Contemporary Philosophical Understanding on Continual Learning Being:Chiasmus in-between Self-Disclosure and Self-Enactment

인간은 자신과 세계를 학습하는 존재이다. 이 같은 학습의 능력을 이성과 자유라는 개념으로 정리하여 여타의 존재들과 삶의 양식을 구분 짓는다. 그러나 이 같이 우리 인간에게 고유한 존재양식을 표상하는 개념들과 그것들에 내포되는 의미들은 또 다시 그들의 학습결과에 의존적일 수밖에 없다. 서양의 근대가 학습한 세계 속에는 자연세계 뿐만 아니라 학습자 자신에 대한 관찰과 반성 또한 내포되어 있다. 따라서 자연과 문화, 몸과 마음 혹은 그들에게 고유한 자유의 개념들은 새로운 의미와 이해를 필요로 한다. 이 같이 인간존재양식에 내재된 열려진 학습이 소홀해질 때 우리의 삶과 앎의 양식들은 서로 소외되고 교육적 소통의 단절을 초래하게 된다. Literature, scientific curiosity, scholarly research, and artistic expression of all forms constantly make us aware of the fact that our existence as human beings is open for continual learning procedure. The more the physical world is investigated, and the more technology extends our ability to encounter the microcosm and macrocosm, the more our human peculiarity is accentuated, and the more we are provoked to critically question our own peculiar mode of being, i.e., continual learner. It is in fact this continual learning about our human existence that specifically designates our identities as human beings. Fascination with this peculiarity has only intensified over the last several decades as we realize that Western rationalism, once the defining cornerstone of human identity for several centuries, can no longer be considered as the primary fact of philosophy. As Paul Ricoeur revealed, Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud convincingly argued that individuals are moved by other forces than reason. In the meantime, the human sciences (psychology, sociology, language analysis, psychoanalysis and ethnology) have consistently shown that as human beings we can only partially designate ourselves as subjects of knowledge; in a broader sense, a subject is a being for whom there are objects and values, a being who affirms and wills. Yet, both philosophical hermeneutics and different schools of phenomenology have pointed out that human existence is thoroughly problematic and resists any one theoretical-literary meta-narrative to express all of its facets. Human-being-ness cannot be captured in one large intuitive grasp, or with the assured clarity Cartesian thought once declared to be possible. The ways in which we think about ourselves do change and it is quite clear that we are therefore forced to identify our particular human existence by the continual learning being in-between self-disclosure and self-enactment in the world with the others