Abstract: What general education has been pursuing is “rational freedom”, which requires to transcend the conception “liberal” from “liberal education”. However, due to the intersection of definitions and historical facts, general education and liberal education are regarded as two conceptions with plenty of similarities and interactions by some scholars. Dewey criticized the “class nature”, “political symbol” and“cultural symbol” of liberal education from the perspective of educational democracy, pointing out its “traps of illiberality”. Therefore, general education must transcend the logical framework of liberal education to achieve its own goal of “liberty”. Under the ideological framework of educational constructivism and empiricism, Dewey provided the theoretical basis for his core educational concept by “construction-deconstruction-reconstruction”. This special liberal education is different from the traditional one, offering a leading direction for the modern general education in university, which is expected to solve a series of problems faced by general education.

Key words: Dewey, general education, constructivism, rational freedom