华东师范大学学报(教育科学版) ›› 2024, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (7): 100-113.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2024.07.009

• 中外教育史 • 上一篇    下一篇

早期儒家哲学中的教育隐喻探微

李林   

  1. 华东师范大学教育学系/基础教育改革与发展研究所,上海 200062
  • 接受日期:2023-12-18 出版日期:2024-07-01 发布日期:2024-06-06
  • 基金资助:
    上海市教育发展基金会和上海市教育委员会“曙光计划”资助(22SG23)。

An Investigation of the Educational Metaphors in Early Confucian Philosophy

Lin Li   

  1. Department of Education & Institute of Schooling Reform and Development, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China
  • Accepted:2023-12-18 Online:2024-07-01 Published:2024-06-06

摘要:

隐喻作为人类语言、认知、思维乃至“存在”中的重要议题,值得关注。基于汉字的独特表意系统,早期儒家以仁义为依归,以“成人”为宗旨,借助内发扩充和外铄转化诸种譬喻,殊途同归地辨析人接受教育而“作善”的可能性和必要性。儒家教育隐喻中常用的玉、水、木及禾四类典型意象,皆具鲜明的自然属性及农耕特色,被借以讨论教育活动作用的对象及预期的理想。在过程层面,儒家借助诸如染色、熏香、品味、射箭,以及绳墨、规矩、影子、回声等隐喻,揭示教育的渐进、隐微、互动及规范等特征,同时呈现儒家教育重视具身经验、强调反身而诚的特征。儒家将“教-育”与“学-习”可能达至的趣妙境界、理想人格的完成以及良善秩序的实现,进行关联性的整体论述,乃至揭示教育这种世俗活动中所蕴含的“内在超越”可能。隐喻语言有其不足,却又普遍泛在。教育研究应当舍离以神秘或鄙弃态度对待隐喻,尝试超越客观主义和主观主义的二元对立,从经验主义的角度切入,审视教育隐喻的指称内涵、生发机理及运用效果,同时留意辨析其内在限度。

关键词: 儒家哲学, 教育隐喻, 语言, 意味, 认知, 思维

Abstract:

As a significant issue in human’s language, cognition, thinking and even “existence”, metaphor deserves serious academic attention. With the unique ideographic system of Chinese characters, early Confucianism took benevolence and righteousness as the foundation, “the fulfillment of a human” as the goal, and thus developed various metaphors based on stances of internal initiation and external molding respectively. In doing so, the possibility and necessity of educating people to “act toward goodness” are presented. These four typical images, i.e., jade, water, trees and seedlings, are commonly used in Confucian educational metaphors, which all have distinct natural attributes and agricultural characteristics for discussing the objects and ideal expectations of education. At the process level, with metaphors such as dyeing, incense, taste, archery, carpenter’s ink maker, ruler, shadow, echo, etc., the gradual, subtle, interactive and normative characteristics of education are revealed. At the same time, this also symbolizes the characteristics of Confucian education that attaches importance to embodied experience and reflective sincerity. In addition, through education and learning, the attainment of the wonderful realm, the completion of the ideal personality, and the achievement of a good order, are all holistically associated, revealing the possibility of “internal transcendence” contained in the secular activity of education. Metaphorical languages have their shortcomings, but they are omnipresent. Scholars of education should abandon treating metaphors with a mysterious or loathed attitude and try to transcend the binary opposition between objectivism and subjectivism, and then examine the referential connotation, origination mechanism and application effect of educational metaphors from the perspective of empiricism, while paying due attention to the limits from within.

Key words: Confucian philosophy, educational metaphors, language, meaning, cognition, thinking