Knowing and the Known is a 1949 book by John Dewey and Arthur Bentley.
Overview
As well as a Preface, an Introduction and an Index, the book consists of 12 chapters, or papers, as the authors call them in their introduction. Chapters 1 (Vagueness in Logic), 8 (Logic in an Age of Science) and 9 (A Confused "Semiotic") were written by Bentley; Chapter 10 (Common Sense and Science) by Dewey, while the remainder were signed jointly.
The terminology problem in the fields of epistemology and logic is partially due, according to Dewey and Bentley, to inefficient and imprecise use of words and concepts that reflect three historic levels of organization and presentation. In the order of chronological appearance, these are :
Self-Action: Prescientific concepts regarded humans, animals, and things as possessing powers of their own which initiated or caused their actions. Interaction: as described by Newton, where things, living and inorganic, are balanced against something in a system of interaction, for example, the third law of motion states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Transaction: where modern systems of descriptions and naming are employed to deal with multiple aspects and phases of action without any attribution to ultimate, final, or independent entities, essences, or realities.
Chapters
Vagueness in Logic
The Terminological Problem
Postulations
Interaction and Transaction
Transactions as Known and Named
Specification
The Case of Definition
Logic in an Age of Science
A Confused "Semiotic" Common Sense and Science A Trial Group of Names Summary of Progress Made Appendix: A Letter from John Dewey
Transactions
A series of characterizations of Transactions indicate the wide range of considerations involved.
Transaction is inquiry in which existing descriptions of events are accepted only as tentative and preliminary. New descriptions of the aspects and phases of events based on inquiry may be made at any time. Transaction is inquiry characterized by primary observation that may range across all subject matters that present themselves, and may proceed with freedom to re-determine and rename the objects comprised in the system. Transaction is Fact such that no one of the constituents can be adequately specified as apart from the specification of all the other constituents of the full subject matter. Transaction develops and widens the phases of knowledge, and broadens the system within the limits of observation and report. Transaction regards the extension in time to be comparable to the extension in space, so that “thing” is in action, and “action” is observable in things. Transaction assumes no pre-knowledge of either organism or environment alone as adequate, but requires their primary acceptance in a common system. Transaction is the procedure which observes men talking and writing, using language and other representational activities to present their perceptions and manipulations. This permits a full treatment, descriptive and functional, of the whole process inclusive of all its contents, and with the newer techniques of inquiry required. Transactional Observation insists on the right to freely proceed to investigate any subject matter in whatever way seems appropriate, under reasonable hypothesis.
Illustration of differences between self-action, interaction, and transaction, as well as the different facets of transactional inquiry are provided by statements of positions that Dewey and Bentley definitely did not hold and which never should be read into their work.