An intricate fabric: understanding the rationality of practice

Abstract

This article provides an account of a ‘neo-Aristotelian’ conception of practice. It introduces this account through an analysis of internal and external goods of practices. It then delineates a crucial distinction between practical and technical rationality and grounds this distinction in an analysis of the priority of ‘material’ over ‘method’ in different domains of activity. It concludes by addressing some possible misgivings about the account and by tracing some of its most significant implications for the relationship of theory and practice.