도덕교육에서의 교과와 생활의 관련

The Connection of Subject matter and Life in Moral Education

Moral knowledge as subject matter tends to be construed as a means for moral action in life. This tendency associate with means for moral action in life. This tendency associate with Dewey’s antischolastic conception of subject matter that theoretical knowledge has educational value as far as it can serve as means for the practical problem solving in life. Many scholars and practitioners think that the motivation for moral action is the key to overcoming ‘the discrepancy between knowledge and action.’ This approach reveals a most serious defect that they disregard the transcendental dimension of morality which make possible the unity of knowledge and action in a deeper sense. Neo-Confucian theory of self-cultivation, as interpreted by Professor Hong-Woo Lee, can shed light on the connection of subject matter and life in moral education. He suggests that Investigation of Principle(窮理) and Self-Cultivation(涵養) are to be understood as the two channels of moral self-cultivation, constituted by their proper media: Concept and Symbol. Both of Concept and Symbol are the manifestations of the Realty, but mediate it in a different way; the former conceptually or mediately and the latter intuitively or immediately. The connection of subject matter and life as the proper channels of moral education corresponds exactly to the relation of Concept and Symbol as the media for moral self-cultivation.