Theory and Practice-The Divergent Views among Kant, Hegel and Marx

This article deals with philosophical debate on theory and practice in the age of German Enlightenment. It focuses on the diverse and opposite viewpoints of Kant, Hegel and Marx. Kant's attempt to solve the problem "how are synthetic a priori judgment possible?", leads him to develop his theory of knowledge. According to him reality consists of appearances (phenomena) and things-in-themselves (noumena). What we know are only appearances, but things-in-themselves are unknowable. The latter can be he postulated and intuited, but not experienced by our senses. For Kant knowledge is a product of both sense and understanding which provides us with one kind of principles. This is due to the operation of pure reason, whose result is theoretical knowledge. On the other hand, there are also principles based on the concepts of reason which have their own kind of validity, and are not as theoretical knowledge but in terms of practice. This is the basis of Kant's bold separation of the world of theoretical knowledge and science and the practical world of God, morality and human action (especially, freedom of will and autonomy). Thus Kant distinguishes "sensible world" of scientific knowledge from the "intelligible world" of morality, freedom, and good intentions, God and the immortality of soul. Kant's schizoid two-standpoint, two-world, two-self view paves way for his dichotomy of to be and ought to be, necessity and freedom, theory and practice. Hegel tries to overcome Kant's dualism by stressing the desperate journey of consciousness, self-conscious, reason and spirit. Put in other words, he delineates a dialectical, ascending and transcending process of subjective through objective to absolute knowledge. In his major work Phenomenology of Spirit (1807), Hegel explicates the transition from consciousness to self-consciousness not a shift from realism to idealism, but from theory to practice, in theorizing we have a detached view of the world, and so abstract from our position as subjects in the world, whereas in practical activity we act on the world and put ourselves as subjects at the centre of things. Human theoretical attitude concerns their focus on the object, while in their practical attitude they subordinate object to the subject. In fact, Hegel sees no absolute gap between to be and ought to be, between necessity and freedom, between theory and practice. Marx further bridges the chasm between subject and object, necessity and freedom, theory and practice. For him practice means critical and revolutionary activity which determines human theoretical consciousness. On the other hand, there are some theories, especially empirical, techno-scientific and historical knowledge which constitute productive forces, thus guide our action. Such kind of theory is not limited and bound by practical activity. Finally, Marx's own materialist conception of history goes beyond the limitation of practice. For him the dialectical and historical materialism evidence the unity of theory and practice.