Practical form
"When the question is formulated more concretely it turns out that the essence of praxis consists in annulling that indifference of form towards content that we found in the problem of the thing-in-itself. ... Only this approach to the problem makes possible the clear dichotomy between praxis and the theoretical, contemplative and intuitive attitude. But also we can now understand the connection between the two attitudes and see how, with the aid of the principle of praxis, the attempt could be made to resolve the antinomies of contemplation. Theory and praxis in fact refer to the same objects, for every object exists as an immediate inseparable complex of form and content. However, the diversity of subjective attitudes orientates praxis towards what is qualitatively unique, towards the content and the material substratum of the object concerned. As we have tried to show, theoretical contemplation leads to the neglect of this very factor."
And yet, it is possible to overemphasize this dichotomy. For while praxis is oriented towards the qualitatively unique, it depends on the generalizable form of the object for it to find its actionable facets on the horizon of the habit-body. When I type here, I act on a particular keyboard; but I am able to type on it only insofar as I discover its keyboard form--I am able to interface with it in a way that I interface with all keyboards. Many objects in the world are like this: a chair is a chair to me only insofar as its form beckons me to take certain actions towards it, to sit in it. I am able to recognize a hammer as a hammer only because my body knows to grasp and swing it at nails.
When we struggle to define "keyboard," or "chair, or "hammer" in words, we find ourselves describing how we interact with them. A keyboard is something to type on; a chair is something to sit on; a hammer is something to pound in nails with. But there is no conscious application of a discursive concept here--how could it be? Our recognition of these objects as being of a certain kind is not a theoretical recognition at all; it is a practical one. And our description of these objects is not a mere outward expression of an inwardly articulated, theoretical description. Rather, it is a struggle to use words to guide the hearer in how they must orient their bodies toward a thing in order for it to manifest itself to them in the same action-allowing way.
AS these kinds of descriptions are precisified and the objects become more abstract, we find the descriptions appear to be less descriptions of "practical form" and closer to descriptions of "functional form"--a form defined by causal relations to other objects in the world. But this is not a difference in kind, but in degree. Why? First, because the complex of these descriptions ultimately refers back to the practical form of certain objects within that complex. Second, because with proficiency, objects with practical form can become extensions of the body--like the cane of a blind man or, now, the keyboard of this computer which now falls within the horizon of my experienced body, bordering on this text, which is external to me. And so the gradual acquisition of procedural knowledge of the appropriate kinds would allow us to traverse the functional structure of the world; as we near an object through practice, its functional form becomes a practical form, and its practical form becomes subsumed into our bodies.
Therefore, functionalism about a domain of objects is far from a contemplative theoretical account of those objects. Rather, it is the insistence that what is most essential to those objects is that we are able to confront and implicate them in praxis.