One. Introduction: The history of writing, the basic force that will dominate China's education in the future, seems to show that since the "axis era" of human civilization (Confucius, Sakyamuni and Socrates put forward the question of "enlightenment"), every society in every era has opened up ignorance and implemented education in its own way and world outlook. Agricultural education in the agricultural age and industrial education in the industrial age; A conservative society publicizes traditional values, while a changing society advocates conceptual innovation; The advanced and expanding society dares to provide social Darwinian morality for "building a strong ship and benefiting from guns", while the backward and beaten society tries to save the nation from peril by "science and technology first". As Derrida lamented: "A common knowledge is that education and the fate of society are always closely intertwined" (Egea-Kuehne, 1996). Therefore, education cannot but reflect a particular society's understanding and grasp of its own specific living conditions, which is the' special situation' of education. On the other hand, the education of all times and all societies pointed out by Taoism runs through the same spirit shared by "human" and "human", that is, respect for nature and pursuit of freedom. The former is "destiny", "necessity" and "providence"; The latter are "seeking heaven", "desire" and "humanity". Therefore, out of the nature of "class", education must open up human nature in two aspects at the same time: (1) knowing the destiny, and (2) being upright and stable. The former is Kant's "Verstand" (which can be translated as "cognition" or "cognitive rationality" and "understanding" or "instrumental rationality", see Wang Dingding, 2000a), and the latter is Kant's "Vernunft" (which can be translated as "value rationality" and "value rationality"), corresponding to "this is educational" *. Today, China's education and its reform are geared to the living conditions of China people in the 2nd/Kloc-0th century. As pointed out above, this is the' particularity' of China's current education, or it is its' characteristics of the times'. What kind of era is 2 1 century? I want to summarize it with two characteristics: (1) the rapid change of technology and the rapid change of social relations brought about by it; ② Global Westernization (called "Europeanization of the Earth" by Heidegger) or "global capitalism" (see Wang Dingding, 1999). These two characteristics show that the movement of "spreading western learning to the east" in the past 100 years is still going on, and 2 1 century should be included in the rest waves. Commenting on the contribution of the Frankfurt School, Foucault pointed out: "The problem [this school] raised by …… still exists, that is, the consequences of power that began in the16th century and was associated with the rationality that was historically and geologically defined as' the West'. Westerners, however, would never have achieved such economic and cultural achievements today if they were not insincere about the rationality of this power "(Foucault, 1978). In fact, when Baudrillard and Fukuyama announced the "end of history", they meant that the "Logos" spirit originated from Greece finally achieved global expansion, with nowhere to go and no way out (Wang Dingding, 2000b；; Fukuyama, 1989,1993; Baudrillard, 1992). What is the living condition of China people in this era? As I have discussed many times (Wang Dingding, 1995, 1996), China society has the following three characteristics: (1) China society is a' developing economy' society. The' fundamental problem' of economic development is how to transform the' surplus labor force' into human capital and material capital within two or three generations, so as to maintain and improve the living standard of the future' stable population' society. Therefore, this "fundamental problem" of social and economic development actually stems from the "demographic transition" of society and is one of the effects of the long process of knowledge accumulation in agricultural society. Due to the urgency of development in time, it has developed into a "hard truth" and has a priority position in political, economic, legal and cultural fields; (2) China society is a transitional society, changing from a highly centralized planned economy system to a market economy system. In this transitional period, the existing political system, economic system, laws and codes of conduct, social organizations and other aspects of production relations have changed at a much faster rate than in previous times. Due to the high uncertainty of the future, people's political, economic and legal behaviors in the transitional society all show the tendency of' short-term' or' eschatological complex'; (3) China society is experiencing a "cultural crisis". On the surface, this crisis stems from the century-long collision between eastern civilization and western civilization. Therefore, this ancient civilization gradually and continuously entered a "stagnation period" from its heyday (Confucius era) through "Zhongxing" (roughly "Confucian classics era"), so that Hegel realized that "China seems to be out of history forever" (historical philosophy). But' stagnation' is by no means static, and' (the diversity of tradition is an absolute feature of cultural tradition in Gadamer's view (Gadamer, 1975). As long as tradition maintains its pluralistic characteristics, traditional life will not end. "Although Zhou is an ancient country, its life is new." On the one hand, "knowledge is power" (which can also be translated as "knowledge is power") is the "will to power" under the cover of "knowledge will" revealed by Nietzsche and Foucault, which transforms "natural" Darwinism into "free will" social Darwinism, which is broad, smooth and prosperous. On the other hand, it is the crisis of cultural identity, the reflection of free will on the rootless freedom situation, and the resistance of primitive art multicultural life to the concept of "one-dimensional" technical life and single cultural world. The tension between "knowledge" and "value" formed by the conflict between "knowledge" and "value" will fundamentally dominate China's education and its reform in the foreseeable future. Two. Education as a "process" and its inherent dilemma education is a "process". After investigating the educational ideas and theories of various schools, I think that' education' as a concept of process is a starting point that is compatible with various theories. Taking this as a starting point, we can draw the following two understandings: (1) As a process, the' purpose',' method' and' content' of education constitute different aspects of' identity'. In other words,' purpose' is no longer Aristotle's static' goodness' (that is, the trend of movement (process)), nor does it have the supreme position occupied by' idea' in Plato's system. Education, as a process, should not lay out its contents according to the predetermined purpose, and then find ways according to the contents. As a process, the "purpose" of education is gradually clarified and evolved in the "communicative behavior" of participants in the educational process. (2) The educational process is a process of continuous dialogue and explanation among educational participants, not only the "educated", but also the cognitive development and moral development of educators. In this process, the content of education-based on the collection of basic concepts, the method of education-based on the different characteristics of people and the purpose of education-defines the' degree' of cognitive development and moral development that should be realized in a specific educational process, the participants' understanding of these three aspects of education, and the integration between different cognitive traditions and moral traditions that have produced these different understandings (integration in this understanding framework, such as the content of education, The concept of "point" in geometry should not be defined by "excluding any part" (The Elements of Geometry, Volume 1), but by a series of dialogues and explanations related to the experience of "point". So, like other concepts, the concept of "point" has its own "history"-the process of understanding the concept by the cognitive subject. The "concept" in history is a concept with independent life, and it is no longer a static, static and historical concept. Borrowing from Kanggeheim's thought on the history of science, the concept of science in the process of "history" is completely different from that of "science". The former presupposes the variability of future concepts, thus presupposing the context of innovation and critical thinking (Canguilhem, 1988). If the evolution of mathematical concepts is not enough to illustrate this point, then the evolutionary history of physical concepts elaborated by Bachelard fully illustrates the importance of the' historical' context required by critical thinking (Lecourt, 1975). In fact, at least one authoritative linguistic study points out that most concepts in human' conceptual system' are partially understood by analogy with other concepts, so that most concepts are fully understood after a long evolutionary process (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980, chapter 12). It is also clear that in the above understanding framework, it is difficult for educational methods, such as the establishment of social core values, to establish the authority of teachers first and then instill' correct' classical ideas into students, as designed by the essentialist education school. Similarly, the validity of behaviorism advocated by B.F. Skinner and progressivism advocated by Dewey has also become suspicious, because values of great significance to life, such as' morality' defined by Kant or' religious concept' studied by James, are often not established by' incentive-response' behavior chain or' interests'. Finally, the' purpose' of education is also constantly developing, not static, but the expectation when the game of mutual adaptation and interaction between participants in the education process reaches equilibrium. As far as the ideal state is concerned, the purpose of education is to promote everyone's cognitive development and moral development to the maximum extent. And this ultimate goal means that the goal setting of the specific educational process must be based on the' personality' differences of educational participants. The so-called "no child left behind", the so-called "personalized education" and the so-called "development of multiple intelligences" (Gardner, 2000), the so-called "natural learning" (Abbott, 1999a) or "education 2000 trust, go to formal education, 1997). On the other hand, the ultimate goal of education, which is set on the premise of personality differences, is always limited by the cost of education in the specific life situation in which the education process takes place (see the next section "Educational Economics"). The standardization of formal education and other forms of education saves the cost of education, makes the ultimate goal of education partially realized, and makes the goal of education practical. The failure of American experimental schools of gradualism lies in subordinating standards to individualistic gradualism, thus providing excuses for laziness and dereliction of duty (Gardner, 199 1, 195- 199). If the education process can be divided into stages, such as "formal education" and "amateur education", or "school education" and "on-the-job education", then education as a kind of "social communication process" can also be divided into different stages according to the different emphasis of communication. For example, for "school education", the more important part of education than material production practice is the practice of "symbolic interaction", although symbolic interaction is also the main form of conceptual innovation in the production process (see Wang Dingding, 2000c). Compared with the communicative practice of material production, the characteristic of symbolic communication practice in classroom is that it is basically a social communication behavior around' text', and the context of symbolic communication is the conceptual history of the text discussed above. In this process, participants expound the meaning of symbols from their own living conditions and gain further understanding from others' explanations (horizon fusion). In this respect, existentialism is closer to the realistic context of symbol communication than other theories, and it is easier to stimulate the enthusiasm of educational participants, that is, the so-called "commitment understanding" or "sympathy understanding". Existentialist educational philosophy emphasizes the right of individual to choose freely in the predicament of existence ("doomed to freedom") because it does not believe in the choice made by any "other" for "me" (due to the difficulty of understanding or the unfairness of social "power structure"). At this point, existentialist educational philosophy is stubbornly at the other extreme opposite to classical educational philosophy (including "eternalism"). The latter insists on the educational process that human beings, as a "class", must go through in order to open core values (life, freedom and property rights) and core abilities (feeling, language and understanding). Therefore, in the theory of curriculum design, the former emphasizes the flexibility of teaching plans, while the latter emphasizes the classicality of teaching plans. The contradiction between the above-mentioned existentialist philosophy of education and the classical philosophy of education just shows the inherent dilemma of education as a process as I understand it-autonomy vs. authority, and the conflict between autonomy and authority. It should be pointed out that the conflict between autonomy and authority is not as acute as the theory of "education as a process" in other educational theories, because, for example, for classical educational theories, the authority of their classic works and their interpreters is an unquestionable premise of education. For example, for the theory of existential education, the autonomy of the living individual is an unquestionable premise of education. Only when the educational process itself determines the autonomy of educational participants and the authority of educators will the above-mentioned basic internal dilemma appear. The self-consciousness of the educated, whether from the perspective of genetic psychology or evolutionary epistemology, means that the establishment of' autonomy' is also an evolutionary process as long as it is constantly evolving. Existentialist education methods, such as' contract education system', often encounter the problem that students should choose what to learn and how to learn independently before signing a teaching contract with teachers, but students' choice is often influenced by the opinions of teachers and parents. Derrida has a profound understanding of this: "On the one hand, cultural identity should not be dismembered by the [pluralistic movement]. On the other hand, culture [life] cannot be confined to the core of any authoritative definition "(Egea-Kuehne, 1996). The dilemma described by Derrida is also the dilemma faced by educational authorities. Here, educators and authoritative cultural interpreters, on the one hand, must insist on cultivating students' sense of identity with the existing culture in order to maintain cultural traditions, on the other hand, in order to open up the vitality of culture, they must encourage students to critically think, reinterpret and innovate the existing culture. Therefore, in education as a process, there is an interaction between autonomy and authority, which makes the relationship between students and teachers in symbolic communication artistic, rather than mechanical and predictable. Therefore, the internal tension of the above education is also the internal driving force to promote the evolution of the educational process.
Three. Educational economics and its basic problems originate from the contradiction between the ultimate goal of education and the restriction of educational living conditions pointed out in the previous section. This contradiction can be expressed as the following basic problem of educational economics: "As far as a specific group of educational participants is concerned, the maximum cognitive development and moral development of each participant's personality can be realized at the minimum cost." In this "basic problem of educational economics", "the cognitive development and moral development of personality to the greatest extent" is the ultimate goal of education, which also stipulates the contents and methods of education. As the content of education, some important categories contained in' cognitive development' are: (1) knowledge. Although the practice of educational reform in contemporary countries emphasizes that education is not a simple knowledge transfer process, the main function of contemporary education is to cultivate students' ability to think independently and acquire new knowledge, rather than storing existing knowledge (China Education News, 2000,10,65433). Richhart, 2000; Zheng Jinzhou, 2000, 2000, 2000; ; Abbott, 1999b). However,' knowledge' is still the basic content of education. Students acquire the ability of independent thinking through the formation and evolution of the basic concept of knowledge (Paul, 2000), and as mentioned in the first section, the characteristics of the times and the sense of urgency of development often make contemporary scientific and technological knowledge the primary content of learning; (2) Cultivate critical thinking ability. This function of education has become the knowledge of education reform in Britain and America (Paul, 1992), and it is also becoming one of the guiding ideology of education reform in China (Li Jianping, 2000). Whether it is standardization or individualization to cultivate students' critical thinking ability, it is necessary to establish some externally observable standards, such as logicality, clarity, accuracy, profundity and openness of thinking. Of course, these criteria are only relatively stable, and they must be changeable and evolutionary (Elder and Paul, 2000); (3) the ability to use various interpersonal skills. As I have discussed in other papers, interpersonal communication is a social place for conceptual innovation. Without this place, there is no opportunity for individuals to express and reflect on the social stage, and individual thinking will become' rootless tree, passive water' (Habermas,1992; Wang Dingding, 2000, 2000). Therefore, the development of reading and writing ability, listening and expression ability, painting and performance ability, expression and body language, and the use of computer language and internet communication means are closely related to the development of students' independent thinking and innovation ability. In the purpose of education, as the content of education,' moral development' contains some important categories: (1) social practical ability, which is Kant's' practical reason'. "I don't know manners, there is nothing to stand for." From' primary school' to' university', we know' Mingde'. The combination of family, community and school provides a basic environment for cultivating students' social practice ability; (2) taste cultivation. This is Kant's "judgment" and "aesthetic feeling", which is closely related to Schopenhauer's "will" tempering. For example, the cultivation of a sense of humor helps to enhance students' ability to bear hardships, and magnificent inspiration can often inspire the courage to fight against fate. The so-called "poetry expresses ambition", the so-called "stand in poetry, stand in ceremony, and become happy." Taste accomplishment makes education not only a' productive input' of human capital accumulation, but also a' parameter' or' utility function' of life happiness. When the parameters change, even if the input remains the same, the utility (happiness) will greatly increase; (3) The ultimate concern can be described as "the call of God", "the heaven" and "the noble spirit". Without this religious feeling, it is difficult to have the knowledge of "studying the time between man and nature" from ancient times to the present, and Wang Guowei regards it as the first level of success for a great scholar. The above is the basic content of education derived from the ultimate goal of education. These contents not only constitute a huge set of basic concepts, but also each concept must be understood in the discussion and explanation of the history of ideas. These "text" knowledge, together with the above-mentioned contents of various moral practices, need to be mastered by students in about 20 years. This leads to the question of how to achieve educational goals, such as educational economics. According to a large number of repeated empirical studies, human capital theorists come to the conclusion that in most societies, the rate of return on education investment is much higher than that of material capital. This means that the investment in education is lower than the general equilibrium level of resource allocation for a long time. Then the economic problem of human capital investment is transformed into? Quot what factors make education investment below the equilibrium level for a long time? Economists have given many answers to the above questions. Possible reasons include: parents' lack of altruism towards their children, incomplete education loan market and asymmetric information about abilities in the labor market. These studies provide a policy basis for the government's education and labor policies. The improvement of educational investment environment and the growth of educational investment can change the "input" status of education as a "human capital" production process. The internal transformation efficiency of this production process is a subject that educational economics must study. As a kind of' production process', education contains such a unique economic problem: how to allocate students' limited attention and make all kinds of teaching contents covered by educational purposes be understood to the maximum extent? The first is the economic description of the growth (or consumption) of the cognitive subject's attention resources and the way of attention distribution, including static and dynamic pictures (see Wang Dingding, 2000d). Secondly, it is necessary to describe the symbolic communication between teachers and students in the teaching process, such as the interaction between teachers' authority and students' autonomy. Finally, the technical conditions and social environment of teaching are described. Only on the basis of understanding all these complicated relationships can the study of educational economics provide the basis of economic analysis for the theory of teaching plan design and the formulation of teaching standards. In an ideal situation (complete information hypothesis), starting from the psychological and economic description of students' attention, the total amount of attention that students are willing to allocate in the process of specific human capital production is given by the equilibrium of social games (see Wang Dingding, 2000d). Based on this, the task of teaching plan design and standard formulation is: according to the distribution scheme of students' attention along time, under the constraint of given educational investment (technology, teachers, facilities, etc.). ), choose appropriate teaching content and assessment criteria, and promote students' cognitive ability and moral development to the maximum extent. Generally speaking, given the students' attention distribution scheme, the denser the teaching content, the greater the density of other inputs needed and the higher the education cost. Similarly, based on the trade-off between personalized education and economies of scale, the stricter the standard setting, the higher the education cost. Under the assumption of complete information, we can always find a balanced content and standard, so that the content and standard of education are' optimal' under the cost constraint. It must be assumed that this dynamic optimization problem has an optimal solution, and the so-called "standard" effectiveness or "efficiency loss" can be defined. Because a set of optimal standards is determined by the optimal solution, any deviation from the optimal standard will lead to a certain loss of efficiency. But in reality, as mentioned above, apart from the equilibrium mode of social game, the distribution scheme of students' attention along time cannot be determined in advance. Therefore, the design of teaching plan and the formulation of standards must be a complicated "adaptation process" to some extent. Therefore, to a certain extent, education is an art, and those who master this art are' teachers'. turn