该课程基于中国著名社会学家、人类学家费孝通先生的“文化自觉”论, 辅之以梁漱溟先生《中国文化要义》、《中西文化及其哲学》及《东方学术概观》为理论框架,结合西方知名学者如Bertrand Russell, Joseph Needham, Edward Jenks, Jean-Jacques Rousseau等相关著作,以appreciation(赏析)作为教学法,通过主题模块式讨论(涵盖诸如家庭与集团、道德与宗教、礼俗与法律、职业与阶级、国家与天下等主题)以阐述中西文化在不同方面的差异及其分途之原因,以达到启发学生理性(即自觉)以用于文化自省(introspection)的目的。
This course employs the famous sociologist and anthropologist Fei Xiaotong (1910–2005), or Fei Hsiao-Tung’s cultural self-awareness arguments as the theoretical framework, jointly with both Chinese and English classics, including Liang Shuming’s (1893 - 1988) works such as The Fundamentals of Chinese Culture, Chinese and Western Culture and Philosophy, The Overview of Oriental Scholarship as well as Bertrand Russell, Joseph Needham, Edward Jenks, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s books. This course adopts appreciation as the pedagogy, through modular discussions that cover a wide range of themes, including family versus group life, virtue versus religion, etiquette and custom versus laws, profession versus class, nation versus tianxia (society), to elucidate the differences between Oriental and Occidental cultures and the underlying reasons for such differences. The overall objective of the course is to arouse the consciousness (awareness) of students and to encourage them apply it into daily cultural introspection.