The Practitioner as Theorist The Phenomenology of the Professional Episode

This paper is an exploration of the gap between theory and practice, and the resulting chasm between knowledge and action. Initially the paper examines the distinction between the logic of scientific knowledge and the logic of practice. Then a schematic framework is developed for analyzing an episode of professional practice, forming the basis for three interrelated discussions. First, is an examination of how theories are socially constituted, distinguishing between theory construction by an institutionalized profession and theory construction by an individual practitioner. The second discussion analyzes the practitioner as a “self-in-situation,” suggesting that planning episodes are analogous to dramas, and reflect the existence of the planner in scenes with constituent others, each of whom mutually constructs a performance, conforming in some degree to the symbolic codes and norms of the situation. From this phenomenological view of the planning episode, the third argument offers a discussion of the problems of validating or justifying professional intervention. The implications of these perspectives for planning education and planning professionalism comprise the conclusion.