隐匿的对话:通识教育与自由教育的思想论争

Hidden Dialogue:The Ideological Debates of General Education and Liberal Education

"通识教育"与"自由教育"经常被学界无差别地当作"素质教育"的代名词来使用,实际上二者并不能简单等同。通识教育在对古典自由教育进行改造之后,与现代自由教育之间形成了一种隐匿的思想对话关系:两者都致力于从政治哲学的视野反思现代社会的文教品质,并致力于教育质量的改进。然而,由于在西方文化古今之争中思想立场各不相同,两者在教育反思的起点、教育目标、教育对象、教育方式等问题上大相径庭。质言之,通识教育与自由教育其实是现代社会应对高等教育大众化、专业化和职业化危机的互补性方案,中国当下的高等教育改革应该从两种思想对话中获得重要的启示。

General education and liberal education are often used as a substitute of education for all-round development.However,they are not synonymous.After transformation of classical liberal education,general education and modern liberal education has made a hidden dialogue.Both of them are committed to reflect the culture and education quality in the modern society from the perspective of political philosophy and to improve the quality of education.However,due to their different ideological positions in the debates of the classic and modern western culture,the starting point of educational reflection,educational goals,educational targets,ways of training and other issues are quite different.To put it bluntly,general education and liberal education are complementary in coping with the crisis in mass higher education,specialization and vocationalization of higher education in modern society.China's current reform should obtain the important enlightment from the dialogue.