Tag Archives: theory vs practice

Assimilation, accommodation, and phronesis

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A friend raised a helpful point by distinguishing between assimilating situations as cases of what I already know or have experienced versus accommodating / making room for the new by expanding our knowledge and re-mapping our categories of experience.

I wondered about the role of several factors in this process. The first one is recognition.

So on the one hand, certain new experiences / understandings simply impose themselves upon me. Such was certainly the case when it came to some of the experiences and knowledge about both God and myself that were pivotal to my return to Christianity. In this sense I was not so much faced with a choice of assimilating or accommodating but rather with a choice of how to accommodate, and to what end.

Thus I think that “the new” can overtake us and impose itself upon us. This was certainly the case for me in terms of my experiences at Swiss L’Abri in 1996.

However, on the other hand, perhaps there is something to having cultivated a disposition of enquiry or accepted that I have a degree of dissatisfaction with my existing situation. So in the case of the events and understandings which developed, again at Swiss L’Abri, in 1999 I had already had my experiential categories ripped wide open and was in a state of needing to resolve (or maybe better, reconcile) my understanding with my experience.

Specifically, this was not simply better to understand what I had experienced but to allow for the inherent message of these new experiences—that “the world is far larger and better that I had ever conceived”—to be put in motion as a form of ‘research project’ where the subjects were, quite literally, myself and the “meaning of life.”

So while I do not think that setting the stakes that high will always be necessary, I wonder if one must not always be willing to have these stakes at play, sometimes more and sometimes less. Stated differently, I wonder if we must literally be willing to put ourselves “in play” and also the meaning that we attach to life / what would constitute living it rightly.

This leads to the second factor I would consider in this process of assimilation versus accommodation.

Second, I wonder about the necessity of understanding myself (as self-awareness and self-understanding) and understanding what constitutes “the good life” or the purpose of living. Now surely my experiences and understandings can impact, and so alter, these understandings, but I do begin with a starting place. Further, this form of understanding is always embodied to varying degrees of completeness as I live out (or shy away from) what I believe.

Thus there is, or should be, a vibrant interaction between participating and observing—between theory and practice. Yet I think that this too, while not a technique that I can learn like how to prepare a meal from a recipe, is nevertheless a form of embodied knowledge that must be acquired. I would tend to use the ancient Greek notion of phronesis, or practical wisdom, to describe this integration of participating and observing, theory and practice.

Phronesis is not a matter of applying particular skills in a memorized sequence but, instead, requires developing one’s ability to perceive the subtleties in a given situation and to develop responses that are both fitting to that situation and, where appropriate and possible, create tension and / or resolution toward a richer integration of action and understanding, or a better understanding of oneself, the other, the situation, or some combination of these three.

Phronesis similarly involves assessing the outcome of engaging these tensions and / or resolutions. So it gauges “success” not according to how well one followed instructions but to what degree the outcome represents a “fit” with / an improvement upon (or perhaps even the least degradation of) the original setting. Nor is the notion of “success” simply my own or attributable to my action but is always potentially a shared reality. For example, the success of understanding life better, knowing oneself / the other more truly, having persevered (or relented) as was necessary, etc. Similarly failure is not necessarily attributable to me or even the other but is always potentially a mutual or general loss.

In this way, phronesis is very much about the importance of becoming sensitive to context, much like becoming a good reader in order to get the most out of a finely crafted and nuanced text. In this way phronesis is hermeneutical, and the results of phronesis are not often the binary yes / no of “success or failure” but represent outcomes according to a graded spectrum, as “better or worse” (and where the spectrum itself, and how it is graded, require re-interpretation and fine tuning according to the situation).

Theory over practice? Part I

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Clearly, “theory is more important than practice” when it comes to Christianity.

Or at least, during a recent conversation a friend wondered if this was my view. She noted that I focus on theory in my podcast and speculated that perhaps the reason for this is that I am more gifted with theoretical concepts than with practical applications.

I told her that I could not disagree more: all of my theory is born out of experiencing (and needing to make sense of) powerful events in my life, both wonderful and terrible.

So why do I have this “theoretical” focus?

The reason, as I see it, is that discussions about practice are actually just as difficult as discussions about theory, but these difficulties present themselves in subtler ways and so they are actually more difficult to identify and address. Maybe a good place to start is the difference between a theoretical and a practical discussion.

When “talking theory” we are essentially speaking about generalities—considering the general principles that might guide our everyday actions or judgements. Thus we promote various theories on the basis of their merits, and we identify them as meritorious (and argue for them as such) based on their benefits, as perceived and judged by our faculties: intellect, imagination, senses, experience, etc.

When talking practicalities we are essentially speaking of specifics—considering how we would respond to this or that situation based on its particularities of setting, timing, nature, participants, etc. We develop our theories from our experience of similar, practical situations and we understand (and respond to) practical situations better by analyzing the results of our past attempts, out of which we form theories.

On the one hand, practice seems like it must always precede theory. How can I form general understandings without specific experiences to act as raw data, upon which to build such a theory? Yet on the other hand, like much of our understanding we learn through observation. This is much like language use, where humans always receive language before being able (and in order) to use it. Similarly, beginning at a very young age we experience emotional responses that guide our actions.

Thus the combination of modelling and disposition represent our “starting point” when it comes to responding to practical situations.

In other words we always already have inputs, whether our own or that of our parents, older siblings, etc. Added to these are our emotional responses that, even when we are unaware of them, have the effect of guiding our actions. Perhaps this is not “theory” in any true sense—certainly these inputs are not the product of any assessment or understanding on our part. Yet the upshot is the same: are responses are guided by certain factors and, as we develop, we begin to adjust future responses based on past successes (and failures).

So far, so good.

So as humans develop they increasingly understand the present in light of the past and so adjust their responses accordingly. In other words, they learn from their mistakes. Why then would I claim that practical discussions have subtle implications that can be more difficult to identify and address than theoretical discussions? What are these subtleties?

Well, let me answer that by first considering the aims of a practical discussion. When it comes to discussing everyday situations, whether as one seeking or giving advice, my aim is effectiveness in meeting my goals within the bounds of the ethical and the possible. In other words, I value “what works” (or seems reasonably like it might work) providing that the solution attains my goals, is feasible to carry out, and favours the good treatment of all concerned.

Now here things get tricky. Assessing what works (or might work) is obviously a matter of best-guesswork. Assessing what constitutes good treatment of myself and others may be even less clear. But the issue is not that we may disagree about what works (effectiveness), or about how feasible or ethical a particular approach is. Rather, the tricky part is that Christians actually have two sets of rules, depending on the situation: a) the normal, everyday rules and b) the Christian rules. And further, these two rule-sets have contradictory aims and boundaries.

Next post I offer examples of these two rule sets and how their contradictory aims and boundaries have subtle but important implications for Christians who are making practical decisions.