techniques of the self, or what he called “care of self.”

The tension played out in different ways and under different rubrics, from the invisible hand that undermined collective action to debates over “dirty hands.” But every time that we, critical theorists, came close to praxis—from antiquity to the present—it seems we found a way to divert the conversation back to the contemplative realm.

Socrates got close in the first Alcibiades and the Statesman. There, he confronted young men who wanted to live the life of praxis, rather than contemplation. But quickly Socrates made them realize they did not know much about justice or governing others, and what they needed first was to gain knowledge. So he convinced them to know themselves first. Politics is a skill. It requires techne. Like being the captain of a ship, or shepherd of a flock, there is skill and knowledge to be had. It requires wisdom first. Knowledge. Contemplation. And that then pushed everything back to philosophy. It pushed the inquiry back to the Republic and definitions of justice, and the just person. And Socrates never got back to the original question: how to act politically.

Foucault got close in The Hermeneutics of the Subject and his final volumes of The History of Sexuality. We had spent too much time on Socrates’ “know-thyself,” Foucault argued there. There was a whole other tradition of practice that we had ignored. Foucault too returned to the first Alcibiades as a way to explore those practices. He interpreted the Socratic dialogue as a move toward practices of the self, toward care of self, rather than simply knowledge of self. But he then pivoted to the permanent practices of the self in the Stoics and Epicureans; and from there on, the analysis was almost exclusively trained on practices of the self. The dimension of subjectivity would dominate the analysis at the expense of the government of others.

Truth-telling, parrhesia, and the courage of truth are of course essential elements to engage politics. Speaking out and denouncing injustice is central. Emile Zola’s J’accuse is a classical example—for which Zola was convicted of libel and had to flee France. Foucault too staked out important political positions in manifestos, editorials and signed statements on many occasions. But notice the model: the influential intellectual, even as a specific intellectual, taking a stance against the state, at personal risk to be sure, often alone or in a small collective, standing against authority. That may be important. It may be necessary. But surely, it cannot exhaust praxis. Yet, it seemed to, practically always.

Most recently, I was reading my friend and colleague Axel Honneth’s new book, The Idea of Socialism—an engaged intervention seeking to rehabilitate socialism and breathe new life into it. A deeply committed engagement. A real crie de coeur. Then I hit this passage:

I make no attempt to draw connections to current political constellations and possibilities for action. I will not be dealing with the strategic question of how socialism could influence current political events, but solely how the original intention of socialism could be reformulated so as to make it once again a source of political-ethical orientations.⁶

No attempt to discuss “possibilities for action”: that is our predicament. Somehow, praxis invariably takes a second seat to theory. Practice, practical knowledge, clinical activities become the handmaid of theoretical knowledge—whether in philosophy, physics, law, engineering, or critical theory. To the point where, today, in our own field, we laud critical theories, but cannot even properly identify critical praxis.

No more. This has to end. It is time to take stock and begin to chart new directions for critical praxis. In times like these, there is a burning need for a new vision and renewed critical praxis. What does or should political action look like from a critical perspective today, especially when the underlying theoretical structure of the dialectical imagination has become so fractured?

This is the most important question for critical theory in the twenty-first century. It is the task that I have set for this book: to counter centuries of contemplative complacency and return critical praxis to its central place in the order of things. In doing so, this book will strive to address what is, today, the most pressing question of all: What is to be done?⁷