The significance of general education
Wang Guowei is not only a philosopher, but also an important educator in modern China. His philosophical thoughts had a great influence on his educational thoughts. In the early days of his schooling, Wang Guowei introduced the educational thoughts of many western educators, writers and philosophers with the magazine Education World as the main position, and on this basis, he formed his own educational thought of cultivating "perfect man", and shaping "perfect man" was his educational goal. Based on western educational thoughts, Wang Guowei believes that the cognitive function of education can be divided into three elements: knowledge, emotion and meaning, and the education of spiritual ability can be divided into three dimensions: moral education, intellectual education and aesthetic education.
Wang Guowei put forward in the article "On the Purpose of Education": "What is the purpose of education? It just makes people perfect. What is a complete person? ..... A complete character must have three virtues: truth, goodness and beauty. In order to realize this ideal, education began. Education is also divided into intellectual education, moral education and aesthetic education. "
Wang Guowei's thought of "four educations" is moral education, intellectual education, physical education and aesthetic education, which divides the purpose of "four educations" into two parts: physical education and psychological education, and its central education includes intellectual education, moral education and aesthetic education. Only those who have both physical education and psychological education can be called complete figures.
About moral education
Moral education has played an important role in traditional education in China since ancient times, and it is the top priority of the whole education. Philosophy at all times and all over the world puts morality first, and morality is more important than knowledge, so education is also centered on morality. A person with knowledge but no morality is by no means a "complete person". If we don't pay attention to moral education and cultivate people without morality, these people can't be regarded as "complete people" even if they have very rich knowledge. Therefore, educators should not only teach students rich theoretical and practical knowledge, but also cultivate their noble moral sentiments.
Wang Guowei opposed feudal canons and advocated capitalist moral norms. He believes that moral norms should include two aspects: one is to affirm human desires, and the other is to advocate freedom, equality, justice and fraternity.
Wang Guowei believes that human nature is the desire of life. To improve a person's thinking, we must first solve the problem of food and clothing. Only by solving the problem of food and clothing in life can we think further.
The ideas of freedom, equality, justice and fraternity are the core contents of ideological and moral norms. Wang Guowei highly praised Schopenhauer's philosophy of "absolute charity", arguing that only by having an inviolable desire for life can we have a just morality, and we can regard the happiness of others as our own happiness and the suffering of others as our own pain. This is fraternity.
In Wang Guowei's educational view, morality can be divided into two levels: positive and negative. The former is "realizing what you want" and the latter is "not taking others'". Wang Guowei believes that few people can achieve positive morality, but negative morality is the basic principle that everyone should abide by. Education must work with the law to maintain minimum moral standards. Schools should also carry out the education of fraternity and justice, so that benevolence and righteousness can be brought into full play.
About intellectual education
Wang Guowei believes that intellectual education is an important part of education and is very important for the development of knowledge. Wang Guowei pointed out in the article "On the Purpose of Education": "Therefore, people who live in this world cannot live without the knowledge of this world", and advocated that education should teach students all aspects of knowledge, especially the most advanced scientific and technological and ideological and cultural knowledge. As for western educational thoughts, as long as they conform to the trend of the times and are advanced scientific and technological knowledge, they are worth applying what they have learned. Knowledge is the common wealth of all mankind, so there should be no distinction between internal and external. Wang Guowei believes that through rational thinking, people can upgrade intuitive knowledge to conceptual knowledge and integrate concepts, but conceptual knowledge is only the memory of knowledge transfer, and new knowledge cannot be obtained from it, so intuitive knowledge is the most reliable knowledge. Only experienced knowledge can bring us real new knowledge.
In Wang Guowei's educational thought, the charm of philosophy lies in its profound and intuitive knowledge base, rather than thinking deduction through concepts. All truth exists in concrete things, so knowledge in books can't replace practical experience. The knowledge in books is abstract and lifeless; Empirical knowledge is concrete knowledge, which is often angry. By comparing book knowledge with practical experience knowledge, Wang Guowei confirmed that it is particularly meaningful to cultivate intuitive ability and physical observation ability.
Practical knowledge is the source of theoretical knowledge, but the important value of theoretical knowledge itself cannot be ignored. Practical knowledge usually precedes theoretical knowledge, but after the development of theoretical knowledge, it will become the basis of new practical knowledge. Wang Guowei believes that education should pay equal attention to theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge, which are interdependent and indispensable. Knowledge can be divided into "knowledge of course" and "knowledge of why". If you only know what it is and don't know why, you don't fully grasp the knowledge. Only by knowing what it is and why it is, can it be called "complete knowledge" without being "secretive".
About aesthetic education
Wang Guowei believes that aesthetic education is as important as moral education and intellectual education, which can make people forget their own interests, reach a noble and pure state and obtain the purest happiness. Moreover, "the movement of building people's hearts is bound to their own interests, and the only beauty is that thing." In other words, aesthetic education is super utilitarian, and its value lies in beauty itself. This view of aesthetic education comes from Kant's aesthetic education thought. Kant believes that among the three kinds of happiness, beauty, goodness and quickness, the only happiness that has nothing to do with it is to appreciate beauty, which is a kind of free happiness.
After analyzing the essence and importance of beauty, Wang Guowei hopes to meet people's emotional needs through various educational channels such as music, literature and art, so as to achieve the purpose of cultivating noble character and purifying the soul.
Based on his long-term academic experience, Wang Guowei has refined a set of curriculum plans aimed at cultivating complete characters. Wang Guowei formulated five disciplines for university literature: Confucian Classics, Neo-Confucianism, China Literature, History and Foreign Literature. Breaking through the educational method of a single subject can make students have interdisciplinary thinking ability. Therefore, these majors should also teach public courses, including pedagogy, aesthetics, introduction to philosophy, foreign languages and so on. Wang Guowei believes that learning a foreign language helps to cultivate an international perspective, and education in China should be examined in the educational background of the whole world. This educational vision has created a new educational precedent for pedagogy and aesthetics, and also made aesthetic education have an independent position in China, becoming an educational goal for the first time.
The proposal of "perfect person" education thought determines whether the feudal traditional education thought is criticized or not, which has a great influence on the education reform in the late Qing Dynasty and the education in the Republic of China. Wang Guowei has a profound understanding of knowledge and educational laws, repeatedly emphasizes the importance of practical knowledge, and proposes to cultivate a "complete person" with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique and aesthetics, which has brought a new wind to the education circle in modern China, which is dominated by book knowledge and outdated historical knowledge. In addition, Wang Guowei was the earliest scholar who advocated aesthetic education in school education, so he became one of the founders of China's modern aesthetic education thought.