ABSTRACT

As activity theory is the thinking, and practice is the doing; the one lies in the realm of mind and the other in that of body. If look to the object at which the activity is directed, then theory as intellectual formulation is distinct from practice as the product or application. To think of an idea as a construct is to regard it as fashioned to serve a purpose in inquiry. In Aristotle’s philosophy the concept of theory was narrower and instead of practice there were two notions—praxis or action and poiesis or making. There are many possible kinds of relations between theory and practice. The theory-practice dichotomy was set up earlier as including in theory the systematic knowledge available for the particular field of consideration, and in practice the purposive pattern and situational conditions invoked in the application of the theory.