Zhuangzi's Aesthetic Education Thought And Its Modern Significance

For a long time,many scholars only pay attention to the Confucian thought of aesthetic education,so they ignore the contribution of the related theory for the Taoist,especially the Chuang tzuthought of aesthetic education.Facing the order of chaos and the value of chaotic social conditions at that time,Confucian,as a thinker in the Axial age,put his eye on the people.He attempted to remove all kinds of restrictions of the individuals and achieve breakthrough about human survival predicament.Different from the education of Confucian outside—in approach,Chuang tzu was based on ontology of people through the inside—out approach.He focused on the thinking of human survival predicament,payed attention to the individuals,value of life,abided by the nature of human nature,guided the salf—salvation of individuals,adhered to the heart of self accomplishment and abandoned the desire of material utilitarian,through the realization of “Tao” and profound beauty of heaven and earth,thus to realize harmony and unification between people and self,man and nature,and people and society,and to achieve aesthetic state of mind at ease adaptive.This part has abundant and deep educational significance,so this paper calls it Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.In modern society,the rational value and instrumental rationality split,and the material and spiritual life develop extremely imbalanced,so aesthetic education plays irreplaceable role on the human spirit beautification,feelings purification and personality shaping.There is no denying that modern aesthetic education still has many questons.For instance,it is still an outside education way in practice,which does not pay enough attention to the aesthetic experience and focus adequately on the aesthetic personality and so on.For the current education reform,to make the whole education process accord with the aesthetic personality of educatees,permeate to create spirit of freedom and overcome the doctrinaire and spoon—feeding education way,there is no doubt that Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education has very siginicant reference.This paper is based on the research of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education by the previous scholars,thus to summarize the main contents of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education,try to discover his aesthetic education connotation about advocate nature and paying attention to life,and construct relatively complete aesthetic education idelogy,to take its essence,goes to itsdregs,in the hope of providing some inspiration for the theory and pratice of modern aesthetic education.This paper is mainly divided into five chapters as the follows: the first chapter is introduction.It mainly introduces the topic selection background,reasons,the aim and meaning of this study,the review of related literature from China,research methods and so on.The second chapter is about the formation of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.This part is mainly from two aspects to explain realistic roots and theoretical basis of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.The realistic foundation is mainly divided into three aspects: first,against the alienation of human civilization process,second,the criticism of the Confucian "system of rites and music",third,the buds of the pre-qin aesthetic consciousness.The theoretical basis is mainly divided into three aspects: first,Tao follows nature,second,heaven-man unity,third,the theory of human nature.The third chapter is about the main contents of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education,which is also the main body of this paper.This chapter is mainly from four aspects to respectively explain the asthetic connotation,educational aims,main methods and trait.The four chapter is the influences and inner contradictions of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.The five chapter is about the modern sense of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.It is mainly from two aspects to discuss the theoretical significance and practice instruction sense of Chuang tzu thought of aesthetic education.