Reality and Theory

What I want is reality.

Much of my thinking and writing is very abstract. I am adept at abstraction. I know how to read (some types of) philosophy. I know how to move comfortably in the world of human/social theory.

Yet what I want is reality.

I have no patience for theory in itself. Theory must always make a return to reality.

Clausewitz is perhaps my ultimate teacher in this lesson.

I can think of no one who has attempted a more elegant rapprochement between theory and practice. Even Collingwood's attempted synthesis between theory and practice, between subject and object, falls short of the Clausewitzian project.

It is, I think, Clausewitz's emphasis on pedagogy, on teaching and learning, that makes his thinking so powerful.

The conclusion: theory is only useful if it aids in the accurate observation of reality. Theory shall never seek to stand in for reality. It can only aid our engagement with reality, buttress our observations, aid our judgements.

I had a slight breakthrough tonight in my attempts to write my graduate school personal statement. And this relationship between reality and theory is intimal to that breakthrough, and to all my thinking.