How can one be perfected by music?—contemporary educational significance of Chinese pre-Qin Confucian thought on Yue Jiao (music education)

Chen, Jia

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Description

Title

How can one be perfected by music?—contemporary educational significance of Chinese pre-Qin Confucian thought on Yue Jiao (music education)

Author(s)

Chen, Jia

Issue Date

2012-09-18T21:19:44Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Dhillon, Pradeep A.

Doctoral Committee Chair(s)

Dhillon, Pradeep A.

Committee Member(s)

• Mayo, Cris S.
• Pandharipande, Rajeshwari V.
• Higgins, Christopher R.

Department of Study

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Degree Level

Dissertation

Keyword(s)

• Yue Jiao (Music Education)
• Chinese Pre-Qin Confucians
• Ritual and Music
• Ancient Greek Aesthetics
• Personhood as an Integrated Whole

Abstract

My dissertation project is an examination of aesthetic thought of Chinese pre-Qin Confucians with a focus on the idea of Yue Jiao (Music Education). Confucius, the founder of the Confucian School is regarded as the first educational philosopher in Chinese history both chronologically and in importance. A central theme in his aesthetics is that the final perfection of one’s personhood as an integrated whole is accomplished by the study of music. In this project, I will analyze key aspects in Confucian notion of music and education, and the links between those two and harmonized social relations. In my project, I propose to argue that education of a personhood as a whole is central to be a human being in today’s world. I suggest that aesthetic education, music education in particular, has an indispensible role in developing a harmonious balance between our rational intelligence and emotional sensibilities. Music education provides an ideal for living in the world today when unity is achieved without eliminating diversities. My discussion of the contemporary educational significance of Yue Jiao contains two dimensions: (a) cultural, educational communications and mutual learning between the East and West; and (b) a reflective dialogue on education between history and the present. In the first dimension, I find considerable resonance and significant differences between Confucian aesthetics and key issues in ancient Greek aesthetics. Both traditions have a long history of the important role of music in human development and education. But they differ in their understanding of the foundation of musical value: for the ancient Chinese, it is emotive and social; for the ancient Greece, it is mostly rational. With the second dimension, I argue that a close examination of Confucian thought on Yue Jiao will contribute to the reflection on the nature and role of education in today’s world. For how we educate a student to develop her personhood as a whole in a modern world of fragmentation and over specialization is the most critical question that educational philosophers must address. For this purpose, this project will discuss how ancient Chinese aesthetic traditions may bring new ways for us to understand contemporary educational problems and work on solutions, in ways that bear some relation to Western aesthetic traditions but also diverge in significant ways.

Graduation Semester

2012-08

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Copyright 2012 Jia Chen

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