From Monoideism To Holistic: The Change Of The Conception Of Man And The Exploration On The Modern Education Development Orientation

The modernity crisis of education is the reflection of the social modernity crisis. Confronting the crisis, the modern educational reforms never stop. But all kinds of educational reform didn't made effect as we expected, and the bad effect of modern education wasn't removed yet. If we only make eyes on such minimal problems as education method, education contends, or education organizations and education model, our reforms can't get good effect. What is the deep reason of modern education problems? Only if we find the deep reason, the"Archimedes point", can we get the resolution to the questions. Man is where education begins and ends. Education begins from people's understanding and grasp of man's specifics which in turn decides their ideas, attitudes and behaviors.. As a result, knowledge about man is the focus that deeply roots in educational theories and practice which influences people's ideas, choices and deeds and the construction and development of educational theories as well. That is to say, what kind of ideas we embrace, what kind of education we will get. We can even allege that"knowledge about man"is the only way to solve educational problems. All the abuses in modern education lie in the concept of rationalism, the basic point which makes"man"abstract, common, holy and instrumental and makes the education distorted and the development ruptured and imbalanced. Educational philosophies, such as existentialism, pragmatism and postmodernism all made great effort to get rid of those abuses above and pursued people's integrity and specifics by animadverting on the rational concept of"man"from different perspectives. However, they fell into the irrationalism when they animadverted on the rationalism because of their own theoretical limitations, which in the end led to blindness in educational reform. We build up the concept the holistic man based on Marxism that practice makes man and together with the reasonable components from western humanism. The change of perspective is sure to bring the change of the connotation and specifics of education and the swerve of education practice.According to the ideas above, the framework of this dissertation is as follows:Introduction: the concept of the"man": the logic stating of the exploration of education both in theory and practice. In this part, it gives the answer to the basic problem firstly, that is, why should education know"man"? And then it brings forward the problem the dissertation is to research into and the sequences of the research. Chapter 1: Modern crises both in education and the concept of"man".In this chapter it mainly expatiates on the performance and the aftermaths of the crises and then analyzes the root of it. The crisis lies in four aspects: the over-pursuit of efficiency and quantification and confirmation and domination which brings the rupture of the educational value, that is, education is distorted and is far away from truth, kindness and beauty. This dissertation, through analysis, gets the result that the root of the crisis stems from that of the concept of"man". The rationalism of the concept of"man"is what supports modern education and the deep root of it as well.Chapter 2: Rationalism in the concept of"man"in modern education and the animadversion on it from the perspective of educational philosophy. It describes the concept of"rationalism"and its history and then analyses the animadversion on it by the western educational philosophy and their endeavor to make the concept of"man"whole and its last fate. It can date back to Aristotle and Plato and Descartes and Kant and it was Hegel who promoted to the peak. It became"tool"gradually and modern education also became a tool. In fact, the essence of the crisis of modern education is that of the concept of"man". Educational philosophies, such as existentialism, pragmatism and postmodernism all made great effort to get rid of those abuses above and pursued people's integrity and specifics by animadverting on the rational concept of"man"from different perspectives. However, they fell into the irrationalism when they animadverted on the rationalism because of their own theoretical limitations, which in the end led to blindness in educational reform. The concept of"man"needs to be re-explained.Chapter 3: The change of the Paradigm: the conception of the holistic man in the view of Practice thesis. This chapter re-explains the concept of"man"from the perspective of practice theory of Marxism. The ways of thinking play a fundamental role in man's cognition, so the key to change the re-explanation of the concept of"man"is the change of the ways of thinking. That is to say, if we want to re-explain the concept of"man", we should regard"man"as"man", not a tool. The traditional way of thinking ontology looks on"man"as a tool and makes"man"abstract."Rational man"is the just result. The animadversion on it before didn't throw away the"tool man"thoroughly, so it could not get to know the wholeness of"man". We take it for sure that the practice theory of Marxism puts"man"back to"man"and establishes the idea that practice makes"man"whole.Chapter 4: The concept of the holistic man and the re-explanation of"education". In this chapter the writer from the practice theory expounds what changes happen to the connotation of education and its specifics when the concept of"man"changes. The change is that the re-explanation of the concept of"man", which takes education as the practice activities which promote the development of man. Such re-explanation complies with the true value of man and education.Chapter 5: The concept of the holistic man and the re-explanation of the character of"education". The change lies in the non-continuity, non-confirmation, situation and creation of education in the perspective of the concept of the holistic man. The explanation is relative, because we can't exclude the character of regularity and certainty in education.Chapter 6: The concept of the holistic man and the development orientation of modern education. The promotion of"man"is that of life which happens in real life and communication and it goes forward till the end of life. So the direction of educational practice is the care of life, back to life, communication, life-long education and study society.