Journal of East China Normal University(Educationa ›› 2019, Vol. 37 ›› Issue (1): 1-15+164.doi: 10.16382/j.cnki.1000-5560.2019.01.001

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The Posthuman Condition and Chinese Educational Practice: Philosophical Reflections on Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

WU Guanjun   

  1. Department of Politics & Institute of Chinese Modern Thought and Culture, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China
  • Online:2019-01-20 Published:2019-01-22

Abstract: Through a comprehensible analysis of the causes of anxieties on education in contemporary China, this paper locates its deepest cause at the development of artificial intelligence, which rapidly increases the risk of the "investment on education". Education faces two prospects in the coming posthuman condition:either the end of education, or the lifelong education. The latter does not merely refer to the educational practice outside school education, but also two radicals renewals of educational practice:first, the posthumanist framework of actor-network replacing the linear framework of progressivism and representationalism; second, the intra-actions between all actors including non-humans replacing the one-way disciplinary indoctrination from adults to children. The posthuman condition also provides us with the opportunity to rethink education:is education merely a humanist enterprise? This paper concludes with a re-interpretation of pre-Qin educational thought through a Deleuzean approach.

Key words: anxieties on education, artificial intelligence, lifelong education, posthumanism, actor-network, pre-Qin educational thought