Most people use the terms ‘praxis’ or ‘practice’ as antonyms (opposites) for ‘theory’, however, from a point of view of scientific terminology, that would be incorrect. Praxis is the application or implementation, the actual performance of something, which has first just been imagined or studied. So, the correct antonym to ‘practice’ would be ‘imagination’ or ‘fantasy’ or perhaps ‘studying’. In science, the antonym to ‘theory’ is ‘reality’. Scientists develop theories about reality. They then perform experiments or make observations about the part of reality to which their theory refers. They describe what they observe in so-called protocol sentences. If the protocol sentences do not contradict their theory, they consider the theory relatively corroborated, but not verified.
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