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What is "Teaching Philosophy": "Turning Theory into Method, Turning Theory into Virtue"
Yang Guorong | Chair Professor of the School of Philosophy of Northwest Normal University, and Senior Professor of the Institute of Modern Chinese Thought and Culture and the Department of Philosophy of East China Normal University
This article was published in Exploration and Controversy, No. 1, 2022, originally titled "Philosophy and Education: From the Realm of Knowledge to the Realm of Wisdom"
Unless noted, the pictures in the text are from the Internet
Teach philosophy and do philosophy
Nowadays, it is often possible to note various discussions about how to do philosophy. Logically, the questions of "how to teach philosophy" and "how to do philosophy" have something in common, and one of the commonalities between the two is that both consider the premise of logic in terms of "what is philosophy": whether "how to teach philosophy" or "how to do philosophy", it is based on the understanding of "what is philosophy". Philosophy itself is multifaceted and can be explained from different angles, and from the history of philosophy, philosophers do have different views on this. In essence, philosophy has both a supra-disciplinary nature and a disciplinary character. On the one hand, as questions or wise thoughts of sex and heaven, philosophy and specific disciplines are mainly different from a certain object or field of the world, and cannot be limited to a specific discipline. On the other hand, in modern times, especially after the rise of modern universities, philosophy has become a specific branch or category of teaching in universities, and has begun to acquire the nature of disciplines.
As a wisdom thought that is both disciplinary and supra-disciplinary, the relationship between philosophy and "teaching" also presents different aspects: in terms of its supra-disciplinary nature, philosophy and the field of "teaching" present a complex relationship. Jaspers once believed that "philosophy cannot be taught, but can only be understood by one's own understanding of life and the world." This judgment of "cannot be taught" stems from the transcendental nature of philosophy, which, as will be analyzed later, is not diametrically opposed to "teaching", but rather stipulates the difference between the "teaching" of philosophy and the "teaching" of knowledge. Further, from the point of view of the fact that philosophy is disciplinary and correspondingly contains a intellectual character, it not only contains teachability, but this "teaching" is not unrelated to the usual "teaching".
In connection with the above facts, the relationship between philosophy and "teaching" can be developed in a broader field of view, and on the premise that even its supra-disciplinary aspects can be introduced into the field of "teaching". Specifically, there are two aspects here, "thinking" and "giving". The so-called "teaching" is mainly related to the transfer of knowledge. As we all know, Engels once pointed out: "If a nation wants to stand at the highest peak of science, it cannot be without theoretical thinking for a moment." "But theoretical thinking is nothing more than an innate quality in terms of talent." This talent needs to be developed and cultivated, and in order to carry out this kind of cultivation, there is no other way but to learn the philosophy of the past. The "study of philosophy of the past" mentioned here can be understood as two aspects, first of all, the imparting of philosophical knowledge, the content of which is mainly related to the historical changes of philosophy, including which philosophers have emerged in a certain era, what kind of views he has, what kind of life he has, what is the relationship between teachers and successors, where the source of thought can be traced, what is the position of his thought in the historical evolution of philosophy, and so on. Jaspers once thought: "If philosophy is regarded as an objectively knowable content, then philosophy is already on the road of self-destruction, and whenever philosophical activity passes through this level, there is always a moment when it becomes an empty objective fact and loses its origin." This argument excludes philosophy from knowledge, thereby essentially denying the teachability of philosophy, somewhat ignores the disciplinary nature of philosophy and makes it difficult to agree. In fact, according to the aforementioned Engels view, philosophy undoubtedly has a teachable side in terms of its disciplinary nature and correspondingly contains specific knowledge.
From another point of view, the teachability of philosophy is related to "thinking". The "thinking" mentioned here is mainly to guide people to contact the classic works of important philosophers in the history of philosophy, in order to learn philosophical thinking, according to its original meaning, the aforementioned Engels said "learning the philosophy of the past", is not only to understand the general history of philosophy in the usual sense, to grasp the specific knowledge of the history of philosophy, etc., but to further contact the classics of philosophers, by reading the classics, re-experiencing the thinking process of philosophers, specifically understanding how to raise problems, how to think about problems, how to solve problems, Through this process, you learn how to think philosophically and gradually improve this ability to think. It can be seen that guiding "thinking" constitutes a more important aspect of teaching philosophy, and although teaching philosophy requires imparting philosophical knowledge, the more important aspect is to let the object of philosophical education understand how to conduct philosophical thinking. "Teaching" in this sense is obviously not only related to the disciplinary nature of philosophy, but is closely related to the supraditic nature of philosophy: the supradisciplinary nature of philosophy is essentially expressed as the thinking of wisdom, and the guidance of "thinking" as the inner direction of philosophical education is undoubtedly in line with this character of philosophy.
Related to the above two aspects of teaching philosophy, here it also involves the dual character of both the said and the unspeakable inherent in philosophy itself. As is well known, many philosophers in the history of philosophy believe that philosophy has a transcendent and ineffable aspect, and Wittgenstein believed that the "correct method of philosophy" is to "say nothing but what can be said" and "one should be silent about what cannot be talked about." The above observations already contain a distinction between the sayable and the unspeakable. On a metaphysical level, the principles in it do logically have a side beyond the famous sayings, and if the world is understood as a whole from a metaphysical point of view, once it is said about its related objects, it means pointing to a specific part and ignoring its original overall characteristics. Feng Youlan once took the "Daquan" as an example to discuss this meaning: the Daquan is its Great Nothingness, and after speaking to it, this statement is opposed to the Encyclopedia, that is, it becomes the "other" of the Encyclopedia, so that the Encyclopedia will not become the Encyclopedia. This is the inability to speak of philosophy in a speculative sense. Broadly speaking, when exploring the world, it is necessary to pay attention to the meaning and meaning of the world or some of its objects to people (including individuals), which are often completely covered by non-verbal words, that is, it has a meaning beyond famous words.
Looking further, Chinese philosophy has long proposed the distinction between the "study of body and mind" and the "study of mouth and ear", and from Xunzi to Wang Yangming, they have noticed the difference between the two. Xun Zi believes that the characteristics of the study of the gentleman are "into the ear, the heart, the four bodies, and the form of movement", and the "learning" in this sense is not limited to the words and ears, but focuses on the normalization of etiquette and righteousness into the moral consciousness of individual consciousness, and is further implemented in the process of practice. Wang Yangming more clearly distinguished between the study of the mouth and the ear and the study of body and mind: "There are two scholars of the world, some of whom speak with the body and mind, and some who speak with the mouth and the ear. Speak with your mouth and ears, speculate on the measurement, and ask for influencers. Speaking with the body and mind, practicing and observing, there are also those who have themselves. The "study of body and mind" mentioned here also focuses on practical practice, not words. Specifically, in the process of practice, we often "do without words", and Chinese philosophers regard daily use as an important way to grasp the metaphysical way, and the so-called "extremely wise and moderate" also shows this. The "moderation" here is based on daily activities. For Chinese philosophy, "The Tao is not far from man." Man is far away for the Word, not for the Word." Grasping the metaphysical way is inseparable from people's mediocrity and deeds.
In connection with the above, in the field of philosophical education, teaching by example is more important than speech. In fact, in the "study of mind and body," "learning" and "body" are interrelated, and this connection contains many meanings. The body first leads to "action": usually the so-called "physical practice" indicates that the process of action is always associated with the body, and in this sense, the "body" has an intrinsic correlation with practice. Through the interactive process of body and learning, knowledge and action, not only will the individual's words and deeds gradually conform to the norm, but also the behavior itself displayed by the "body" can also obtain the meaning of the norm: the so-called "body teaching" reflects this. "Leading by example" is not only a basic requirement of moral education, but is also embodied in the process of philosophical education in a broad sense: demonstration often takes on a more important meaning than mere speech. In terms of how to ask questions and how to solve them, by providing a good way of "doing philosophy", it helps the educated to grasp the way of philosophical thinking in practice. A deep philosophical work, a rigorous and creative philosophical text, while at the same time showing concretely and subtly how to think about philosophical approaches. Here, "how to do philosophy" is equally intrinsically related to "how to teach philosophy."
Transcending famous words requires not only examining the relationship between saying and doing, but often involves the process of personal experience. The process of grasping the world is related to the individual's "thoughts" and "realizations," and this individual "enlightenment" always contains the ineffable aspect. Personal experience, while not taught in a logical way, can be guided. Historically, zen has undoubtedly had a lot of mysterious content, but it also implies aspects that inspire individuals to experience Buddhist doctrines. Seemingly unrelated dialogues often lead to an epiphany on the part of the dialogue, and thus, in its mysterious form, it also involves the question of "teaching" in the philosophical sense. Of course, from the perspective of modern philosophy, the individual experience needs to condense the content of the understanding through logical thinking, so that it becomes the result of thinking that can be understood and discussed by a certain community. But even in this process, "enlightenment" is not completely limited by famous words. From this point of view, the "teaching" and "thinking" of philosophy always have a side that goes beyond famous sayings.
From the above aspects, the discussion of the problem of "teaching" at the philosophical level cannot just stay on the basis of simple speculative speech, but it is necessary to guide the object of teaching to understand the deep connotation of philosophy through physical practice, and only logical speech and analysis may not be enough to grasp the whole process of "teaching" and "thinking". In the process of reality, individuals with rich life experiences about the same principle tend to understand more deeply than those who are confined to the study. This is not to say that scholars in the study cannot grasp the principles of philosophy, but it shows that from the tradition of Chinese philosophy, the deep philosophical connotation in the true sense needs to be understood based on the process of daily practice beyond words and the profound life experience, which constitutes an important resource for grasping the connotation of philosophy. Jaspers also noticed this, and when talking about the purpose of teaching philosophy at the university, he once pointed out: "Learn philosophical knowledge, participate in philosophical thinking, and transform philosophy into everyday life." What deserves our particular attention here is the reference to "transforming philosophy into everyday life," which means that the teaching and learning of philosophy should finally be transformed into everyday life. The so-called "transformation into everyday life", that is, the making of philosophy "from the word to the present", is consistent with the previously stated concept: according to its intrinsic nature, philosophy has a aspect beyond words, and should finally be implemented in the process of human existence. In other words, in the process of learning and teaching philosophy, on the one hand, the process of personal experience should be integrated into the process of philosophical thinking, and on the other hand, attention should be paid to how to "speak from the present". This process of teaching and learning is not limited to simple, abstract speech.
The meaning of philosophical education
The previous discussion mainly focused on whether philosophy can be taught and how to teach it, and related to it is the question of the meaning of philosophical education. Broadly speaking, the questions of "what is philosophy" and "what is philosophy" are interrelated, and the questions of "what is philosophical education" and "the meaning of philosophical education" are also related. In general, according to the Chinese philosophical tradition, philosophy involves the process of becoming oneself and becoming things, that is, the process of achieving oneself and the world, which is the basic mission of philosophy. Specifically, we can borrow the concept of "turning theory into method and theory into virtue" mentioned by Mr. Feng Qi and analyzing it from two aspects.
The so-called "turning theory into a method" mainly involves how to advance and deepen our understanding of thinking methods through the study of philosophy. The process of exploration in different disciplines and the process of asking questions may involve many specific links. From the perspective of teaching philosophy, how to make the object of education really improve in theoretical thinking? It is a question of how to combine intellectual thinking with dialectical or rational thinking. Intellectual thinking is characterized by the decomposition of the whole into different parts, the truncation of the process into different links, and its general tendency is to focus on demarcation. From the perspective of real life, including the way of thinking in the academic field, this way of thinking has been popular in history, and it is far from extinct today, and its general tendency is to focus only on and highlight a certain point or aspect, as if the real world has only this side and no other aspects. In fact, the real world contains many aspects, and it is not enough to grasp only one of the regulations and fragments, and it is not enough to truly understand the world itself. In connection with the realistic character of focusing on existence, we need to break through the vision of intellectual thinking and introduce rational thinking. Reason here refers to rationality in the classical German philosophical sense, which is related to the distinction between sensibility, intellect, and reason, and its connotation is more related to dialectical thinking. In the process of teaching philosophy, the educated should be guided to pay attention to rigorous logical analysis while at the same time effectively grasping the concrete and real existence from the perspective of dialectical thinking or rational thinking, which constitutes one of the important purposes of teaching philosophy. Speaking of education, Dewey once argued: "The only true education comes from the stimulation of children's abilities by the demands of social situations." This view is broadly consistent with Dewey's general pragmatic philosophical conception: philosophically, Dewey, influenced by evolutionary theory, focused on the specific situation in which man finds himself, and made it his fundamental mission to solve the problems raised by that situation as a fundamental philosophical concern. From the perspective of philosophical education, the above view regards the social situation as the source of education, focusing on specific objects and the problems contained in the objects, and this thinking tends to be closer to the level of knowledge in terms of specific situations and specific objects. Like the above-mentioned intellectual thinking, examining the occurrence of education from a specific situation ignores the interrelatedness of existence and the constraints of the entire existential background on education. Further, Dewey's view focuses mainly on the stimulation of specific situations, while ignoring the norms and guidance of universal theories and concepts in the process of interaction between people and objects, and this one-way provision shows the intellectual tendency of understanding the educational process on the other hand.
The so-called "turning theory into virtue" involves more value orientation or value direction from the perspective of teaching philosophy. In fact, the process of teaching philosophy always faces the question of how to guide the educated in terms of value orientation. In general, the educated, through the process of philosophical education, should be allowed to learn to discern what is right and what is not; what is right and what is wrong; what is good and what is evil; and so on. Fundamentally, philosophical education should gradually allow the educated to explore the question: What is a truly human existence? Value orientation in the ultimate sense is about how to bring the existence of an individual or society into a human form. In everyday life, we often encounter relativist claims, which, according to their understanding, seem to make sense in any doctrine, and there is no right or wrong. This view actually ignores the ultimate value criterion of truly human existence. One of the important missions of "teaching philosophy" is to gradually let students understand what a reasonable value orientation is, so that they can have a real understanding of it.
Philosophical education and general education
Philosophical education is not only concerned with the field of philosophy, but also with the general problem of education. In fact, there is an interactive relationship between philosophical education and general education. General education outside of philosophy is mainly related to the transfer of scientific knowledge, and the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, etc., mainly focus on this type of problem. As mentioned earlier, each discipline and each field has its own specialized knowledge, and education outside of philosophy is to enable the educated to grasp and understand these specialized knowledge, which is equally important for the understanding of philosophy. It can be said that the richer and deeper the accumulation of concrete knowledge in multiple fields outside of philosophy, the deeper the premise will be for understanding the problems of philosophy and for grasping the existence of the world and man himself in general. In philosophical education, it is usually required that the educated should not only focus on a certain point, but should continue to expand the scope of knowledge, which actually shows that multi-faceted knowledge has a positive effect on our understanding and grasp of philosophical principles. As we all know, people with more knowledge tend to have a deeper understanding of philosophy. Hegel once pointed out that the understanding of the old and the young is always different for the same aphorism, the old man has a deeper experience, a wider range of knowledge, and his understanding includes all his knowledge and life experience, so that the understanding of the aphorism is deeper than that of the young man. Similarly, education outside of philosophy is not superfluous to philosophy itself.
On another level, philosophy also plays a role in advancing the knowledge of various sciences. As mentioned earlier, philosophical education is mainly from the way of thinking, value direction, to the educated to give the necessary guidance, whether from the perspective of methodology or axiology, philosophy education and training, is conducive to a more accurate and deeper understanding of the respective connotations of each knowledge and their different meanings to human life.
Jaspers once distinguished between two forms of knowledge, one being life "skill training" and the other being "the work of awakening true humanity." It can be said that the learning of general knowledge mainly involves skill training, while the guidance of philosophy on values and ways of thinking belongs to the work of awakening true human nature, and the two are mutually reinforcing, rather than separating or confronting each other. At the same time, the function of philosophical education in the concrete teaching process is shown: it is characterized by entering the depths of human nature and leading to the real existence of man. This role of philosophy is premised on the premise that man is the end: knowledge mainly presents the meaning of the instrument, which is characterized by its use for man to realize the multifaceted needs of man, while philosophy is oriented towards the real sense of man.
Attention can be paid to the various ideas about education in history, one of which is the so-called freedom and pleasure of teaching and learning. Wang Geng, a representative figure of the Taizhou School in the Ming Dynasty, once composed "Music and Learning Song": "People's hearts are happy with themselves, and they bind their selfish desires." When selfish desires are sprouted, the conscience is still self-conscious. The sleep is gone, and the human heart is still happy. To be happy is to learn, and to learn is to learn this pleasure. Not being happy is not learning, not learning is not being happy. Enjoy and then learn, learn and then enjoy. Music is learning, learning is fun. Yu Hu, the joy of the world, how to learn, the world to learn, how to be so happy!" Here, learning and music are interconnected. Wang Geng's "happiness" mainly refers to the elimination of selfish desires and the return to conscience, in his view, learning as a whole is expressed as a process of pleasure, and taking conscience as the basis for music learning reflects the vision of mental learning. In fact, Wang Yangming has already shown this tendency, and he once said to his disciples: "The study of saints is not such a binding pain, nor is it the appearance of making up and doing Taoism." "Suffering" is opposed to pleasure, denying the bitterness of the sage's learning, and presupposing the promise of its pleasure.
Coincidentally, in the history of modern thought, Dewey also proposed a similar concept, in his view, education and democracy are related: "Democracy and education are a two-way relationship. While advocating the introduction of democratic and liberal ideas into education, Dewey criticized some of the phenomena in the field of education: "Natural instincts are either ignored or treated as nasty things—as abhorrent features that should be suppressed or subject to external standards." "The result is a lack of interest in the new, an aversion to development, a fear of uncertainty and the unknown." In particular, there are three "misguided" notions in education: "first, disregard for the instincts and innate abilities of adolescents; This criticism is based on Dewey's understanding of education, and on the positive side, as opposed to the phenomenon he denies, he demands a focus on human instincts or innate abilities, avoiding ignoring human initiative and comprehension, and refusing to develop mechanical skills. Related to this is the prominence of human interest, the affirmation that "interest is a signal and symbol of developing capacity", and the emphasis on the inability to suppress this interest. Interest is related to human emotions, and Dewey thus emphasizes the role of human emotions, which are in common with the tendency to pleasure and pleasure.
From the perspective of the internal logic of thought, dewey, when examining the relationship between nature and man, focused not on the original object, but on the existence related to human activities. Similar to other figures of pragmatism, Dewey regarded truly meaningful existence as an object for human use or in accordance with human needs, arguing that under the action of man, "nature becomes something that can be shaped at will for man's use." It is not difficult to see that what stands out here is the role of man on nature. In the field of education, however, as mentioned above, Dewey repeatedly emphasized conforming to human instinct or innate ability, and there seems to be some tension between the two. The above tension between ontological and educational views shows the multifaceted nature of philosophers' thought.
Of course, the above understanding is not without sight, learning and teaching are two aspects of the same process, from the perspective of the general teaching and knowledge mastery process, the teaching and learning of knowledge has become a very depressing and intimidating process, which does not have a positive significance for knowledge mastery. Instead, positive guidance is needed to make students willing to accept a variety of knowledge. Making education enjoyable means rejecting coercive ways and avoiding external domination. It is worth noting that Dewey also criticized the educational concept of "cultivating mechanical skills", which undoubtedly contains the intention of opposing the instrumentalization of man.
Of course, from an educational point of view, if you only talk about interest and pleasure, it may also have a negative impact on the teaching process. Norms of interest and without universal principles tend to destabilize the educational process. Jaspers has noticed this, and he has criticized that "American education has been messed up by Dewey's principle of harming people", which may be too negative, but the so-called "mess" is undoubtedly due to the fact that unilateral interest and pleasure may lead to disorder in the educational process. In fact, merely pandering to the "instincts" of the educated, emphasizing the so-called pleasant and free, democratic way of teaching does pose a lot of problems. In contrast, the authority of truth needs to be determined in teaching activities: in the process of education, this determination of the authority of truth is very important. Here, it is necessary to distinguish between "authority" and "power" and "power", and the intrusion of power and power into the educational process undoubtedly needs to be avoided and rejected, and at the same time, power often means external imposition or indoctrination, which is easy to distort human nature and deprive people of autonomy. The authority of truth is different from arbitrariness, and it is also different from despotism and power, and the establishment of the authority of truth is aimed at arousing a sense of reverence for truth and encouraging the pursuit of truth. In general, the pursuit of "music learning" and the establishment of the authority of truth should be equally important.
Further, the lack of authority for truth will not only lead the educational process to disorder, leading to what Jaspers called "chaos", but also difficult to form appropriate values and good ways of thinking: from the perspective of value orientation and way of thinking, the establishment of the authority of truth is also indispensable. At the philosophical level, establishing authority over truth means affirming the dominance of wisdom over knowledge. Here we return to the debate between knowledge and wisdom: the constraints of philosophical education on general education are consistent with the guidance of philosophical wisdom to concrete knowledge. Broadly speaking, in the context of the continuous development of contemporary technology and the profound changes in social history, the establishment of the authority of truth and the dominance of wisdom are not only related to the process of education, but also involve the process of human existence in a broad sense.
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