Yu, Yih-hsien. "Whitehead and Postmodern Education." Tunghai University. Unpublished work.
俞懿嫻. "后现代教育与怀海德." 东海大学。 未出版作.
Abstract
By the end of the nineteenth century, Friedrich W.
Nietzsche, the forerunner of contemporary deconstructive postmodernism, had
prophesized the arrival of European Nihilism and it was indeed followed by the
torrents of anti-metaphysics of the twentieth century, wiping out all
traditional ideals and value systems. These torrents of “postmodernism” were
against the authority of traditional culture as well as against the modern
society of high-tech and capitalism. Now we are in the early years of the
twenty-first century, and the “postmodern way” unavoidably becomes a part of
our life and deeply influences the theory and the practice of our school
education. Yet modern education as the child of the Enlightenment believes in
social progress and human emancipation from ignorance via public education and
science/technology and it has made modernity as its presupposition. The very
rationale of modern education is found on the idea of an autonomous person who
is endowed with the capacity of self-control and self-improvement, a rational
agent with his own end. All this seems to be incompatible with the postmodern
project which seeks to delegitimate reason and knowledge, to decenter the
conscious subject, and to deconstruct language as well as culture. The
postmodern project denies the concept of a rational, autonomous individual and
embraces the decentering subject governed by unconsciousness; will to power,
and insatiable desire. Alfred North Whitehead, being one of the most important
metaphysicians of the twentieth century, had proposed a different program from
that of the deconstructive postmodernists. He was in many respects agreed with
those postmodern philosophers in their refutations of modernity and of certain
presuppositions of science and technology. Nonetheless, he never gave up the
supremacy of reason and all the necessary factors of which a worldview is composed.
In their rejection of the modern worldview, the deconstructive postmodernists
dismissed the traditional ideas of ideals, value, meaning, selfhood, divinity,
and God, which are indispensable for any human perspectives. It is undeniable
that the deconstruct project can only lead us to relativism and nihilism with
no way out. In the early stage of his philosophical development, Whitehead also
unleashed a series of criticism of the modern worldview and its presuppositions,
such as representational epistemology, the substantial concept of subject, and
the Christian God. However, he also managed to make speculative reason a
supplement to the modern scientific reason, the interrelatedness of events a
replacement of the isolation of vacuous substances, and the union of facts and
value a substitution for value-free facts. And above all, Whitehead has explored
both the aesthetic and logical functions of language and emphasized the
limitation of scientific language. By this way Whitehead’s philosophy seems to propose
an alternative to the postmodern educators who are aware of the crisis caused
by the modernity, and at the same time are reluctant to be trapped by the
postmodernity.
在十九世紀末，解構後現代主義的先驅尼采曾宣告歐洲虛無主義的來臨，遂令二十世紀西方當代哲學發展出淹沒傳統觀念、理想、價值與意義的浪潮。這股「後現代」的浪潮既反對傳統權威與文化理想，也不滿於現代科學理性與高科技、資本主義的社會。時至今日，在廿一世紀初，「後現代」已不知不覺地成為我們生活的一部份。「教育」作為後現代生活中不可或缺的一環，無論其理論與實踐均受到這「後現代氛圍」的影響。然而「現代教育」正是最具現代精神的「啟蒙之子」。普及教育，傳授知識，使大多數人從無知愚昧中解放出來，其背後的預設便是「現代」。現代教育家向以培育自動自發、自主自立的理性主體為要務。而「後現代」卻以推翻「理性」、「系統知識」、「自我意識」和「主體」為己任，以尋求由潛意識、語言、權力和慾望所構成的「去中心的主體」為其特色。當代歷程哲學的奠基者懷德海是二十世紀西方最偉大的形上學家之一；當形上學成為眾矢之的之際，懷德海和極其少數的哲學家卻仍堅持形上學的必要與價值，使他在當代哲學或「後現