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UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Towards a Dialogic Humanist Education: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry of I-Thou Relationships Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/30m743pm Author Chen, Jiahong Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Towards a Dialogic Humanist Education: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry of I-Thou Relationships A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Education by Jiahong Chen 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Towards a Dialogic Humanist Education: A Cross-Cultural Inquiry of I-Thou Relationships by Jiahong Chen Doctor of Philosophy in Education University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor John N. Hawkins, Chair The core of this study concerns a historical yet current question: what constitutes humanist education? From ancient times to the present, the essence of humanist education remains the same, to cultivate human nature. Gradually, it becomes commonly recognized that humanity can be fully developed only when it is in social encounters with other people, societies, and the world. This recognition indicates that humanist education has become a project encompassing I-Thou relationships that construct shared meanings and humanity. The assumption is that, the more I-and-Thou relationships share realities, the more complete is their reality. My intellectual interest is to unravel the “ever-expanded and complex reality” in which I- Thou relationships have struggled, survived, and thrived. From a comparative perspective, I conduct the following. ii Crossing time and space, I explore the classical ideals of humanist education by tracing Western and Chinese origins. My study finds that both Platonic and Confucian ideals emphasize the cultural foundation of humanist education; both stress that its goal is to cultivate personal perfection and to extend individual morality to others, society, and to the cosmos. Using these ideals as a prism to reflect current situations, I pursue two major constellations of inquiry. One constellation considers what cultures have been taken as the “common” foundation of a shared humanity. Another concerns the fact that in the age of globalization, humanist education has faced risks of losing its cultural ideals while being replaced with a ‘materialistic’ foundation, in which education is conceived as reproducing current social relationships. In correspondence to these problems, I propose that dialogic humanist education should be constituted with three dialectical and transformative I-Thou relationships, moving (1) from individual to social being, concerning tensions and integrations between personal good and public good; (2) from state citizenship to cosmopolitan citizenship, focusing on cultural conflicts; (3) from becoming to being, dealing with crises of humanity caused by the expansion of modern instrumental rationality. An ultimate attempt is to explore the possibilities of creating common cultural foundations based on inter-Civilizational dialogues to further cultivate humanity in the new Axial Age. Key Words: Humanist education, I-Thou relationship, Inter-Civilizational dialogue iii The dissertation of Jiahong Chen is approved. Douglas M. Kellner Val D. Rust James Tong John N. Hawkins, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iv DEDICATION For Scarla and Larry Love is cosmos force -Martin Buber v TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter One .................................................................................................................................. 1 Philosophical Journey: Reflection, Departure, and Goal.......................................................... 1 1-1. Vision, Problems, and Explorations .............................................................................................. 1 1-1-1. Understandings of Humanism and Humanist Education: The West and China........................ 2 1-1-2. My Vision: Humanist Education as Dialogue Constructing I-Thou Relationships................... 8 1-1-3. Three-Dialectical Problems of I-Thou Relationships.............................................................. 14 1-1-4. Scope and Focus: Three Transformative Explorations............................................................ 19 1-2. Theories, Methodology, and Method........................................................................................... 23 1-2-1. Three Theoretical Dilemmas ................................................................................................... 23 1-2-2. Theories of Dialogue ............................................................................................................... 25 1-2-3. Comparative Educations as Cross-cultural Dialogue to Enlarge Our Shared Reality............. 29 1-2-4. Methodology and Methods:..................................................................................................... 35 1-3. Personal Motivation ...................................................................................................................... 38 Part One: From Individual to Social Being.............................................................................. 40 Chapter Two................................................................................................................................ 40 Theoretical Inspirations: Return to Western Classic Ideals................................................... 40 2-1. Metaphor of Concentric Circles Model....................................................................................... 41 2-2. Plato and Aristotle: Origins.......................................................................................................... 43 2-2-1. Plato: Education as Conversion of the Soul to the Idea of Good ............................................ 43 2-2-2. Aristotle: Function---Virtue---Eudaimonia ............................................................................. 51 2-3. Theoretical Trends of Humanism: From the Classical to the Modern .................................... 56 2-3-1. Natural Laws and Social Contract ........................................................................................... 56 2-3-2. Humanity and Existentialism................................................................................................... 59 2-3-3. Categorical Imperative and Dialectic Unity ............................................................................ 60 2-4. Educational Ideal: Cultivation of the Individual and Cultivation of Public Good ................. 62 2-4-1. Rousseau’s Moral Education: Cultivation of Human Nature and Democracy........................ 63 2-4-2. Mary Wollstonecraft: Cultivation of Individual Dignity, Independence, and Reason ............ 65 2-4-3. John Dewey: Cultivation of the Individual and Democracy ................................................... 67 2-4-4. Paulo Freire: Education for Liberation.................................................................................... 68 Chapter Three ............................................................................................................................. 71 Theoretical Inspirations: Return to Chinese Classic Ideals.................................................... 71 3-1. Moral Approach and Cosmopolitan Approach.......................................................................... 72 3-2. Confucius and Mencius: Origins.................................................................................................. 75 3-2-1. Confucian Conceptual Framework: Dao---De---Ren ............................................................. 75 3-2-2. Ren’s Integrative Power: Personal, Social, and Cosmopolitan Dimensions .......................... 78 3-2-3. Mencius and the “Four Origins of Human Nature”................................................................ 88 3-3. Theoretical Developments: Moral Subjectivity and Cosmopolitan Objectivity...................... 91 3-3-1. Egoistic Human Nature and Natural Desires.......................................................................... 91 3-3-2. Daoism and Cosmopolitan Confucianism .............................................................................. 93 3-3-3. Law of Heaven and Conscience ............................................................................................. 96 3-4. Confucian Ideal of Humanist Education................................................................................... 100 vi Part Two: From State Citizenship to Cosmopolitan Citizenship ......................................... 110 Chapter Four............................................................................................................................. 110 Seen Through Ideals: Whose Cultures Are the “Common Foundations?” ........................ 110 4-1. Cosmopolitanism and Cosmopolitan Education ...................................................................... 111 4-1-1. Ancient Meanings of Cosmopolitanism: Greek and China .................................................. 111 4-1-2. Contemporary Meanings of Cosmopolitanism...................................................................... 115 4-2. Cultures and Cultural Foundation of Humanist Education ................................................... 119 4-2-1. Cultures and Civilization ......................................................................................................
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