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Knowledge Evolution and Social Control is a doctoral thesis of WU GANG, a professor at East China Normal University. It was completed in April, 20001year and published by Education Science Press the following year.
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Starting with Needham's puzzle, the author explores the development and evolution of knowledge history, and describes the similarities and differences between China's knowledge and western knowledge in detail and rigorously by using multidisciplinary knowledge and multi-level thinking. Comparing the generation, classification, preservation, transmission, selection, distribution and control of Chinese and western knowledge is profound in content and significance, and concise in language.
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First, the perspective orientation.
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From the perspective of social constructivism, the author draws lessons from the methods of genetic structuralism, institutional economics and game theory. , the Needham problem and China's history of knowledge made a new explanation. Therefore, the question of "before16th century, China's scientific and technological development surpassed that of the West in many aspects. Why did modern science rise in Europe instead of China?" naturally becomes "Why did the West produce a scientific knowledge form while China and other civilizations did not produce such a knowledge form?" Therefore, the author uses sociological theory to analyze knowledge, from the generation, classification, dissemination, distribution to application and evaluation of knowledge, and interprets it from all angles. The author thinks that China's knowledge comes from the demand of ethical order and value, and its main purpose is to seek use; Western knowledge, on the other hand, comes from the need for knowledge, which is a kind of pure curiosity. This different way of thinking about knowledge determines that China and the West have embarked on diametrically opposite paths in their views on knowledge. The form of western scientific knowledge has laid a solid foundation with the passage of time and promoted the birth of natural science; However, China's knowledge has imprisoned scholars' thinking and imagination, making China closed and arrogant.
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Finally, the author thinks that civilizations originating from different living environments have developed different cognitive schemas in the process of adapting to natural living conditions, which control the development trend of knowledge in China and influence the fate of Chinese and Western cultures. In this process of understanding, China people who were far ahead of the world before16th century gradually lost the motivation of development, and gradually fell behind the rational thinking ability of the West, forming a "super-stable" form of China cultural circle. This is the difference between Chinese and western cultures.
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Second, structural logic.
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In the aspect of structural logic, the author always focuses on the historical evolution of knowledge, expounds logically from the aspects of knowledge generation and classification, production principle, preservation and transmission, selection and distribution, control of educational knowledge, application and evaluation of knowledge, and compares the differences between Chinese and western knowledge from many angles.
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In the author's view, China's knowledge is a kind of conceptual logic, while western knowledge further develops judgment logic and reasoning logic, which is reflected in the classification of knowledge. The classification of ancient knowledge in China is people-centered, focusing on ethics and beliefs; Western knowledge classification takes nature as the center and pays attention to the objective essence of things and their logical correlation. In the process of knowledge transmission, the author said: "The knowledge ladder formed by the knowledge transmission of each generation, thus opening up an upward climbing channel for successors, has become the natural mission of knowledge and cultural transmission." The spread of western education with "free education" as the core provides a utilitarian view of seeking knowledge, which is in sharp contrast with the practical value concept of "Six Arts Education" formed by China, and affects the final development of Chinese and western knowledge. In addition, the choice and distribution of knowledge involves the master of knowledge, that is, the theory of knowledge power. China's ancient knowledge seems to be in a constant and stable state, while the western knowledge is branching off in disciplines with the historical changes, which greatly affects the evolution of Chinese and western knowledge. Solidified knowledge has created a stagnant empire, which is not the result of simple external constraints, but the evolution of an internal historical activity, which is the capital exchange of scholars. The Scholars is the product of China's knowledge development, and it also strongly maintains the solidification of China's knowledge. In mutual communication, the two maintained the feudal ruling order.
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Third, the gains and losses of the way of thinking
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From the perspective of epistemology, the author makes multi-level thinking around knowledge, which is a "sharing" analysis and comprehensive way of thinking. This book is knowledge-centered, scattered in all directions, and considers the generation, classification, dissemination, preservation, control and evaluation of knowledge in many aspects. In addition, the author also makes a comparative analysis of Chinese and western knowledge by means of comparative thinking, but there is too little discussion on the selection, distribution and control of western knowledge, which is a big deficiency.
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In a word, the author discusses the evolution of the history of educational knowledge from the perspective of social constructivism in Knowledge Evolution and Social Control, which is a book with broad vision, interdisciplinary and rigorous language. Although I can't fully understand it, the author's clever use of extensive knowledge has benefited people a lot.
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Accumulate knowledge and store treasures, and enrich talents with strategies!