從儒家思想分析美國對大學通識教育課程之思考

A Confucian Analysis of American Thinking on General Education in the College Curriculum

美國高等教育機構中提倡通識教育的人提出支持通識教育的理由，通常會強調西方題材在通識教育課程中的重要性。最知名的例外是哥倫比亞大學的威廉．德貝瑞（Wm. Theodore de Bary）教授。他支持哥倫比亞大學廣為人知且融入亞洲元素的通識課程。本人將檢視哥倫比亞大學的通識課程模型造成哪些影響，更重要的是這個模型對美國通識教育必修課程應該有怎樣的影響。本文也會考量在二十一世紀世界的高等教育中，亞洲及東亞研究在更加全球化的通識教育課程中，應該扮演多重要的角色。本文主張東亞研究，特別是儒家思想，提供豐富的人文思想與實踐方式，可以協助美國甚至全球的高等教育，使其通識教育更強化亦或更豐富。此外，儒家針對教育提出的學說，強調的內涵在很大程度上與西方針對通識教育提出的見解相符，因此在很大程度上，可以印證通識教育研究的價值與完整性。從這方面來看，儒家思想可說是強化了通識教育的普世價值，因為它印證這些研究並不是單單來自西方高等教育的文化自大。

Advocates of general education in American institutions of higher education often offer rationales emphasizing the importance of Western subject matter as the crucial content of general education courses. One noteworthy exception to this has been Professor Wm. Theodore de Bary, proponent of the well-known curriculum at Columbia College providing for an Asian component within the general education curriculum. This paper examines the extent to which the Columbia model for general education has impacted, and most importantly should impact, American general education requirements. The paper also considers the question to what extent Asian and East Asian studies should be integral components of more global general education curricula in the world of twenty-first century higher education. The paper argues that East Asian studies in general, and Confucian thinking in particular, has a wealth of humanistic thought and practice to offer not just American but global higher education, reinforcing if not enriching general education curricula. Moreover, Confucian thinking on education, insofar as its emphases are generally largely consistent with Western thinking about general education, corroborates, to a considerable extent, the value and integrity of general education studies. In this regard Confucian thinking arguably enhances the universal value of general education studies by establishing that those studies are not simply cultural conceits of Western higher education.