Entering Confucius and Inheriting Culture Research Homework

"Knowledge" —— The Essence of Confucius' Thought

Confucius is not only a great thinker, but also a great educator. In his long-term educational practice, he summed up many meaningful and enlightening educational ideas and methods of acquiring knowledge. In such an era of great social change at the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, the conservative slave owners and nobles could not cope with the changes in real life, and it was impossible to cultivate talents that met the requirements of social development. However, as far as the development of the whole society is concerned, we need a group of talents to solve various complex problems in the real society. Confucius adapted to the needs of the society at that time, gave people knowledge through education, and became the earliest educator in the history of China.

Confucius put forward "education without class". Although there are various explanations for this sentence, there should be no doubt that it involves expanding the scope of education so that the educated people are not limited to slave owners and nobles. Confucius himself practiced his idea of "teaching without dividing", so he said, "As long as I have ten pieces of dried meat for tuition, I will never stop teaching." (The Analects of Confucius) His practice played a great role in the talent problem that needed to be solved urgently at that time. Of course, Confucius' "teaching without class" is not aimed at all classes, let alone training talents who can serve the whole people, but training more talents who can meet the requirements of social development and serve the ruling class. Nevertheless, Confucius' educational activities ended the "official learning" monopolized by nobles in the past and began the private teaching of knowledge. The so-called "learning from Shu Ren" began with Confucius. From this point of view, it was beneficial to the social development at that time anyway.

Moreover, through his long-term educational practice, Confucius summed up many experiences that conform to people's cognitive laws. However, Confucius' thought in this respect is not a problem of epistemology itself, but mainly a generalization and summary of educational methods and knowledge-seeking methods.

First of all, Confucius emphasized that human knowledge comes from learning. Although he also said that "being learned" and "being wise is stupid", it shows that Confucius is still bound by traditional ideas. But it can be seen from his specific educational activities that he does not attach great importance to this point. His so-called "similar in sex, far from each other" is his own proposition, which is obviously inconsistent with the view of "born knowing" Confucius never thought he was "wise", and he never said who was "wise". He even thought that Yao Shun would make mistakes. About himself, he said, "I was not born knowing that I am old and eager to seek." He is very studious. His own evaluation of himself is: "In a city with ten rooms, there must be loyal ministers like hills, so it is better to learn like hills." ("The Analects of Confucius Gongye Chang") He praised Yan Hui's eagerness to learn, saying: "Those who have Yan Hui are eager to learn, but unfortunately they died short-lived and will die today." (Advanced Analects of Confucius) Zi Gong asked: "Why is Confucius called Ye Wen?" Confucius said, "I am quick and eager to learn, and I am not ashamed to ask questions. I am based on my words." (The Analects of Confucius, Gongye Chang) It can be seen that Confucius attached great importance to learning, believing that people's knowledge comes from learning, and people's moral character can only be acquired through learning. Therefore, his so-called "original knowledge" has almost become empty talk. In fact, he has not paid attention to it.

Generally speaking, there are two aspects of knowledge advocated by Confucius: one is the knowledge gained by studying ancient documents and laws and regulations, which can be said to be historical knowledge. In the Analects of Confucius, Confucius learned a lot from past historical documents and laws and regulations. He himself said that he was "a man of words but not deeds, but a man of letters". Except for a few sections, most of the articles in The Analects of Confucius and Rural Party are mainly based on the ancient system, which is what Confucius learned. Judging from the contents taught by Confucius, most of them are ancient documents, laws and regulations, etc. "Confucius' education for students has four contents: documents of past dynasties, rules of life behavior, loyalty to the world and trust in friends." (The Analects of Confucius) The "documents of past dynasties" mentioned here are poems, books, rituals, music and so on. Second, the knowledge gained from real life can be said to be real knowledge. But Confucius paid more attention to observation than practice, especially his contempt for production practice. In the Analects of Confucius, there are many records of Confucius' opinions that we should pay attention to learning in our lives. For example, he said that "a threesome must learn from my teacher, choose the good and follow it, change the evil and follow it" (The Analects of Confucius), "I am not ashamed to ask questions" and so on. However, it is very wrong for Confucius to despise production practice. Once, his student Fan Chi asked him to grow crops and vegetables. Not only did he say that he was inferior to the old farmers and vegetable farmers, but he also scolded Fan Chi: "Fan Chi is really a villain! Being a ruler pays attention to etiquette, and the people dare not fear it; Being a ruler attaches great importance to righteousness, so the people dare not disobey; Being a ruler pays attention to faith, so ordinary people dare not hide the truth. If this is done, people from all directions will carry their children to the enemy, so there is no need to grow their own crops! " Confucius said this to show that he was an exploiting class thinker who never worked and despised it.

Secondly, Confucius summed up some laws of learning, and obtained some universal laws of understanding things, which he used as his method to guide students' learning.

He pointed out that repeated learning can make people know more deeply and gain new knowledge. He said: "Review the past and learn the new" (The Analects of Confucius is the government), "Learn from the times" (The Analects of Confucius is the study) and so on, which is what he meant. Although Confucius didn't explicitly talk about the law of the development of things by analyzing the past experience, he already knew that he could learn from the past knowledge, which was helpful to understand the current things. Confucius often asked others for advice, learned knowledge from others, and then used it to teach others. He said, "Do I have a lot of knowledge? I didn't. An ordinary person asked me that I knew nothing about his problem. But after I questioned him from both sides of his question, I got a lot of inspiration and tried to tell him. " ("The Analects of Confucius Zi Han")

Confucius also summed up the relationship between "learning" and "thinking" from educational practice. Although the relationship between "learning" and "thinking" he said is not equal to the relationship between perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge, it is also the relationship between how other people's experience becomes their own knowledge through thinking. "Learning" means learning from other people's experience and real life. "Thinking" is to digest other people's experience and what you have learned from real life through thinking and make it your own knowledge. Therefore, he said: "Learning without thinking is useless, thinking without learning is dangerous" ("The Analects of Confucius is politics"), only pre-school people learn without thinking is useless, and they can only stay in the maze and don't know right and wrong; Just thinking out of thin air without learning and using the knowledge and experience of predecessors will accomplish nothing. It seems that although Confucius also attaches importance to "thinking", he attaches more importance to "learning". He thinks that "learning" is the basis of "thinking", so he said: "I try not to eat all day and think all night; It's useless, it's better to learn. " (The Analects of Confucius Wei Linggong) Generally speaking, in the history of human cognition, learning (direct experience and indirect experience) is always emphasized first, and then thinking (summing up experience and finding the law) is gradually noticed. Through personal educational practice, Confucius began to realize the relationship between the two, began to attach importance to learning, and reached the cognitive stage of thinking.

Confucius believed that knowledge should be as rich as possible, and he himself was a man of great learning. But Confucius believes that profound knowledge must have a central idea, which is what he calls "consistency." The discovery of "one", that is, the central idea, or the essence, can penetrate a lot of seemingly incoherent knowledge. Of course, according to Confucius' whole thought, the essence of this all-pervasive "one" thought is what he called "benevolence" He said: "People are unkind, such as courtesy; People are heartless, so what are you happy about? " ("The Analects of Confucius Eight Shu") also said: "A gentleman who has no final food will violate benevolence. If he expects something, he will be defeated "("The Analects of Confucius "); "Different people have different opinions, and the wise have different opinions". According to Confucius, on the one hand, everything should be treated with "benevolence", but on the other hand, it also means that everyone should make demands on himself, treat himself as a "person" and do his best where he should stand. Therefore, what he calls "benevolence" contains the viewpoint of attaching importance to the role of people from the relationship between class and individual, which runs through not only his educational thought, but also his life.