The Primacy of Practice and the Problem of Representation

The chapter provides a philosophical account of how practice as a concept is to be understood. It locates its argument in what is described as the 'post-Cartesian' tradition and in this regard refers specifically firstly to the work of the early Heidegger and the late Wittgenstein, and subsequently to that of Charles Taylor, Piere Bourdieu and Theodore Schatzki. Notwithstanding the critique of 'representationalism' that such work entails, the case is made for a reconceptualised view of 'representation' as a crucial feature of practice theory and philosophy.