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The paper has tackled the origin and formation of two metaphysical ways of thinking such as ‘thing’-centered and ‘happening’-centered thinking, as I dub. As a result of historical review and examination of philosophy since Thales of Miletos, some points are to be expressed. The initial Greek ways of life and thought were not based on ‘thing’-centered thinking but on ‘happening’-centered thinking. From Plato through Aristotle and the Medieval theologists to the modern philosophers such as Descartes, Kant and Hegel, however, the firm ground for the Western dualism has fortified ‘thing’-centered way of thought, so-called ‘The Major Stream’. Nietzsche just before 20th century and then Husserl attacked on this Stream. The contrasted views of the two have been examined so as to find the alternatives such as Bergson, Dewey, and Deleuze as well as Husserl and his follower Heidegger to tackle the new metaphysical ways of educational thought duly.

The purpose of this essay is to redefine and reconstruct the nature of knowing in the light of integrating perceptive power of qualitative thinking, alternative to the traditional and conventional view of rational thinking and knowing. In this study, Dewey’s concept of ‘an experience’ is analyzed and scrutinized in relation to a new idea of qualitative thought, in order to reconceptualize the trait of knowing and propositional statement. According to traditional Western philosophy, human being is characteristic of reason and rational thinking; nature of reality and essence. Therefore the virtue of human being is in that he is to inquire into nature by utilizing the ability of reason in an appropriate way so as to find out eternal truths. These are regarded to be the essence and reality of natural things. Knowledge as propositional statement is taken to be objective and valid and to be true in itself. From traditional view, experience is looked upon as a barrier to prevent or a veil to cut off us from true knowledge. However, Dewey takes the position exactly opposite to traditional view of experience. For Dewey, the primary and sole way by means of which human being as an unified organism of body and mind contacts and confronts the world directly is experience. Simply speaking, experience is to interact and transact human being with surrounding environment. It is a situation that he confronts in experience first and directly. It consists of a complicate and integrated totality and its own unique quality. When human being confronts a situation in a direct and primary way, he naturally and almost automatically perceives and captures the whole quality of a situation as ‘total seizure’. The thinking ability to seize a total quality is coined into 'qualitative thought(QT)’ by Dewey. QT is the most basic and universal mode of thought in that man apprehends a total quality naturally and instantly. Besides, intellectual thought is dependent upon qualitative thought. QT functions as the prime basis and foundation to operate reason. More importantly, It is QT, not intellectual thought that is able to apprehend the trait of a whole experiential situation. QT has the ability and power of 'integrated thought’ to capture a totality including both intellectual content and qualitative whole, even in the process of intellectual thought. Intellectual mode of thought draws out and abstracts statements and propositional knowledge from integration. Knowing captured by integrated thought is far deeper and wider than that of propositional descriptions and statements expressed by language and symbol. In summary, propositional statements as knowledge are only abstract and partial compared to the original content captured by QT. They can be meaningful and properly understand only in relation to total knowing as its background.

The purpose of this study to examines the general concepts and principles of 'occupations' which is an important part of J. Dewey's theory of education, examines ways to apply them to infant education, In Chapter Ⅱ, I considered the concept and principle of occupations in Dewey. Dewey's concept of occupation is an activity in which educational institutions reproduce various forms of work performed in everyday social life, in which the main purpose of occupations is not in productivity but in continuous growth that is the overall development of experience. In these occupations that take place in the early stages of education, is more important the process of the activities rather than the outcome of the activities. In chapter Ⅲ, I tried to apply the occupations to infant education. Although Dewey did not actively apply the theory of infant education, his ideology of occupations gives a rich message to infant education. According to Piaget's cognitive developmental stages, infancy is the period of sensory stimulation and pre-manipulation. During this period, infants are interested in activities using sensory organs and muscles. Therefore, we should allow the child to take part in play as a voluntary recreation of adult work activities that occur in everyday life through occupations. In chapter Ⅵ, I discussed the specific operating methods and the roles of teachers. The teacher should be able to anticipate and control the behavior of the infants where they may not be able to take place, observe the interest of infants who are passive in the activity or disturb the class, and should be able to work together happily. Direct experience and occupations are needed in infant and child education. Although a variety of programs have been developed, it is difficult to accurately reflect the theoretical background and the characteristics of infants and toddlers, and it is not often the case that they operate properly in the educational field. The cause may seem plausible at first, but in reality it is often due to misunderstanding and misunderstanding of the principles of experience or occupations, the unfair expectations and interventions of parents, and the demonstration of educational institutions.

Recently, there have been some neurophilosophical controversies over consciousness, with the booming interest in neuroscientific studies on consciousness. This study intends to do three things. First, it tries to depict the overall efforts in the direction of neurophilosophical inquiry as a realization of Quine’s ask for a ‘naturalized epistemology.’ Second, it analyses the issues of eliminative materialism, identity theory vs functionalism debate, and ‘qualia’ problem as main neurophilosophical controversies over consciousness. And finally, as was required, it suggests a few tasks for educators to meet in regard with knowledge policies over schooling.