The debates about the existence of theory and its dialectical relationship with the practice of reality have influenced provocative thoughts of philosophy throughout the past several hundred years. From the age of industrialization onward until the late twentieth century, tension of modernity, rooted in rapid changes of the society, had inevitably tied theory with practice since there has been a need for the society to implement ideological thoughts that would, hopefully, rectify the problems of modern life namely the emerging superficial culture leading to the retrogression of our ‘perception of value.’ Without the existence of the ‘idea of theory,’ one could not even speculate that theory has run its course. Theory allows people in that time the possibility to posit and intelligently discuss such propositions however untenable they may be. The only reason people come up with the idea of theory is simply due to the stage of abnormality in the geographical entity where a philosopher belong to; hence, every theory owes its formation to the tension exists in the society. We cannot think of theory as separate from history and criticism. The applicability and its validity of a theory could only be validated in conjunction with its time of existence. Criticism is the third element – and probably the most important element – without it one has no way to navigate himself to the truth. Criticism is the main trust of ‘Critical Theory’ which we are reading in this summer school. Nevertheless, my reason for studying theory is different from the mainstream thoughts about theory. I read theory because I would like to seek my ‘way out’ of the theoretical regime that confines us with a series of concepts that are simply too idealist and impractical. I regard practice of reality an autonomous role that intuitively grow from great minds of theoreticians from which I should learn to transcend my critical thoughts towards the perceptional of value. That is, I do not take theory as a point of departure for any further developmental process of thinking; instead, I use theory as a historical base, as it is indeed something people has already laid out the foundation of thoughts, to instigate a rationalized idea that is appropriate to the particular time and space to which I belong. What is important than the question ‘why I study theory?’ is ‘how I study theory’ for which by critical reading method is the answer. Whether there is still a place of theory in the practice of contemporary lifestyle is still an important question for me to find out.
Taipei, Taiwan 2004
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