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Philosophy for Children as an Educational Practice

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Abstract

During the past 40 years, the Philosophy for Children movement has developed a dialogical framework for education that has inspired people both inside and outside academia. This article concentrates on analysing the historical development in general and then taking a more rigorous look at the recent discourse of the movement. The analysis proceeds by examining the changes between the so-called first and second generation, which suggests that Philosophy for Children is adapting to a postmodern world by challenging the humanistic ideas of first-generation authors. A new understanding of childhood is presented by second-generation authors as giving possibilities for the subject to emerge in truly philosophical encounters. This article tries to show some of the possibilities and limits of such an understanding by considering the views in the light of general educational theorisations concerning pedagogical action. The continental tradition of European educational discourse, especially in the German-speaking regions, has stressed a necessity for asymmetry in the educational relationship. This line of thought is in conflict with the idea of a symmetrical, communal emergent system, which seems to be at the heart of second-generation understanding of educational philosophical dialoguing. The concluding argument states that in education we are always confronted with questions about purpose and aims, which have a special (educational) character in relation to pure philosophy/dialogue, although the philosophical/dialogical dimension is necessary for the emergence of unique subjectivity.

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Notes

  1. Philosophy for Children movement has many abbreviations. P4C is the term most used; however, because it is often seen as referring to Lipman's program, PFC is the preferred alternative for the tradition as a whole.

  2. Approaches and methods vary from one pedagogical tradition and language to the other. Lipman's pursuits for uniting pedagogy and philosophy have been continued by a number of scholars in Montclair State University's Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC; for example, Ann Margaret Sharp, Maughn Gregory, David Kennedy) as it is done around the world. Representatives of philosophical pedagogy in different countries include Daniela Camhy (Austria), Oscar Brenifier, Jacques Lévine ja Michel Tozzi (France), Hans-Ludwig Freese, Karlfriedrich Herb, Ekkehard Martens and Barbara Brüning (Germany), Laurence Splitter (IAPC, Australia, Hong-Kong), Richard Morehouse, Gareth Matthews, Michael S. Pritchard and Thomas Wartenberg (USA), Robert Fisher, Catherine McCall, Karin Murris ja Roger Sutcliffe (Great Britain), Michel Sasseville and Marie-France Daniel (Canada), Beate Børresen, Øyvind Olsholt ja Ariane Schjelderup (Norway), Philip Cam, Stephan Millet and Alan Tapper (Australia), Walter Kohan (Brasil), Félix García Moriyón (Spain), Karel van der Leeuw (Holland), Eugenio Echeverría (Mexico) and Bo Malmhester (Sweden and Norway).

  3. See for example recently released book Theories of Bildung and Growth (2012).

  4. Putting all the thinkers in same category in many ways simplifies the origins of their thinking. To specify their standing points, it is appropriate to mention that much of Kohan's thoughts are drawn from Freire's theory of pedagogy. Murris takes for example Biesta, Burbules and Kennedy to depict her positions. Kennedy's inspiration springs from Gadamer, Ricour, Dewey and general system theory. Obviously, even this differentiation does not do justice in bringing forth the springboard of Kennedy's, Kohan's and Murris' thinking.

  5. To read about Leonard Nelson's views on Socratic Method see e.g. Nelson (1993).

  6. It is worth noting that these characterisations are over-simplifications of the pioneering perspectives of PFC. For example, Lipman's work entailed much more than mere reinforcement of logical reasoning.

  7. For example, Laurance Splitter, who co-produced materials with Ann Sharp, has brought forward some thoughts from the analytic tradition (see e.g., Splitter 2000).

  8. Jan Masschelein (1991) also separates 'talk about' (sprechen über) and 'talk with' (mitsprechen). The latter is prior to Masschelein. Kennedy and Vansieleghem seem to imply that the first generation is characterised as a method of doing PFC and the second as a movement of different approaches. This characterisation is an over-simplification, because Lipman, for example, following Dewey, saw child, society and education as a tightly linked concept that could give direction to current efforts in education. Thus, this has triggered the concern of instrumentalism in Lipman's (Kohan 2002; Vansieleghem 2005; Biesta 2011) and Dewey's (Biesta 2006) work.

  9. Siljander and Sutinen (2012, p. 6) see that the term educability is close to the concept of plasticity used by Dewey.

  10. Kivelä (1996, pp. 80–83) has examined the theoretical assumptions behind symmetrical and asymmetrical interpretation of pedagogical interaction, and concludes both of them entail systematical problems, although he does not take into consideration the special meanings of Herbarts´s pedagogical causality.

  11. In an interview in Montclair, Lipman elaborated his views about the role of the educator in CPI. For Lipman, all educational situations involve adult mediation between the culture and the child (Lipman 1994). This implies an asymmetrical relationship. This discussion is closely related to educational authority in progressive educational practice entailing PFC. Olivier Michaud has done some theorethical (2012) and empirical (2013) research on the matter.

  12. According to Jurgen Oelkers (1994), this tension is always implicitly present in educational theorization in general. Education, understood either as influence (teaching) or as development (learning), forms two paradigms, each with a different emphasis on this endeavor and each entailing some critical problems. These paradigms fail to capture, however, the unique qualities that characterize pedagogical action. Oelkers (1994, pp. 92) distinguishes between two historical variants following from the philosophies of Locke and Rousseau. Education seen as influence (Locke) forms the basis for behavioral approaches, whereas education seen as development (Rousseau) forms the child-centered pedagogies. The over-emphasis in the Philosophy for Children pedagogy can be seen with the latter tendency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education, Oulu University, Snellmania, Linnanmaa, P.O. Box 2000, Oulu, Finland

    Riku Välitalo, Hannu Juuso & Ari Sutinen

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  1. Riku Välitalo
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  2. Hannu Juuso
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  3. Ari Sutinen
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Correspondence to Riku Välitalo.

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Välitalo, R., Juuso, H. & Sutinen, A. Philosophy for Children as an Educational Practice. Stud Philos Educ 35, 79–92 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-015-9471-6

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