热闹之后的冷观察——纽曼大学思想核心概念之意义重置

A Clam Observation after the Heat—Re-examine the Meaning of the Core Concepts in Newman's The Idea of a University

20世纪90年代中期兴起的纽曼研究注重其大学思想对现实的批评价值,这在客观上削弱了对纽曼意义的深入理解。在纽曼研究的热度消退后,采用文本分析的方法,根据纽曼《大学的理想》一书对其思想进行结构性分析,梳理出贯穿其中的真理、道德、理性、普遍知识、自由知识、自由教育等六个核心概念,并据此对纽曼大学思想的意义进行重置。除了已得到普遍认识的自由教育的意义之外,纽曼思想还应该包括更为根本性的理性与道德关系、个人自我与外部世界关系这两层被忽视的意义。后两者对现时大学及其困境作哲学层面上的思考,勾连个人、社会、知识与大学的联系具有重要的基础性价值。

The Newman study emerging in the middle of the 1990s attached great importance to the critical value of his idea of university, which impaired the further understanding of Newman＇s meaning objectively. After the fading of the heat of Newman study, based on Newman＇s The Idea of a University, this paper makes a structural analysis of his idea with the approach of text analysis, and sorts out six core concepts in this book, namely, truth, moral, reason, general knowledge, liberal knowledge and liberal education. According to those concepts, the author re-examines the meaning of Newman＇s idea of a university. Besides the well-known meaning of the liberal education, Newman＇s idea of a university should also include two neglected meanings, that is, the fundamental relationship of reason and moral and that of the ego and the external world. The latter two have important fundamental values for the philosophical reflection on contemporary universities and their predicament, and for the linking of individual, society, knowledge and university.