Earticle

Education is what makes human beings human. In East Asia, where it has traditionally been assumed that what sets man apart from animal is his ethical values, the cultivation of man’s virtuous nature is seen as the essence of education. In the West, however, where mankind is defined by the faculty of rational thinking, fostering rational thought is regarded as the fundamental task of education. As a result, the western tradition of education settled on an educational curriculum based on propositional knowledge, because it was regarded as compatible with rational thinking, but excluded methodical knowledge, as it was considered unrelated to the faculty of rational thinking. In such an educational structure, there was no place for ‘fun’. It is only with the relative decline of the printed information medium and the rise of the digital information format, and the ensuing establishment of digital knowledge, that the opposition between propositional and procedural knowledge has finally been dissolved. Because the confrontational structure characterized by these two types of education has been dissolved by this new information medium, there is a need for a new educational philosophy. The most important condition for this new educational philosophy is that it should conform with the digital information medium. This paper outlines a possible direction for culture education based on a new educational philosophy. In particular, it aims to demonstrate the necessity of grafting the dynamic, creative and productive aspects of the games that characterize the digital information age onto the traditional system of education.