The subtitle of "On Practice" is: "On the relationship between cognition and practice-the relationship between cognition and practice". The article writes: "Our conclusion is the concrete historical unity of subjectivity and objectivity, theory and practice, and cognition and practice. We oppose all' left' or right erroneous ideas that leave specific history." Looking at the full text, I am afraid the most impressive thing is how to change from the unity of subjective and objective history to the unity of theory and practice, and the unity of knowing and doing. If the unity of subject and object can also be regarded as an epistemology, then the unity of theory and practice and knowledge and action has indeed gone far beyond epistemology in this sense, and then some social practices and their relationship with the conclusions drawn from this epistemology will be discussed. Therefore, the editor specially wrote: "Mao Zedong's" On Practice "was written to expose dogmatism and empiricism within the party, especially the subjectivist errors of dogmatism. Because the focus is on exposing dogmatic subjectivism that despises practice, it is entitled "On Practice". " The implication is that, as far as its core content is concerned, this paper is an interpretation of Marxist epistemology, and then some problems are exposed through this epistemology. However, the explanation of Marxist epistemology is only the first half of this article, and the second half of this article is not as stated in the notes. This kind of epistemology is used to expose some subjectivism, but to put forward a theory of practice after epistemology and above epistemology. The emergence of this practical theory is not to correct and emphasize some wrong practices that do not attach importance to practice, but as a necessary practical logic, it has its own characteristics. Therefore, the title of the article is "On Practice".
The article is not long, but it can be divided into three parts. The first part is the general introduction. One sentence in this general statement may sum up the logic and trend of the article: "Therefore, people's understanding not only in material life, but also in political life (which is closely related to material life), and have different degrees of understanding of various relationships between people. Among them, especially various forms of class struggle have a profound impact on people's understanding and development. " The "influence" of class struggle in political life can be understood as "production" and of course it can also be understood as "decision". This dual understanding determines the contents of the last two parts of the article, thus leading and promoting the logical development of the full text.
The second part is widely known. For those of us who have been expected to be politically correct since childhood, it is all too familiar, but some words can even be blurted out unconsciously. However, as the article says: "It turns out that in the process of practice, people begin to see the phenomena in the process of everything, the one-sidedness of everything and the external connection of everything. ..... These are the phenomena of things, the one-sidedness of things, and the external relations of these things. This is called the perceptual stage of cognition, which is the stage of feeling and impression. " The feelings and impressions here are determined by "things" and their phenomena, their reactions or "practical processes", which is quite puzzling. Of course, the answer is given at the end of the article: "No matter who wants to know something, there is no way to solve it except to contact it, that is, to live (practice) in its environment." That is to say: "If you want to know something or something directly, you can only get in touch with the phenomenon of it or something by personally participating in the struggle to change reality and the practice of it or something. Only by personally participating in the struggle to change reality can you expose the essence of it or something and understand them." So the logic of cognition here should be like this: the phenomenon of things and even the essence of things are of course the fundamental premise of cognition, and there is no cognition without the object of cognition. As the object of cognition, things and even the essence of things can't form cognition if they are "touched" or even "transformed" by people without social practice. Therefore, the object of cognition and social practice of a certain nature create cognition, and the so-called process of "contact" and even "transformation" of the object of cognition naturally becomes the process of cognition. In addition, the quotation at the end of the article mentions Marx's Outline on Feuerbach, which inevitably reminds people of the last sentence: "Philosophers in the past only used various viewpoints to explain the world, and the problem is how to transform the world." This has to make people feel confused: if you deny that this part of the article is about an epistemology, it is incorrect, because the main content of this part of the article and even the whole article in the editor's note shows the purpose of epistemology, and the article itself puts forward its so-called "dialectical materialism epistemology" more clearly; But if we don't deny that what we are talking about here is an epistemology, it is hard to make sense, because whether it is the sentence that Marx himself said, or the "connection" mentioned by the author of this paper, especially the "transformation", or the intentional or unintentional final influence of the sentence that Marx said, as well as the "connection" and "transformation" mentioned by the author of this paper, all illustrate the leading role of practice in cognition and a unique practical logic. The so-called epistemology is full of practical factors and inexorably moves towards practical theory-but I prefer to call it "for practice". Of course, the practice here is more realistic and specific, specific to the author's personal situation.
The so-called "practice" has been involved and emphasized in the general introduction and the first part, so it is logical to discuss "practice theory" (of course, "for practice" in the second sense) in the last part. The author begins with a sentence that seems to be a summary: "However, the cognitive movement is not over yet." In this part, the author is very concerned about practice: "What Marxist philosophy thinks is very important is not to understand the laws of the objective world so that it can explain the world, but to actively transform the world with this understanding of the objective laws." This sentence is familiar. Although it has just been put forward, it has jumped out of the paper, but because of this, the "practice" here as a "dynamic transformation" itself will inevitably become the "for practice" in the second sense. However, whether it is "for practice" or "for understanding", the most important thing is to "see if we can achieve the expected purpose." Or "get the expected results in practice", because only in this way, "at this time, people's understanding of an objective process at a certain stage of development is completed." Perhaps more precisely, this should not be just the completion of the so-called "cognitive activity", or the so-called "cognitive activity" itself is only mentioned once without meaning, because as the author said: "The struggle of the proletariat and the revolutionary people to transform the world includes the following tasks: transforming the objective world and their own subjective world-transforming their own cognitive ability and transforming the relationship between the subjective world and the objective world." This sentence makes the six words after the dash in the subtitle of the article-"the relationship between knowledge and action" and the last five words in the second half of the last sentence of the article "the concept of unity of knowledge and action" find some explanation and attribution.
With this background and mentality, I don't want to mention Kant's unavoidable great harmony between "rationalism" and "empiricism", but suddenly I remembered a sentence because of this article. Although this suddenness exposes my political correctness, it is hard to hide the political correctness of this sentence "Practice is the only criterion for testing truth".