试论教科书的求真和求善

On Seeking the Truth and Goodness of Textbooks

要编写出优秀教科书,需要处理好一系列复杂关系,其中最基本、最重要的是求真与求善的关系。教科书承担着传播真理、揭示谬误的重任,也担负着引领良善、鞭挞丑恶的使命,前者是求真的体现,涉及教科书的科学标准;后者是求善的体现,涉及教科书的道德伦理标准。同时达成真和善两个标准,是所有优秀教科书必备的两种品质。在理论和实践中,教科书对真与善的追求是可以达到平衡的。只是平衡并不容易,普遍的现象是相互冲突。在教科书中,善优先于真。优先善的追求,是教科书文本的教诲性的要求,是教科书文本之内容选择性和容量有限性的体现。对善的优先追求一定要高度警觉,因为这有可能带来莫大的风险:主观色彩浓,易生分歧;容易被利用,以善的名义行不善之实;容易以善抑真,弱化求真的努力;可能成为教科书枯燥灌输的理由。

To write an excellent textbook, we need to deal with a series of complex relationships. The most basic and important one is the relationship between truth and goodness. Textbooks bear the burden of spreading truth and revealing errors. They also have the mission of leading goodness and punishing evil. The former is the embodiment of seeking truth and involves the scientific standards of textbooks;the latter is the embodiment of seeking goodness and involves the moral and ethical standards of textbooks. Achieving two standards of truth and goodness at the same time is the essential quality for all excellent textbooks. In theory and practice? the pursuit of truth and goodness in textbooks can be balanced. However, balancing is not easy, and conflict is the common condition. In textbooks, goodness prevails over truth. The pursuit of giving priority to goodness is the instructive requirement of textbook texts, and the embodiment of textbook texts with limited content and limited capacity. We should be highly vigilant in prioritizing the goodness, otherwise it can bring huge risks. One of the risks is that it may be too subjective and cause disagreement;the second risk is that it can be easily exploited to do bad things in the name of goodness;the third risk is that it is easy to suppress the truth with goodness and weaken the efforts of seeking truth;the fourth risk is that it may become a reason for textbooks to be boring.