This split seems natural: thought on one side, doing on the other. But what if it, too, is an artefact of a deeper misconception?
The old divide
Theory: the domain of abstraction, concepts, and principles; often elevated above daily life.
Praxis: the domain of action, work, and embodied practice; often measured against ideals.
The tension appears everywhere: academics valorise theory, practitioners valorise doing. Yet both are premised on the assumption that meaning can be separated from activity or reflection.
The relational shift
If being is meaning, then theory and praxis are not separate realms but phases of construal:
Theory = metaphenomenal construal, the reflexive structuring of meaning.
Praxis = phenomenal construal, the alignment of meaning in action.
Neither is ontologically prior. Both emerge from the same field of meaning-being: one as abstraction, the other as enactment, each phase informing and stabilising the other.
So:
Ontology = the systemic potential of meaning, which allows both theory and praxis to phase.
Epistemology = the reflexive actualisation of construal in thinking and doing.
Why this matters
The theory/praxis divide survives only if we assume a reality split between thought and action. Once being is understood as meaning, every act is already meaningful, and every abstraction is already grounded in construal.
Theory is not divorced from reality; praxis is not blind to meaning. Both are expressions of the reflexive unfolding of meaning-being.
The pay-off
Treating theory as primary absolutises abstraction and risks detachment.
Treating praxis as primary absolutises enactment and risks ungrounded pragmatism.
In a universe where being is meaning, theory and praxis are complementary orientations of the same process, mutually phasing and aligning within the symbolic field.
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