Holistic Education and Theories of Embodied Cognition

本論文試圖從體現認知論來證成全人教育的重要性。全人教育作為一種教育理念，主要在恢復全人整體圖像，把身體、心理與靈性的元素，融入生活處境中進行整合，而這也成為我國教育改革期望能達到的目標之一。體現認知論成為二十一世紀中，逐漸成形一種新型態的認知科學，各領域的學者，都一致地認為身體與環境，不只是扮演過去傳統認知科學中的因果角色，而且是認知活動的構成要件，換言之，認知活動並不侷限我們的腦內，身體與情境的改變，足以影響我們認知的心理內容，認知是整合性的動態活動。 重新整頓我們對認知的理解，過去錯誤地認為認知只限於腦內的標準認知論，體現認知論對我們的認知學習現象，如知覺活動、概念範疇與語言意義提出新穎的建構與再描述，並建立出較為恰當的認知模型。體現認知論要點在於個體的認知現象是知覺與行動的不可分，反對自我身處在旁觀者的客觀知識模式，所有的知識學習都是和身體有關係。 研究者為了要把體現認知論和全人教育的思想結合，把體現論當作是全人教育的理論基礎，本文先論述全人教育的理念，探究身體、心理與靈性統合的教育思想，提出一種人類的整體圖像來修正物質主義、化約主義的偏差。然而整體論的思想又繼續區分成腦內計算表徵論的認知學習模式以及擴大到身體、環境與認知整合的體現論。研究者在比較兩種不同的整體論後，從知覺與行動的不可分後，確立出身體與情境具有認知構成性，並推論出認知是具有身體活動為主的認知意像圖式的動態生成性。 最後，研究者認為，體現認知論重新定位身體的意義，以身體為核心發展與環境互動下意像圖式作為基礎的想像力，能夠統整個體的知覺、情意、理性，並從想像力中看出我們都具有同樣的認知結構，使得全人教育有更深刻意涵。 關鍵字：全人教育、想像力、標準認知論、體現認知論、靈性教育The purpose of dissertation focuses on justifying the value of holistic education from theories of embodied cognition. Holistic education as the ideal of education tries to recover a human being’s whole image which integrating body, mind, and spirituality as a unity. At the meanwhile, the holistic education is the one of our educational goals in Taiwan. It is very interesting that there is a new science of mind called theories of embodied cognition gradually forming in beginning of 21 century. Scholars from different domains claim consistently that our body and environment do not only play the causal roles but also being the constitutive elements in our cognitive processes. In other words, our body and environment have significant meaning to influence our cognitive content. The cognitive activities can’t be constrained in our brain alone, which are integrative and dynamical activities actually. Theories of embodied cognition disagrees with the claims of standard cognitive theories which believe that all the phenomena of cognition only occur in our brain. Embodied cognition tries using different angle to re-describe what is perception, conceptual categories, the meaning of language, and building a new cognitive model properly. The core of embodied cognition is based on the perception as action which implies that the structure of knowledge is based on our body. This ideas are different the disembodied structure of knowledge. In order to making the connection between the embodied cognition and holistic education, I use the embodied cognition as the foundation of holistic education. The dissertation illustrates the picture of holistic education which wants to integrate body, mind, and spirituality as a unity and fix the erroneous materialism and reductionism in our education. However, there are two kinds of holisms, one is called standard cognition which claim that cognitive phenomena are constrained in our brain, and the others are called the embodied cognition which claim that our body and environment constitute our cognitive processes. Compared with the two theories, there are many evidences to support the embodied cognition which justifies the body and environment playing significant roles in our cognition and give a conclusion that the cognition is a dynamical enactedness which involves using the image schema. Finally, I think the embodied cognition give new meaning of the body, the body is the core to develop the image schema as the foundation of imagination which can integrates perception, emotion, and reason. Everyone has this cognitive structure which give the new interpretation of holistic education. Keywords: embodied cognitive theories, holistic education, imagination, spiritual education, standard cognitive theories