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The essence and basic structure of practice

Practice is the most basic activity for human survival and development, the essence of human social life, the basis for the generation and development of knowledge, and the basis for realizing the unity of truth and value. The Marxist view of practice profoundly reveals the role of practice in natural evolution and social development, clarifies the essence, basic structure and manifestation of practice, and lays the foundation for scientifically grasping the essence and development laws of knowledge.

(I) The essence of practice

Practice is a social material activity in which human beings actively transform the world. It has three basic characteristics: objective reality, conscious initiative and social history.

  1. Practice has objective reality

  2. Practice is the objective material activity of human beings to transform the world. Although it is a purposeful and conscious behavior of human beings, it is essentially an objective and material activity. The elements that constitute practical activities, namely the subject, object and intermediary of practice, are all perceptible objective realities.

  3. The level, breadth, depth and development process of practice are all subject to the constraints of objective conditions and the control of objective laws. Practice can cause certain changes in the objective world, turn the ideas in the human brain into real existence, and provide people with real results.

  4. Practice is conscious and active

  5. Unlike the instinctive and passive adaptive activities of animals, human practical activities are purposeful and conscious activities. Purposefulness is the main manifestation of initiative. The results obtained at the end of human practical activities exist as a purpose in the mind of the practitioner in the form of ideas at the beginning of this process, and the purpose determines the behavior of the practitioner.

  6. Marx figuratively said: "The ability of bees to build honeycombs makes many architects in the world feel ashamed. However, the most clumsy architect is better than the most clever bee from the beginning, because he has built the honeycomb in his mind before using beeswax to build it." Therefore, practice is a conscious and active activity of human beings.

  7. Practice is social and historical

  8. Practice is a social and historical activity. Practice is a social activity from the beginning. People as the subject of practice are always in certain social relations, and any person's activities are inseparable from the connection with society.
  9. The social nature of practice determines its historicity. The content, nature, scope, level and method of practice are all subject to certain social and historical conditions and change with the changes of social and historical conditions. Therefore, practice is a historically developing practice.

(II) The basic structure of practice

Human practice is an objective process with the purpose of transforming the objective world. It is the interaction between the subject and object of practice. This interaction must rely on certain means and tools, namely, the medium of practice. The subject, object and medium of practice are the three basic elements of practical activities. The organic unity of the three constitutes the basic structure of practice.

  1. Practice subject

  2. In practical activities, the practice subject refers to a person who has certain subjective abilities and engages in real social practice activities. It is the factor of autonomy and initiative in practical activities and is responsible for setting the purpose of practice, operating the medium of practice and transforming the object of practice.

  3. The abilities of the practice subject include natural abilities and spiritual abilities. The spiritual abilities include knowledge factors and non-knowledge factors. Among them, knowledge factors are the primary abilities, including both the mastery of theoretical knowledge and the mastery of empirical knowledge; non-knowledge factors mainly refer to emotional and volitional factors. There are three basic forms of practice subjects: individual subjects, group subjects and human subjects.

  4. Practice objects

  5. Practice objects refer to the objects that practice activities point to. Practice objects are not completely identical to objective things. Objective things become real practice objects only when they are included in the scope of the subject's practice activities, pointed to by the subject's practice activities and interact with the subject.

  6. There are different types of practice objects: from the perspective of whether they are created by practice, they can be divided into natural objects and artificial objects; from the perspective of the distinction between the two fields of nature and human society, they can be divided into natural objects and social objects; from the perspective of the distinction between materiality and spirituality, they can be divided into material objects and spiritual objects.

  7. Practice intermediary

  8. Practice intermediary refers to various forms of tools, means and the procedures and methods for using and operating these tools and means. The intermediary system of practice can be divided into two subsystems: material tool system and language symbol tool system.

  9. Material tool system includes various machines and power energy systems, such as trains, computers, and radars, which are extensions and amplifications of human legs, brains, and eyes. The language symbol tool system is the real form of the subject's thinking activities and the intermediary of social interaction. Relying on these intermediary systems, the subject and object of practice can interact with each other.

The relationship between the subject and object of practice includes practice relationship, cognitive relationship and value relationship, among which the practice relationship is the most fundamental relationship. The subject and object of practice are essentially the same as the subject and object of cognition. The relationship between the subject and object of cognition is not only the relationship of cognition and being cognized, but also the relationship of transformation and being transformed. The process of the subject's cognition of the object is also the process of the subject's transformation of the object. The subject's cognition and transformation of the object is ultimately to meet its own needs, and thus constitutes a value relationship.

The subject, object and intermediary of practice are constantly changing and developing, so the basic structure of practice is also changing and developing historically. This change is mainly manifested in the two-way movement of subject objectification and object subjectification.

  • Subjective objectification: Through practice, people make their essential power act on the object, so that it changes in structure and function according to the needs of the subject, forming an object that does not exist in the world. It is the materialized embodiment of human physical strength and intelligence, and the accumulation, cohesion and materialization of the subject's essential power in the object through practical activities. The results of all human practical activities are the results of subject objectification.
  • Objective subjectification: The object is transformed from the existence form of an objective object into a factor of the subject's life structure or a factor of the subject's essential power. The object loses its objectivity and becomes a part of the subject. For example, the subject includes material tools such as computers and cars as extensions of its own body organs in the subject's activities, and transforms spiritual products, advanced concepts and ideas as spiritual objects into a part of the subject's consciousness. These are all manifestations of object subjectification.

The two-way movement of subject objectification and object subjectification are two inseparable aspects of human practical activities. They are mutually premised and mutually mediated. Humans constantly solve the contradictions in the real world through this form of movement.

(III) Diversity of practical forms

Human social life is colorful, and practical activities are rich and diverse in form. Mao Zedong pointed out that "human social practice is not limited to one form of production activities, but also has many other forms, such as class struggle, political life, scientific and artistic activities". With the development of the relationship between man and the world, especially with the progress of social division of labor, the specific forms of human practice are becoming increasingly diversified.

The forms of practice can be divided into the following three basic types:

  1. Material production practice

  2. Material production practice is the most basic practical activity of human beings, which solves the contradiction between man and nature, meets people's needs for material living materials and production labor materials, and at the same time produces and reproduces the basic economic relations of society, and determines the basic nature and appearance of society.

  3. Social and political practice

  4. Social and political practice is the practice of dealing with various political relations, mainly referring to people's political activities. In line with the changes and development of the material production mode, the mode of social and political practice has also changed and developed historically. In a class society, social and political practice is inevitably branded with classes and class struggles, and has a distinct class nature.

  5. Scientific and cultural practice

  6. Scientific and cultural practice is the practical activity of creating spiritual and cultural products, which has many forms, among which important forms include science, art, education and other activities. The production of spiritual culture is not a pure consciousness process. Scientific and cultural practice not only involves consciousness activities, but also changes the state of other beings except the consciousness state of the subject of practice. For example, education is a scientific and cultural practice activity that actually changes the existence state of the educated through teaching and educating people.

The above three types of practice have different social functions and are closely linked. Among them, material production practice is the most basic practical activity, which constitutes the basis of all social life; social and political practice and scientific and cultural practice are generated and developed on the basis of material production practice, and are restricted by material production practice and have a dynamic reaction to it.

With the rapid development of society, new changes have occurred in contemporary human practice, showing many new development characteristics, and the scope of practical activities has become more and more extensive and in-depth. A prominent manifestation is that the development of modern information technology has enabled contemporary society to begin to produce a new form of practice, namely virtual practice. Virtual practice is produced with the development of informatization and networking, and its essence is the virtual interaction between subject and object. As a new form of practice, virtual practice, with modern information technology as the medium, enhances the initiative and extensiveness of people's practical activities, and has a wide range of influence on real social practice.

The decisive role of practice in cognition

Practice is the basis of cognition and determines the occurrence and development of cognition. First, practice generates the need for cognition. Practice generates various needs of people. In order to meet these needs, the subject generates the need to understand the object, its attributes and its laws of development and change in practice. Secondly, practice provides the possibility for cognition. Practice creates the object of cognition, enables the subject and the object to interact, changes the subject's cognitive ability, and provides material means and necessary conditions for cognition. Third, practice tests whether cognition is correct or not. The correctness of cognition ultimately needs to be tested by the results of practice.

The basic structure and diversity of practice reflect the decisive role of practice in cognition. In material production practice, social and political practice, and scientific and cultural practice, human beings are constantly carrying out the process of understanding and transforming objects, accumulating experience and knowledge through practice, and improving their own cognitive ability and level. At the same time, new forms of practice, such as the development of virtual practice, have greatly expanded the scope and depth of cognition. Human cognitive activities are always developing and progressing in practice, and through practice, they realize the comprehensive grasp and transformation of nature and society.