The Epistemology Of Comparative Education

Epistemology is considered as the philosophical doctrine in a general sense. It involves the questions about the nature and origins of human knowledge which is the cognition and reflection of itself. It is the thought of thought, and an important branch of Philosophy. From the perspective of epistemology to study comparative education, we can recognize it as a way or activity of understanding education. It is a component of the general human cognition which has different connotations. From the perspective of the object, it is about the "Other’s education" awareness and the understanding of this awareness. From this level of cognition, comparative education is not only an epistemic activity, but also a practical one. Meanwhile, from the epistemological perspective on comparative education, it consists of four levels of cognition. Subjects, objects and intermediaries are the components. Adopting the method of depth-level analysis, the subject can be divided into the purely-own culture possessor, shallow-exotic culture possessor, exotic-culture-knowing possessor and highly-exotic culture possessor based on the degree of one subject entering the culture of "Other’s education". Likewise, according to the reflected degree of the subjectivity of the intermediary or object, the object can be divided into educational facilities object, social norms object, institutional system object, the object from the perspective of subject, and object served by activity subject, while the intermediary can be divided into physical means intermediary, related theories intermediary, organizations intermediary, educational text intermediary and intermediary served by activity subject.The form of comparative education originally came from people’s curiosity. This is the original motivation of recognizing the "Other’s education" and the direct fountainhead of pursuing it. Social movements not only to liberate humanity and promote a rational way of exploring education, but also the consequential modern scientific rationality has a direct impact on the cognitive style of comparative education, which makes the recognition of "Other’s education" more systematic and scientific. The international competition, after the education has been found significantly important in the process of national development, urges nations to investigate systematically the "Other’s education" system, and helps the understanding about the"Other’s education" step into the conventional development stage. The formation of comparative education relates to the three types of purposes of understanding the "Other’s education". Among them, understanding and seeking knowledge are to meet people’s natural curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, which is the knowledge purpose of comparative education. Learning and reforms are to meet the educational needs in a particular region or country, which is the options of different means exploring the thought resources for people to "answer" the "questions" of the current educational issues, which is the practical purpose of comparative education. The ultimate goal of comparative education is communication and understanding among international communities, ethnic groups and people. The understanding is based on the understanding of the communication and the communication is the communication in understanding. By the understanding and the communication, people can touch the international education, and reveal the truth in the world of education.So far, comparative education has been applied to analyze, to understand and to interpret education from different paths, of which space-time path is one. In the traditional concept of time and space, the space of comparative study is usually associated with the nation-state. The space, it merely means a fixed, bordered and touched space from sensorial perspective whilst the concept of time in modern western history usually refers to the linear chronology. Therefore, in the process of recognizing comparative education, we would be well-advised to change the existing concept of time and space, so that comparative studies can be emancipated from it. In addition, the scientific path of comparative analysis and understanding education has become the mainstream of educational development. Apart from them, cultural path is another way in leaning and understanding education. Meanwhile, in the historical development of comparative education, from different paths to analyze and understand education, comparative education can evolve into several different theoretical paradigms, such as historicism, functionalism, globalism and multiculturalism and so on. Although various theories have their limitations, they can, respectively, expound their views and positions from different standpoint, thereby it has made a corresponding contribution on the development of comparative education. Various theories are based on different cognitional paths with corresponding rationality. Due to the complexity of their own, we should hold a tolerant attitude towards these theories and maintain a "neutral" stance.In the process of understanding the world, people should not only require their own innate talent and efforts, but also need conditions that the society provides. As a way or an activity of understanding the "Other’s education", comparative education also calls for the subject’s personal conditions and specific social conditions. In that case, appropriate conditions are demanded for their subjects; proper costs are needed in learning activities and the skills of understanding the "Other’s education" are also required. Meanwhile, as a way of understanding education, comparative education also has a certain function. On the whole, firstly, comparative education has a cognitional function. Secondly, in the development of comparative education, on the account of the needs of times and a particular nation-state, the cognitional activities possess experience and mode in drawing on "Other’s education" and have functions of improving education themselves. Besides, from the epistemological perspective, comparative education not only includes the understanding of "Other’s education", but also embraces awareness of this understanding. That is how to understand the "Other’s education" more efficiently and to learn their own. Hence, it also has a scientific function.But no matter what kind of function, comparative education, being a fundamental part of human cognitive activities and restricted to various subjective and objective conditions, its functions were only met under certain conditions and they all have distinct limits.On understanding of the history of comparative education, People regard its birth as a sign of the beginning in general or perceive the long period as a prehistoric stage or embryonic stage before its birth. But this understanding is based on the statement that comparative education is a discipline. It fails to recognize explicitly that comparative education has such a long historical development. If we restudy the history of it, we can find that the entire understanding of comparative education is centered round education and comparative education itself and develops towards the complexity of the global.In terms of the knowledge characteristic of comparative education, whether we simply cognize the activities of "Other’s education" or see "own-possessed education" activities from the perspective of other’s sight", they are all the educational cognitional activities being perceived by the subject from the "other’s sight ". Therefore, the comparative education firstly features the "other’s sight". Just as the construction of scientific knowledge, the knowledge of comparative education is the secondary construction of educational knowledge. On the basis of recognizing "Other’s education" and thereby rethinking "own-possessed education", people try to construct a kind of education, in which they can fit, in order to realize the secondary construction of the global education. From a historical perspective, comparative education is not only endowed with essential identities of different cultures, but also has obvious characteristics of crossing and reading of the world.