Quotes About Praxis

We are not spectators of a closed history; we are actors in an open history, our praxis introduces the element of construction rather than knowledge as an ingredient of the world, making the world not simply an object of contemplation but something to be transformed. What we cannot imagine is a consciousness without a future and a history with an end. Thus, as long as there are men, the future will be open and there will only be a probabilistic calculation and no absolute knowledge.

Praxis is about applying one's knowledge to challenge oppressive systems and unequal traditions. It is related to the well-known phrase "the personal is political" espoused by many advocates of the second-wave women's movement.

But philosophy is one thing, praxis is another.

Liberation is a praxis : the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it.

But one does not liberate someone by alienating them. Authentic liberation--the process of humanization--is not another deposit to be made in a person. Liberation is a praxis: action and reflection upon the world in order to transform it. Those truly committed to the cause of liberation can accept neither the mechanistic concept of consciousness as an empty vessel to be filled, nor the use of banking [pedagogical] methods of domination (propaganda, slogans--deposits) in the name of liberation.

There is no true word that is not at the same time a praxis. Thus, to speak a true word is to transform the world.

Education is thus constantly remade in the praxis. In order to be it must become. Its "duration" (in the Bergsonian meaning of the word) is found in the interplay of opposites permanence and change.

Only human beings are praxis--the praxis which, as the reflection and action which truly transform reality, is the source of knowledge and creation. Animal activity, which occurs without a praxis, is not creative; people's transforming activity is.

The theory without the practice becomes 'verbosity', as well as the practice without theory, turns activism. However, when it joins the practice with the theory has been the praxis, the creative and modifier action of reality.

It is only when the oppressed find the oppressor out and become involved in the organized struggle for their liberation that they begin to believe in themselves. This discovery cannot be purely intellectual but must involve action; nor can it be limited to mere activism, but must include serious reflection: only then will it be a praxis.

For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human. Knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.