Theory-practice unity develops historically from an instinctive sense of difference

Evidence

Thus the unity of theory and practice is not just a matter of mechanical fact, but a part of the historical process, whose elementary and primitive phase is to be found in the sense of being “different” and “apart”, in an instinctive feeling of independence, and which progresses to the level of real possession of a single and coherent conception of the world. This is why it must be stressed that the political development of the concept of hegemony represents a great philosophical advance as well as a politico-practical one. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1199

Categorization

• DEFINE: Describes the developmental arc by which an instinctive ‘feeling of being different’ matures into a coherent worldview — key for constructing subaltern/racialized selfhood.
• XREF: connects to: Marcuse justified government war work by treating theory-practice unity as utopian — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination: A History…, 297