This article identifies the problem that an instrumentalist mode of thinking dominates China’s contemporary education practice and suggests that the dichotomy between the“small self and big self,”a notion that has ...This article identifies the problem that an instrumentalist mode of thinking dominates China’s contemporary education practice and suggests that the dichotomy between the“small self and big self,”a notion that has been present throughout modern Chinese history,exacerbates this instrumentalism.It parallels the loss of China’s tradition of self-cultivation in the modern education system.This paper proposes that cultivating the inner self by releasing talent unique to each individual as well as energy for creatively making meaningful connections with others may represent a new means of moving past the dichotomy of the“small self and big self.”The paper examines this issue through a comparative analysis of Hu Shi and Liang Shuming’s thoughts on individuality.展开更多
A conception of enlightenment that is new in both origin and prototype yet rooted in Chinese tradition can be found in the works of Liang Shuming and Zhu Qianzhi, his follower in the historical field. Kant maintained ...A conception of enlightenment that is new in both origin and prototype yet rooted in Chinese tradition can be found in the works of Liang Shuming and Zhu Qianzhi, his follower in the historical field. Kant maintained that enlightenment implied that the power of reason would give man the courage to use his mind. Similarly, Zhu Qianzhi used enlightenment to define reason, putting the focus of enlightenment on religion. In doing so, on the one hand, he neglected the richness, complexity and inner evolution of the Western concept of reason; on the other hand, like Hegel, he dismissed the subtle but significant differences between Chinese and Western concepts of reason. In terms of thought, intuition, emotion, desire, practice, skill and the movements of nature, reason in the Western tradition inevitably tends toward the good. The word later used to translate ＂reason＂ into Chinese had already appeared in Confucian and Buddhist classics. Reason in Song and Ming Confucianism is an all- embracing absolute; its function involves intuition, thought and emotion, all directed toward the good. Liang Shuming accepted the differentiation between reason and understanding of Western philosophy, but proposed that understanding was the function and reason the essence of the heart-mind. Overall, this represents only the heart-mind approach. The non- religious character, didactic tendency and emphasis on intuition in the Confucian view of reason can all be found in the Confucian theory of emotion. Being essentially a response to good and evil, emotion may share some common ground with classical Western philosophy.展开更多
文摘This article identifies the problem that an instrumentalist mode of thinking dominates China’s contemporary education practice and suggests that the dichotomy between the“small self and big self,”a notion that has been present throughout modern Chinese history,exacerbates this instrumentalism.It parallels the loss of China’s tradition of self-cultivation in the modern education system.This paper proposes that cultivating the inner self by releasing talent unique to each individual as well as energy for creatively making meaningful connections with others may represent a new means of moving past the dichotomy of the“small self and big self.”The paper examines this issue through a comparative analysis of Hu Shi and Liang Shuming’s thoughts on individuality.
基金funded by"The China Road,Chinese Civilization and the Sinicized Marxism"(Project No.:2011SHKXZD018)part of Fudan University’s Project 985(Ⅲ)for comprehensively facilitating social scientific research
文摘A conception of enlightenment that is new in both origin and prototype yet rooted in Chinese tradition can be found in the works of Liang Shuming and Zhu Qianzhi, his follower in the historical field. Kant maintained that enlightenment implied that the power of reason would give man the courage to use his mind. Similarly, Zhu Qianzhi used enlightenment to define reason, putting the focus of enlightenment on religion. In doing so, on the one hand, he neglected the richness, complexity and inner evolution of the Western concept of reason; on the other hand, like Hegel, he dismissed the subtle but significant differences between Chinese and Western concepts of reason. In terms of thought, intuition, emotion, desire, practice, skill and the movements of nature, reason in the Western tradition inevitably tends toward the good. The word later used to translate ＂reason＂ into Chinese had already appeared in Confucian and Buddhist classics. Reason in Song and Ming Confucianism is an all- embracing absolute; its function involves intuition, thought and emotion, all directed toward the good. Liang Shuming accepted the differentiation between reason and understanding of Western philosophy, but proposed that understanding was the function and reason the essence of the heart-mind. Overall, this represents only the heart-mind approach. The non- religious character, didactic tendency and emphasis on intuition in the Confucian view of reason can all be found in the Confucian theory of emotion. Being essentially a response to good and evil, emotion may share some common ground with classical Western philosophy.
