Kant on the endless struggle against evil in the pursuit of moral perfection and the promotion of the happiness of others—Challenges for education

Abstract

Kant argues that we have a duty to perfect ourselves morally and promote the happiness of others. He also argues that we have an innate propensity to evil. Our duty to perfect ourselves suggests that we struggle with our innate propensity to wilfully deviate from doing our duty. And we do this when we struggle against the depravation of our heart, namely our propensity to reverse ‘the ethical order as regards the incentives of a free power of choice’, namely, our propensity to wilfully comply with the principle of self-love and override the moral law. It seems, however, that education does not enable those concerned to fulfil their duties. It seems, instead, that education basically makes them efficacious with regard to desired ends and with the devised means. It seems, too, that education does not necessarily make it possible for those concerned with duty to perfect themselves morally and help others to do the same, which in turn suggests that those concerned are not being enabled to make themselves ‘as conscientious as possible in [their] moral self-examination’. I argue that education ought to enable those concerned to cultivate their moral strength to do so and enable others to do the same.     

试辨康德界定审美活动的偏误

康德从其人学研究的总体出发定位审美活动,虽然拓开了超越前人的新视界,但是他对第三《批判》究竟是作为整个批判哲学体系的合题还是作为中介环节自己也长期存有犹疑。由于康德首先关注的是体系的建构而不是研究对象本身,专心一意要沟通自然与自由、知性与理性等对立领域,将诸范畴之间的平行关系与层次关系混合为一体,因而造成其论述的某些偏误。审美学必须从康德走向黑格尔,真正以艺术为主要研究对象,才有可能顺理成章地解决康德美学遗留下来的系列问题。     

康德与中国近代教育思想

作为人类先进文化的优秀遗产 ,德国古典哲学是马克思主义理论的三大来源之一 ;而在马克思主义理论及其教育思想传入中国之前 ,康德哲学及其教育思想即已传入中国并产生了重要影响。 1 9世纪后半叶至 2 0世纪前半叶 ,康有为、严复 ,特别是梁启超、王国维、蔡元培等先进人士在向西方寻求真理的过程中 ,开始导入和传播康德哲学及其教育思想 ,并结合当时中国的具体国情 ,努力将其转化为中国教育改革和发展的思想资源 ,从而为推动中国教育现代化做出了突出的贡献     

康德论道德教育方法

康德认为，纯粹德性是人类的本性，它要求出于义务来遵守，而且是趋向于善的唯一动机，因此是可教的。这就是对道德教育的方法如何可能的问题的回答。在此基础上，康德提出了他的道德教育方法：道德判断力的训练、敬重义务的训练、合道德性的道德教育程序的建构、伦理共同体的联合等。康德的这一思想，给我们进行道德教育以如下几个方面的启迪：注重道德教育方式本身的道德性，进行以德性为目的的榜样教育，发挥感性实践的重要作用，以自由和谐丰富集体主义道德原则的内涵，培育自由的道德人。     

What Is Pedagogy? Discovering the Hidden Pedagogical Dimension

What is pedagogy, exactly? Merriam-Webster defines it simply as “the art, science, or profession of teaching.” In contemporary academic discourse, however, pedagogy is generally left undefined — with its apparent implicit meanings ranging anywhere from a specific “model for teaching” (e.g., behaviorist or progressivist instruction) to a broadly political philosophy of education in general (most famously, a “pedagogy of the oppressed”). In this paper, Norm Friesen and Hanno Su follow the Continental pedagogical tradition in giving pedagogy a general but explicit definition. They do so by looking at how pedagogy arises both in everyday life and in school as unavoidably ethical activity undertaken primarily for the sake of the young person or child. Such activities, the authors maintain, are structured not so much by processes, methods, and outcomes, but by irresolvable oppositions and the tensions between them. They illustrate this inductively through a series of images and examples — moving gradually from ones involving parenting and early childhood to ones from elementary and secondary schooling. In this way, Friesen and Su show that pedagogy is not so much one or more ideologically focused or evidence-based instructional or psychological approaches to be mastered by a professional or teaching specialist. It is instead an independent but ethically informed practical perspective — one that can (and has) been extended to form a distinctively pedagogical theory and discipline. As such, it is something that is not only a part of our everyday life and culture, but arguably of all human cultures.     

Kant and the struggle against evil

Abstract

Kant held that the moral vocation of the human species was to strive toward moral perfection. But in Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason, he at least entertained as part of the human condition a rationalist version of the Christian doctrine of original sin: that human beings have a universal, innate and inextirpable propensity to evil. Are these two Kantian doctrines inconsistent, or at least in tension with each other? If they are, the tension is a creative one. This chapter will explain the Kantian doctrine of the radical human propensity to evil and relate it to Kant's theory of the acquisition of virtue and the struggle toward moral perfection. We will see that this struggle for Kant must be social, not merely individual, and that it involves both the development of moral character and the cultivation of empirical inclinations that harmonize with morality.     

Does a Sentiment-Based Ethics of Caring Improve upon a Principles-Based One? The problem of impartial morality

My task in this paper is to demonstrate, contra Nel Noddings, that Kantian ethics does not have an expectation of treating those closest to one the same as one would a stranger. In fact, Kantian ethics has what I would consider a robust statement of how it is that those around us come to figure prominently in the development of one's ethics. To push the point even further, I argue that Kantian ethics has an even stronger claim to treating those closest to oneself as imperative than Noddings and sentiment-based ethical theory in general, proposes.     

Does a Sentiment‐Based Ethics of Caring Improve upon a Principles‐Based One? The problem of impartial morality

My task in this paper is to demonstrate, contra Nel Noddings, that Kantian ethics does not have an expectation of treating those closest to one the same as one would a stranger. In fact, Kantian ethics has what I would consider a robust statement of how it is that those around us come to figure prominently in the development of one's ethics. To push the point even further, I argue that Kantian ethics has an even stronger claim to treating those closest to oneself as imperative than Noddings and sentiment‐based ethical theory in general, proposes.     

论康德的理智直观与想象力

在康德看来,理智直观包含着三层含义。作为本源意义上的理智直观是先验想象力的基础和依据。理智直观给想象力确立自由活动性并给予其以直接的创造能力,在此过程中,贯穿着主体能动性思想。     

Wildly wise in the terrible moment: Kant,Emerson, and improvisatory Bildung in early childhood education

Abstract

This paper aims to show how Emerson provides a reworking of Kantian understandings of moral education in young children’s Bildung. The article begins and ends by thinking of Emersonian self-cultivation as a form of improvisatory or wild Bildung. It explores the role of Bildung and self-cultivation in preschools through a philosophy that accounts for children’s ‘Wild wisdom’ by letting Emerson speak to Kant. The paper argues that Kant’s vision of Bildung essentially involves reason’s turn upon itself and that Emerson, particularly in how he is taken up by Cavell, shows that such a turn is already present in the processes of children inheriting, learning, and improvising with language. This improvisatory outlook on moral education is contrasted with common goals of moral education prescribed in early childhood education where the Swedish Curriculum for the Preschool Lpfö 98 is used as an example.     

谈洛克、休谟与康德的认识论

洛克的经验论是以承认客观世界的可知性为前提的,相信人能够认识外在的客观事物,最终将经验论的认识论理论化和系统化。休谟从经验主义原则出发,不承认经验之外的任何对象的可知性,是唯心主义的不可知论。而康德关于人的认识能力的哲学则主要倾向主观唯心主义和不可知论,是一种二元论。三种哲学体系是在继承和批判前人学说基础上建立起其自身独特的哲学体系,并深刻反映了社会现实,对后世哲学产生了深刻的影响。     

Evil,virtue, and education in Kant

Abstract

For Kant, we cannot understand how to approach moral education without confronting the radical evil of humanity. But if we start out, as Kant thinks we do, from a morally corrupt state, how can we make moral progress? In response, I explore in this paper Kant’s gradualist and revolutionary accounts of moral progress. These differing accounts of progress raise two key questions in the literature: are these accounts compatible and which type of progress comes first? Against other views in the literature, I argue that gradual progress through a change of mores must come first and can gradually lead toward, as its ideal endpoint, a revolution in our disposition (or a change of heart) and the overthrowing of our radical evil. This has important implications for moral pedagogy.     

康德与马克思自由观比较

康德将自由最终确立为自由意志,认为真正自由的人是不受感性干扰的“理性人”,于是,康德自由观体现为一种唯意志论和禁欲主义的不自由。马克思在扬弃德国古典哲学自由观和古典经济学劳动价值论的基础上,找到了解开自由之谜的钥匙———劳动,从而使自由具有了现实性,开辟了人类通往自由之路。     

启蒙的技艺:康德教育哲学的难题

康德的教育理论是建立在整个批判哲学之上的.其教育思想,尤其是道德教育内部存在的冲突,是批判哲学体系本身的内在冲突的反映,更是启蒙理性内部两种原则之间的根本性冲突的反映.这种冲突最终表现为理性的自律与他律之间的矛盾.康德的教育理念,既要求道德教育能够体现出启蒙的自律性原则,又不得不承认其具体的实施始终无法回避他律性问题,即教育作为单纯的启蒙技艺的问题.最终,康德在道德教育如何可能的问题上不得不诉诸历史理性.     

康德与冯特的科学心理学

德国古典哲学奠基者康德对冯特所创立的科学心理学产生深刻影响 :一、心理学的对象, 二、实验内省法,三、心理学的数量化,四、心身平行论,五、心理学体系 ,六、统觉的创造性综合学说 ,七、意识的两大领域观点.文章试图从分析康德对冯特创立的科学心理学的影响来揭示康德对科学心理学的巨大贡献.     

形而上学的终结与康德哲学

形而上学在很长一段时间里在西方哲学中一直占统治地位，形而上学体现了一定时代人们对世界的认识和许多哲学家精神智慧，但随着时代的发展，形而上学在实践中和理论上都难以立足，而康德通过自己开创的哲学革命，一举推翻了形而上学的统计地位，西方哲学从此进入了一个新的发展时代。     

柏克与康德崇高论比较

柏克与康德是西方崇高理论的代表人物 ,二者都认为崇高对象带有可怖性和与人敌对性 ,崇高是由痛感转化而来的快感。但二人理论亦有不同之处 ,柏克重感性而忽视理性 ,将崇高的根源归结为主体的生理结构 :康德努力使感性与理性统一起来 ,但实际偏重理性 ,认为崇高的根源在于人的道德精神     

Education and the overcoming of evil

Abstract

In this essay, I try to make sense out of Kant’s unusual concept of grace, particularly as regards its uneasy relationship to education within the context of the effort to overcome evil. The key to the puzzle, I argue, lies in what I call ‘moral receptivity’. Part of education’s job is to make us morally receptive to grace by preparing us for its possibility.     

舍勒的先验论及其对康德的批判

在康德那里,所谓“先验”就是指独立于人的经验,这种先验论不仅是康德认识论的基础,也是他伦理学的基础,而在舍勒看来,先验并不意味着独立于人的任何经验,而仅仅独立于人的非现象学经验,基于此,舍勒认为,康德的先验论是纯粹形式主义的,毫无事实依据,他对康德的批判尽管一针见血,但仍落入了基础主义的窠臼。     

康德和亚里士多德哲学实践范畴比较

亚里士多德是西方实践哲学的创始人,他最早明确地着眼于实践来研究人的行为,使"实践"成为重要的哲学范畴和实践哲学的主题;而康德是德国古典唯心主义哲学创始人,实践思想是其哲学的重要内容。着重对康德和亚里士多德哲学实践范畴进行较为详细的比较,试图理清两位哲学家哲学实践范畴之间的共同点与差异点。