Gan Yang is one of the most influential representatives in China's ideological and academic circles since the reform and opening up. The editorial board of Culture: China and the World, which he set up in 1980s, was generally regarded as the symbol of the rise of the new academic generation in China at that time. Later, famous figures in China's ideological and academic circles, such as Liu Xiaofeng, Chen Lai, Yan Buke, Chen Pingyuan, Chen Jiaying and Li Yinhe, all came from this editorial board. Modern Western Academic Library and Culture: The World and China (Sanlian Bookstore) edited by Gan Yang in the 1980s is one of the most influential series in that era, which not only laid the foundation for the study of western learning in contemporary China, but also provided the ideological basis for the rise of the wave of "rethinking modernity" in contemporary China (see an interview with Cha Jianying, Cultural Consciousness in the 1980s edited by Gan Yang and Ancient and Modern edited by Gan Yang). After returning from the United States, Gan Yang once again became a symbolic figure in China's academic circles. His Political Philosopher Strauss is recognized as the most theoretical research in contemporary China, which directly triggered the "political philosophy turn" in China academic circles in recent years. To sum it up in two sentences, it is "re-reading the West" and "re-understanding China".

He believes that our understanding of China today often implies a set of views on the West, and these views are often not really understanding the West, but only a half-knowledge or even diametrically opposite imagination of the West. In view of this disadvantage, he put forward an important point, that is, to understand today's China, we must re-understand the West. To get to know the West again, we can't just use the West as a drugstore and treat China with western medicine as before, but we must first understand that western thoughts have always been only for treating diseases in the West, so we should go deep into the context of western history and thoughts and understand what the West is discussing first. If we reinterpret the West according to this attitude, we will find that many of China intellectuals' understanding of the West is wrong. It is conceivable that there will be any harm in using these erroneous views to analyze the China issue or treat diseases. Among them, he particularly emphasized how to understand the United States today. He pointed out that the United States is not only liberal but also conservative. The biggest change in the United States in the last 30 years is precisely that conservatism has replaced liberalism as the mainstream ideology in the United States, but China scholars lack understanding of this complexity. Based on this situation, he led a group of China's most dynamic young and middle-aged scholars to re-understand the work of the West, including in-depth study of western thought and history, American Constitution and history, and evaluation of leo strauss and his school. He edited the newly edited Literary Series: The World and China (Sanlian Bookstore), The Origin Series of Western Learning (Sanlian Bookstore) and Political Philosophy (Huaxia Publishing House). ) and Classics and Interpretation (Huaxia Publishing House, etc. ) has become the most influential reading in China today. The concept of "general education" vigorously advocated by Gan Yang since 2004 has strongly promoted the general education of major universities in China, and led the general education of China University from a basically unconscious state to a vigorous development in a short time.

In his article on general education in 2009, he pointed out that "the prospect of general education is not optimistic at present, which is related to the particularity of general education. One of the characteristics of general education is that it often ends in nothing. At first, it was lively for several years, and finally it was silent. Another feature is that every meeting always stands still, and the simplest and most basic things are always repeated, such as holistic education, integration of arts and sciences, etc., which are basically simple copies. This discussion of general education basically shows that general education has not yet entered the operational level, so it has always remained in concept. Some conceptual issues can be discussed at any time, but the most important thing is how to enter the operation. "

The starting point of this matter is the debate about "Peking University Reform" in 2003. At that time, Zhang and other scholars carried out reform plans in Peking University, trying to implement enterprise management in Peking University and advocating English teaching instead of mother tongue teaching. Gan Yang published the article "Legality and Rationality of University Reform —— Comment on Peking University Reform" in the 265438+20th Century Business Herald, which took the lead in criticizing Peking University's reform plan, and then successively published articles such as "China University Idea and Peking University Reform". Finally, Peking University was forced to adjust the reform plan. Then, from 2004, Gan Yang began to vigorously advocate general education in universities in China, believing that this is the true essence of undergraduate education in American universities. In 2005, Gan Yang hosted a large-scale conference "The First China Cultural Forum: Humanities Education in China University" (commonly known as "Xiangshan Conference"). More than 100 scholars and professors from dozens of universities in China attended the meeting, and reached an important consensus on the undergraduate education of China University: the general education of China University should not blindly imitate the external forms of American universities, but should learn the essence of the strict requirements of American universities for students, especially the two basic points of classic reading and small class discussion. We advocate small class discussion and teaching assistant system, which can change the situation that teachers are full of water in the past, promote students to discuss classics freely, and let graduate students get various exercises by serving as teaching assistants. Later, at the invitation of Tsinghua University, Gan Yang conducted a demonstration teaching of general education, and opened a general course "Shakespeare's Political Philosophy" for Tsinghua University undergraduates. Through lectures, seminars, training courses and other forms, he widely popularized the concept of general education and explored feasible methods. Since 2007, Gan Yang has been entrusted by the Council of the Chinese Cultural Forum and supported by the Li Ka-shing Foundation to hold a national summer seminar on general education core courses every year. The first seminar was held in Tsinghua University in 2007, the second seminar was held in Shantou University in 2008, the third seminar was held in Fudan University in 2009, the fourth seminar was held in Peking University on 20 10, and the fifth seminar was held in 2008. At present, general education has been widely carried out in China University.