Praxis (process) in the context of Immanuel Kant

Medicine is the science and practice of caring for patients, managing the diagnosis, prognosis, prevention, treatment, palliation of their injury or disease, and promoting their health. Medicine encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness. Contemporary medicine applies biomedical sciences, biomedical research, genetics, and medical technology to diagnose, treat, and prevent injury and disease, typically through pharmaceuticals or surgery, but also through therapies as diverse as psychotherapy, external splints and traction, medical devices, biologics, and ionizing radiation, amongst others.

Medicine has been practiced since prehistoric times, and for most of this time it was an art (an area of creativity and skill), frequently having connections to the religious and philosophical beliefs of local culture. For example, a medicine man would apply herbs and say prayers for healing, or an ancient philosopher and physician would apply bloodletting according to the theories of humorism. In recent centuries, since the advent of modern science, most medicine has become a combination of art and science (both basic and applied, under the umbrella of medical science). For example, while stitching technique for sutures is an art learned through practice, knowledge of what happens at the cellular and molecular level in the tissues being stitched arises through science.

Sacred mysteries are the areas of supernatural phenomena associated with a divinity or a religious belief and praxis. Sacred mysteries may be either:

1. Religious beliefs, rituals or practices which are kept secret from the uninitiated.
2. Beliefs of the religion which are public knowledge but cannot be easily explained by normal rational or scientific means.

A mystagogue or hierophant is a holder and teacher of secret knowledge in the former sense above, while mysticism may be defined as an area of philosophical or religious thought focusing on mysteries in the latter sense.

Critical theory is a social, historical, and political school of thought and philosophical perspective which centers on analyzing and challenging systemic power relations in society, arguing that knowledge, truth, and social structures are fundamentally shaped by power dynamics between dominant and oppressed groups. Beyond just understanding and critiquing these dynamics, it explicitly aims to transform society through praxis and collective action with an explicit sociopolitical purpose.

Critical theory's main tenets center on analyzing systemic power relations in society, focusing on the dynamics between groups with different levels of social, economic, and institutional power. Unlike traditional social theories that aim primarily to describe and understand society, critical theory explicitly seeks to critique and transform it. Thus, it positions itself as both an analytical framework and a movement for social change. Critical theory examines how dominant groups and structures influence what society considers objective truth, challenging the very notion of pure objectivity and rationality by arguing that knowledge is shaped by power relations and social context. Key principles of critical theory include examining intersecting forms of oppression, emphasizing historical contexts in social analysis, and critiquing capitalist structures. The framework emphasizes praxis (combining theory with action) and highlights how lived experience, collective action, ideology, and educational systems play crucial roles in maintaining or challenging existing power structures.

Professional development, also known as professional education, is learning that leads to or emphasizes education in a specific professional career field or builds practical job applicable skills emphasizing praxis in addition to the transferable skills and theoretical academic knowledge found in traditional liberal arts and pure sciences education. It is used to earn or maintain professional credentials such as professional certifications or academic degrees through formal coursework at institutions known as professional schools, or attending conferences and informal learning opportunities to strengthen or gain new skills.

Professional education has been described as intensive and collaborative, ideally incorporating an evaluative stage. There is a variety of approaches to professional development or professional education, including consultation, coaching, communities of practice, lesson study, case study, capstone project, mentoring, reflective supervision and technical assistance.

A theatre practitioner is someone who creates theatrical performances and/or produces a theoretical discourse that informs their practical work. A theatre practitioner may be a director, dramatist, actor, designer or a combination of these traditionally separate roles. Theatre practice describes the collective work that various theatre practitioners do.

The term was not ordinarily applied to theatre-makers before the rise of modernism in the theatre. Instead, theatre praxis from Konstantin Stanislavski's development of his system is described through Vsevolod Meyerhold's biomechanics, Antonin Artaud's Theatre of cruelty, Bertolt Brecht's epic, and Jerzy Grotowski's poor theatre. Contemporary theatre practitioners include Augusto Boal with his Theatre of the Oppressed, Dario Fo's popular theatre, Eugenio Barba's theatre anthropology, and Anne Bogart's viewpoints.

In Marxist philosophy, the term dominant ideology denotes the attitudes, beliefs, values, and morals shared by the majority of the people in a given society. As a mechanism of social control, the dominant ideology frames how the majority of the population thinks about the nature of society, their place in society, and their connection to a social class.

In The German Ideology (1845), Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels said that "The ideas of the ruling class are, in any age, the ruling ideas" applied to every social class in service to the interests of the ruling class. In revolutionary praxis, the slogan: "The dominant ideology is the ideology of the dominant class" summarises ideology's function as a basis for revolution.

Aristotle first used the term ethics to name a field of study developed by his predecessors Socrates and Plato which is devoted to the attempt to provide a rational response to the question of how humans should best live. Aristotle regarded ethics and politics as two related but separate fields of study, since ethics examines the good of the individual, while politics examines the good of the city-state, which he considered to be the best type of community.

Aristotle's writings have been read more or less continuously since ancient times, and his ethical treatises in particular continue to influence philosophers working today. Aristotle emphasized the practical importance of developing excellence (virtue) of character (Greek ēthikē aretē), as the way to achieve what is finally more important, excellent conduct (Greek praxis). As Aristotle argues in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, the man who possesses character excellence will tend to do the right thing, at the right time, and in the right way. Bravery, and the correct regulation of one's bodily appetites, are examples of character excellence or virtue; so acting bravely and acting temperately are examples of excellent activities. The highest aims are living well, and eudaimonia – a Greek word often translated as well-being, happiness or "human flourishing". Like many ethicists, Aristotle regards excellent activity as pleasurable for the man of virtue. For example, Aristotle thinks that the man whose appetites are in the correct order takes pleasure in acting moderately.

Maoism, officially Mao Zedong Thought, is a variety of Marxism–Leninism that Mao Zedong developed while trying to realize a socialist revolution in the agricultural, pre-industrial society of the Republic of China and later the People's Republic of China. A difference between Maoism and traditional Marxism–Leninism is that a united front of progressive forces in class society would lead the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than communist revolutionaries alone. This theory, in which revolutionary praxis is primary and ideological orthodoxy is secondary, represents urban Marxism–Leninism adapted to pre-industrial China. Later theoreticians expanded on the idea that Mao had adapted Marxism–Leninism to Chinese conditions, arguing that he had in fact updated it fundamentally and that Maoism could be applied universally throughout the world. This ideology is often referred to as Marxism–Leninism–Maoism to distinguish it from the original ideas of Mao.

From the 1950's until the Chinese economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970's, Maoism was the political and military ideology of the Chinese Communist Party and Maoist revolutionary movements worldwide. After the Sino-Soviet split of the 1960s, the Chinese Communist Party and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union each claimed to be the sole heir and successor to Joseph Stalin concerning the correct interpretation of Marxism–Leninism and the ideological leader of world communism.

A capstone course, also known as a synthesis and capstone project, senior synthesis, among other terms, is a project that serves as the culminating and usually integrative praxis experience of an educational program mostly found in American-style pedagogy. Although somewhat different from an industry-oriented capstone project, case study, case method, or praxis commonly used in American-style higher education; in the Commonwealth of Nations, Bologna Process, and in other parts of the world influenced by their education systems, a senior thesis (thesis) usually takes its place as a culmination of an educational program but is much more theoretical and academia-oriented rather than the praxis and industry-oriented synthesis and capstone project.

Classical Marxism is the body of economic, philosophical, and sociological theories expounded by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in their works, as contrasted with orthodox Marxism, Marxism–Leninism, and autonomist Marxism which emerged after their deaths. The core concepts of classical Marxism include alienation, base and superstructure, class consciousness, class struggle, exploitation, historical materialism, ideology, revolution; and the forces, means, modes, and relations of production. Marx's political praxis (application of theory), including his attempt to organize a professional revolutionary body in the First International, often served as an area of debate for subsequent theorists.

In sociology and in political science, the term the establishment describes the dominant social group, the elite who control a polity, an organization, or an institution. In the praxis of wealth and power, the Establishment usually is a self-selecting, closed elite entrenched within specific institutions — hence, a relatively small social class can exercise all socio-political control.

In 1955, British journalist Henry Fairlie popularized the contemporary usage of the term The Establishment to denote the network of socially prominent and politically important people:

In psychology, an individual's perceived control (PC) is the degree to which they believe that they have control over themselves and the place, people, things, feelings and activities surrounding them. There are two important dimensions: (1) whether the object of control is in the past or the future and (2) whether the object of control is over an outcome, behavior, or process.