ABSTRACT
Stanley Fish's view that theory can be "made to disappear in the solvent of an enriched notion of practice", which is expounded in a number of essays in his book Doing What Comes Naturally, is a particularly illuminating starting point for this article. The relationship between theory and practice is quite clear for Fish. Practical skills can make use of theory so as to give those practical skills better expression in appropriate contexts, but theory does nothing to shape the practical skills. The contingency of different speakers on different occasions actually using the words to convey different things is itself dependent upon those different speakers experiencing different things on the different occasions, which they then convey by the same words. The exploratory character of theory depending upon an openness to reflection has been stunted by the partisan aim of accounting for all further experience in terms of the theory already adopted.
