Based on Confucius’s learning wisdom, how did this sage treat learning?

The wisdom of Confucius' learning

"Knowledge" - the essence of Confucius' thought

Confucius is not only a great thinker, but also a great educator. Long-term educational practice has summarized many meaningful and inspiring educational ideas and methods of acquiring knowledge. In an era of great social change such as the late Spring and Autumn Period, the conservative slave-owning aristocrats were unable to cope with the changes in real life. It was also impossible for the slave-owning aristocrats themselves to cultivate talents that could adapt to the requirements of social development. But from the perspective of the development of the entire society, a group of talented people are needed to solve the various complex problems that occur in 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 our country.

Confucius proposed that "there is no distinction between education and distinction". Although there are various interpretations of this sentence, it involves expanding the scope of education so that the people who receive education are not limited to slave owners and nobles. There should be no doubt that of. Confucius himself practiced his idea of ??"education without distinction", so he said: "As long as you give me ten pieces of dried meat as tuition, I will never fail to teach." ("The Analects of Confucius·Shuer") This approach of his , played a big role in the talent problem that urgently needed to be solved at that time. Of course, Confucius' "education without distinction" is not for all classes, nor is it for cultivating talents to serve the whole people, but to cultivate more talented people who can adapt to the requirements of social development and serve the ruling class. . Even so, Confucius' educational activities ended the "official learning" monopolized by the aristocrats in the past, and began the private teaching of knowledge. The so-called "academic common people" started with Confucius. From this point of view, it was beneficial to the development of society at that time.

Not only that, through his long-term educational practice, Confucius summed up a lot of experiences that are consistent with people's cognitive laws. However, Confucius's thoughts in this regard are not a matter of epistemology itself, but mainly about education. Summary and summary of methods and methods of seeking knowledge.

First of all, Confucius emphasized that people’s knowledge comes from learning. Although he also talked about "general knowledge" and "only superior wisdom and inferior foolishness remain unchanged", it shows that Confucius is still bound by traditional thinking. But we can see from his specific educational activities that he does not attach great importance to this. What he said is that "sexuality is similar, habits are far apart" is his own opinion, which is obviously inconsistent with the view of "generating knowledge". Confucius never considered himself to be "supremely wise", and he never said that any person was "supremely wise". He even believed that Yao and Shun also made mistakes. Regarding himself, he said: "I am not a person who is born with knowledge. I love the ancients and am keen to seek for them." ("The Analects of Confucius·Shuer") He is very studious. His own comment to himself is: "The best in the ten rooms." In the city, there must be someone as loyal as Qiu, who is not as eager to learn as Qiu Zhi." ("The Analects of Confucius Gongye Chang") He praised the studious student Yan Hui and said: "There was Yan Hui who was eager to learn, but unfortunately he died short-lived. This is also the case today." "("The Analects of Confucius") Zi Gong asked: "What does Confucius call Wen?" Confucius replied: "He is quick and eager to learn, and he is not ashamed to ask questions. This is why he is called Wen." 》) It can be seen that Confucius paid great attention to learning and believed that human knowledge comes from learning, and human moral character can also be obtained through learning. Therefore, what he said about "generating knowledge" has almost become an empty talk, and he did not pay attention to it in fact.

The knowledge that Confucius advocates learning generally has two aspects: First, knowledge gained from studying ancient documents and regulations and systems, which can be said to be historical knowledge. The Analects records that Confucius learned from the past There are many places to gain knowledge from historical documents and regulations. He himself said that he "states without writing, believes in the past but loves the past." In the "Analects of Confucius Xiangdang", except for a few sections, most of them talk about ancient systems, and Confucius studied these things. Judging from the content of Confucius's teachings, most of them are ancient documents, regulations and systems, etc. "Confucius used four kinds of content to educate students: documents from past dynasties, rules of life and behavior, loyalty to friends, and faithfulness to friends." ("The Analects of Confucius") ·Shuer") The "documents of the past dynasties" mentioned here are "Poetry", "Book", "Ritual", "Music" and so on. The second is knowledge gained from real life, which can be said to be practical knowledge. But Confucius mainly paid attention to observation and not much to practice. In particular, he despised production practice.

In the Analects of Confucius, there are many places where Confucius advocated paying attention to learning in life. For example, he said: "If you hear more, choose the good ones and follow them; if you see more, you will know them." , choose the good ones and follow them, and change the bad ones" ("The Analects of Confucius·Shu Er"), "Don't be ashamed to ask" and so on. But it was very wrong for Confucius to despise production practice. Once his student Fan Chi asked him for advice on growing crops and vegetables. Not only did he say that he was inferior to old farmers and vegetable growers, he also scolded Fan Chi and said: "Fan Chi is really a bastard." You villain! If a ruler values ??propriety, the people will not dare to be disrespectful; if a ruler values ??righteousness, the people will not dare to disobey; if a ruler values ??trustworthiness, the people will not dare to conceal the true feelings. , people from all over will come to seek refuge with their children on their backs, so there is no need to grow crops by yourself!" ("The Analects of Confucius·Zilu") Confucius said such words to show that he was a thinker of the exploiting class, and the exploiting class has always been himself. Do not work and despise labor.

Secondly, Confucius summarized certain laws of learning and came up with some general laws for understanding things, which he used as his method of guiding students to learn.

He proposed that repeated learning can make people understand more deeply and acquire new knowledge. He said: "Review the past and learn the new" ("The Analects of Confucius: Weizheng"), "Learn and practice from time to time" "("The Analects of Confucius·Xueer") etc., this is what it means. Although Confucius did not explicitly talk about the laws of development of things that can be obtained by analyzing past experience, he already knew that experience can be learned from past knowledge, which is helpful for understanding 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? No. An ordinary person asked me, and I didn't know anything about his question. But after interrogating both sides of his question, I got a lot of inspiration, and then I told him as much as I could." ("The Analects of Confucius·Zihan")

Confucius also summed up "learning" from educational practice. ” and the relationship between “thinking”. Although the relationship between "learning" and "thinking" he mentioned is not necessarily the relationship between perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge, it is also the relationship between how other people's experiences become one's own knowledge through thinking. "Learning" means learning from other people's experiences and learning from real life, and "thinking" means digesting other people's experiences and what is learned from real life through thinking and turning it into one's own knowledge, so he said: "Learning is If you don’t think, you will be in vain; if you think without learning, you will be in danger” ("The Analects of Confucius: Weizheng"). If you only learn the knowledge of the predecessors without thinking yourself, you can only stay in confusion and not know what is right and wrong; you can only think out of thin air. If you don’t learn and make use of the knowledge and experience of your predecessors, you will achieve nothing. It seems that although Confucius also attached great importance to "thinking", he paid more attention to "learning". He believed that "learning" is the basis of "thinking", so he said: "I don't eat all day long and stay up all night to think. "If it is useless, it is better to learn." ("The Analects of Confucius·Wei Linggong") In the history of human understanding, we always pay attention to "learning" (direct experience and indirect experience) first, and then gradually pay attention to "thinking" (summarizing and finding experiences). (out of the law), Confucius began to realize the relationship between the two through his personal educational practice, and started from paying attention to "learning" to the understanding stage of paying attention to "thinking".