Philosopher Zehou Li and an Aesthetics-Education Approach to Educational Maturity

Abstract: This presentation is composed of two parts: (1) my study of approximately three aspects of Zehou Li’s aestheticised philosophy and (2) my application of these relevant aspects of Li’s philosophy to develop an aesthetics-education approach in order to deal with the educational question—the issue of educational maturity—that I set out to consider in my doctoral thesis. My expositions/examinations of Li’s thought involve his aesthetic metaphysics, aesthetic ethical theory, and theory of subjectality. Based on Li’s cross-cultural philosophical inquiry, I explore how he reinterprets Chinese tradition through Western perspectives such as aesthetics, Marxist theory, and Kantian philosophy to establish his own philosophical system which is meaningful not only in contemporary China but also for our global world.

As a piece of work in philosophy of education, my major task lies in the applied study of developing an aesthetics-education approach to educational maturity. I first reformulate my philosophical research question about educational maturity, in which three ‘immature’ states of mind in a Kantian sense are identified in contemporary education—states of mind by which students, parents, and teachers are respectively and typically encumbered.  I then draw upon the aesthetic state of mind which I have elaborated through Li’s lens to explore practical ways out of dilemmas. The present form of my aesthetics-education approach is concerned with educational reforms at various system levels. It includes reconsiderations of the prevailing practice of student evaluation and the dominant policy ideology of teacher education—accompanied by a new proposal regarding the idea of parent-oriented collaborative research.

Bio: Flora Liuying Wei has been a Doctoral student at the University of Glasgow since 2015, with a special interest in the philosophical approach to education. She is currently interested in philosophy of education in a cross-cultural context. This research interest for her has two dimensions: (1) in terms of educational scholarship, it includes a comparison of Philosophy of Education in the Anglophone world with General Pedagogy (Allgemeine Pädagogik) in the German tradition; (2) in terms of philosophy, it is basically related to a comparison of philosophies undergirding the construction of different cultures/civilisations, in particular between contrasting cultures/civilisations such as that of the Chinese and that of the ‘West’. Her latest publication is ‘Modern Teacher’s Public and Private Morality: An Approach Inspired by Philosopher Zehou Li’. In: Peters M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Teacher Education. Springer, Singapore. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_15-1.