Todd May, in his book ‘Our practices, our selves – or, what it means to be human’ (OPOS), argues that this question is best understood through the concept of practices and as such one of the first things he does is provide us with a definition of what a practice is. His definition goes as follows:
“a regularity (or regularities) of behavior, usually goal-directed, that is socially normatively governed.” (OPOS: 8).
May then cashes out this definition by discussing the three elements of the definition, viz. goal-directedness, socially normative governance and regularities of behaviour. The first of these is discussed briefly and is a vague criteria since it is not a universal but is presented as important nonetheless. May phrases the discussion in terms of ‘most practices’ but allows that some practices will be exceptions to this rule, using Zen meditation as an example since it rests on the paradoxical ‘goal of goal-lessness’. The second aspect of the definition, that of socially normative governance, is distinguished from ‘rule-following’ again through a criteria of vagueness, with the argument that the type of norms involved are not known through explicit thematisation into propositions but rather are known through the mode of skill, or ‘know-how’. This is articulated in the form of the argument that those involved in a practice might not be able to articulate the norms of the practice but they know it when they see it – a practice has ‘norms’ in the form of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ ways of being done and those who can most clearly distinguish these and show others how to distinguish these are classed as experts. In addition to being normative a practice is also social in that there are roles within a practice, what May describes as “normatively governed places in which people engage in the practice” (OPOS: 10).
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