Tao Xingzhi's Practical Thought —— What is the content of the unity of knowing and doing?

When it comes to the concept of knowing and doing, we can't help but mention Mr. Tao Xingzhi, a great educator and thinker of our time. Mr. Wang, formerly known as Tao Wenjun, was born in a poor peasant family in Anhui Province. He is young, clever and eager to learn. After graduating from Nanjing Jinling University, he went to the United States to study under the famous educator Dewey. After returning to China, I felt that "China's education is too heavy on books and has nothing to do with life", so I improved Dewey's education theory and put forward the theory of "life education", giving up China's traditional thought of "integration of knowledge and action" and emphasizing "knowledge". His educational thought has far-reaching influence, and his theories such as "life is education", "society is school" and "teaching integration" are still shining today. Guo Moruo once praised: "Ni two thousand years ago, Tao Xingzhi two thousand years later".

Tao Xingzhi's thought has made continuous progress with the evolution of the times. It was originally renamed Tao Zhixing because it agreed with the theory of Wang Yangming, a thinker in the Ming Dynasty that "knowing is the beginning of doing, and doing is the achievement of knowing". Later, it was found in practice that "doing" should precede "knowing". For example, children only know that burning hands is hot, eating sugar is sweet, and touching stones is hard ... all these clearly show that these understandings come from actions. So he changed his name to Xingzhi and put forward the viewpoint of "knowing and doing in one", arguing that action produces true knowledge and knowledge in turn guides action. "Knowledge" and "action" are complementary and dialectical unity.