The Educational Significance of Questions on the Meaning and Value of Life: Drawing Upon Blumenberg's View on Western Philosophy

본 논문은 현대 사회와 학교 교육에서 삶의 의미와 가치에 관한 질문이 점차 주변화 되어 온 현상을 문제 사태로 주목하면서 이 질문이 오늘날 교육적으로 의미가 있게 다시 다루어질 수 있는 방식에 대하여 탐색한다. 이를 위하여 삶의 의미와 가치에 대한 질문이 실존적 행복의 개념을 매개로 진리에 대한 이론적 추구와 밀접한 관련을 가진 것으로 여겼던 고대 희랍 철학 이래로 서구의 철학적 전통 속에서 이 둘의 관계가 어떻게 다루어졌는지, 특히 근대의 과학적 세계관에 의해 이 관계가 어떻게 변화되어 왔는지를 잘 보여주는 Blumenberg의 서구 철학사에 대한 관점을 소개한다. 이 관점은 삶의 의미와 가치에 대한 질문을 우리의 실존적 염려나 갈망과 관련시켜 이해할 수 있는 안목을 제공하고, 오늘날 지식의 홍수 속에서 방황하는 우리의 아이들에게 지식 교육이나 도덕 교육을 통한 가치 교육과는 다른, 새로운 접근의 가치 교육을 제공할 수 있는 가능성을 탐색케 한다. The purpose of this paper is to examine what the questions on the meaning and value of life can mean to us today and to explore the ways in which they can be meaningfully raised again for our youngsters. While the questions used to be taken as fundamental to the pursuit of the good life in the old days, they tend to look irrelevant and remote to us in pursuing the good life as we conceive it today. Thus, it seems pivotal to examine what the nature of those questions used to be and why and how these questions have been trivialized in both the modern life and modern schooling. The main part of the paper focuses on Blumenberg's account of how each tradition in the history of the western philosophy since the ancient Greek has responded to their existential anxiety with the theoretical pursuit of truth. Thus, Blumenberg helps us formulate the questions on the meaning and value of life in terms of its relation to our theoretical pursuit of truth for our existential happiness. Throughout the western tradition until it met the modern world, it was taken for granted that the theoretical pursuit of truth is supposed to bring about our existential happiness. And the questions on the meaning and value of life as a matter of existential fulfillment played the central role in shaping the way people understood the world and oriented their lives in this world. But, Blumenberg also explicates how the modern world of science broke off with this long tradition and changed the nature of the relation between theory and our existential happiness when it began to celebrate human control over nature and the world for human purposes. In the modern world, the theoretical pursuit is supposed to make us successful in controlling the nature, rather than making us existentially happy by being in harmony with nature. Thus, the modern condition of life based on scientific world view makes the questions on the meaning and value of life unavailable to us in the way the premodern world used to allow But the problem of our existential anxiety still remains as long as we are destined to face death and human finitude. Thus, the questions on the meaning and value of life needs to be raised in education in such a way for our students as to be able to deal with their existential anxiety in an educationally more productive and meaningful ways. Here it would be critical to lead them to face their existential contingency as well as epistemological contingency with the acknowledgement of their self-limitation and finitude

An Exploratory Inquiry on the Educational Value of the Humanistic Education for the Future Education

본 논문은 사회공학적 접근의 기존 미래교육담론을 보완할 수 있는 대안으로서 인문적 교육이 가진 미래가 치의 가능성을 실험적으로 탐색한 시론이다. 이를 위해서, 먼저 근대 (학교)교육이 가정하고 있는 세 가지 대표적 인 교육의 개념- 즉, 사회화, 학문 탐구, 자아 성장-을 미래 교육과의 관련 속에서 비판적으로 검토함으로써, 기존 교육의 개념과 미래교육담론이 만날 수 있는 접점을 찾아본다. 이를 토대로 하여, 교육의 미래를 인문학과 예술교육을 통하여 민주적 소양을 갖춘 인간을 길러내는 데서 찾아볼 수 있음을 강조한 누스바움(M. C. Nussbaum)의 인문교양교육론을 인문적 미래교육담론의 한 사례로서 분석해 본다. 더 나아가, 누스바움의 논의 가 사상적 근거로 삼고 있는 아리스토텔레스(Aristotle) 윤리학의 논의를 토대로 인문교양교육론이 지향하는 가 치와 그 정당화 방식을 검토함으로써, 미래교육담론이 제안하는 미래 역량과 인문적 인간상이 일치하는 지점을 확인한다. 마지막으로, 교육의 인문성이 회복되기 위해서는 교수-학습 활동 자체에서 생성되는 현재적 경험이 되살아나야 함을 확인하고, 이러한 회복이 가진 미래 가치를 탐색한다. This paper is an exploratory work for a model of humanistic approach as a complementary alternative to the dominant educational discourse of the social engineering model for the future education. We first examine in relation to "the future education" the three distinctive concepts of education that have dominated the way we think of education: socialization, academic pursuit and self-development. This leads us into a need to find a new way of conceiving education which can connect these three concepts in a new way. Then we introduce as an example of this new way of conceiving education, Martha Nussbaum's idea of the humanistic education for the future education which aims at the fostering of democratic citizens. Finally we further develop and sketch out the characteristics of uniquely humanistic mode of thinking, described as "phronesis" by Nussbaum, which can be cultivated through the specific manner of teaching-and-learning in the education of humanity. This is an educational approach for the future education that can still keep the intrinsic value of education and educational experiences fresh while accommodating the various social and economic demands from the future society

Doing Educational Research by Taking Seriously Chen's Account of “Asia as Method”: In a Korean Case of Modern Schooling

Purpose This paper aims to exemplify how Chen's idea of “Asia as method” can be employed in a case study on Korean experiences of modern schooling. Design/Approach/Methods It does so by focusing on the author's personal experiences of modern schooling as both a student and a teacher in modern Korea. In this description, the author makes two seemingly contradictory moves: a move toward decolonialization by keeping a critical distance from her own native culture and a move toward deimperialization by keeping her distance from the West. Findings This shows the challenges and tensions in the Korean experience of modern schooling as a student or teacher dealing with different moral languages such as Confucian and rationalist or rationalist and post-rationalist. Originality/Value This experimental work suggests the possibility of forming a uniquely East Asian subjectivity while showing how educational research in East Asia can be performative in the sense that it changes the way East Asians understand themselves and the world around them