本文旨在探討「教育即生活」、「生活即教育」的可能涵義，以及何種詮釋適用於說明杜威的教育思想。筆者採用修辭學與邏輯解析的方法，先分析中文「即」字的用法，進而比較釐清「教育即生活」與「生活即教育」的涵義。討論結果發現，對「即」的不同理解，會開顯出不同的詮釋意義，「教育即生活」與「生活即教育」各有其不同的著重點，如果以教育作為主題，則「教育即生活」比較適用於說明杜威的教育觀點。不過依據杜威的思想體系與思考脈絡，「教育即生活」可解作「教育似生活」或「教育是生活」，前者所指的生活是廣義的，也就是日常生活的所有活動都包含在內，所以教育與生活不可視為同一概念，只是借用生活與教育的相似屬性，來凸顯教育的「生活化」性質。至於後者「教育是生活」的「生活」應解作狹義的民主生活，教育是民主生活的縮影，可視為民主生活的一部分，這句話在強調民主內涵是教育的必要條件，由此可以彰顯杜威民主社會的理想。 筆者認為，「教育即生活」蘊含著上述兩種詮釋意義，這是理解杜威的教育主張時，應加辨明之處。至於「教育即生活」的意義詮釋，本文分別從經驗的連結與統整，以及民主生活的體現來加以探討。期望透過這些觀點的掌握，可以提供國內教育工作者，共同來思考「生活中心」的理念涵義與具體的實踐策略。

Life-centered curriculum is the current educational reformation in Taiwan. In order to explore the meaning of life oriented reformation, it is important to find the relationship between education and life. Since “Education as Life” and “Life as Education” are popular slogans, this paper aims to compare their different meanings on the basis of John Dewey’s philosophy of education. The major findings of this paper are as follows: 1. “Education as Life” is better than “Life as Education” to express Dewey’s philosophy of education. 2. According to Dewey’s point of view, “Education as Life” could have two meanings: First, a separation usually exists between the life-experiences of students and the subject-matter learned in the classroom. John Dewey advocated an education based on experience and made great effort to integrate the experiences taking place through in-school activities and the experiences taking place elsewhere. To sum up, schooling can not be separated from daily life. Second, “Education as Life” means education is a mode of demo-cratic life, i.e., the school should be a miniature democratic community.