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Drawing on Spencer’s question “What knowledge is of most worth?” and engaging educators such as Dewey and Freire, it reassesses how moral cultivation and learning should be prioritized while addressing the complexity highlighted in classical Chinese philosophy.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/what-knowledge-is-of-most-worth-considering-the-neo-confucians-in-the-contemporary-debate-between-moral-and-intellectual-learning/601499/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/what-knowledge-is-of-most-worth-considering-the-neo-confucians-in-the-contemporary-debate-between-moral-and-intellectual-learning/601499.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"anakgang17","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-30","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":55},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",6,{"@type":57,"mainEntity":58},"FAQPage",[59,65,69],{"name":60,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":62},"What is the central question the article addresses about knowledge?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"It focuses on “What knowledge is of most worth?”, tracing how the relative value of different kinds of knowledge shapes education debates.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"How does the article relate Neo-Confucians to contemporary education?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It argues Neo-Confucian thought remains relevant in the 21st century and helps explain and clarify contemporary controversies in education.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"Why does the article emphasize moral learning over purely intellectual pursuits?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It presents Confucius’s view that moral cultivation should take primacy, while also noting the debate cannot be resolved so simply and continues through classical Chinese educational philosophy.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":75,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":77,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":79,"site_id":7},601499,1792171480,{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":83},"success",[84,88,92,96,101,105,110,114,119,122,126],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":85,"show_sort_weight":86,"slug":87},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":89,"show_sort_weight":90,"slug":91},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":93,"show_sort_weight":94,"slug":95},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":97,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":55,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":112,"slug":113},8,30,"research-report",{"id":115,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":116,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":118},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":117,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":117,"slug":121},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":123,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":123,"slug":125},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":127,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":129},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":82,"data":131},{"doc_id":79,"user_id":132,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":111,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":55,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":115,"language":139,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":143,"read_time":144},962090883568,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","What Knowledge is of Most Worth? Considering the Neo-Confuciansin the Contemporary Debate Between Moral and Intellectual Learning  \nJohn Patrick Shekitka  Manhattanville College  \nECNU Review of Education 2024, Vol. 7(1) 155–163 © The Author(s) 2022 Article reuse guidelines:  \n[sagepub.com/journals-permissions](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[ ](sagepub.com/journals-permissions)[DOI: 10.1177/20965311221145446](DOI: 10.1177/20965311221145446)[ ](DOI: 10.1177/20965311221145446)[journals.sagepub.com/home/roe](journals.sagepub.com/home/roe)  \nHighlights  \n• The perennial debate regarding the relative usefulness of various forms of knowledge, especially between the theoretical and practical and the intellectual and moral, lies at the heart of education in both past and present times in both the West and China (de Bary, 1988, 2004, 2005, 2015) .  \n• Neo-Confucians remain relevant in the 21st century and can help us to understand and elucidate contemporary debates in education—specifically, to answer the question Spencer asked nearly a century and a half ago: “What knowledge is of most worth?”.  \n• Mencius, Zhu Xi, Wang Yangming, Xu Ai, and Kang Youwei advocated for a type of learning that would strongly resonate with John Dewey (1938) and Paulo Freire (1970, 1978) . Foundational philosophies of education, particularly in the United States, have drawn heavily on 20th century European-American thinkers; this article attempts to correct this myopia and broaden perspectives.  \nCorresponding author:  \nJohn Patrick Shekitka, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education, Manhattanville College, 2900 Purchase Street, Purchase, New York 10577, USA.  \nEmail: [shekitka@gmail.com](shekitka@gmail.com)  \nCreative Commons Non Commercial CC BY-NC: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative  \nCommons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ([https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page ([https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage](https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage)).  \nKeywords  \nFreire, John Dewey, Neo-Confucian  \nDate received: 31 December 2021; revised: 24 February 2022, 7 September 2022; accepted: 21 October 2022  \nIn 1860, the English polymath Herbert Spencer wrote “What knowledge is of most worth?” a treatise expounding upon the worth ofvarious forms ofknowledge. For Spencer, a startling disconnect existed between theory and practice. For example, heremarked that schoolboys used their “Latin and Greek to no practical purposes,” and that the erstwhile average student “in his shop, or his office, in managing his estate or his family, in playing his part as director of a bank or a railway,… is very little aided by this knowledge he took so many years to acquire”(Spencer, 1860) .  \nIn my own work, I have trained undergraduate and graduate students to become social studies teachers in secondary schools. Regarding social studies specifically, Spencer observed a foundation based on a robust study of history, not only merely top-down but also bottom-up. However, more integral is applying this history in the understanding of “social phenomena” and the knowledge that these are “phenomena of life … the most complex manifestations of life,” which “are ultimately dependent on the laws of life—and can be understood only when the laws of life are understood”(Spencer, 1860:63) . In my work as a teacher-educator, I attempt to not only walk this line between history and social studies but also incorporate the theoretical and practical elements of an effective teacher. It is worth considering how this tension continues in the philosophy of education.  \nThis perennial debate over the relative usefulness of various forms of knowledge, especially between the theoretic","cbCailF49K68RcnT","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCailF49K68RcnT","pdf",353977,"English","# Highlights\n## Perennial debate on knowledge usefulness\n## Neo-Confucians’ relevance to contemporary education\n## Links to Dewey and Freire\n# The central question and Spencer’s argument\n## Theory versus practice\n## Social studies, history, and social phenomena\n# Confucius on moral primacy in education\n## Filial piety, respect, earnestness\n## Limits of simple resolution\n# Mencius and the redefinition of excellence\n## Virtue as innate and enacted in leadership","[{\"question\":\"What is the central question the article addresses about knowledge?\",\"answer\":\"It focuses on “What knowledge is of most worth?”, tracing how the relative value of different kinds of knowledge shapes education debates.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article relate Neo-Confucians to contemporary education?\",\"answer\":\"It argues Neo-Confucian thought remains relevant in the 21st century and helps explain and clarify contemporary controversies in education.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article emphasize moral learning over purely intellectual pursuits?\",\"answer\":\"It presents Confucius’s view that moral cultivation should take primacy, while also noting the debate cannot be resolved so simply and continues through classical Chinese educational philosophy.\"}]","What Knowledge is of Most Worth? Considering the Neo-Confuciansin the Contemporary Debate Between Moral and Intellectual Learning | PDF",1792092733,23]