The Pursuit of Certainty—A Study on the Relationship between Knowledge and Action

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Features: The significance of a work and a philosophical tradition is not only determined by its understanding by contemporaries but also by its understanding by later generations. From this perspective, with the consent of Professor Habermas, the People's Publishing House of Shanghai had my translation of the book review I wrote for his German translation of "The Search for Certainty" in 1998, translated into Chinese and included as a part of this book. In this article, Habermas provides a summary and analysis of the history of the reception of Dewey and even the entire American pragmatism philosophy in Germany, which should help us in comprehensively understanding Dewey's work. German philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls Dewey's "The Search for Certainty" Dewey's "influential work" and highly praises it. In this book, Dewey discusses the important significance of the role of the intermediary connecting the fields of cognition and evaluation. Dewey studies the relationship between knowledge and action, emphasizes the practical significance of knowledge, points out the inherent connection between theory and practice, and demonstrates that this inherent connection makes knowledge a tool and means for achieving human purposes. The book narrates how the traditional method of distinguishing between knowledge and action has influenced philosophical concepts, explains how the coordination between the conclusions of natural science and value concepts dominates various philosophical schools, clarifies that science itself is a form of purposeful practical action, and illustrates that the determination of knowledge is an ongoing pursuit.