Painted inside
One of the most important features of secondary education in France is the establishment of a basic philosophical education in secondary schools. The role of philosophy is to build and strengthen students' critical thinking with the help of knowledge. Philosophical education in France also aims to improve students' understanding of the world, replacing subjective beliefs and personal superstitions with attitudes of doubt and judgment. But the test-taking writing process derived from this educational system does not seem to be able to be deduced simply from the requirements of "reflection" and "argumentation"; because it manifests itself in an unrecognizable, purely cognitive processing form as its core "cultural and academic hierarchy" to ensure the self-reproduction of academic discourse.
In Milos, France, students take the Baccalaureat (Baccalaureat) exam. France's annual high school graduation examination, like China's college entrance examination, will attract great attention from French society every year. France does not have a national unified college entrance examination, and you can apply for university with a high school graduation certificate.
Every year, the French high school graduation exam philosophy essay topics will make people wonder such a question: In France, is everyone a philosopher? With the end of this year's domestic college entrance examination, the French essay topic has once again become a hot topic. This year's title is, and is not limited to: "Is discussion a renunciation of violence?" "Has technology taken us out of nature?" "An interpretation of an excerpt from Sigmund Freud's Le poète et l'activité de la fantaisie". In France, philosophy courses, as compulsory courses in high schools, play a pivotal role in basic education. There is a special relationship between such a written culture and civic education: it is irreplaceable and largely ensures the basic education of citizenship in a democratic society. Therefore, whether it is liberal arts (Bac L), science (Bac S), or economics and society (Bac ES), its examination subjects include the writing of philosophical composition (dissertation).
Philosophical compulsory education in secondary education is unique to France, and this educational feature has also given rise to very different evaluations. On the one hand, for high school students, the study of grand philosophical problems is the basis for the study of other disciplines, and it also helps students to think about themselves and their relationship with the world. Some countries have expressed appreciation for such cultural ingenuity and have attempted to adopt this form of education. But on the other hand, young people aged seventeen or eighteen often lack the maturity necessary to engage in reflection on this scale.
To better understand this education system, we can do a simple historical review. In ancient Greece, there were blurred lines between science and philosophy. In Socrates' time, the division of disciplines made philosophy and rhetoric particularly antagonistic. Philosophy is the selfless exploration of truth; rather, rhetoric has nothing to do with truth, it is the technique of advocates whose sole purpose is to win the support of interlocutors. In france today, however, there are obvious rhetorical skills and fixed structures in the composition examination of philosophy courses. In this sense, the composition exam of the philosophy course deviates from the original intention of philosophy and abandons the search for truth.
As an academic training of reflection and argumentation, the logic of philosophical composition must strictly follow a common thread. Since testimony is required through concrete examples, French compositions are opposed to dogmatism and rote memorization. However, after a little scrutiny, it is not difficult to find that philosophical compositions still have their fixed "templates": the beginning is an introduction, then the core question of the whole text (problématique), followed by a comprehensive discussion of both sides (développement) to answer the previous questions, and finally a summary (conclusion) to end the whole text. This "French eight-strand text" has a highly stable structure, and since the popularization of compulsory education in the Third Republic period, it has been widely established as the "official genre" of writing assessment in the education system. So, how did this "formalist" philosophical training peculiar to France come about? And compared with philosophical composition writing, what is the purpose of philosophical education itself?
Philosophical training: an ideological tool?
To understand how such an composition structure is formed, we must first refer to the legal instructions of 1854, which stipulate: "Students will imitate great models (some philosophical classics) by discussing the main points pointed out in the writing process". Therefore, writing is to imitate the works of the great classical writers, and its content is mainly based on and imitates the "syllogism" of classical philosophy, that is, "prologue", "ontology" and "conclusion". In 1866, when the Second Reich was in a liberal phase, the choice of the first questions for the École de école de école de Paris confirmed this view, the main purpose of which was to allow students to reproduce as accurately as possible the knowledge being taught, for example, before the exam, students would simulate the following essay title: "Should taxonomy be natural or man-made?" "For example: What is exact science?" What are these scientific methods? And what do we have to attribute their precision to? "Proof of the Immortality of the Soul– Distinguishing Between Metaphysical and Moral Arguments: Propositional Theory." "On the one hand, the strengthening of the teaching of the humanities is conducive to the cultivation of the elite, and the focus of the reform is to give french (the use of literature and language) a role in education; on the other hand, modern science must be given a place. Therefore, these questions came into being.
Secondly, the history of philosophical teaching, the history of the educational system, and the history of political development are quite closely linked, and the history of the development of philosophical composition also reflects to some extent the ruptures and reforms experienced by literary teaching. In 1863, Napoleon III instructed Victor Duruy to re-establish the philosophy class and the examination of the subject, because the Empire believed that it had the right to formulate policies of education and examination more "freely" and that the teaching of philosophy contributed to the formation of a "social cohesion". Philosophy will enable students to become "honest and responsible individuals and be aware of his responsibilities and obligations to the society he cares about." Philosophy does not encourage students to pursue excessive freedom, but rather gives them a "previous moralistic orientation", a line that socializes students, creates a unified society, and at the same time makes students understand that "antisocial is stupid". [1] The purpose of this reform was to restore moral values to secular society, and philosophy would benefit from establishing the autonomy of the study of knowledge, since it was no longer considered a servant of theology; conversely, it could not "shake or destroy the faith of anyone". In addition, philosophical education is regarded as a symbol of the difference between social classes, a system and a way of improving the level and cultivation of the bourgeoisie.
In this policy context, the focus of discourse discussion of philosophical composition shifted from "a discussion of students' individual moral beliefs" to "a study of literary and cultural facts." Philosophical compositions no longer emphasize individual opinions and wills, making philosophical compositions universal, thus encouraging students to express mediocre views and public opinions. This continued into the 1980s, a reform that undoubtedly weakened the speculative value of composition and reinforced its purely rhetorical nature. It seems that the style of composition cannot be simply deduced from the requirements of "reflection" and "argumentation", because its function is to express the "cultural and academic hierarchy" at its core in an unrecognizable form in cognitive processing, and thus develop the stable and systematic "French eight strands" mentioned above. The function of composition is even more than to ensure the self-reproduction of academic discourse, maintaining a hierarchical relationship between academic culture and "vulgar" mass culture through the opposition of concepts and opinions. In general, this "philosophy of the Republic" is a product of the French elite education system.
Such a "French eight-strand text" may seem extremely speculative, but it often lacks a direct link with individual thoughts and opinions. If students talk about "hallucinations" about the expression of personal judgment in the essay, it means that they are still stuck in the realm of subjective assumptions. Conversely, elements such as composition structure, examples, and references will show the student's talent; judgment of originality is not the first quality criterion for composition. Expressions such as "pour moi" (French: for me) and "selon moi" (French: I think) are now gone. The most commonly used composition criterion is: "Students should answer questions in a stable structure (or speculative) development based on the text of the topic material, the content learned in the classroom, and the personal reading material." This formalized instructional writing responds to the need for objectivity in philosophical compositions, and the criteria for judging compositions insist on using the references and knowledge defined by this procedure.
Thus, between the weakening of individual opinions and the fixation of the composition format, the content of the argument in this style seems to have been extracted, and what remains is a logical objective reasoning with appropriate evidence. Students present their knowledge in the essay while placing it in a process of questioning; and the combination of the requirement to "make the most of knowledge" and the "attitude of scrutiny" constitutes the key scoring point of the paper. As Bernard Delforce emphasizes, an essay is indeed an "expression of opinion," but it is "adopted at the end of a preliminary knowledge-based review"; thus the criterion for judging composition is how the student dialectically combines "knowledge-scrutiny-opinion" in an essay and deduces the formal framework in which it runs and the common thread that constructs it.
Dogma and Speculation: What is the Significance of Philosophical Education?
The difference between "dogma" and "speculation" is actually the difference between "rhetorical techniques in the formalization of texts" and "logically clear inference processes." The rhetorical tradition offers a normative approach, establishing uniform rules for everyone's writing standards; while argumentative speculation is designed to provide descriptive and analytical. Today the style of philosophical composition in French high schools is a dogmatic exercise that no longer discusses and questions discourse. Today, it is no longer a "composition" but a consensus "discours français" (French discourse). Charles Bénard once asserted: "Its purpose is neither to agree or oppose nor to put forward valid opinions; it is an ancient Greek philosophical debate, an expression of eloquence." Its purpose is not constructive, but only to persuade the other side, to present the truth (la vérité) soberly and calmly. [2] In this sense, writing a philosophical essay is a highly educational act. Such an essay ultimately has a remarkable moral function, as it must draw "some doctrine" or "(to) keep the lesson in mind." However, unlike the moral reflection of elementary school children, which is based on generally accepted rules, philosophical compositions are written to make rules through reasoning. In this respect, the way in which this "French Eight Strands" is conceived is indeed instructive: it is through this practice that students are gradually educated, or tamed.
Returning to philosophical education itself, what exactly does philosophy mean in basic education in France? Maybe it's an attitude toward the world, or a critical spirit—these are the characteristics of philosophers. For others, of course, philosophy is just pretentiously pretending to talk about everything, or skillfully talking about something higher than authority.
In fact, the teaching of philosophy has no specific object. Any difficulty that is recognized, mastered, or raised is the basis of philosophy and is borne by philosophy in its own way. It is precisely because of the anxiety that arises from the awareness of this difficulty that people begin to think of the difficulty as a problem and try to form a concept of it, to think about it, to try to find its answer. This makes people philosophers and begins to think philosophically about everything – thus making people aware of the uncertainty in which they find themselves. It is this realization that brings philosophy to the starting point, to unite philosophers and begin to understand the world, reality, time, truth, human nature, matter, spirit, freedom, death, happiness, justice, and so on, all of which point to our uncertainty.
These words, which constitute an incomplete list, vary in the meaning we give them, pointing to our difficulties, our problems, and the answers that we think have been found. In this sense, philosophy is a form of skepticism, which is the common foundation of all disciplines and the starting point for the teaching of philosophy in French high schools. The task of teaching philosophy in high school is to awaken each individual and reduce their anxiety in the face of this "lack of awareness of human weaknesses." As Gérald Sfez put it, the role of philosophical education is not to connect knowledge, nor to add another knowledge suspended in the air. This makes philosophical teaching not intended to "provide concrete content of knowledge", but to be general and universal in nature. The object of study of philosophy is everything. Philosophy is taught in order to "change the tendency of the mind, to make it have the desire to locate in thinking, to make complex things appear." Students will experience ambiguity and rely on them, or see the function of certain concepts as obstacles and support points, experience the patience of correct judgment... Philosophy is studied for the sake of thinking, for people to think like philosophers. [3] Of course, the authenticity of philosophical compositions (imitation formats and quoted material) helps students think, and we don't know. After all, once the composition has a standardized model that can be emulated, the professor becomes the scientist who "invents" the truth, and the student becomes the technician who follows the steps.
This speculative practice is the search for truth, and the price paid for obtaining it is to liberate oneself from a parasitic subjectivity. It is easy for people to project themselves onto everything and indulge in it, and to see the self as the center of the microscopic world—a subjectivity that will greatly hinder philosophical thinking about objective truth. Therefore, "freedom from subjectivity" is indeed a necessary condition for the teaching of philosophy. Combined with the aforementioned statement that expressions such as "I think" are hardly used in philosophical composition writing, we can probably understand how such a fixed composition structure is formed. As Theodor Adorno puts it, "The opinions of the individual are regarded as his property, an integral part of his whole being; any criticism of such opinions is recorded by the subconscious as a result of the harm inflicted on himself." Admittedly, this tendency of people to stubbornly defend stupid views, even if their lies are obvious, proves the gravity of this phenomenon. The logical form of subjective assumption, whether right or wrong, contains in itself a certain hegemony and despotism." So in the process of writing philosophical essays, students are always asked to avoid expressing personal opinions, because strong relativist ideas bring them into the opposing point of view of philosophy: what is true to me is true. Even if truth is difficult to define and articulate, one should never abandon the need for truth. Not only because truth is useful to life, and lies are deadly and dangerous; but also because the choice of truth constitutes an ethical orientation. Truth, even if it is one-sided or even temporary, is, as Plato said, if one knows what truth is, there is no need to look for it; but precisely because one has not yet grasped it, we should not give up our search for it.
Therefore, the French philosophical education system attempts to provide every citizen with spiritual food for life and thought; under a democratic system, citizens must learn to provide public opinion and participate in public life while allowing citizens to maintain free thinking. Of course, according to Plutarchus: "Philosophical discourse is not a static statue", I don't know if this contradicts the existence of a fixed form in the writing of philosophical compositions, but it is guaranteed that philosophical education is a discipline that does not require rote memorization. So far, philosophy has no definite method, otherwise it would have become a science, it is still a free reflection. For free speculation among adults, philosophical discussion often implies a virtuous connection of intellectual maturity; but for students, because of the idea of freedom, a philosophical education can easily lead them down an uncertain path. As to how the unique logic and stylistic forms of philosophical works arise, perhaps we can find the answer from the nature of philosophy itself.
exegesis:
[1] Guillaume Vergne, Revue de philosophie Histoire de l'éducation:Skholè, 2016
[2] Charles Bénard, Petit Traité de la dissertation philosophique, Paris, Delagrave
[3] 评论文章What is the purpose of philosophy?
Editor-in-Charge: Gong Siliang