西方古典自由教育考辨

Study on the Origin of Classical Liberal Education

自由教育的根本精神源于西方古典自由教育。目前人们对古典自由教育的内涵和特征存在模糊认识,原因是未能深入理解古希腊的自由观念和古希腊人对待自由的态度。古希腊有三种自由观念,分别是欲望的自由、德性的自由和沉思的自由;古希腊人对三种自由的态度大相径庭:抑制欲望的自由,倡导德性的自由,限制沉思的自由。他们对待自由的态度规定了古典自由教育的特征:非实用性,公共性和闲暇性。

The fundamental spirit of ancient and modern liberal education lies in the clas- sical liberal education. Nowadays, some persons have the deviation and fuzzy understanding on the original meaning of the classical liberal education, because they don＇t understand the ancient Greece liberty in-depth or the ancient Greeks＇different attitudes toward different freedoms. There are three concepts of freedom in ancient Greece, they are freedom of desire, freedom of virtue and freedom of thought; the ancient Greeks also kept a quite different atti- tudes towards them： they suppressed freedom of desire, advocated the freedom of virtue, limited the freedom of thought; finally, these different attitudes shape such characteristics of classical liberal education as non-practicability, publicity and leisure.