从柏拉图洞隐喻看哲学教育的可能性 ─ 兼论教育应该怎样关渉幸福

Plato’s Cave ─ Metaphor and the Possibility of Philosophical Education：some views on how to orient education toward happiness

幸福乃是一切人类活动的终极目标，教育关渉幸福，这是不证自明的问题。正因为如此，关键的问题并不在于教育要 不要关渉幸福，以幸福为基本价值诉求，而在于，教育究竟应该关渉怎样的幸福，何种幸福本身就内含着通向幸福的路径而幸福问题的根本，乃在于生活方式的选择。哲学生活与民众生活的冲突无疑是贯穿人类生活始终的基本问题，甚至是事关个体存在的中心问题。柏拉图的洞穴隐喻，揭示哲学生活与民众生活冲突的不可避免，以及哲学教的艰难。随着现代社会的民主化，民众生活在现代化中的位序提升，哲学生活在物欲化的生活中日趋晦蔽，这进一歩加剧了哲学教育的艰难。在今天，教育哲学就是要为哲学教育提供辩护，或者说为哲学生活提供教育的辩护，以此为我国微弱的哲学教育，也就是自由教育，或者人文教育，提供内在的支持。

It is self─evident that education should be oriented towards happiness， since the latter is generally regarded as the ultimate goal of all human activities. Therefore， the key issue here is not whether education should be oriented toward happiness or whether happiness should be considered as the basic value to pursue， but what kind of happiness it is to orient towards and what kinds of happiness itself indicates a way to happiness. The fundamentality of happiness lies in the choice of lifestyles. Admittedly， during our lifetime， there is a constant conflict between the worldly being and metaphysical being， which even becomes the core issue of human existence. Such an inevitable conflict， together with the impracticability of Philosophical Education， is vividly illustrated in Plato’s Cave─Metaphor. Similar problem can also be found in democratic modern society， where worldly interests have been attached much greater importance， whereas metaphysical speculation has long been discouraged. Philosophical Education， as a result， seems to be an even more impracticable and formidable task now. To tackle this task， Educational Philosophy should speak louder in support of Philosophical Education or metaphysical being， so as to provide inner support for the weak Philosophical Education， that is ， Liberal Education， or Humanistic Education.