1In the 1980s, the contemporary pragmatist philosopher Richard Bernstein discussed two opposing concepts in his representative work, Beyond Objectivism and Relativism, namely objectivism and relativism. Objectivists assert that there is some eternal, ahistorical matrix or framework by which reason, knowledge, truth, reality, goodness, and justice are established; relativists assert that reason, knowledge, truth, reality, goodness, and justice exist only in relation to a particular conceptual schema, theoretical framework, paradigm, form of life, society, or culture. The struggle between objectivism and relativism has accompanied the entire history of philosophy, but it has always been difficult to distinguish the relative merits between them. The reason for this is not only the meaning and scope of reason, knowledge, etc., but also the ontological stipulation of human existence, that is, what human beings are, what they can know, what they should follow, and what is the basis of hope (Bernstein 1983: 4). Specifically, moving beyond objectivism and relativism requires confronting the Cartesian Anxiety, namely the conundrum of the stipulation of the finite existence of human beings. For Bernstein, while it is certainly important to critically examine existing solutions in dialogue, such as Descartes’ finite man and Gadamer’s finite man, it is even more important to propose constructive ideas and methods based on this dialogical investigation, which is also the most precious legacy of the pragmatic tradition he values. “I began my philosophical career convinced by Dewey’s critique of the quest for certainty and his call for a reconstruction of philosophy. I never experienced the type of disillusionment that Rorty experienced […]. The task, as Dewey had indicated, was to reconstruct philosophy” (Bernstein 2010: 214). And this is what the word “beyond” means in the title of Bernstein’s book (Ryder 2012: 81).
2What is Cartesian anxiety? From the perspective of human existence, objectivism and relativism remain in a parasitic relation with each other. They both presuppose the finitude of human existence, even as the finite existence of human beings depends on some kind of infinite existence to obtain comfort, but because humans have never been able to rationalize this comfort, they fall into endless struggles causing anxiety.
Why have relativists been unconvinced when objectivists argue, as they almost invariably do, that relativism is self-referentially inconsistent, self-defeating, and incoherent? Why have objectivists been unmoved when time and time again it is shown that they have failed to make the case for the objective foundations for philosophy, knowledge, or language, and that the history of attempts to reveal such foundations must be judged thus far to be a history of failures? (Bernstein 1983: 15)
3Human being’s search for comfort in human existence is irrepressible, and as Bernstein pointed out, Cartesian anxiety did not begin with Descartes, nor was it accepted by posterity in exactly the same way that Descartes articulated it; rather, it was an expression that was conducive to grasping the theme of human being’s search for existential comfort: it is the state of being that arises from the search for this comfort.
4Rather than focusing solely on the accuracy and relevance of the arguments in Descartes’ Meditations On First Philosophy, Bernstein focuses on another thread that runs through it, namely its depiction of the journey of the soul based on the finitude of man, and according to which man progressively deepens the true meaning of his finite existence, which is entirely dependent on the infinite God (omniscient, omnipotent, and all-good).
5Descartes believed that as long as each person honestly follows the guidance of the soul in such a journey, and if one does not want to get lost in its uncertainty, then that person will find out that the journey is one of both fear and liberation, and that he will finally find peace in the comfort that his finite existence is governed by chance and doubt, and is therefore confirmed in his deepened self-knowledge. This deepened self-knowledge reveals that finite man is the creation of the infinite God, who created man in his own image, and thus one can put aside the existential troubles caused by doubt (Bernstein 1983: 17). Specifically, concerning the fear at heart in this journey, the reader finds it embodied in the various allusions of Descartes’ contemplations: the fear, darkness, and madness of man living in a dream-like world of self-deception; man suddenly falls into a deep pool, which can neither sink to the bottom nor rise to the surface; man is only a plaything of the almighty demon (Descartes 2008: 17-8). This kind of human existence is rootless, unable to be liberated on its own, and is thus plunged into boundless fear and anxiety. However, the more one meditates on the finitude of one’s existence, the more one is able to comprehend the meaning of the infinite existence of God in a deepened self-knowledge (contemplation). As the creature of the infinite God, finite man depends on the infinite God to be able to secure his existence at any time and in any place, and thus to be liberated from fear and anxiety. When the soul is liberated, man “can and ought to set aside all the doubts of these past days as hyperbolical and ridiculous […]. For because God is in no wise a deceiver, it follows that I am not deceived in this” (Bernstein 1983: 17-8). From a past where everything is not trustworthy, to being able to put all doubt aside and rely on an infinite God: because God does not deceive man, man can be liberated from fear.
6Descartes, by relying on God’s blessing, found comfort in the existence of finite man. But he failed to realize that when he was able to question his past, he was also affirming himself. The questioning itself is not simply a questioning without a basis, since the basis is reflected in the premise from which each question is based. Regrettably, Descartes’ concern with questioning led him to appeal to the infinite God for the consolation of finite man’s existence. However, even if man is a creature of God, he is not God after all, and man is always finite and can never reach the infinite. It is here that Descartes’ finite man becomes mysterious. When it came to Gadamer’s critique of Cartesianism in the ontological sense, Bernstein pointed out that “while Gadamer’s critique is radical, it is not frontal” (ibid.: 118). According to Descartes, the finite and the infinite are opposite yet they are also united. On the one hand, a finite man can never be an infinite God, otherwise the soul would not be afraid; on the other hand, finite man is a creation of the infinite God, without which the soul cannot be liberated. The soul’s contemplation within deepened self-knowledge appears to make an argument for the existence of an infinite God, but in fact it only provides an explanation for the presupposition of an infinite God for a finite man. Providing a plausible argument for something that has already been predetermined does not dispel the mystery of presupposition, as is reflected in Descartes’ statement that truth is constituted by the human faculty of judgment. For Descartes, truth is primarily a judgment, while error is primarily a false judgment, i.e., affirming or denying something that one cannot clearly understand.
7Descartes’ account of error shows the mystery of the finite man’s appeal to the infinite God. In explaining the source of their own errors, Descartes (2008: 174) pointed out “that they depend on a combination of two causes, to wit, on the faculty of knowledge that rests in me, and on the power of choice or free will – that is to say, of the understanding and at the same time of the will. For by the understanding alone I [neither assert nor deny anything, but] apprehend the idea of thing as to which I can form a judgment.” Unlike the faculty of comprehension, which is responsible for grasping ideas clearly and unambiguously, the will is the faculty that exercises judgments of affirmation or negation. In other words, error is an improper combination of the two faculties of cognition (understanding) and judgment (will). “We err when we affirm or deny that which we do not understand clearly and distinctly – when we allow our will to outstrip the domain of what we truly understand” (Bernstein 1983: 116-7).
8On the other hand, understanding can provide clear and intelligible knowledge, as long as both the understanding and the will function properly. However, in order for truth to be possible, or to distinguish between errors, it is necessary to further explain how the judgment (will) that makes it possible distinguishes between the two. It is obviously not enough to point out that judgment is an activity of the human will, and therefore that it is always within man’s capacity to control his judgment. The key question is how understanding and will come together, and why the combination of the two can sometimes produce truth and sometimes error, so that truth can be truly distinguished from error. Descartes’ answer to this is to return to the finite existence of man. “Descartes understands human finitude in a distinctive way. For although we are finite, we are not imperfect” (ibid.: 116). As God’s creatures, there is no inherent imperfection in man’s will and understanding; man’s errors come from the misuse of his own faculties (will and understanding), and man, although intrinsically perfect, is actually finite. “Because the exigencies of action often oblige us to make up our minds before having leisure to examine matters carefully, we must confess that the life of man is very frequently subject to error in respect to individual objects, and we must in the end acknowledge the infirmity of our nature” (Descartes 2008: 198-9). As far as human knowledge is concerned, man’s finite knowledge is related to God’s knowledge and exists as part of an infinite whole.
9As God’s creatures, God has nothing to do with man’s mistakes, and man is compelled to take full responsibility for himself after sharing God’s infinite will. If it is said that man makes correct judgments (truth) because of God, then man is responsible for making mistakes, which remains inexplicable (mysterious). The reason for this is that the fact that the finite man turns to the infinite God for comfort is ultimately mysterious, and the resulting opposition between objectivism and relativism is fundamentally irreconcilable. To the extent that man’s existence is finite, relativism has its legitimacy, while objectivism has its rationality to the extent that man’s existence is perfect. There is no more rational presupposition between objectivism and relativism, and the presupposition of both is mystical, expressed as Descartes’ stipulation of the finite existence of man.
10Similar to Descartes’ understanding of man, Gadamer also understood him as a finite being. Gadamer’s “philosophic hermeneutics […] is revelatory of human finitude” (Bernstein 1983: 114). However, when it comes to attitudes toward the past, Gadamer and Descartes were the opposite. Unlike Descartes, who insisted that everything in the past was questionable, Gadamer paid particular attention to the value of the past, that is, to justify so-called prejudices, and thus he understood the finite existence of man as the historicity that constitutes his existence. “It is not so much our judgments as it is our prejudices that constitute our being […]. I am using it to restore to its rightful place a positive concept of prejudice that was driven out of our linguistic usage by the French and the English Enlightenment” (Gadamer 1976: 9). Descartes rejected the past in its entirety while doubting it, thereby leaving it without any positive value, while Gadamer justified prejudice by recognizing the inadequacy of the past while focusing on revealing its positive values.
11Unlike Descartes, who understood human beings as finite but perfect (appealing to God), Gadamer understood them as finite yet open (belonging to history) (Bernstein 1983: 167). Gadamer’s understanding of the finite man was made possible by his inquiring into how the activity of human understanding is possible, where understanding is not some arbitrary human activity but rather the primordial mode of human existence in the world. Thanks to Heidegger’s account of the existential ontology of understanding, i.e., that “it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text directly, relying solely on the fore-meaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the legitimacy – i.e., the origin and validity – of the fore-meanings dwelling within him,” Gadamer (2004: 270) revealed the existential significance of prejudice to understanding.
12When it comes to Gadamer’s understanding of the word Vorurteil, people tend to interpret it as “pre-judgment” rather than “prejudice” for reasons that are intellectually acceptable. For, in contrast to the more neutral term “prejudgment,” the term “prejudice” has a distinctly negative connotation, namely as something wrong and unfounded, which obviously does not contribute to the realization of the activity of understanding. The problem with this translation, however, is that if we do not understand Vorurteil as prejudice, we are weakening Gadamer’s original meaning (Bernstein 1983: 127).
Prejudices are not necessarily unjustified and erroneous, so that they inevitably distort the truth. In fact, the historicity of our existence entails that prejudices, in the literal sense of the word, constitute the initial directedness of our whole ability to experience. Prejudices are biases of our openness to the world. They are simply conditions whereby we experience something […] This formulation certainly does not mean that we are enclosed within a wall of prejudices […]. Instead, we welcome just that guest who promises something new to our curiosity. (Gadamer 1976: 9)
13For Gadamer, understanding is possible not on the condition of neutral prejudgment, but on tendentious prejudice. Because prejudice brings us not only to the direction of experiencing something, but also something new. In contrast to the generation of something new, i.e., the realization of the activity of understanding, prejudice appears itself as prejudice (something wrong). Similar to the prejudices of the Enlightenment, people are still accustomed to taking prejudice as only negative. Replacing prejudice with prejudgment obscures the revolutionary significance of Gadamer’s thought, i.e., prejudice reveals the stipulation of man’s finite existence. The revolutionary significance of prejudice has two aspects: first, starting from the prejudices of the Enlightenment, it restores the positive and affirmative nature of prejudice; second, it is based on the restoration of prejudice and the ontological basis of prejudice, that is, the threefold temporal stipulation (historical stipulation) that constitutes man’s existence.
14When Gadamer considered the Enlightenment’s denigration of prejudice, he revealed its full meaning. Specifically, it is impossible to make people aware of bias when it works in a way that goes unnoticed; prejudice, on the other hand, is divided into negative prejudice that hinders understanding and causes misunderstanding (blind biases), and productive prejudice that enables understanding (authorized biases) because, as a result, prejudice has manifested itself as blind or authorized bias (Bernstein 1983: 128). The key here is to understand the authorized biases, because the blind biases are the kind of things that are purely negative and false. In other words, authorized biases have both positive and negative effects. To bring the everyday concept of bias back to its consequential validity is to justify the positive nature of bias.
15Before prejudice manifests itself as prejudice, prejudice is still prejudice, but it does not yet have the validity of its results. “Not only understanding but all knowing ‘inevitably involves some prejudices’” (ibid.: 127-8). The validity of the result of prejudice includes both positive and negative aspects: from the perspective of the negative effect of prejudice, the realization of understanding means that the new understanding reveals the discovery of the error of the original understanding; from the perspective of the positive effect of prejudice, the realization of understanding means that the premise of the new understanding is the original understanding. The realization of understanding involves at the same time learning from the other and increasing one’s own wisdom, that is, achieving a better understanding of oneself by actively understanding the other person.
In opposition to Descartes’ monological notion of purely rational self-reflection by which we can achieve transparent self-knowledge, Gadamer tells us that it is only through a dialogical encounter with what is at once alien to us, makes a claim upon us, and has an affinity with what we are that we can open ourselves to risking and testing our prejudices. (Ibid.: 128-9)
16In short, the positive and affirmative nature of prejudice is to reveal its presence in openness to the coming of results. “Prejudices ‘constitute our being’: […] it literally makes no sense to think that a human being can ever be devoid of prejudice. To risk and test our prejudices is a constant task (not a final achievement)” (ibid.: 129). However, to fundamentally restore the reputation of prejudices, it is also necessary to elaborate on the meaning of openness itself that makes the validity of the results of bias understood. Gadamer’s explanation of the concept of openness draws on interpreting the two concepts of authority and tradition (ibid.: 129-31). When the Enlightenment understood prejudice as prejudice based on the prestige of others, as well as prejudice that came out of one’s own imprudence, authority here was not only related to others, but was first and foremost the very source of prejudice. At this time, the Enlightenment pitted people’s belief in authority against their own reason, which had a certain degree of legitimacy (because the prestige of authority replaced rational judgment), but it was a misunderstanding when the Enlightenment understood authority as the opposite concept, i.e., blind obedience, while emphasizing reason and freedom.
17From the point of view of the essential elements that constitute authority, it is true that it is mainly attributed to those who have power in a certain field and who issue orders to others while demanding obedience; however, the prestige of authority is ultimately not based on the abandonment of reason and freedom, but on the contrary, it is based on knowledge and recognition, that is, the recognition of the superiority of the authority of others, and the priority of the opinions and judgments of others over oneself. Closely related to authority is the notion of tradition, which is the basis of prejudice and authority. Tradition may also be called nameless authority:
For there is one form of authority particularly defended by romanticism, namely tradition. That which has been sanctioned by tradition and custom has an authority that is nameless, and our finite historical existence is marked by the fact that the authority of what has been handed down to us – not just what is clearly grounded – always has power over our attitudes and behavior. (Gadamer 2004: 281)
18The Enlightenment denigrated prejudice and rejected authority because both prejudice and authority came from tradition, where tradition referred to what had been frozen in the past. However, as far as tradition is concerned, the blind spot of the Enlightenment is that although tradition is by its very nature preserved, even the most authentic and stable tradition is not naturally preserved just because it once existed; on the other hand, in the most violent and turbulent times, preservation will not be completely abandoned by the innovation of everything. The preservation of tradition needs to be recognized, adopted and nurtured, based on man’s rational and free activities, and the same goes for the innovations of the Enlightenment. In this sense, tradition is not a thing that is dead in the past, but a preservation of what is in the past. The understanding of tradition as something that is frozen in the past presupposes that time can be clearly divided, that is, time can be precisely divided into past, present and future, and that the outdated and dead tradition is not only irrelevant to the present but closed to the future.
19In contrast to the Enlightenment’s understanding of tradition, Gadamer’s tradition has a threefold temporal character: tradition is something that has been handed down from the past; tradition constitutes what it is; and tradition is planned, since it is always open to future testing and transformation (Bernstein 1983: 140-1). Further, insofar as tradition encompasses both past, present, and future, tradition is a historical process that reconstructs itself, and since the temporal distance between historical processes is filled by the continuity of tradition, the threefold temporality of tradition can be expressed as the present moving towards the future (generating something new) in interaction with the past (the fusion of horizons).
20The threefold temporality of tradition, which completely restores the reputation of prejudice from the ontology of man’s existence, implies a new mode of understanding the finite existence of man. Finite man no longer appeals to the infinite God, but rather to the process of the constant attainment of manifestation of itself directed by the concept of prejudice. This is expressed as the threefold temporality of the tradition (history) that constitutes openness, that is, the existence of man is finite but open. Unlike Descartes’ finite man, the finite existence of man who returns to his own historicity advocates a new knowledge and truth, which is not opposed to the methods of the natural sciences, but rather adduces to an ontological stipulation that emphasizes prejudice over understanding.
21Compared to Descartes, Gadamer’s finite man brings the consolation of man’s existence back to man himself, that is, man is brought back to his finite existence in history, but whether it is from the point of view of the critical criterion of prejudice and the need for some criterion to judge history, the evaluative criterion involved here has not been taken seriously and explained, and only pointing out that the criterion of historical development is in history itself is obviously insufficient. Bernstein inherited Gadamer’s historical understanding of finite man, pointing out that the criterion of human finite existence is universal freedom, and the realization of universal freedom is the practical activity of human being’s historical mediation.
22In elaborating on the three elements of understanding (understanding, interpretation, application), Gadamer pointed out that hermeneutic method is not different from a contemporary practical wisdom (phronesis) in the Aristotelian sense of the word. However, unlike Aristotle, who confined man’s practical activities to the realm of ethics and politics, Gadamer’s hermeneutic method constitutes the essential element of all understanding, which in turn reveals the primordial mode of human existence. It was here that Bernstein pointed out that Gadamer, in understanding the hermeneutic method as practical wisdom, ignored the conditions under which practical wisdom functioned for Aristotle, namely that the functioning of practical wisdom rested on the polis, which provided normative criteria (virtues) for practical wisdom. “For it is not merely the state in accordance with correct reason, but the state that implies the presence of correct reason, that is virtue; and practical wisdom is correct reason about such matters” (Aristotle 2009: 117). In contemporary times, however, not only have city-states long disappeared, but history has also gained a more global dimension. Therefore, how to understand the critical criteria that exist in the community becomes a key question for hermeneutics, and for understanding the consolation of the existence of finite human beings.
23Gadamer realized that understanding was achieved in a community of interlocutors, with the difference being that one of the interlocutors (the work to be interpreted) cannot speak and the other (the interpreter) expressed it on its behalf. This community of interlocutors, in the present day, has taken on a very different character from the past, as the city-states have transformed into a larger society and history has entered world history. “I too am in favor of a government and politics that would allow for mutual understanding and the freedom of all […] [This] has been self-evident to any European since the French Revolution, since Hegel and Kant” (Bernstein 1983: 264). When history enters world history, the freedom of all becomes self-evident, and the idea of universal freedom becomes the idea of reality. For Aristotle, freedom was no longer a natural attribute of man, nor a gift from the Creator, but the achievement of community life. As Arendt writes:
Public freedom was not an inner realm into which men might escape at will from the pressures of the world, nor was it the liberum arbitrium which makes the will choose between alternatives. Freedom for them could exist only in public; it was a tangible, worldly reality, something created by men to be enjoyed by men rather than a gift or a capacity, it was the man-made public space or market-place which antiquity had known as the area where freedom appears and becomes visible to all. (Arendt 1963: 120-1)
24As an achievement of community life, freedom creates an equal and independent relationship between people (the relationship of dialogue), which becomes the criterion by which the course of human history is judged. Freedom is first and foremost different from liberation, which essentially means getting rid of something, while freedom is the positive achievement of human practice.
25In Bernstein’s words, freedom is not a practical goal plan and it does not accurately predict what someone will do at a certain time and place; rather, it functions as a critique of the actual situation (Bernstein 1983: 211-2). Because of this, we are able to judge the various revolutions in human history. For example, Arendt disparaged the French Revolution from the point of view of freedom and praised the American Revolution (ibid.: 209). Second, as an achievement of community life, freedom permeates the historical process of human beings. For example, the city-states of ancient Greece, the American Revolution, the Paris Commune, the early Russian Soviets, the Citizens’ Council of the Hungary Revolution in 1956, the beginning of the civil rights movement, and the anti-Vietnam War movement in the United States are all representative periods of freedom (ibid.: 211). In short, when freedom becomes universal freedom, the latter acts as a critical criterion for the community of interlocutors.
26That the idea of universal freedom has become a reality does not mean that universal freedom itself has been realized, and the process of its becoming actual reality is characterized by historical mediation, that is, the realization of universal freedom is the result of its historical mediation. At this point, it can be proffered that the existential consolation of the finite human beings legitimately cures human inner anxiety. Bernstein expounded on Heidegger’s theory of the domination of technology by revealing the activities of the historical mediation of universal freedom. Contemporary society is an era of technological domination, and human history has changed from poiesis to technological domination. The reason for this is next to metaphysical thinking (understanding being as beings); it is, more fundamentally, the influence of the historical mediation. In Heidegger’s words (1977: 289), the revelation of the nature of technology frees the relationship between man and technology. To this point, Bernstein (1991: 101) wrote:
The correct definition of technology is itself an expression of what is so deeply entrenched in metaphysical humanism where man is taken to be a subject that represents and stands over against an objective world. By representing this objective world, man presumably exercises his free will in controlling, manipulating and mastering it in order to achieve human purposes.
27Looking back at the poiesis of ancient Greece from the perspective of contemporary technological domination, one finds that, unlike today’s one-way causality in which cause produces effect, the completion of the poiesis in the past involved the fourfold causality (material cause, formal cause, purpose cause, and dynamic cause), which functioned together. Take the sacrificial silver cup as an example: the material of silver is the material cause; the silver cup is the formal cause; the silver cup used in the sacrifice is the cause of purpose; the silversmith crafting the sacrificial silver cup is the dynamic cause. Unlike today’s view of technology as being freely controlled by human beings, ancient poiesis only acted as a dynamic cause when it came to crafting, and it had to be combined with the other three causes. In other words, it is not so much the silversmith’s creation that makes the sacrificial silver cup come into being, but rather the sacrificial silver cup completes itself through the silversmith’s creation.
28The key point is that the reason why people can separate the essence of technology from technology is that historical development has made poiesis evolve into technology, so when looking back at the past from the perspective of today, the role of historical mediation can be revealed as the true from the correct, as Heidegger (1977: 289) wrote:
The correct always fixes upon something pertinent in whatever is under consideration. However, in order to be correct, this fixing by no means needs to uncover the thing in question in its essence. Only at this point where such an uncovering happens does the true come to pass. Only the true brings us into a free relationship with that which concerns us from its essence. Accordingly, the correct instrumental definition of technology still does not show us technology’s essence. In order that we may arrive at this, or at least come close to it, we must seek the true by way of the correct.
29This activity that both connects and separates the present and the past thus reveals the true by way of the correct, which refers to the hermeneutical meaning of the so-called temporal distance, that is, the historical mediation. Gadamer (2004: 297) helps to explain this:
Time is no longer primarily a gulf to be bridged because it separates; it is actually the supportive ground of the course of events in which the present is rooted. Hence temporal distance is not something that must be overcome. This was, rather, the naive assumption of historicism, namely that we must transpose ourselves into the spirit of the age, think with its ideas and its thoughts, not with our own, and thus advance toward historical objectivity. In fact the important thing is to recognize temporal distance as a positive and productive condition enabling understanding. It is not a yawning abyss but is filled with the continuity of custom and tradition, in the light of which everything handed down presents itself to us.
30In this regard, Bernstein pointed out that we need to distinguish between the historical preceding and chronological development. Take modern technology as an example: from the abstract point of view, modern technology is the result of modern experimental science; from the perspective of real history, modern technology is certainly the result of modern science, but modern science is logically the embodiment of the essence of modern technology, that is, the domination of technology has rehearsed the development of modern science (Bernstein 1991: 103). In short, when the idea of universal freedom of human beings becomes a reality, and the realization of universal freedom is presented as the result of historical mediation, the finite existence of human beings can truly overcome the Cartesian anxiety and move beyond objectivism and relativism.
Once we give up misleading pictures of what constitutes justification, we can get on with the eminently fallible, difficult and open-ended task of providing the best defences we can give for the universal moral norms that we reflectively endorse […] we might escape from the interminable oscillation between “bad relativism” and “abstract universalism.” (Bernstein 2016: 181)
31The understanding of human beings’ finite existence as a historical mediation activity of universal freedom makes human finitude truly return to human beings. To the extent that human being is a being in historical activity, human being is finite in any given era; insofar as history is made up of human activity, human being in each particular age is infinite by virtue of human beings’ belonging to history; the finite existence of human beings is the finitude of the openness to the future, a self-actualizing activity based on the historical mediation of universal freedom. This understanding of finite human beings is the ontological basis of Bernstein’s philosophical position, and in the context of the pragmatist tradition, Bernstein has always advocated the philosophical position of “engaged fallibilistic pluralism.” The word “pluralism” is to assert that people are equal among themselves; the word “engaged” is to advocate the need for communication between people; and the combination of the two is what universal freedom means. The word “fallibilistic” indicates that the viewpoints of people under any historical conditions are open and the result of historical mediation (Bernstein 2017: 215-7).