ABSTRACT
"Practice", as used by John Rawls, is "a sort of technical term meaning any form of activity specified by a system of rules which defines offices, roles, moves, penalties, defenses, and so on, and which gives the activity its structure." A first kind of practice is represented by such games as chess and baseball. Such games are often held to be paradigms of practices in general. In particular, it involves the ability to criticize one's own behavior and that of others by appealing to the rules of the practice. A practice of the first kind has identifiable constitutive rules, familiarity with which is a condition a condition of engaging in the activity. The rules of practices of the second kind are in a sense malleable and change with usage. In contrast to the external observer, the internal observer has the notion of a social rule, and therefore of a practice.
