Dewey's Instrumentalist Epistemological Thought

This paper mainly discusses Dewey's instrumental epistemology from his empirical naturalism.In his pragmatist philosophy,Dewey connected experience with the process of life,and experience became a matter of action.Thus,in Dewey's view,experience mainly refers to the process of the interaction between the organism and the environment,and is no longer a low-level knowledge.And on this basis to understand people and the world,and the relationship between people and the world.Starting from such empirical naturalism,his epistemological thinking is also different from traditional philosophy.Dewey believes that we encounter,possess and enjoy things before we know them,and knowledge is just what happens afterwards.Cognition is involved in the process of experience.It occurs in the process of the interaction between the organism and the environment in order to cope with the situation in question.Therefore,human cognition is related to experiential activities and is directed towards facing real life and solving problems.In this sense,Dewey believes that cognition is firstly a kind of behavior of organism to adapt to the environment.At the same time,Dewey takes the experimental inquiry procedure as an example to analyze the development process of cognition.In the process of natural experimental inquiry,actual action is located at the center of cognition,and the cognizant is associated with the object of cognition through purposeful inquiry activities,so it also changes the way of cognition and the object of cognition.In Dewey's view,cognition comes into being with the interaction between man and nature,and is an important way of interaction between man and nature.Its purpose and significance lies in improving real life through guiding actions.