Practice

People’s material activity of dynamically reshaping the objective world. In ancient Chinese literature, there are categories such as “实践” (shijian), “践行” (jianxing) and “行” (xing). In the history of Western philosophy, there were abundant expositions on practice, but in the main they have failed to reveal the true essence of practice and its important significance. The German philosopher Hegel held that practice is higher than theory, but in his philosophy the concept of practice was only an idea. Feuerbach comprehended practice merely as an egoistic act or daily life activity. Unlike the category of “practice” in ancient Chinese literature and in the history of Western philosophy, Marx has revealed the essence of practice and the significance of practice in social life for the first time in the history of philosophy. Marx comprehended practice as the actual and sensuous human activity of dynamically changing the world. Practicality is one of the outstanding characteristics of Marxist philosophy.

Practical activity is the objective process of the interaction between the subject and the object through a certain intermediary for the purpose of reshaping the world. The subject, the object, and the intermediary of practice are the three basic elements of practice, and their organic unity forms the fundamental structure of practice. Practice has the basic features of objective materiality, agency and socio-historical nature. Conscious activities such as practice and knowledge belong to man’s purposive and dynamic activity, but the objective materiality of practice distinguishes it from cognitive and conscious activity. Practice and motion of matter in nature both belong to objective processes, but the conscious agency and the socio-historical nature of practice distinguish it from the motion of matter in nature. Practice is the activity of translating the subjective into the objective, the subject’s conscious material activity of reshaping the world. Practice has immediate reality, which determines that practice plays a determining role in the interaction between practice and theory in the last instance. Lenin said: “Practice is higher than [theoretical] knowledge.” Social practice is very rich in content and form. The practice of material production, social and political practice, and scientific and cultural practice are three basic social practices. Mao Zedong pointed out: “Man’s activity in production is the most fundamental practical activity, the determinant of all his other activities.” Practice embodies the essence that distinguishes human society from nature. Marx said: “All social life is essentially practical.” Human practice divides the unified material world into the objective and the subjective world. Practice is also the real basis for the unification of the subjective world and the objective world. Practice is the bridge between man and the world. Practice is the foundation of all social relations and constitutes the content of all social life. Only by starting out from practice can we comprehend the development of economic formations of society as a process of natural history, and reveal the objective laws of development of society, and comprehend the history of human society, and social life.

Practice is the basis for the emergence and development of knowledge. Mao Zedong said: “The standpoint of practice is the primary and basic standpoint in the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge.” Practice is the criterion for testing the truth. Marx said: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a theoretical question but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth, i.e., the reality of his thinking in practice.” The category of practice is a basic category of Marxist philosophy. The establishment of the scientific conception of practice means that Marx not only transcended idealism, but also transcended all previous materialism, and achieved a revolution of the whole philosophy, making philosophy no longer only interpret the world in various ways, but rather change it. On the basis of practice, Marx constructed a philosophy of changing the world.