The Philosophy of Theory and Practice:
Selected Bibliography

compiled by Ralph Dumain

Adorno, Theodor. Imaginative Excesses, unpublished piece intended for Minima Moralia, published as a section X of "Messages in a Bottle," translated by Edmund Jephcott (New Left Review I/200, July-August 1993, pp. 5-14). Section X comprises pp. 12-14, key excerpt pp. 13-14 on this site.

Adorno, Theodor W. Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Rodney Livingstone. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. See excerpt from Lecture Six, 9 June 1959, Enlightenment, pp. 62-64, remarks on Kant, the division of labor & restriction of reason.

Adorno, Theodor W. "Marginalia to Theory and Praxis", in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, translated and with a preface by Henry W. Pickford. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 259-278, notes 378-383.

Adorno, Theodor W. Metaphysics: Concept and Problems [lecture series, 1965], edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Edmund Jephcott (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000), pp. 124-126 (from Lecture 16, 22 July 1965). See excerpt from this excerpt: Adorno on Truth, Survival, Consolation & Freedom of Thought.

Adorno, Theodore W. Problems of Moral Philosophy, edited by Thomas Schröder, translated by Rodney Livingstone (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001). See remarks on theory and practice, pp. 3-8.

Adorno, Theodor W. “Resignation”, in Critical Models: Interventions and Catchwords, translated by Henry W. Pickford (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 289-293. See excerpts.

Ball, Terence, ed. Political Theory and Praxis: New Perspectives. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977.

Banaji, Jairus. “A Philosophy of Revolutionary Practice: The first two theses on Feuerbach” [1977], Historical Materialism, 29 May 2020.

Beiner, Ronald. “On the Disunity of Theory and Practice," Praxis International, 1/1987, pp. 25-34.

Bernstein, Richard J. Praxis and Action: Contemporary Philosophies of Human Activity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1971.

Browning, Gary K. Rethinking R. G. Collingwood: Philosophy, Politics and the Unity of Theory and Practice. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004.

Celikates, Robin. “Critical Theory and the Unfinished Project of Mediating Theory and Practice,” in Routledge Companion to the Frankfurt School, edited by Peter E. Gordon, Espen Hammer, Axel Honneth (New York: Routledge, 2018), pp. 206-220.

Citrone, Chris. Notes on Adorno in 1968-69 (Platypus, 26 May 2009).

Critchley, Peter. The Philosophy of Praxis — The Democratisation of Philosophy, Politics and Power, adapted from Beyond Modernity and Postmodernity: Vol 2. Active Materialism, 1997.

Dubiel, Helmut. Theory and Politics: Studies in the Development of Critical Theory, translated by Benjamin Gregg, with an introduction by Martin Jay. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985. (See also extract The Philosophical Critique of Science and the Neopositivist Critique of Philosophy in the Weimar Republic.)

Ducasse, C[urt] [John]. Philosophy as a Science, Its Matter and Its Method. New York: Oskar Piest, 1941. See Chapter 4: Philosophy as Light on Social Problems and Chapter 13: Philosophy, Wisdom, and the Application of Wisdom. On this site see quote from Chapter 13: Curt J. Ducasse on Wisdom, Norms, Theory, & Pragmatism.

Dumain, Ralph. The Ins and Outs of Lloyd’s Left Out (review of Left Out: Pragmatism, Exceptionalism, and the Poverty of American Marxism, 1890-1922 by Brian Lloyd). 11-12 December 2003, 10 March 2004.

Fink, Leon, et al, eds. Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform, edited by Leon Fink, Stephen T. Leonard, and Donald M. Reid. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996. xii, 327 pp. See also Lloyd Kramer, below.

Gouldner, Alvin W. Against Fragmentation: The Origins of Marxism and the Sociology of Intellectuals. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. See final paragraph, p. 299: Alvin Gouldner on Intellectuals & the Social Totality.

Gouldner, Alvin W. The Dialectic of Ideology and Technology: The Origins, Grammar, and Future of Ideology. New York: Seabury Press, 1976. (The Dark Side of the Dialectic; v. 1) See chapter 2: Ideological Discourse as Rationality and False Consciousness.

Gouldner, Alvin W. The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class: A Frame of Reference, Theses, Conjectures, Arguments, and an Historical Perspective on the Role of Intellectuals and Intelligentsia in the International Class Contest of the Modern Era. New York: Seabury Press, 1979. (Dark Side of the Dialectic; v. 2) (See excerpts: Alvin Gouldner on the New Class & the Culture of Critical Discourse.)

Gouldner, Alvin W. “The Politics of the Mind”, in: For Sociology: Renewal and Critique in Sociology Today (New York: Basic Books, 1973), pp. 82-127. See section titled “Theory and Ideology”, pp. 115-123.

Habermas, Jürgen. Theory and Practice. Translated by John Viertel. Boston: Beacon Press, 1973. See especially "Introduction: Some Difficulties in the Attempt to Link Theory and Praxis" (1971) (pp. 1-40), particularly the section "Historical remarks on the question of organization", pp. 32-37.

Heller, Agnes. “Theory and Practice from the Point of View of Human Needs,” in The Humanisation of Socialism: Writings of the Budapest School, by Andras Hegedus, Agnes Heller, Maria Markus, Mihaly Vajda (London: Allison and Busby, 1976), pp. 58-75. Originally appeared in Hungarian in Uj Iras, no. 1, 1972.

Kramer, Lloyd. "Habermas, Foucault, and the Legacy of Enlightenment Intellectuals", in: Intellectuals and Public Life: Between Radicalism and Reform, edited by Leon Fink, Stephen T. Leonard, Donald M. Reid (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996), chapter 2: pp. 29-50.

Lilge, Frederic. "Lenin and the Politics of Education," Slavic Review, vol. 27, no. 2, June 1968, pp. 230-257.

Lobkowitcz, N. "Is the Soviet Notion of Practice Marxian?", Studies in Soviet Thought, vol. 6, no. 1, March 1966, pp. 25-36.

Lobkowicz, Nikolaus. Theory and Practice: History of a Concept from Aristotle to Marx. Notre Dame : University of Notre Dame Press, 1967. (International Studies of the Committee on International Relations, University of Notre Dame)

Marcuse, Herbert. "Philosophy and Critical Theory," in Negations: Essays in Critical Theory, with translations from the German by Jeremy J. Shapiro (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), pp. 134-158. See excerpt on Philosophy and Class Society), pp. 147-154.

Marcuse, Herbert. "The Relevance of Reality," presidential address to the Pacific Branch of the American Philosophical Association in Portland, OR, March 29, 1969. Published in: Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 42 (1968-9), pp. 39-50. Reprinted in: The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, edited by Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975), pp. 231-244.

Marković, Mihailo. “Reason and Historical Praxis,” in Marxist Humanism and Praxis, edited, with translations, by Gerson S. Sher (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1978), pp. 19-33.

Markus, Gyorgy. “After the ‘System’: Philosophy in the Age of the Sciences,” in: Science, Politics, and Social Practice: Essays on Marxism and Science, Philosophy of Culture and the Social Sciences: In Honor of Robert S. Cohen, edited by Kostas Gavroglu, John Stachel, Marx W. Wartofsky (Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1995), pp. 139-159. (Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science; v. 164) See extract: pp. 144-151.

Maroje, Višić. “Ivory tower and barricades: Marcuse and Adorno on the separation of theory and praxis,” Filozofija i drustvo [Philosophy and Society], Volume 31, Issue 2, 2020, pp. 220-241.

Marx, Karl. Philosophy after Its Completion, in Writings of the Young Marx on Philosophy and Society, translated and edited by Loyd D. Easton and Kurt H. Guddat (Garden City, NY: Doubleday [Anchor Books], 1967), pp. 60-64. An extract from Marx's doctoral dissertation, Difference between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Notes; Part One; IV: General difference in principle between the Democritean and Epicurean philosophy of nature. See also Marx's Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy (Extracts from Notebooks 6 & 7 on Total Philosophy, Praxis, Historiography).

Marx, Karl. Science, Society, and Life: Extract from "Private Property and Communism" from the Economic-Philosophical Manuscripts of Karl Marx (1844).

Marx, Karl; Engels, Frederick. The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno Bauer and Co. (1845), 2nd rev. ed., translated by Richard Dixon and Clement Dutts (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), Chapter IV, section 4, Proudhon (by Marx): Critical Comment No. 3, pp. 47-48. See extract: Karl Marx on Philosophy & Practicality.

Mohanty, J. N. "Theory And Practice In Indian Philosophy," in: Explorations in Philosophy: Essays by J.N. Mohanty. Volume 1: Indian Philosophy; edited by Bina Gupta (New Delhi; Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2001); pp. 19-34.

Murphy, Jeffrie G. “Kant on Theory and Practice.”

Nowak, Leszek. “On Marxist Social Philosophy,” in Contemporary Philosophy: A New Survey. Volume 3. Philosophy of Action, edited by Guttorm Fløistad (The Hague; Boston: M. Nijhoff; Hingham, MA: Distributors for the U.S. and Canada, Kluwer Boston, 1982), pp. 243-276.

Perlman, Fredy. The Incoherence of the Intellectual: C. Wright Mills’ Struggle to Unite Knowledge and Action. Detroit: Black & Red, 1970.

Rosen, Stanley; Kolar, Heinz, commentator. "Theory and Practice in Hegel: Union or Disunion?", in: Hegel's Social and Political Thought: The Philosophy of Objective Spirit [Papers from the 4th biennial conference of the Hegel Society of America, 1976], ed. Donald Phillip Verene (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1980), pp. 35-46, 47-52.

Rozos, George T. Dialectic of Action. Athens: "Hestia" Publishers & Booksellers, 1994.

Shapiro, Ian; DeCew, Judith Wagner; eds. Theory and Practice. New York: New York University Press, 1995. (NOMOS, XXXVII) [Papers & commentaries read at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy, held in conjunction with the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in Washington, D.C., in Dec. 1992.]

Stepelevich, Lawrence S.; Lamb, David; eds. Hegel's Philosophy of Action. [Papers delivered at the joint meeting of the Hegel Society of America and the Hegel Society of Great Britain held at Merton College, Oxford, Sept. 1-4, 1981.] Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983.

Vranicki, Predrag. "On the Problem of Practice," Praxis, 1965,1, pp. 41-48.

Offsite Links

Partisanship and Objectivity in Theoretical Work by Maurice Cornforth (also on this site, see entry above)

Praxis: An introduction to the idea plus an annotated booklist, by Mark K. Smith (1996, 1999), at The Encyclopedia of Informal Education.

The Praxis Group (Yugloslavia), at the Marxists Internet Archive)

Initiative fur Praxisphilosophie und konkrete Wissenschaft

(22 May 2000. Revised 7 June 2000, 14 June 2000, 23 January 2002, 11 May 2002, 4 July 2002, 23 July 2002, 11 September 2002, 26-7 October 2002, 22 Dec 2003, 31 May 2004, 25 June 2004, 11 Mar 2005, 25 Mar 2005, 2 July 2005, 5 August 2005, 13 August 2005, 21 September 2005, 18 February 2006, 1 March 2006, 12 March 2006, 14 March 2006, 18 March 2006, 21 March 2006, 12 June 2006, 1 July 2006, 10 November 2006, 4 November 2007,11 January 2008, 20 March 2010, 2 April 2010, 20 September 2010, 23 October 2010, 15 November 2010, 27 June 2011, 6 Sept. 2011, 28 Sept. 2011, 5 March 2012, 25 January 2013, 26 December 2014, 5 May 2018, 12 January 2019, 2 October 2019, 11 June 2020, 5 August 2020, 23 August 2021, 3 December 2023)

Marx & Engels on Skepticism & Praxis: Selected Quotations

Maurice A. Finocchiaro on the criticism of theory & practice

David-Hillel Ruben on Materialism & Praxis

The Question of Educational Work by Georg Lukács

“Theory and Practice from the Point of View of Human Needs”
by Agnes Heller

Karl Korsch’s philosophical writings
Commentary by Ralph Dumain

Henri Lefebvre on Praxis

Ars combinatoria, cybernetics, mimesis & praxis
by Henri Lefebvre

Alvin Gouldner: Notes & Commentary by R. Dumain

The Vacillation of Ideology (Excerpt) by Étienne Balibar

"Objectivity & Partisanship in Science" by Aant Elzinga

Partisanship and Objectivity in Theoretical Work by Maurice Cornforth