The Quest for Certainty is John Dewey’s sustained critique of the traditional philosophical ideal of absolute, immutable certainty in knowledge. Dewey argues that classical epistemology, shaped by a sharp separation between theory and practice, mind and world, and a quest for foundations beyond experience, distorts both the nature of inquiry and the conditions of human life. Against this backdrop, he develops a pragmatist alternative that treats knowledge as an instrumentally warranted outcome of experimental inquiry within an indeterminate, changing world. Knowledge, on this view, is not a static representation of a fixed reality but a set of tested, revisable hypotheses guiding action and coping with risk. Dewey explores how this reconstructed understanding of knowledge transforms our attitudes toward science, morality, politics, and religion, and how it replaces the futile quest for absolute certainty with a more intelligent management of uncertainty.

At a Glance

Quick Facts

Author: John Dewey
Composed: 1928–1929 (based on the 1929 Gifford Lectures at the University of Edinburgh)
Language: English
Status: original survives

Key Arguments

•Critique of the traditional quest for absolute certainty: Dewey contends that the historical fixation of philosophy on infallible, foundation-like knowledge—modeled on mathematics and often religiously tinged—rests on an artificial separation of the knowing subject from the changing, risky world of action. This quest leads to skepticism, metaphysical dualisms, and a devaluation of concrete practices, since it demands guarantees that experience cannot provide.
•Theory–practice and knowing–doing are continuous: Dewey argues that knowing is a specialized form of doing, not a fundamentally different, detached activity. Inquiry is an intelligent, experimental reorganization of problematic situations; theories and concepts are tools within this process rather than mirrors of a pre-given reality. Consequently, the sharp divide between theoretical knowledge and practical activity is illusory and harmful.
•Warranted assertibility as a replacement for ‘certainty’: Instead of absolute certainty, Dewey proposes the notion of ‘warranted assertibility’ as the standard for knowledge claims. A belief counts as knowledge when it has been subjected to rigorous public inquiry, experimentation, and criticism, and is warranted under the best available evidence—while remaining open to revision in light of new inquiry. This reconception preserves objectivity without requiring infallibility.
•Naturalistic and experimental conception of science: Dewey interprets modern experimental science as the paradigm of genuine inquiry, showing how it abandons the search for immutable essences in favor of operational concepts, controlled experimentation, and functional relations. This method reveals that knowledge grows through active intervention in nature, and that the value of scientific concepts lies in their capacity to guide successful operations and resolve problems.
•Transformation of moral, political, and religious thought: Dewey extends his experimental epistemology to ethics, politics, and religion, arguing that moral and social ideals should function as hypotheses to be tested in experience rather than absolute commandments. He criticizes traditional religious and metaphysical appeals to an otherworldly realm of certainty and suggests that a ‘religious’ attitude can be reinterpreted as a deep commitment to the ideal-directed improvement of human life under conditions of uncertainty.

Historical Significance

Historically, The Quest for Certainty has been regarded as one of Dewey’s key epistemological works, alongside Experience and Nature and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. It crystallizes the pragmatist turn away from foundationalism and the spectator theory of knowledge, offering a systematic alternative centered on experimental inquiry and the continuity of theory and practice. The book influenced mid-twentieth-century discussions of naturalism, the philosophy of science, and democratic theory, and it anticipated later developments in fallibilism, contextualism, and social epistemology. In contemporary scholarship, it is often cited as a classic articulation of pragmatist fallibilism and as a bridge between classical American philosophy and later analytic and continental critiques of certainty and representation.

Famous Passages

Critique of the ‘spectator theory of knowledge’(Early chapters, especially around the discussion of Greek philosophy and the separation of knowing from doing (approx. Lecture II–III in the 1929 text).)

Formulation of ‘warranted assertibility’(Middle chapters dealing with the reconstruction of knowledge and logic, where Dewey explicitly contrasts warranted assertibility with traditional certainty (approx. Lecture V–VI).)

Analysis of experimental science as a model of inquiry(Sections on the rise of modern science and its experimental method, including the contrast with classical notions of substance and fixed nature (approx. Lecture IV–V).)

Application of experimentalism to morals and politics(Later chapters treating moral and political philosophy and the role of ideals as hypotheses in social life (approx. Lecture VII–VIII).)

Naturalistic reinterpretation of the religious attitude(Final chapters discussing religion, naturalism, and the ‘religious’ quality of commitment to ideal-directed action in an uncertain world (approx. Lecture IX–X).)

Key Terms

Spectator theory of knowledge: Dewey’s term for the conception of knowing as a passive, contemplative observation of a fixed reality, detached from practical action and intervention.

Warranted assertibility: Dewey’s pragmatist substitute for ‘certainty,’ [meaning](/terms/meaning/) that a claim is properly assertible when it has been subjected to and survived rigorous, public, experimental inquiry.

Inquiry (experimental inquiry): The active, intelligent process by which agents transform indeterminate, problematic situations into determinate ones through hypothesis, experimentation, and revision.

[Instrumentalism](/schools/instrumentalism/): Dewey’s view that ideas, concepts, and theories function as tools or instruments for organizing experience and guiding action, rather than as mere representations of an independent reality.

[Naturalism](/terms/naturalism/): The philosophical stance, central to Dewey’s project, that human [knowledge](/terms/knowledge/), values, and religious attitudes arise within and are continuous with the natural, empirical world, without appeal to supernatural guarantees of certainty.

1. Introduction

John Dewey’s The Quest for Certainty: A Study of the Relation of Knowledge and Action (1929) is widely regarded as one of his most sustained statements on epistemology. The book investigates why, across much of the history of philosophy, thinkers have sought an indubitable, unchanging kind of knowledge that would rise above the risks and contingencies of everyday life. Dewey links this “quest for certainty” to the human desire for security, but argues that it has shaped philosophy in distinctive and, on his view, problematic ways.

At the center of the work is the claim that knowledge and action are continuous, not fundamentally separate domains. Dewey treats knowing as a specialized form of doing, rooted in the same practical efforts by which humans cope with their environment. He therefore challenges traditions that exalt purely contemplative, “spectator” knowledge over practical activity.

Rather than proposing a new foundation for absolute certainty, Dewey reframes the aims of inquiry around what he calls warranted assertibility—claims justified by experimental, public, and revisable procedures. The book traces how this reconception of knowledge bears on science, logic, morals, politics, and religion, but always with the central question in view: how should human beings understand knowledge when they cannot escape acting under conditions of uncertainty?

2. Historical Context and Intellectual Background

2.1 Philosophical and Scientific Milieu

The Quest for Certainty emerged in the late 1920s, a period marked by rapid advances in physics, biology, and the social sciences, and by intense philosophical debate about the status of scientific knowledge. The rise of logical empiricism, ongoing discussions of Kantian and neo-Hegelian legacies, and new attention to the social dimensions of knowledge formed an important backdrop.

Dewey’s emphasis on experimental inquiry reflects the prestige of modern science after Darwin, Maxwell, and Einstein. Many philosophers were reassessing classical notions of fixed essences and a static natural order in light of evolutionary theory and the emerging picture of a dynamic, probabilistic universe.

2.2 Dewey’s Pragmatist Background

Dewey wrote within the tradition of classical American pragmatism, alongside Charles S. Peirce and William James. From Peirce he drew the idea that the meaning of concepts lies in their conceivable practical effects; from James, a sensitivity to the lived, experiential dimensions of belief. Dewey radicalized these ideas into instrumentalism, treating theories as tools for coping with and reconstructing problematic situations.

2.3 Engagement with Earlier Traditions

Historically, Dewey engages three major sources:

Tradition / Figure	Relevance for The Quest for Certainty
Ancient Greek philosophy	Origin of the elevation of contemplative, unchanging knowledge.
Medieval/early modern	Development of dualisms (soul/body, appearance/reality).
Modern science (Galileo, Newton, Darwin)	Undermining of fixed essences; model of experimental inquiry.

Dewey’s narrative situates the “quest for certainty” within this long arc, arguing that modern science has destabilized older philosophical ideals without yet yielding an adequate reconstruction of epistemology.

3. Author and Composition of the Work

3.1 Dewey’s Intellectual Position in the Late 1920s

By the late 1920s, John Dewey (1859–1952) was an established figure in philosophy, education, and social thought. Earlier works such as Democracy and Education (1916) and Experience and Nature (1925) had articulated his naturalism and pragmatism. The Quest for Certainty belongs to his “mature” period, in which he focused on clarifying the logic of inquiry and its implications for culture.

3.2 Gifford Lectures and Transformation into a Book

The book originates in Dewey’s Gifford Lectures on Natural Religion, delivered at the University of Edinburgh in 1928–1929. These lectures were later revised, expanded, and organized into ten chapters for publication in 1929.

Stage	Approximate Date	Features
Invitation to Gifford Lectures	mid-1920s (inferred)	Opportunity to address religion and epistemology together.
Delivery of lectures	1928–1929	Oral presentations emphasizing historical and systematic themes.
Revision and publication	1929	Issued in the U.S. and U.K.; later in Dewey’s Later Works vol. 4.

3.3 Aims Guiding Composition

Dewey appears to have composed the lectures with several overlapping aims:

To diagnose the historical roots of the philosophical separation between knowledge and action.
To reinterpret the achievements of modern experimental science for epistemology.
To respond to religious and metaphysical appeals to transcendent certainty within the Gifford Lectures’ remit.

The resulting work interweaves historical exposition, critical analysis, and systematic reconstruction in a relatively continuous argument, despite its lecture-based origin.

4. Structure, Lectures, and Organization

4.1 Overall Architecture

The Quest for Certainty consists of ten lectures, each of which advances a step in Dewey’s argument about knowledge and action. While originally oral presentations, the published form reads as a continuous treatise, with later chapters explicitly building on earlier theses.

Lecture	Title (short)	Main Focus
I	Philosophy’s Quest for Certainty	Historical framing of the desire for infallible knowledge.
II	Origin of the Separation of Knowing and Doing	Greek roots of the theory–practice divide.
III	Change in Belief about the Unchangeable	Impact of modern science on notions of fixity.
IV	Science and the Changing Concept of Nature	Experimental method and active intervention.
V	Knowledge, Inquiry, and Warranted Assertibility	Positive account of inquiry and standards of belief.
VI	Logic as the Theory of Inquiry	Reconstruction of logic in functional terms.
VII	Application of Experimental Method to Morals	Extension of inquiry model to ethics.
VIII	Democracy, Politics, and Social Inquiry	Political implications of experimentalism.
IX	Religion, Naturalism, and the Need for Assurance	Religious motives for certainty.
X	Religious Quality of a Naturalistic Faith	Naturalistic reinterpretation of the “religious.”

4.2 Internal Progression

The organization follows a loose three-part movement:

Historical diagnosis (Lectures I–III): tracing the “quest for certainty” and the separation of knowing from doing.
Epistemological and logical reconstruction (IV–VI): analyzing science and articulating inquiry and logic.
Practical and cultural applications (VII–X): applying the reconstructed view to morality, politics, and religion.

This structure allows Dewey to move from historical and critical concerns to systematic proposals and then to concrete domains of human life, while maintaining the central theme of the relation between knowledge and action.

5. Central Arguments and Key Concepts

5.1 Critique of the Quest for Absolute Certainty

Dewey argues that much traditional philosophy has sought absolute, infallible certainty modeled on mathematics or divine knowledge. He contends that this has fostered dualisms—such as mind vs. world or theory vs. practice—and has often devalued concrete, practical activity. Proponents of classical epistemology, by contrast, view this quest as a legitimate response to skepticism and error.

5.2 Continuity of Knowledge and Action

A central thesis is that knowing is a form of doing. Inquiry is portrayed as an experimental process: agents confront problematic situations, form hypotheses, intervene, and assess the consequences. This stands against what Dewey terms the spectator theory of knowledge, which sees the knower as passively mirroring reality.

5.3 Warranted Assertibility

To replace the ideal of certainty, Dewey introduces warranted assertibility as the appropriate standard for knowledge claims:

“Knowledge is a matter of the consequences which follow from our acts, and of the worth of these consequences as tested by further experiences.”

— John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (paraphrased emphasis)

On this view, a statement is properly assertible when it has withstood rigorous, public, and revisable tests within inquiry. Critics have argued that this may weaken traditional notions of objectivity or truth; defenders respond that it better reflects scientific practice and fallibilism.

5.4 Instrumentalism, Naturalism, and Logic as Inquiry

Dewey’s instrumentalism treats concepts and theories as tools for organizing experience and guiding action. His naturalism situates knowledge, value, and religious attitudes within the natural world, without recourse to supernatural guarantees. He also reconceives logic as the theory of inquiry, grounding logical forms in their functional role in solving problems rather than in a priori structures.

These key concepts frame his later discussions of morality, democracy, and religion while remaining anchored in the central issue of how humans manage uncertainty through intelligent action.

6. Legacy and Historical Significance

6.1 Place within Dewey’s Oeuvre and Pragmatism

The Quest for Certainty is often grouped with Experience and Nature and Logic: The Theory of Inquiry as a cornerstone of Dewey’s mature epistemology. It is frequently cited as a classic articulation of pragmatist fallibilism and the critique of the spectator theory of knowledge, helping to define the trajectory of 20th‑century American pragmatism.

6.2 Influence on Later Philosophy

The work has been seen as anticipating or influencing several later developments:

Area	Representative Themes Linked to Dewey
Philosophy of science	Emphasis on experimentation, theory-ladenness of observation.
Social epistemology	Public, cooperative inquiry and the role of democracy.
Analytic pragmatism	Reinterpretations by figures such as Hilary Putnam.
Political theory	Connections between inquiry, deliberative democracy, and policy.

Some scholars argue that Dewey prefigures later critiques of foundationalism and representationalism found in both analytic and continental traditions.

6.3 Ongoing Debates

The book has also been a focal point for criticism. Some commentators maintain that Dewey’s replacement of certainty with warranted assertibility does not fully address radical skepticism or the normativity of truth. Others question whether his thoroughgoing naturalism can accommodate apparent a priori elements in logic and mathematics, or the transcendent claims of many religious traditions.

Despite these debates, The Quest for Certainty continues to serve as a key reference point in discussions about the relationship between knowledge, action, and democratic life, and it remains central to contemporary reappraisals of pragmatism.

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BibTeX

@online{philopedia_the_quest_for_certainty_a_study_of_the_relation_of_knowledge_and_action,
  title = {the-quest-for-certainty-a-study-of-the-relation-of-knowledge-and-action},
  author = {Philopedia},
  year = {2025},
  url = {https://philopedia.com/works/the-quest-for-certainty-a-study-of-the-relation-of-knowledge-and-action/},
  urldate = {December 11, 2025}
}