ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses instead on drawing the ontological distinction, leaving open the question of what significance it might have in an ontology of human causal capacities. Alexander Wendt has proposed a distinction between two kinds of theory: causal and constitutive. This chapter argues that with any given practice, many of its most important constitutive relations fall into two categories namely: those that obtain between the practice and the body of knowledge that accompanies it; and those that obtain between it and other practices within the broader realm of activity. The two kinds of constitutive relation are slightly different. For the constitutive influence of concepts on practices is, while fundamental, also rather episodic. Concepts do not only serve as a condition of possibility for associated practices; there are other ways in which they help constitute them. The chapter also suggests that the very object of constitutive explanation is different from that of its causal counterpart.
