Characters of music education: Confucian and Daoist inspirations

What is music? What is education? Putting the two together, what is music education? These are fundamental questions that philosophers of music education have sought to address. Notwithstanding recent attempts towards philosophical diversity, the philosophy of music education remains largely Western in orientation, with limited presentations of Asian philosophies. This study aims to play a part in redressing the imbalance.

The purpose of this philosophical thesis is to systematically examine four key Chinese characters related to music education as used in Confucian and Daoist texts: sheng (聲: sound), yin (音: tone), yue (樂: music), and jiao (教: educate). My specific research questions are: (1) How are the four characters construed in Confucian and Daoist philosophical texts, in particular, the Analects and the Daodejing? (2) Based on my analyses, what inspirations might Confucian and Daoist philosophies offer music education?

To answer my research questions, I analyse 23 passages from the Analects of Confucius and Laozi’s Daodejing, and sketch some possible inspirations for music education at the end of each analysis. After analysing the passages separately, I conduct meta-analyses across passages to further understand how notions of music and education might differ between the two philosophical traditions.

My analyses reveal that in the Confucian tradition, sheng ranks the lowest: it refers to sounds that even animals can hear and music that does not have ethical value. This is followed by yin and finally yue (music that Confucius deems ethical). The Daoist ontological ladder of music is quite the opposite. Laozi places yue (music he deems attractive but distracting) right at the bottom, preferring instead, to value yin and sheng at an equal level over yue. Most importantly, for Laozi, music at its highest transcends sound. With respect to education, both Confucius and Laozi share a similar mistrust for words and prefer shenjiao (身教: teaching by example). While Confucius argues that education is needed because it is the ethical thing to do, Laozi reminds us to do it ethically—never forcing, never bullying.

From four characters, eight additional ones emerge from my analyses: ren (仁: humaneness), li (禮: ritual), le (樂: joy), cheng (成: complete), wu (無: nothing), he (和: harmonise), xi (希: rarified), and Dao (道: the Way). Synthesising all eight characters, I posit my Confucian-Daoist inspired theory of music education, one that can be thought of using the metaphor “the mountain and the water” (shanshui 山水; Analects 6.23). Finally, I arrive at the central philosophical argument derived from my analyses of the philosophical texts: music education can be thought of as the education of human becoming and Way-making.