A person’s real philosophy is expressed in action, not declared belief

Evidence

Philosophy in general does not in fact exist. Various philosophies or conceptions of the world exist, and one always makes a choice between them. How is this choice made? Is it merely an intellectual event, or is it something more complex? And is it not frequently the case that there is a contradiction between one’s intellectual choice and one’s mode of conduct? Which therefore would be the real conception of the world: that logically affirmed as an intellectual choice? or that which emerges from the real activity of each man, which is implicit in his mode of action? And since all action is political, can one not say that the real philosophy of each man is contained in its entirety in his political action? — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1180

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the concept of ‘real’ versus ‘declared’ conception of the world — a core formulation of Gramscian philosophy as embedded in practice that later readings on ideology will assume.
• XREF: This thought/action contrast prefigures Bourdieu’s habitus and the gap between doxa and practice. — connects to: The possible becomes real only through a person’s project, not as pre-existing logical possibility; A person is nothing but the sum of his actions and undertakings — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 18; Philosophy gains interest when cast as a lived biography — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café: Freedom,…, 105 (+2 more)