Parecidos de Familia Family Resemblances

PARECIDOS DE FAMILIA
Propuestas actuales en Filosofía para Niños
FAMILY RESEMBLANCES
Current Trends in Philosophy for Children
Editado por/Edited by
ELLEN DUTHIE
FÉLIX GARCÍA MORIYÓN
RAFAEL ROBLES LORO
© Del texto: Ellen Duthie, Félix García Moriyón, Rafael Robles Loro, 2018.
© Del conjunto de esta edición: GRUPO ANAYA, S.A., 2018 - C/ Juan Ignacio Luca de Tena, 15 - 28027
Madrid
ISBN: 978-84-667-9094-9 - Depósito Legal: M-20323-2018 - Printed in Spain.
Reservados todos los derechos. El contenido de esta obra está protegido por la Ley, que establece penas de prisión y/o multas,
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Parecidos de familia.
Propuestas actuales en Filosofía
para Niños
Family Resemblances.
Current Trends in Philosophy for
Children
Ellen Duthie. Félix García Moriyón. Rafael Robles Loro (eds.)

Madrid. Anaya, 2018
COMITÉ EVALUADOR/EVALUATION COMMITTEE
Alina Reznitskaya. Department: Educational Foundations. Montclair State University. USA
Arie Kizel. University of Haifa, Israel
Aristidis Galatis. Academic Teaching, Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Australia
Claire Cassidy. University of Strathclyde. Glasgow. Scotland
Edwige Chirouter. Université de Nantes. France
Ellen Duthie. The Wonder Ponder Visual Philosophy for Children Project. Spain
George Ghanotakis. Institut Philos. International Center of Education for Philosophy and Citizenship. Montreal,
Canada
Joe Oyler. Maynooth University. Ireland
Larisa Retyunskikh. Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. Russia
Laurance Splitter. The Education University of Hong Kong. China
Magda Costa. Universidade dos Açores. Portugal
María daVenza Tillmanns. Davenza Academy of Philosophy. San Diego, CA. USA
Megan Laverty. Teachers College. Columbia University. New York. USA
Nadia Stonayova Kennedy. City University of New York.USA
Pat Hannam. Hampshire County Council, Hampshire, UK
Roger Sutclife. Sapere. United Kingdom / France
Stefano Oliverio. University of Naples Federico II. Italy
Susan Lyle. University of Wales, Trinity St David. UK
Thomas Wartenberg. Mount Holyoke College. Massachusetts, USA
Ylva Backman. Luleå University of Technology. Luleå, Sweden

Adolfo Agúndez. Université de Sherbrooke. Québec, Canada
Ana María Vicuña Navarro. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Chile
Carla Carreras Planas. Universitat de Girona. España
Elena Morilla. Colegio Europeo de Madrid. España
Eugenio Echeverría y Elena Morilla. Centro Latinoamericano de Filosofía para Niños en San Cristóbal de Las
Casas, Chiapas. México
Félix García Moriyón. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. España
Gloria Arbonés Villaverde. GrupIREF. Barcelona. España
Jorge Sánchez Manjavacas. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada “HASER”. España
Juan Carlos Lago Bornstein y Jorge Sánchez Manjavacas. Universidad de Alcalá. Alcalá de Henares. España
Julia Molero Azaya. Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Alemania
Luis Alberto Prieto. Centro de Filosofía para Niños. España
Nelson Bedoya. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios – UNIMINUTO. Colombia
María Teresa De la Garza. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM. México
Myriam García Rodríguez. Centro de Filosofía para Niños. Asturias. Principado de Asturias. España
Rafael Robles Loro. IES Nuestra Señora de la Victoria. Málaga. España
Sara Elizabeth Pérez Morales. Universidad de Guadalajara. México
Tomás Miranda Alonso. Centro de Filosofía para Niños. Albacete. España
Walter Omar Kohan. Universidad del Estado de Río de Janeiro (UERJ). Brasil
ÍNDICE/CONTENTS
PRÓLOGO/PROLOGUE ................................................................................................................................. 9
1. METODOLOGÍA /METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 13

Anna Maria Carpentieri: Situated Relatedness as an Education Choice and Formative Structure in
Philosophical Inquiry ......................................................................................................................... 14
Antonio Cosentino: P4C as Philosophical Practice of Community ........................................................... 30
Dina Mendonça and Magda Costa: The Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Regulative Ideal ....... 36
Gilbert Burgh, Simone Thornton, Lyz Fines: ‘Do Not Block the Way of Inquiry’:
Cultivating Collective Doubt Through Sustained Deep Reflective Thinking ..................................... 47
Gloria Arbonés Villaverde y Sara Silvestre Anglés: Filosofía para Niños y Niñas en la formación del
profesorado de Secundaria: un cambio irreversible de la mirada ................................................... 62
Jessica Ching-Sze Wang: Philosophy for Children and Dewey’s Aesthetics: A Teacher Educator’s Self-
Study Through Narrative Inquiry ....................................................................................................... 70
Kerstin Michalik: The Philosophical Conversation as a Method of Examining Children’s Perceptions,

Mindsets, and Interpretations of the World ....................................................................................... 82
Marina Santi: La Filosofía con niños como jazz: un camino de improvisación para una nueva
pedagogía ............................................................................................................................. 93
Rhiannon Love: Taking it Slow: Enhancing Wellbeing through Philosophy for Children ...................... 105
Riku Välitalo: Becoming a Philosophical-Teacher: The Role of the Teacher and the Nature
of Teaching in Philosophy for Children ........................................................................................... 118
2. FUNDAMENTACIÓN FILOSÓFICA / PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND ..................................... 129

Elaine Englehardt and Michael S. Pritchard: 18th Century Scottish Moral Philosophers
and Children .................................................................................................................................... 130
Emmanuel Skoutas: The Limits of Constructivism and the Possibility of Facilitating Ethical Dialogue in a
Community of Inquiry: Avoiding the Temptations of the Ring of Gyges .......................................... 139
Félix García Moriyón: De los pensamientos al destino ........................................................................... 151
Gert Biesta: ¿Tocando el alma? Explorando una perspectiva alternativa para el trabajo
filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes ............................................................................................... 163
Peter Worley: Dissonance: Disagreement and Critical Thinking in P4/wC ............................................ 178
Stefano Oliverio and Alessandro Volpone: P4C’s Rediscovery of the ‘Other Side’ of Aristotle’s Logic. An
Interpretative Hypothesis ................................................................................................................. 188
Walter Omar Kohan: Un ¿diálogo? acerca del trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños. A propósito de la
intervención de Gert Biesta en la Conferencia del ICPIC ............................................................... 204
3. DIFERENTES TEMAS / DIFFERENT TOPICS .................................................................................... 213
Andrea Beatriz Pac: Filosofía con niños y Literatura: una alianza potente para la reflexión ................ 214
Cristina Rossi and Stefano Manildo: Staying Doubtful: How Can Philosophical Inquiry in Science at
Secondary School Promote Interdisciplinary Reflection and Epistemological Awareness? ............ 227
Jelle de Schrijver, John De Poorter, Eef Cornelissen and Richard Anthone:

Can a Rabbit be a Scientist? ............................................................................................................. 239
Laura Kerslake: End-in-Itself or Means to an End? Exploring the Tensions Between Philosophising
and Schooling .................................................................................................................................. 252
Manuela Gómez Pérez: Pensamiento multidimensional y práctica filosófica según

Matthew Lipman .............................................................................................................................. 266
Maria daVenza Tillmanns: Children, Intuitive Knowledge and Philosophy ............................................ 273
Maughn Rollins Gregory and Stefano Oliverio: Philosophy for/with Children, Religious Education and
Education for Spirituality. Steps Toward a Review of the Literature .............................................. 280
Pablo Flores: Las metáforas por las que la infancia habla ...................................................................... 298
4. DIFERENTES CONTEXTOS / DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS ........................................................ 309

Anastasia Anderson, Elizabeth Wilson, Joshua Friesen and Serena Geary: Embracing Plurality: Wisdom
and Method in Philosophy for Children Summer Camps ................................................................ 310
Ben Kilby: Philosophy for Children in Primary School Classrooms: The Teacher’s Perspective ........... 322
Fátima Álvarez López y Luis Alberto Pietro Barbero: La escuela de pensamiento libre. Personas con
discapacidad .................................................................................................................................... 335
Fiorenzo Ferrari and Chiara Colombo: Skills, Multiple Intelligence and Philosophy with Children in
Intercultural Education .................................................................................................................... 343
Janette Poulton and Jill Howells: A Thinking Culture: Philosophy in Public Spaces .............................. 353
Maura Striano: Philosophical Inquiry as a Deweyan way of Teaching Dewey's Philosophy

at University ...................................................................................................................................... 371
Nelson Iván Bedoya: El desarrollo del juicio moral en niños involucrados en contextos
de maldad sistemática ...................................................................................................................... 382
Vanise Cássia Dutra Gomes, Edna Olimpia da Cunha y Walter Omar Kohan: Abraçar com a alma:
uma experiência filosófica na Escola Joaquim da Silva Peçanha, Duque de Caxias,
Rio de Janeiro, Brasil ....................................................................................................................... 393
5. DIFERENTES MODELOS DE EVALUACIÓN / DIFFERENT MODELS OF EVALUATION ......... 405

Caroline Ferguson and Marcel Haagsma: The Potential for Philosophy with Children
in International Schools ................................................................................................................... 406
Félix García Moriyón, Juan Botella, Diana Centeno-Gutiérrez, and Jara González Lamas: Does Philosophy
for Children Make a Difference? ..................................................................................................... 423
Irene de Puig: Modelos de evaluación para Filosofía para niños y niñas ............................................... 435
Ourania Maria Ventista: A Literature Review of Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness

of Philosophy for Children ............................................................................................................... 450
Roberto Colom: ¿Se puede mejorar las capacidades cognitivas? ........................................................... 472
Ylva Backman, Teodor Gardelli, Viktor Gardelli, Caroline Strömberg and Åsa Gardelli:
Research Methods in the Swedish Project Education for Participation – Philosophizing
Back a ‘New’ Life After Acquired Brain Injury ............................................................................... 484
6. DIMENSIÓN POLÍTICA DEL PROGRAMA / POLITICAL DIMENSION OF THE PROGRAM ..... 493
Angélica Sátiro y Julia Montoya: Ciudadanía creativa y educación ambiental a través del proyecto “El
jardín de Juanita” ............................................................................................................................ 494
Arie Kizel: Philosophy with Children and Socio-philosophical Sensitivity ............................................. 506
Carla Carreras Planas: ¿Por qué la democracia necesita FpN? .............................................................. 517
Darcisio Natal Muraro: Social and Political Aspects of Democracy in the Community of Inquiry:
Connections Between Lipman and Freire ........................................................................................ 525
Gillen Motherway: Democratic Education and Educating for Democracy: Perspectives on Philosophy with
Children Practice in Irish Classrooms ............................................................................................ 534
María A. Lima Piai y Darcisio Natal Muraro: Freire y Lipman: la necesidad del diálogo en el proceso
educativo para la afirmación de la sociedad democrática .............................................................. 546
Patricia Hannam: Does it Matter How Freedom is Conceptualised in the Community of Philosophical
Inquiry in the Lipman Tradition? ..................................................................................................... 556
7. EL CURRÍCULO / THE CURRICULUM .............................................................................................. 565

Eugenio Echeverría: Biografía narrada de FpN ...................................................................................... 566
George Ghanotakis: Meeting the Needs of 21st Century Learners: Critical Thinking and Game- Based
Philosophical Inquiry ....................................................................................................................... 578
Susan Lyle: The Storytelling Curriculum and Philosophy for Children aged 3-5 ................................... 592
Victoria Maclean y Catalina Bertoldi: Filosofar con Natacha: nuevos recursos para el aula
de FpN ............................................................................................................................................. 604
ÍNDICE DE CONCEPTOS / INDEX ........................................................................................................... 615

PRÓLOGO
Parecidos de familia. Propuestas actuales en Filosofía para Niños. Madrid. Anaya
Uno de los objetivos principales que nos propusimos en la organización de la XVIII Conferencia
Internacional de Filosofía para Niños fue que todo el proceso de la celebración de dicha conferencia estuviera
inspirado por el modelo de comunidad de investigación filosófica que constituye uno de los rasgos
fundamentales y claramente diferenciadores de un enfoque de la educación que pone la práctica de la reflexión
filosófica en el aula, convertida en comunidad de investigación, como núcleo de su propuesta.
Ese esfuerzo estuvo claro, con mayor o menor acierto, en todas y cada una de las actividades que precedieron
a la celebración y también en los tres días de la conferencia. Las personas que participaron enviaron extensos
resúmenes de sus propuestas, que fueron evaluadas y seleccionadas por el comité de publicaciones. Las
propuestas aceptadas, reunidas en un único documento, se enviaron a todas las personas inscritas en la
conferencia con antelación a su celebración. En las sesiones de la conferencia insistimos en la necesidad de
dejar tiempo para dialogar con la audiencia, de tal modo que la comunidad pudiera aportar sus sugerencias y
observaciones y la sesión pudiera llegar a ser una genuina comunidad de investigación.
Desde el primer momento tuvimos la intención de publicar un libro con las ponencias presentadas en la
conferencia, pero más que publicar las habituales “Actas Conferencia”, queríamos publicar un libro específico
que fuera el resultado final de todo el proceso de organización y celebración de la conferencia. Es decir, un
libro en el que debía quedar recogida la reflexión filosófica que la conferencia había propiciado y facilitado.
Por eso mismo, una vez terminada la conferencia, hicimos una convocatoria a todas las personas que habían
presentado una comunicación para que enviaran el texto completo de su ponencia, en el que debían hacerse eco
de las aportaciones que habían recibido durante su presentación y de otras aportaciones recibidas durante la
conferencia.
Como es usual en este tipo de publicaciones, formamos una comisión de evaluación, en la que han
participado 38 personas, familiarizadas con el ámbito de la Filosofía para Niños. En los plazos fijados recibimos
61 comunicaciones, una parte de las 149 presentadas en la conferencia. Por razones diversas, 86 personas
consideraron que no era oportuno enviar las suyas para su publicación en el libro. Todos los trabajos fueron
revisados siguiendo el procedimiento de doble evaluación ciega, en algunos casos con una tercera lectura para
dirimir divergencias entre los evaluadores y tomar una decisión. A final, solo 50 fueron aceptadas. En algún
caso específico, a petición de la persona que evaluaba, pusimos en contacto al evaluador y la autora para que
pudieran dialogar sobre el texto y las observaciones que había suscitado.
En ese momento pasamos a la siguiente fase. Solamente seis trabajos habían sido aprobados sin ningún tipo de
observación, mientras que los otros 44 trabajos habían recibido observaciones de mayor o menor calado.
Enviamos el informe de evaluación a los autores y las autoras y les pedimos que tuvieran en cuenta las
observaciones que allí se hacían; en algunos casos, considerábamos que eran necesaria esas modificaciones y
en otros casos lo planteamos como sugerencias que podían aceptar o rechazar. Se inició así un amplio mucho
más largo de lo previsto intercambio de correos hasta llegar a una redacción final que fuera considerada correcta
por los editores y los autores. El último paso ha sido editar y preparar los textos para su publicación, trabajo
especialmente importante en los textos escritos en inglés por personas no nativas. Nuestro compromiso como editores
fue que las deficiencias en el idioma no fueran por sí mismas una razón suficiente de un rechazo. Más de dos mil
correos electrónicos dan testimonio del tiempo y esfuerzo dedicado a la corrección, edición, revisión y corrección de
pruebas.
La distribución de los artículos corresponde a los mismos temas que se propusieron para la Conferencia,
conscientes de que hay varios artículos que bien podrían estar en más de un apartado.
El resultado final es un libro que cumple lo que anuncia el título. Por un lado, consideramos que queda claro
que existe un aire de familia. Las personas que han escrito estos trabajos comparten sin duda un núcleo de tesis
y convicciones relacionadas con una concepción de la infancia y de la educación, del profesorado y de los
objetivos fundamentales que deben orientar las relaciones educativas en los distintos ámbitos en que estas se
dan. Ahora bien, los parecidos familiares no implican ni imponen ningún tipo de uniformidad. Las variaciones
sobre un mismo tema son diversas hasta el punto de que los limites y las fronteras pueden resultar algo borrosas.
Utilizando palabras tomadas de tres de las ponencias invitadas, el alma educativa del movimiento de Filosofía
para y con niños tiene algo del espíritu del jazz: cada interpretación del diálogo de investigación filosófica
requiere capacidad de improvisación creativa sin alejarse nunca del todo de esos rasgos compartidos desde los
años iniciales de creación del movimiento. La variedad de experiencias y propuestas que aquí se presentan dejan
claro lo que acabamos de decir.
Por otro lado, este libro permite hacerse una idea de cuáles son las tendencias actuales que muestran la
vitalidad de la práctica de la reflexión filosófica, sin agotar ni mucho menos el campo. Junto con otros libros
recientes, pretende contribuir a ampliar nuestra visión del ámbito de la Filosofía para Niños: son sin duda
valiosos para ampliar nuestra visión del ámbito de FpN. Aquí hay trabajos que se centran en aspectos básicos
del programa, en un nivel casi introductorio; otros artículos exploran en profundidad temas que quizá dábamos
por suficientemente claros, pero que merecían nuevas reflexiones. Podemos encontrar experiencias en ámbitos
tan distantes como la literatura o la ciencia, o con grupos de personas especialmente vulnerables, como
discapacitados cognitivos o personas que se recuperan de daños cerebrales. Por último, en rápido y breve repaso
del contenido del libro, nuevas investigaciones sobre el impacto del programa ratifican que el profesorado y el
alumnado lo valoran bien y que ejerce un impacto positivo en el crecimiento cognitivo y afectivo de los niños
y las niñas.
En definitiva, este proyecto, como cualquier otro, es mejorable. Echamos en falta algunas ponencias que
se presentaron en la conferencia, cuyos autores y autoras han optado por no enviarlas, otras que sí están podrían
haber mejorado un poco más si el tiempo lo hubiera permitido. Lo que, en todo caso, está claro es que el esfuerzo
de todas las personas implicadas ha dado como resultado un libro valioso, que ofrece un buen reflejo de lo que
ha sido un vivo proceso de investigación. Damos las gracias a todas las personas que lo han hecho posible, y
también a la editorial Anaya que ha costeado su publicación.
PROLOGUE
Family Resemblances. Current Trends in Philosophy for Children. Madrid. Anaya
One of the main goals we set ourselves in the organization of the XVIII ICPIC International Conference
was to model the entire process of the Conference —before, during and after— as a community of philosophical
inquiry, one of the fundamental and differentiating traits of an educational approach that proposes the practice
of philosophical reflection in the classroom, transformed into a community of inquiry, as the core of its proposal.
This effort was evident, and achieved to a greater or lesser extent, in each and every activity preceding the
celebration as well as during the three days of the conference. Attendants sent lengthy summaries of their papers,
which were then evaluated and selected by the publication committee. All the summaries of the accepted papers,
gathered in a single document, were sent to everyone registered for the conference in advance. During the
sessions, we insisted that time for dialogue with the audience was a requirement, in such a way that the
community could offer suggestions and comments and the session could become a community of philosophical
inquiry.
From the very beginning, our intention was to publish a book with the papers submitted to the
conference, but rather than publishing the usual ʽConference Proceedingsʼ, we wished to produce a specific
book that was the final result of the entire process of organization and celebration of the Conference: a book
that would collect a significant part of the philosophical reflection provoked and facilitated by the Conference.
Thus, once the conference was over, we called for all those who had given a presentation, to send the full text
of their papers, incorporating any input they had been given during their presentation and any other
contributions they had received during the conference.
As usual in this kind of book, we formed an evaluation committee, made up of 38 people familiar with
the field of P4C. Out of the 149 presentations accepted for the conference, we received 61 papers for publication.
For different reasons, 86 people did not submit their papers for the book. All the papers were reviewed following
a double-blind peer review procedure; some papers required a third review to resolve discrepancies between
the two reviewers and make a final decision. Finally, only 50 papers were accepted. In some cases, at the request
of the reviewer, we put them in contact with the author so that they could discuss the text and the comments it
had raised.
We then started the second part of the process. Only six papers were approved without any comment or
suggestion, while the remaining 44 papers received comments and suggestions from the referees for the authors
to consider. We sent the evaluation reports to the authors and asked them to take into account those comments;
in some cases, we told them that the proposed modifications were a requirement, but in other cases, we told the
authors that it was up to them to decide whether to incorporate any changes. This triggered a lengthy —much
longer than expected— exchange of emails back and forth in order to arrive at a final text that both editors and
authors could agree upon. The last step of the process was editing and preparing the texts for publication, a task
that was particularly substantial in the case of papers written in English by non-native speakers. Our
commitment as editors was that language deficiencies alone would not be a sufficient reason for rejecting a
paper. More than two thousand emails give testimony to the time and effort devoted to correcting, editing,
revising and proofreading.
We have organised the book in sections, corresponding to the themes proposed for the Conference, in
full awareness that some papers could well be included in more than one section.
The final result is a book that fits its title. On the one hand, we think it is clear that there exists a family
resemblance. There is little doubt that the authors of the papers in this book share a core of theses and principles
related with a concept of childhood and education, of teaching and of the fundamental aims that should guide
educational practices in all those environments where education takes place. Nevertheless, these resemblances
do not assume or impose any kind of uniformity. Variations on a theme are different to the extent that borders
and limits become a little fuzzy. Borrowing words from three of the keynote speakers, the educational soul of
the Philosophy for and with Children movement shares some common traits with jazz: each performance of the
dialogue in a philosophical inquiry requires a capacity of creative improvisation without straying too far from
the characteristics we share from the beginning of the movement. The variety of experiences and proposals
included in this book is clear evidence of this.
On the other hand, this book gives us a by no means exhaustive but certainly varied glimpse into some
of the current trends in the field, showing the vitality of the practice of philosophical reflection. Together with
other recent books, it aims to contribute to broadening our vision of the Philosophy for children field. In this
book you can read papers that focus on basic topics of the program, at an almost introductory level; other papers
provide an in-depth exploration of themes which we might take for granted but are worthy of new reflection.
We find experiences in fields as distant as literature and science, or with especially vulnerable groups, such as
cognitively disabled people or people recovering from brain injury. Lastly, in this quick and brief overview of
the content of the book, research on the impact of the program confirms that teachers and students offer a good
appraisal of it and that there is a positive impact on the cognitive and affective development of children.
To be sure, as with any project, there is room for improvement. We would have welcomed some of the
papers that were presented at the conference, but whose authors chose not to submit them for publication; others
that were submitted could have been improved even further, if time had allowed. What is clear, in any case, is
that the effort made by everyone involved has resulted in a valuable book that is a good reflection of what has
been a lively process of inquiry. We would like to thank all the people who have made it possible, as well as
the publisher Anaya, for financing publication of this book.
Parecidos de familia Family Resemblances
Propuestas actuales en Filosofía para niños Current Trends in Philosophy for Children
1. METODOLOGÍA / METHODOLOGY
Desde el planteamiento inicial desarrollado por Lipman, Sharp y sus
colaboradores en el IAPC han surgido diferentes prácticas. En algún momento,
algunas personas han hablado de prácticas ortodoxas y prácticas heterodoxas,
implicando la existencia de un posible canon metodológico, algo que otros niegan
enérgicamente. Y otros colaboradores han distinguido entre una primera y una
segunda generación. Preferimos superar estas distinciones, sin olvidarnos de ellas,
y centrarnos en lo que compartimos y, al mismo tiempo, siendo receptivos a la
innovación y la diferencia. En este sentido, uno de los objetivos del XVIII
Congreso ICPIC celebrado en Madrid en junio de 2017 fue la apertura del
encuentro a las diferentes opciones que, a pesar de venir de unas corrientes
teóricas y prácticas distintas, y con una tradición específica, están conectados con
FpN por su interés común en el desarrollo del pensamiento complejo (crítico,
creativo y cuidadoso). Queremos abrir una reflexión sobre la idoneidad de estos
otros modelos para el desarrollo del pensamiento y de la práctica filosófica, y
sobre su posible convergencia con Filosofía para Niños.
Different practices have emerged from the initial approach developed by Lipman,
Sharp and their colleagues at the IAPC. A while ago, some began to speak of
orthodox and heterodox practices, implying the possible existence of a
methodological canon - something that has been adamantly denied by others. Still
other colleagues have distinguished between a first and second generation. We
prefer to put these distinctions aside while remaining aware of them, choosing
instead to focus on what we share and being sensitive to innovation and
difference. With this in mind, one of the goals of the 18th ICPIC Conference held
in Madrid in June 2017 was to open the meeting to different approaches that,
although working from a distinct theoretical and practical background and/or a
specific tradition, are related to P4C through their common interest in the
development of high order, multidimensional or complex thinking (critical,
creative and caring...). The idea was to open a conversation focused on the
adequacy of these other models of thinking development and philosophical
practice, looking at their possible convergence with Philosophy for Children.
Situated Relatedness as an Education Choice and Formative

Structure in Philosophical Inquiry
Anna Maria Carpentieri

amcarpe@yahoo.it
C.R.I.F. (Rome); C.d.R.F. (Brescia); Liceo Anco Marzio, Rome, Italy.
Translator: Antonino Principato
CV
Anna Maria Carpentieri is a permanent teacher of Philosophy and History at Liceo Anco
Marzio, Ostia, Rome. She is also a Teacher Educator in P4C. She has been teaching in all
grades and types of the Italian school system, from Kindergarten to Senior High School. She
has been planning and running Philosophical Practice Laboratories with children and
teenagers since 1995. She has also written essays that have been published in Italian journals
and international journals and books.
ABSTRACT
The present paper is an analysis of Situated Relatedness as a prospective educational
platform and formative tool. It results from a meta-theoretical investigation of the basic tenets
of Lipman’s theory and makes constant reference to the philosophical practice performed
with children and teenagers in P4C-based CoPIs. Situated Relatedness leads to a meta-
relational dimension of thinking which, if activated and practiced in situational formative
contexts, acquires considerable educational potential for the individual and the group. In
order to achieve the above objectives, the paper explores a possible relationship between
Complex Thinking and Meta-Relational Situated Thinking (MRST) and its potential influence
in the growth and development of a community in dialogue. Furthermore, the awareness,
knowledge and practice of Situated Relatedness will be inquired as to their possible impact
on an educator’s training route.
KEYWORDS
Situated Relatedness, Meta-Relational Situated Thinking, Philosophical novel, Educational
platform, Formative tool.
RESUMEN
El presente trabajo es un análisis de la Relación Situada como una plataforma educativa
prospectiva y herramienta formativa. Es resultado de una investigación metateórica de los
principios básicos de la teoría de Lipman y hace referencia constante a la práctica filosófica
realizada con niños y adolescentes en CoPI basados en FpN. La Relación Situada lleva a una
dimensión meta-relacional del pensamiento que, si se activa y se practica en contextos
formativos situacionales, adquiere un considerable potencial educativo para el individuo y el
grupo. Con el fin de lograr los objetivos anteriores, el documento explora una posible relación
entre el pensamiento complejo y el pensamiento meta-relacional situado (MRST) y su
posible influencia en el crecimiento y desarrollo de una comunidad de diálogo. Además, se
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informará sobre la conciencia, el conocimiento y la práctica de la Relación Situada en cuanto

a su posible impacto en la ruta de formación de un educador.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Relación Situada, pensamiento situado meta-relacional, novela filosófica, plataforma
educativa, herramienta formativa.
INTRODUCTION
Relatedness and Situatedness connote and specify the essence and existence of the real
world.
Throughout his/her life, the human being is and becomes in situation and in relation.
By interacting with other beings and the world around him/her, he/she expresses his/her own
relatedness and situatedness through his/her thinking, language and life experience. The
philosophical and educational debate on relation and situation acquires considerable
significance in Lipman’s ideas and works.
The present study aims at exploring various articulations and connotations of relation
and situation in Lipman’s thinking and in the educational and formative canons of P4C. To
this end, an analysis of the structure of curriculum novels will be carried out. Moreover, in
what manner and to what extent situation and relation can influence an individual’s and a
CoPI’s growth and development will also be inquired. The focus of the present research is
Situated Relatedness, which will be explored not only per se, but also as an educational
platform and formative tool for the growth and development of the individual and the group.
The results of the study, along with our observations on the outcome of philosophical practice
sessions with children and teenagers (which were carried out according to the formative
model of P4C) have enabled us to refer to a specific thinking mode that grows and develops
within P4C-based CoPIs. This form of thinking, which is referred to here as Meta-Relational
Situated Thinking (MRST), is that kind of thinking whereby the individual and the group
experience relational and situational dimensions in a conscious manner. As regards the
possible relationship between MRST and Complex Thinking, the inquiry will be followed by a
presentation of the correlations between the various spheres of thinking. Some concepts and
considerations developed in the present work have been converted into an iconic language, so
as to improve and clarify their presentation and description. Moreover, whether or not the
awareness and practice of Situated Relatedness on the part of an educator have an impact on
his/her style as a facilitator and/or on his/her effectiveness as an educator will also be
investigated. More specifically, a detailed inquiry will be conducted as to whether or not MRST
within a CoPI acquires value and significance in the co-building of philosophical dialogue.
The basic questions of the present study are:
1) What do we mean by Relatedness and Situatedness?
2) What do we mean by Situated Relatedness?
3) Why do we believe that a philosophical narrative text, namely, a P4C curriculum
novel, is a functional tool for promoting Situated Relatedness praxis?
4) What do we mean by Meta-Relational Situated Thinking (MRST)?
5) Can we talk of relations between Complex Thinking and MRST?
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6) Will an educator who becomes aware of and practices Situated Relatedness really
make a difference in facilitating the growth of the CoPI?
7) Does being and becoming MRST (i.e., its Situatedness and Relatedness) acquire
valuable meaning and significance in co-building a philosophical dialogue?
Relationship and relatedness
In practicing late Plato’s considerations on a being that is and becomes the possibility of
predication, or better still, the possibility of entering into relationship, 11th-grader Davide
stated: ‘Every day our being is in relationship and it is exactly this relational aptitude of ours
that tells us who we are’.
This observation, though, raises an issue – if the human being and the world around
him/her are related to each other, what are the connotations that pertain to being in relationship?
Starting from Plato and Aristotle and ending with Buber, Ricoeur and Panikkar, philosophical
thinking has often referred to a connection becoming a relationship, which is a category that
founds and structures the real world, a category that interprets the human being, his/her
thinking and relation with the real world.
Relatedness constitutes, connotes and specifies the whole world’s essence and existence.
If we were to investigate the semantics and etymology of the word relationship, we could
identify its meanings within the relation/link it intrinsically entails and the correlated potential
of being in fieri that we consider inherent within it. A historical, socio-anthropological and
scientific interpretation of the real world can be developed through the concept of relatedness.
By the same criteria, we can investigate the manifold relational dimensions intrinsic to human
beings that constitute and develop them. If we were only to consider the origin of life on our
planet, we would certainly discover that the possibility of existing has been engendered by
relations, or better still, by bio-molecular interactions. The human being is relation because
he/she is always in relationship with the worlds he/she interacts with, whether they are physical
environments, non-physical environments, living things or other human beings. Even the
psycho-physical structure of the human being is relationship-based: we find relationships
between the various dimensions of our psyche, between the various parts/organs of our body,
between body and psyche. The synapses in our nervous system organically and physiologically
express relations belonging to our being. They also bear an analogy between man and the
relationship he/she establishes with his/her own knowledge and the real world as a whole. The
relatedness that the human being practices with other human beings actively participates in
his/her identity-building process because the interpersonal relationships he/she entertains
constantly intersect his/her intra-personal dimension, i.e. the relationships he/she entertains
with himself/herself. In the light of what has been said so far, we can state that Relatedness, i.e.
‘being which is inside a relationship’ is that state of being which belongs, connotes and defines
a dual, plural and dialogical relationship in its essence, existence, actualization and
manifestation.
Situation and situatedness
Situatedness is being in situation, i.e. the connotation, the specificity, the condition of a
context, of a natural/physical and non-natural/physical setting, of living and non-living things.
A being is always situated as it is precisely through a situation, by means of a situation, because
of a situation that it is and becomes. The whole world is situation in relationship and/or
relationship in situation, including our being and existing, our being there. Relatedness and
Situatedness structure and connote the real world by predicating and substantiating it at an
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ontological level. They are the coordinates that enable us to read and interpret ourselves and
the world around us, because they indicate the closest and deepest connections binding the
various parts together into the whole. They inform the being that becomes an inter-being which
is situated and in fieri. The human being states, expresses and communicates his/her own
situated relatedness and his/her own related situatedness within the thinking, languages and
praxis he/she has been immersed in since the early stages of his/her development. The most
recent authoritative psycho-pedagogical and anthropological theories argue in favour of
teaching/learning formative processes which are situated. Therefore, we can talk of a
situatedness which would stand for contextuality / referability / connection / referentiality /
possibility / inhabitability of thinking, languages, life experiences and teaching/learning
processes. That said, one question wants answering: in what manner and to what extent do
these dimensions of being influence the growth and development of an individual and a CoPI?
The central character of the relationship and the situation in Lipman’s
thinking
Philosophy – Thinking – Educational Process
Lipman’s theories and suggestions for educators have often referred to relatedness and
situatedness.
Even his idea of philosophy identifies with practicing relationships in situation. The
same can be said of his idea of Complex Thinking, which is a sort of multi-dimensional thinking
whereby every dimension is able to relate with the others, within a thinking process which
becomes a kind of inquiry that fosters a dialogue between networks of relations. As Lipman
has often maintained, the very definition of thinking and the idea of educational process and
philosophical practice evince the central character of the relationship and the situation. When
Lipman says philosophy is ‘the core of the educational process’ (Lipman, Sharp 1988:
Introduction), he thinks of philosophy as activity, i.e. a potential for practicing thinking and its
processes. When Lipman states: ‘philosophy uses thought ‘to’ think and at the same time, thinks
‘about’ philosophy. This way it reflects on its method while investigating its content’ (Lipman,
2012: 507), the philosophy he has in mind ‘acquires thinking both as content and as method’
(Striano, 1999: 3-4), i.e. he refers to practicing the relationship between content and method.
This form of thinking recognizes its own nature, content and procedures and consciously uses
both what is thought and who is thinking it, as well as how it is being thought, in a process of
shared, co-participated and situated inquiry. And the relationship between thinking as content
and thinking as method, or inquiry, leads to the meta-relational and situated dimensions of
thinking which
a) are implicit in Lipman’s assumption (as it is precisely these dimensions that enable this
relationship to take place) and,
b) within a context of further formative and situated practice, are to be recognized, developed
and evolved.
Higher Order Thinking is described as ‘a complex form of thinking, one which is an
articulated unit of logical, analytic, creative and caring thinking (ethical and affective
involvement), a type of thinking which finds its fulfilment in meta-cognition, insomuch as it is
conscious of which procedures are being adopted and it is capable of controlling which
processes are being activated.’ (Lipman, Sharp 1982: Introduction). It is a form of thinking
‘that (...) puts forward thought that thinks about its own way of thinking while, at the same
time, it thinks about other things.’ (Lipman, 2012:524)
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The definition of the ‘meta’ dimension of thinking stresses both the facilitator’s and the
CoPI members’ awareness of the procedures and their ability to develop and control them. In
other words, what Lipman has in mind here is a way of teaching/learning thinking whereby the
‘thinking matter’ is internalized, and the ‘thinker’ becomes aware of its content and procedures
and develops the ability to control them. Thus, Lipman stresses our need to actualize a
conscious relationship between acquiring learning procedures and developing the ability to
control them. The meta-relational aspect of thinking is intrinsically ever-present and
potentially formative, insomuch as thinking content, procedures and control are closely related
to each other. As regards the most appropriate way of thinking to be developed in children and
teenagers, Lipman clearly stated this during a conversation with Marina Santi some years ago:
‘What interests us is that when children philosophize, they learn to think ‘in networks’,
systematically, through areas organized into relationships and not in a fragmented, disjointed
manner. If this idea of ‘thinking’ sits at the centre of Philosophy for Children, then through it
we can help students to develop the disposition to think ‘by relationships’. This way, it is the
thought process itself that can be conceived as a relational dynamic.’ (Lipman, 2012: 516).
This quotation definitely evinces Lipman’s concern with the relational dimension of thinking,
where the thinking process is identified with relational dynamics.
Thinking in networks, through organized relational areas, i.e. thinking through
relationships, is precisely the building of a dynamic-relational process and the development of
an inquiry process whereby thinking recognizes itself in a dialogical structure which is present
and/or takes shape through an interconnected network of relationships. Thinking in networks
also means considering thinking as some sort of activity aimed at entering into relationships
and interacting with the relationships that this process activates. And the relationships
evinced/recognized/built during the educational process will decisively contribute to the CoPI
member’s internalization of the relational dynamics which will later become a dialogical
process between relationship and meaning. In Thinking in Education, Lipman clearly states
the above when he defines thinking as being ‘a process of finding or making connections and
disjunctions (…) The generic term for connections and disjunctions is relationships (…) each
relationship, when discovered or invented, is a meaning, and great orders or systems of
relationships constitute great bodies of meaning’ (Lipman, 2003: 23). The importance of
relationships (multi-structural worlds coordinated and situated in formative inquiry processes),
together with the corresponding thinking dimensions to identify, stress, nurture and educate, is
present even in Lipman’s statements on an educational process which, according to the model
proposed, is aimed at producing sound educational reform. In his advice to educators
concerning a reflection- and inquiry-oriented restructuring of educational practices, Lipman
stresses the comprehension and knowledge of relations within and among the various
disciplines and stresses their intrinsically problematic nature: ‘The disciplines in which inquiry
occurs are assumed to be neither non-overlapping nor exhaustive; hence their relationships to
their subject matters are quite problematic’ (Lipman, 2003: 18). By connoting the educational
process as inquiry-driven, he adds: ‘The focus of the educational process is not on the
acquisition of information but on the grasp of relationships within and among the subject
matters under investigation (…) It should now be clear that the reflective paradigm assumes
education to be inquiry, whereas the standard paradigm does not.’ (Lipman, 2003: 19).
Then, by stressing the indispensability of educating pupils to think in the various school
subjects, Lipman shows how the pupils’ internalization of the languages inherent in the various
subjects is a consequence of their ability to recognize, comprehend and interpret the structural
relationships within and among the various disciplines. Likewise, making mental operations
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means consciously going into the meaningful dynamic relational and situated processes which
stimulate the pupils’ internalization of laws and principles, as well as concepts and categories,
through their recognition, comprehension and practice of internal and mutual relations. This
practice should enable the individual and/or the group to acknowledge, recognize, identify and
build relationships in situated formative contexts. To corroborate what has so far been reported,
Lipman says: ‘To judge is to judge relationships, either by discovering relationships, or by
inventing them’. (Lipman, 2003: 22) (...) He then goes on to stress the need to adopt
comparison-and-contrast-operating criteria, by adding that: ‘Obviously, the criteria in such
cases are similarity and difference, but similarities and differences are kinds of relationships,
just as are part-whole, means-end, cause-effect, and countless others. Every classification
scheme establishes formal relationships for empirical entities. Every law, every principle, bears
a relationship, or more precisely a set of relationships, to the events to which it applies.
Disciplines are only trivially the information they contain; more important, they are the
structures of relationships into which such information is organized. They are our
understandings’ (Lipman, 2003: 22). Hence, discovering, recognizing, evincing and creating
relationships in situated educational contexts is part of a formative process which primarily
aims at shaping and developing a specific dimension of thinking, as well as the individual’s
and the CoPI members’ awareness of it, through a shared co-participated educational practice.
As regards the 3-dimensional connotation of Complex Thinking, Lipman stresses that this
distinction is merely functional to an analysis of the spheres of thinking. He suggests that
educators should never lose sight of the relational and situated connotation of thinking. His
poignant remarks of 2002 can be summarized as follows: ‘Talking about the 3-dimensional
connotation of thinking (as well as of judgment, for that matter) in saying, making and doing,
i.e. the corresponding logical, creative and caring spheres of thinking, I do not mean to make a
hard-and-fast separation between them (…) The tripartition only serves analytical purposes:
there is no presumption to regard thinking as being actually divided into these 3 regions (…)
Rather, I am postulating that thinking is always situated within a context: those who think
historically think differently from those who think mathematically. These are disciplinary
differences. The same can be said of formal differences: those who think rationally think
differently from those who think ethically and affectivelyʼ. (Lipman, 2002: 29).
Situated relationship and situated relatedness
By Relatedness we mean ‘being which is inside a relationship’, namely, that state of
being which belongs, connotes and defines a dual, plural and dialogical relationship in its
essence, existence, actualization and manifestation. By Situated Relatedness we mean that
specific expression and that particular development inherent in and intrinsic to being in a
relationship when and only when it inhabits a given context of space and time, cognition,
language and logic, emotions and values, within an inter- and intra-personal dimension. When
we consider Situated Relatedness in its articulate development through a philosophical practice
within a P4C-based CoPi, we mean a situated process whereby articulated formative strategies
intersect the structural and dynamic dimension of the individual and the group being in
relationship. Starting from a theoretical investigation and following on from our laboratory-
like experience, we arrive at defining P4C-based CoPi relationships as Situated Relationships.
We call Situated Relationships the Relationships that start, develop, evolve and turn into a
typical holistic CoPI context. Situated stands for inhabited, i.e. addressing specific psycho-
physical [logical-cognitive, linguistic, affective (emotional), space/time / social (situational)]
contexts; Relationship stands for a structure (a model and a criterion of a
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procedure/development) for any functional practice/reference both in terms of thinking and

knowledge and in terms of personal, inter-personal and intra-personal experience.
The P4C-Based curriculum novel as model and cradle
Situated Relatedness within a P4C-based CoPi becomes (turns into) Situated
Relationship praxis, i.e., a philosophical practice which is made of, stimulated and guided by,
procedural and developmental models and criteria that refer to interactions between thinking,
languages and life experiences. As regards the semantically specific orientation we want to
ascribe to the term Situated Relatedness, what we have in mind is a movement characterizing
the Situated Relatedness and portending towards change and transformation, because it
engenders a mode of being that becomes a specific mutual nexus/bond. This mutual nexus/bond
stimulates an interaction which is subject to becoming dialogue of and between thinking,
speaking and acting. Situated Relationships can be found in P4C curriculum novels, namely
texts becoming pretexts, contexts and instruments for ‘doing philosophy’. The novel is the most
functional instrument for activating situated relational philosophical practice because it has a
plot that becomes a texture of specific coordinated elements and develops an articulated process
which achieves its objectives through the words that are narrated. The Situated Relatedness
intrinsic to it produces an in fieri process which generates a CoPI within the context of the
story. Moreover, it is in and of itself a movement which enhances and orients the CoPI of the
children or teenagers that use the story. The specific coordinated elements can be seen in those
universally extendable topics and issues pertaining to the characters and protagonists of the
novels who have personal, familiar and social experiences. These experiences can be identified,
adapted and transferred to the socio-cultural contexts the CoPI members belong to. It is
precisely these specific elements, once inserted into the novels and correlated with experiences
which children and teenagers find familiar, that guarantee their motivation and involvement.
The narrative frame of the novel is the texture that aims to be a leading model/pattern. This is
achieved through procedural, logical-cognitive and linguistic criteria and steps, still with
reference to contexts that have been experienced and practiced, and which are practicable and
bound to stimulate some sort of educational and formative transfer within contextual situations
that the CoPI members have actually experienced. This transfer will induce a stimulating
thinking process that will have an impact on the education and development of the CoPI,
insomuch as it has had an impact on the inter- and intra- personal dynamics of its members.
A novel becomes a cradle, i.e. a place and time where situated relationships can start,
grow and develop safely and securely, along with their practice, both through the characters
and the protagonists and through the logical-cognitive, linguistic, emotional, ethical, inter-
personal, intra-personal and situated contexts of the story. Finally, as the novel enables situated
relationships to establish and evolve themselves, its educational context is going to stimulate a
form of philosophical practice which will most likely enable the CoPI members consciously to
recognize, utilize and co-build other situated relationships. Thus, P4C-based CoPI members
are involved in some sort of inquiry which consciously interacts with thinking (content and
process), languages and meanings, life experiences and situated contexts. This situated and
relational philosophical practice contributes to raising the levels of ethical and epistemological
consistency in the individual as well as in the community.
Philosophical Novel – Narrative Thinking – Languages
Languages are channels/codes which have multiple expressive, communicative and
interpretive potential. More specifically, the communicative options of verbal language are
20
greater and more substantial. Verbal language is a more direct channel – it allows for greater
coherence and definite interpretation.
The thinking that grows and develops within a CoPI is one that is linked to a life
experience, as well as a novel which is subject to being linked to past, present and future life
experiences, in any way closely connected with the lives of children, teenagers and/or other
members of the community. When it activates processes and reflects on itself, when it thinks
and it is thought, this form of thinking uses narration. By sharing different perspectives that
integrate within the participated inquiry, the interpretation of the world around and the shared
construction of senses and meanings to assign to one’s own life experiences occur thanks to
the narrative dimension of thinking, which is always there and is stimulated and enhanced by
curriculum novels in the philosophical practice routes. All languages can be used as stimuli,
aids and conversions, and improve, foster and enhance expressive and communicative
potential, the internalization of notions, concepts, topics and objectives. Practicing other
languages and converting expressions and communicative acts into different languages means
acquiring translation/exemplification skills that guide and orient the comprehension and
production of messages. To acquire translation and conversion skills from one code to another
is extremely important in order to make logical clarifications or adopt interpretive strategies.
It is necessary, however, to make some things clear: even if codes like icons, music or
gestures became text/pre-text for philosophical inquiry, they could cause ambiguity or
perplexity or raise various other issues, pose questions, etc. but, at least in our opinion, they
could not serve the purposes or perform the functions typical of a narrative text like the P4C
novel, which is not only a pre-text, but also a context that guides the inquiry-building process;
they would not leave so much room for imagination and creation as the narration of novels
normally does. The use of other codes would certainly require some sort of conversion into
verbal language, into words, in order to facilitate doing philosophy or practicing discussion.
There is a great difference between the use of other codes as stimuli for imagination, creation
or reflection purposes and the verbal language used in P4C curriculum novels. The words and
events engaging the characters and protagonists of the novels lead the individual and the group
to build their own thinking and their own self within contextual inter- and intra-personal
dynamics. The verbal language that Lipman refers to is a language that connotes itself into a
set of relationships connected in significant logical, cognitive and linguistic connections that
interact with life experiences. This language becomes social production and an action tool and
the CoPI dialogue becomes a set of relationships which are connected in their connections and
meanings. In Thinking in Education, when introducing the fundamental nature of awareness
and self-awareness, the awareness of our mental acts, Lipman maintains the educational
importance of fiction by saying:
This is the value of literature: It provides a surrogate context that helps us figure out what the term in
question is doing in that context. We can’t see a surmise or a gathering the way that we can see a
cassowary, but we can be conscious of performing the mental act of surmising or gathering. We can
confront a cassowary in the zoo, but we can confront a surmise only by thinking about our own
thinking, by being conscious of our own consciousness. Thus to think about our own thinking is to
objectify a mental performance we have just engaged in, whereupon we can name it, describe it,
correct it, substitute a synonym for it, and so on. (Lipman, 2003: 143)
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22
Situated relatedness and praxis

Therefore, Situated Relatedness is that process which generates, enacts and modifies
thinking, language and life experience. In so doing, it connotes itself both in its original
essence at the outset and in its development as becoming, with a substantiality that is
basically movement. It comes back onto itself and, at the same time, can evolve in a spiralling
manner. This form of thinking that originates from life experience embodies a language that
is, in its turn, an action tool in a continuous and continual becoming which allows for changes
and transformations. Situated Relatedness is the constant source and power of the inquiry
process. It stimulates, generates, induces, guides and orients mental and linguistic acts/states,
emotional and relational states and their consequent mental operations, which are enhanced
by the problematic ambiguity of life experience that can be found in a novel and transferred
to the holistic and situated context of inquiry typical of a CoPI. Situated Relatedness produces
a generative transformational movement that guides and orients the individual and the group
through some routes rather than through others, through some operations rather than through
others. Although it leaves a lot of room for choice, it creates growth and development routes
that are specific and detailed.
If we take ‘Sassi d’artista’ (‘Artist Stones’), (Nardone, 2011: 65-83), a story written
according to P4C-based formative indications, as an example, we can see that the
protagonists of the story are inserted in a very motivating context. The teacher decides to put
on an art show with works his/her students have created with stones gathered on the beach.
While gathering these stones, students talk and quarrel with each other as to which stones to
gather and which not. They provide many reasons which bear various and heterogeneous
ideas of beauty. The protagonists of the story discover and inform each other of issues and
problems they often leave unanswered, such as, for example, the relationship between criteria
and beauty. In their mutual ‘confrontation’ for editing the Agenda and during their
discussion, the pupils of the ‘Liceo Anco Marzio’ CoPI were induced to undertake a thinking
and talking movement which guided and oriented them towards specific mental operations,
such as ‘discovering implicit assumptions’ or ‘making a comparison’. The issues they
constructed show a consistent correlation between the dynamics interacting in the context of
the story and those developing from among the laboratory students. They evince a movement
that goes beyond the movement/action present in the story: e.g., a question like ‘Does the
beauty of a whole set depend on the beauty of its single parts or on the beauty of the whole
set itself?’ indicates an articulated form of cognitive curiosity. The discussion still features
various positions and in-depth observations, such as putting the concept of beauty in relation
with the beauty of a civilization or culture, or the observation that ‘the individual parts might
not be beautiful, but it is the whole they take part in which becomes beautiful.’
We can therefore assert that the Situated Relatedness which is practiced within a CoPI
is that movement of individual and/or group thinking, language and life experience which is
stimulated by a story and by the life experiences of the members and guided and oriented by
the facilitator’s interventions. It describes an in-network process which is:
a) situated in an educational and formative context whereby network means all those
connections, links and relations originating from contextual experience and generated
within the context of CoPI praxis and
b) guided and oriented by a procedure which becomes a holistic process of inquiry aimed at
creating shared co-participated knowledge and philosophical dialogue.
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Situated learning – Situated cognition – Distributed thinking – Situated

relatedness
When we talk of Situated Relatedness, not only do we acknowledge the educational
value of formative interpersonal interactions in the teaching/learning process, but we also
have other aspects in mind. The philosophical practice undertaken in P4C-based CoPIs is
certainly in line with the principles and guidelines that connote situated learning. Situated
learning is a teaching/learning process which develops in a significant formative space that
greatly contributes to the nurturing of internal relations between the community and the
relevant cultural context. This is a holistic learning context where situations are highly
motivating, characterized by a form of activity-oriented situation-integrated knowledge
which becomes the result of a shared discursive/dialogical process. Intra- and inter-personal
relationships are oriented towards inclusive interacting relational ethics. The skills to be
attained are cognitive and affective – learning to learn in order to learn to be is the main aim
of the educational process. Particularly significant is the term situated cognition, which
indicates a type of knowledge that is the result of a cultural situation which the subjects
internalize by practicing distributed thinking. Distributed thinking is a form of thinking
whereby, thanks to social interaction, the subjects actually build their own knowledge, which
they will use in order to shape their own persona and develop their own personality.
All these principles and aims do exist and are pursued through the philosophical
practice that connotes P4C-based CoPIs. One difference could be found in the specificity of
their relevant context, which is not only a physical space, but also a symbolic environment
that includes the whole corpus of the experiences narrated and practiced by community
members. This environment might be thought of as an open space fostering the construction
of meaningful experiences with various types of contexts (physical, institutional, etc.). The
main distinction between a situated-learning-practice community and a Lipman-model-
based-practice community is to be found in the kind of activity practiced. P4C-based CoPIs
foster a form of doing philosophy which becomes situated-relatedness-oriented
philosophical inquiry. P4C-based CoPI members are involved in some sort of inquiry which
consciously interacts with thinking (content and process), languages and meanings, life
experiences and situational contexts. The inquiry is carried out according to intra- and inter-
personal circular dynamics criteria whereby philosophy is used for the growth and
development of conscious multi-dimensional thinking in the individual and within the group.
Thus, the transverse aspects of philosophical practice enhance individual- and group-based
skills. All these activities are carried out on an inter-disciplinary basis, which favours the
individual’s and the group’s internalization of the structural relations within and among the
various disciplines. Practicing the trans-disciplinary dimension of philosophy helps both the
individual and the CoPI to focus on, and interact with, logical, metaphysical, ethical, aesthetic
and epistemological topics and issues in their learning process.
Distributed thinking is an educational dimension whereby every participant in a group
engages in the same thinking procedure: some mental/language acts interact with others, and
some mental operations interact with others. This type of interaction is knowledge-building-
oriented. Situated Relatedness is not to be confused with distributed thinking. Situated
Relatedness implies interactions between thinking, language and life experiences among
CoPI members in order to produce sharing and co-participation in dialogue. It is some sort
of movement which is the source and power of, as well as the criterion and model for, the
growth and development of CoPI relational dynamics. It can become interactive, it is an in
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fieri relational process that can later create distributed thinking. The dialogical-relational
process between mental acts/states, speech acts and mental operations, which is present in
the P4C curriculum novel is oriented to the construction and development of thinking skills
in a holistic inquiry context of educational learning, through some sort of discussion which
is subject to becoming philosophical dialogue based on the educational dynamics of the
interactions between concepts, emotions, reasoning and judgments. This process will be
created because it derives from the characters and the protagonists’ dialogue in the story and
it will be suggested by the situational and relational context of the novels. By evincing the
role, functions and interactions of mental acts in the educational process, Lipman maintains:
A mental act may play an important part in a dialogue by serving to move the inquiry along. It can
be related to a speech act having a tactical role in discourse. The speech act is not something
independent of the mental act yet somehow corresponding to it. Rather, it is that portion of the
single discursive entity that has developed to the point of utterance. In this sense, speech acts have
their roots in ongoing mental performances, while at the same time they interact with other speech
acts that are parts of the communal dialogue, and they produce the phenomenon of ‘distributed
thinking’ in which each participant contributes to the single thinking process. Without the activity
of tiny molecules of thought -interacting mental acts- that process would be fairly unintelligible.
(Lipman, 2003: 139)
Besides indicating that mental performances and speech acts are formatively
interdependent, which contributes to generating dialogue-making distributed thinking, the
above quotation stresses the great value of relationships situated within and among acts,
states, operations, words and meanings. This type of Situated Relatedness should always be
recognized and practiced in a formative perspective that includes a facilitator and CoPI
members, because it is exactly this founding structure which makes the formative process
feasible and enables the participants to become aware of the educational value of what they
have practiced and internalized.
In light of what has been maintained so far, Situated Relatedness can be defined as
being:
1) a continuous and continual source and power of the philosophical inquiry and
2) a movement that generates, enacts and modifies a constant interaction and
complementarity between and among thinking, language and life experience,
inasmuch as it provides criteria and models which stimulate, engender, induce,
direct, guide and orient specific mental and linguistic acts/states, emotional and
relational states and mental operations.
Situated Relatedness is an in-network process of links and connections, i.e. of
relationships identified and generated in formative situational contexts.
Situated relatedness, Meta-relational situated thinking, Complex thinking
The results of our research and consequent observations enable us to talk about a form
of thinking which, in the aforesaid settings, starts, grows and develops and which is not only
Relational and Meta-Relational, but also Situated.
Can we talk of relations between Complex Thinking and Meta-Relational Situated
Thinking(MRST)?
MRST, which P4C cultivates and nurtures in and with its philosophical praxis, is a form
of thinking based on the structural and formative value of the situated relationship. It is a
type of thinking which forms and develops within the individual’s and the group’s awareness
and through the acknowledgment, recognition, formation and development of Situated
25
Relatedness. Situated Relatedness is nothing other than an interactive network of situated

relationships. P4C-based CoPi praxis implies the formative interaction of individual and
group thinking, language and life experience and the awareness that thinking, language and
life experience are linked to one another in an educational perspective which is both inter-
personal and intra-personal. Here we mean to establish and develop a form of Complex
Thinking in which both the individual and the group are aware of the importance of educating
/ developing / corroborating formative interdependent relationships within each thinking
sphere (as is the case with self-correction and context sensitivity in critical thinking), as well
as in the interaction between the various thinking spheres (critical, creative and caring).
As the tree image shows, we can regard Caring Thinking as that dimension of thinking
which represents a carrying structure that could become the support or incentive necessary
to corroborate the growth of other dimensions of thinking. In the image, it corresponds to the
roots which are that part of the tree which feeds on the soil to nurture the whole plant and
make it grow. Critical Thinking corresponds to the trunk of the plant, that which supports
it by letting the nourishment through and connecting the various parts, features and functions
of the plant. Creative Thinking corresponds to the frond of the tree, which consists of
branches, leaves, flowers and fruits, i.e. it stands for that dimension of thinking with a
generative and developmental nature. MRST corresponds to the lymph, whose canals run
through the tree and enable it to live and grow. The lymph runs all the way through the tree:
its crude part, the sap, is that light-coloured fluid consisting of water and mineral salts which
the roots absorb from the soil; the rest, the processed part of the lymph, is a solution of
nutrients created by the leaves (by photosynthesis) which spreads all the way through the
plant.
In our view, Complex Thinking and Meta-Relational Situated Thinking grow in a direct
proportion to each other. Together, they represent some sort of Complementary Thinking - a
highly articulated type of thinking in which every dimension performs specific functions that
constantly interact with those of the other spheres of thinking. A CoPI can successfully
pursue P4C formative objectives insofar as its educational model helps activate and nurture
a philosophical practice oriented towards a conscious growth and development of MRST.
Situated relatedness as an educational choice
Will an educator who becomes aware and practices Situated Relatedness really make a
difference in facilitating the growth of a CoPI ?
Does being and becoming MRST (i.e., its Situatedness and Relatedness) acquire
valuable meaning and significance in co-building philosophical dialogue?
Situated Relatedness is a valuable educational choice provided it is recognized and
nurtured as an educational platform and formative tool. In order for us to make this choice,
Situated Relatedness must be consciously acknowledged per se and promoted in terms of its
becoming a long-term educational strategy and methodological approach throughout the
process of philosophical inquiry. By educational platform we mean a structure which acts as
a multi-functional launchpad and constant safe reference in the growth and development of
the individual and the group. By formative tool we mean a channel that aids and guides the
community throughout the educational process by accurately intervening in the activities so
as to constructively and fruitfully stimulate a meaningful practice of interactions between
thinking, language and life experience. From our own point of view, mastering, practicing
and activating Situated Relatedness in a conscious manner obviously does make a difference
for an educator: it improves his/her competence and facilitation style and makes him/her feel
26
more suitable for fulfilling the requirements of being and becoming an educator. The P4C
curriculum, which is structured on the significant formative potential of relationships, can act
as a valuable guide also on account of its trans-disciplinary character. Although formative
projects often imply great educational perspectives, at the end of the day they feature
activities and pieces of knowledge that shape and develop deeply non-related thinking
processes and completely ignore the formative influence of relatedness and situatedness. As
regards the influence of conscious Situated Relatedness practices oriented towards shared co-
participated dialogue-building processes, it is worth noting that thinking, language and life
experience are not only mutually connected; they also merge together and, albeit keeping
their own specificities, become dynamically complementary. The meeting relationship that
results from the aforesaid multi-stage process makes the elements connote themselves in such
a way as to dynamically complement each other. Moreover, this process generates dialogue
because it creates deep conscious relationships of thinking, languages and behaviors through
interactive practices of mutual situatedness and relatedness. Situated Relatedness creates
some sort of osmosis between and among the various dimensions of thinking. As a source, it
continuously and continually gives strength, energy and life to the movement of thinking,
thus vivifying relationships in the shared co-participated knowledge-building process.
Conclusion
The present paper has stressed the importance of the role, functions and growth of
Situated Relatedness and the meta-relational and situated structure of thinking connected to it.
To this end, the formative route suggested by P4C-based curriculum novels is shown and
interpreted through a philosophical practice which is meta-relational and situated. The
educational relationship to consider here is one featuring not only interactive emotional-
affective-social-ethical dynamics, but also linguistic-cognitive-conceptual dynamics which
intersect each other and concern both the individual and the group in an interpersonal and
intrapersonal perspective. P4C-based curriculum novels generate a model of meta-relational
and situated philosophical practice which can become a fruitful instrument of growth and
development if its inherent aims and procedures are recognized and familiarized with. By
building conscious situated relationships, P4C curriculum novels guide the individual and the
group to practice and develop relational attitudes and aptitudes within their real-life experience.
Finally, educators can really guide and orient others and themselves toward the growth and
development of multi-dimensional thinking especially when they have internalized the
importance of practicing Situated Relatedness. It is precisely its being situated and related that
makes a real difference. In these respects, acknowledging the situated and related being-and-
becoming nature of thinking enables all of us to better comprehend and appreciate the concept,
function and value of the formative relationship in thinking, both in ordinary educational
processes and in the whole world we are situated in and interact with.
REFERENCES
Lipman, M. and Sharp, A.M. (1982). Looking for Meaning. Upper Montclair, N. J: IAPC.
Lipman, M. and Sharp, A.M. (1988). Getting Our Thoughts Together. Upper Montclair, NJ,
IAPC.
Lipman, M. (2002). Orientamento al valore (caring) come pensiero in Filosofia e formazione,
Napoli, It: Liguori.
27
Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Lipman, M. (2012). A conversation with Matthew Lipman. In Santi M. Educating for
Complex Thinking through Philosophical Inquiry. Napoli, It: Liguori, p. 501-518.
Nardone, S. (2011). Sassi d’artista. In Lupia, E., Miraglia, M., Nardone, S. and Sorbo, R. Il
risentimento della mula. Napoli, It: Liguori, p.65-83.
Striano, M. (1999). La filosofia come educazione del pensiero – Una conversazione
pedagogica con M. Lipman, CRIF, Bollettino 13/14/15, p.3-4.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
AA.VV. (2012). Thinking Education Through Philosophy, 15th ICPIC Conference. Jinju,
Korea: KATPIS.
AA.VV. (2012). Moral and Multicultural Education Through Philosophy, 15th ICPIC
Conference. Jinju, Korea: KATPIS.
Carpentieri, A. M. (2009). Giocare con le parole. Childhood & Philosophy. 5(10).
Carpentieri,A.M. (2015). Situated relationship and Philosophical praxis - Childhood
&Philosophy. 11(21).
Cosentino, A. (2002). Costruttivismo e formazione. Napoli, IT: Liguori.
Cosentino, A. (Ed.) (2005). Filosofia e Formazione. Napoli, IT: Liguori.
Cosentino, A. (Ed.) (2005). Pratica Filosofica e Professionalità Riflessiva. Napoli, IT:
Liguori.
De Marzio, D.M. (2011). What Happens in Philosophical Texts: M. Lipman’s Theory And
Practice of the Philosophhical Text as Model - Childhood & Philosophy. 7(13).
Greenspan, Stanley I. (2007). L’Intelligenza del Cuore. Milano, IT: Oscar Mondadori.
Kohan, O.W. (2014). Philosophy and Childhood. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A.M. and Oscanyan, F.S. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom.
Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to school. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Lipman, M. (2008). A Life Teaching Thinking. Upper Montclair, N.J.: I.A.P.C.
Lupia, E., Miraglia, M., Nardone, S. and Corbo, R. (2011). Il risentimento della mula. Napoli,
IT: Liguori.
Matthews, G.B. (1980). Philosophy & the young child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Mohr, L.J. and Israeloff, R. (2012). Philosophy and Education. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing.
Naji, S. (2004). Interview with Ann-Margaret Sharp, P4C Conference, Mexico. P4C
Curriculum: Children’s Novels and Teachers’ Manuals.
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Ruffaldi, E. (1999). Insegnare filosofia. Firenze, IT: La Nuova Italia.

Ruffaldi, E., Carelli, P.and Nicola, U. (2012). Il Nuovo Pensiero Plurale. Torino, IT:
Loescher.
Santi, M. (1985). Ragionare con il discorso. Firenze, IT: La Nuova Italia.
Santi, M, (Ed.) (2005). Philosophy for Children: un curricolo per imparare a pensare.
Napoli, IT: Liguori.
Santi, M.and Oliverio, S. (Eds.) (2012). Educating for Complex Thinking through
Philosophical Inquiry. Napoli, IT: Liguori.
Sharp, M. (1978). A Novel Approach to Philosophy for Children. Momentum 9(2).
Striano, M. (1995). La filosofia come educazione del pensiero – Una conversazione
pedagogica con M.Lipman. Roma, IT: C.R.I.F. Bollettino 13/14/15.
Striano, M. (1999). Quando il pensiero si racconta. Roma, IT: Meltemi.
Striano, M. Pensare insieme in P4C: alcune riflessioni. The information can be found at
www.filosofare.org
Waksman, V.and Kohan, O. W. (2013). Fare filosofia con i bambini. Marina Santi (Ed.),
Napoli, IT: Liguori.
29
Philosophy for Children (P4C) as Philosophical Practice of

Community
Antonio Cosentino
CRIF (Centro di Ricerca sull’Indagine Filosofica)
cosentino.ntn@gmail.com
CV
Antonio Cosentino is a high school teacher of Philosophy and worked as a teacher trainer at
SSIS (Scuola di Specializzazione per l'Insegnamento Secondario) of Calabria University
from 1999 to 2009, where he also was Adjunct Professor. He holds a Ph.D. in Science of
Education and Psychology from the University of Naples ‘Federico II’. He is currently
President of the scientific committee of CRIF, Co-director of the series “Impariamo a
pensare” of Liguori, publisher and Director of the Acuto Summer School, which offers P4C
teacher training programs.
He is author of several articles and essays on educational research (specifically P4C), the
editor of two books and the author of three books on topics such as philosophy as social
practice and philosophical community of inquiry and education.
ABSTRACT
While the number of proposals for practising philosophy with children is on the rise, I realize
that, often, P4C is not in fact ‘Philosophy for Children’, not in the first instance and not in
the manner of ‘Filosofia per/con i bambini’ – that is, something like a ‘toy-philosophy’. My
contention is that the P4C curriculum is rather a corollary of Lipman’s conception of
philosophy as a ‘social practice’. Consequently, the background of the P4C curriculum I call
‘Philosophical Practice of Community’ (PPC), and it is this which I would like to bring to
the foreground. When the purely pedagogical aspects of P4C are set aside, we can throw light
on the three main pillars of PPC: (a) community, (b) dialogical inquiry and (c) philosophy.
a) The quest for community appears to be a widespread and at the same time dangerous
reaction against globalization. PPC insists on the challenge of cultivating open
communities everywhere, engaged in creative and democratic communication and
inquiry.
b) Although we might consider Socrates an unattainable model for PPC, nonetheless we want
to overcome the agonistic spirit characterizing the Greek dialegesthai. Only a constructive
vision of dialogue can broaden the communicative space to include more voices and turn
them into a harmonious choir.
c) I believe that PPC cannot accept the diagnosis of the death of philosophy pronounced by
postmodern philosophers. Perhaps, we need to go back to Plato’s key allegory of the cave
and invent a different outcome, a different figure of the philosopher capable, in the end,
of dwelling inside the polis.
KEYWORDS
4C, Philosophical practice, Philosophical novels.
30
RESUMEN
Si bien el número de propuestas para hacer Filosofía con niños va aumentando, me doy
cuenta de que, a menudo, FpN, después de todo, parece no ser en realidad “Filosofía para
niños”, no en principio y no en la línea de “Filosofia per / con i bambini” como una filosofía
de juguete. Mi propuesta es que el currículum de FpN es más bien una especie de corolario
de la concepción filosófica de Lipman como una “práctica social”. En consecuencia, los
antecedentes del plan de estudios FpN es lo que denomino “Práctica filosófica de la
comunidad” (PFC) y es lo que me gustaría destacar. Cuando los aspectos puramente
escolásticos de FpN se dejan de lado, podemos arrojar luz sobre los tres pilares principales
de PFC: comunidad, investigación dialógica y filosofía.
La búsqueda de la comunidad parece ser una reacción generalizada y peligrosa contra la
globalización. PFC insiste en el desafío de cultivar en todas partes comunidades abiertas,
involucradas en la comunicación y la investigación creativas y democráticas.
Aunque podríamos considerar que Sócrates es un modelo incomparable para PPC, sin
embargo, lo que queremos superar es el espíritu agonístico que caracteriza a la dialegesthai
griega. Solo una visión constructiva del diálogo puede ampliar el espacio comunicativo para
incluir más voces y hacer que se conviertan en un coro.
Creo que PFC no puede aceptar la declaración de la muerte de la filosofía pronunciada por
los filósofos posmodernos. Tal vez, tenemos que volver a la alegoría de Platón de la caverna
e inventar un resultado diferente, una figura diferente de filósofo capaz, al final, de vivir en
la polis.
PALABRAS CLAVE
FpN, Práctica filosófica, Cuentos filosóficos.
INTRODUCTION
Reflecting upon the theme of the XVIII ICPIC Conference, the phrase ‘family
resemblances’ appropriately represents the current situation of P4C around the world: P4C
no longer exists as a whole, a unique class, no longer as a space defined by inclusion and
exclusion, but as a family in which relationships are settled on the basis of resemblances.
Still, the question remains open concerning the criteria to be chosen to recognize these
resemblances, that is, how to know where family membership starts and where it ends.
In Italy there are many projects available today for practising philosophy with children,
some derived from Lipman (more or less transparently), others with different sources and
with various approaches, so that ‘filosofia con i bambini’ has become almost a fashion, a
fashion which obsessively includes a critical attitude towards Lipman’s traditional
curriculum. Each approach has its own formula (sometimes presented as ‘magical’), but I
have the distinct impression that in some cases what is happening is that P4C is interpreted
as ‘Filosofia per i bambini’, which in Italian sounds like a reduction of philosophy to a toy
format or, worse, an empty pretence.
This host of initiatives is certainly a sign of how much the idea of doing philosophy
with children has gained credibility over the years and how much prospects are more
promising at present than in the early nineties. Pluralism is a value and not a problem, but
31
one wonders to what extent some of these proposals are different to Lipman’s curriculum; to
what extent the differences are only in vocabulary, justifiable more in terms of sociology of
knowledge then in logical, pedagogical and philosophical terms.
With regard to Lipman’s curriculum, it is worth noting that a lot of attention has been
paid everywhere to the novels and, in general, to the materials used to prompt philosophical
dialogue. Important as they may be, focusing on starting stimuli can risk forgetting the overall
event of philosophical practice and, especially, its proper core, which is the dialogue.
Some Italian people say: ‘Why should we prefer these nasty American stories when we
have Pinocchio and several other wonderful fairy tales?’. Of course, this kind of criticism is
based on a category misunderstanding concerning the difference between a classic fairy tale
and a ‘philosophical’ novel. We are dealing here with a topic that can make a family
difference. Those who rightly denounce the limitations of Lipman’s curriculum, pointing out
its ethnocentric characterization, have – it seems to me – at least two possibilities.
The first one consists in replacing the American ethnocentrism with some different
ethnocentrism, emphasizing the preference for contextualization. The second possibility is to
develop the creation of new novels increasingly free from ethnocentric characterizations. In
this case, however, the risk is an excess of decontextualization, of falling into the world of
pure forms. In other words, the challenge is how to create a balance between
contextualization and decontextualization. In any case, it must be clear that a text to be shaped
as an instrument for inspiring dialogue should be different from other kind of writings. It
needs to be conceived of as a specific tool for specific ends. It is also true that reflection and
dialogue in a philosophical manner may arise from any event, situation or story. Nonetheless,
if we engage in criticizing old tools, we are expected to show attempts to improve them or
replace them with those that are more useful. Appealing to literature, folklore or mythology
is to abandon the field of research: it sounds like a statement of defeat.
Returning to contextualization and decontextualization within philosophical practice, I
think that Lipman’s model of story is a prototypical draft to the extent that it materializes a
fortunate weaving between storytelling and reflection as the central pillar of a philosophical
novel. While the narrative dimension contextualizes, the reflective decontextualizes and –
this is important – both are offered inside the novel. You can also do philosophy after reading
Pinocchio, but, however, you have to add further elements that are not actually inside the
story. Ultimately, I read Lipman’s stories as a great challenge to write new stories which
inspire thought; this has been a recent work objective of mine, and I include an example of
an invented dialogue below:
Dialogue between Right and Left
[Inspired by the Kantian text, What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? (Kant, 1996)]
Right- I’m Right and I stand in front of you. So, I stand on your left…
Left- Here I am. I’m Left and I stand in front of you. So, I stand on your right…
(Turning to face Right) Tell me, where does your sense of orientation come from?
Right- I’ll let you into a little secret. Here's how I do it. I look at the direction you take and then
I go to the opposite side. What about you? How do you find your way?
Left- I’ll let you into a little secret. Here's how I do it. I look at the direction you take and then
I go to the opposite side.
Right- This is a rather vexing surprise… I was following you believing you were following a
rule.
Left- And I was assuming the same of you. So, does this mean that there is no rule?
Right- If that were the case, nobody could know, once and for all, where the right lies and where
the left lies. What do you think?
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Left- I don’t know exactly, but I have a story to tell you. Listen…
David has just arrived in Zoe’s town, which is completely new to him. Just off the station he
asked a native the way to Nowhere street.
“Easy! - was the answer. Just turn right after that pub over there and you’ll be there”.
In the pub, drinking a beer, a doubt suddenly struck David. The image of the man who gave him
directions had returned to his mind with his left hand raised, while clearly telling him to go to
the right. Might someone confuse his own right with his own left? Better ask again – David
thought.
“Excuse me, could you please tell me the way to Nowhere street?”
“Easy! - was the answer. Just turn left here. Look, I'll show you on the map of the city. (Standing
in front of him) Look, it's on the left”.
“To say the truth, it appears to me to be on the right!”.
“Of course, it is on your right! We just have to turn the map around. Done! Now it’s the right
way round! This way, you have your right exactly on your left”.
What? Is this a joke? Oh. You are right. Yes, on the map! But I have to move in the real city
and to be sure, I cannot turn it to my liking”.
“Maybe you can turn around yourself…”
“Oh, sure… But, which way, for God's sake?”
Far away from a Platonic perspective, this philosophical novel provides a clear
connection with everyday experience and with commonsense certainties, putting them in
doubt and puzzling daily frameworks. Moreover, it produces a sufficient deal of wonder to
set up seldom asked questions and to promote philosophical inquiry. At the same time, the
surreal scenario helps avoid detailed contextualization, preventing, during the building of the
agenda, questions like ‘What is the job of Pixie’s father?’1. The narrative code asks for
contextualization, but a philosopher is never content with the single context; he’s not
comfortable with commonsense; he always moves toward the edges, the boundaries between
one context and another.
In any case, what in my view is really at stake is not the way or the tools you use to
prompt dialogue. Rather, the main concern is the quality of the dialogue itself, its
philosophical style and its educational effects. Someone can do philosophy with children, for
example, using Plato’s cave allegory. He/she rewrites the Platonic text as a wonderful fairy
tale, reads it in the classroom, asks children what they think of this story and, if this
philosopher is lucky enough, an enjoyable conversation may develop. Not bad, we might say.
Unfortunately, what is lost here is the philosophical practice and, with it, the transformation
of the classroom into a community of inquiry.
In a case such as this, what happens is that a piece of philosophical tradition is wearing
a childish dress and plays with children; Plato – I’m sure –would be quite annoyed by this.
But this is not the sort of practice Lipman’s curriculum suggests. There is no need for gifted
philosophers to meet children in order to show them how to do philosophy, rather, what we
really need is as large as possible a number of teachers capable of rethinking their
professionalism and combining it with a reflective style, while, at the same time, philosophers
capable of performing an epoché with their knowledge, suspending it in order to listen to a
community of non-philosophers and to participate in dialogue. In this regard, P4C took
seriously the lesson from Dewey, who in The Sources of a Science of Education (Dewey,
1929) warns about the risks involved in the figure of the brilliant teacher, especially with
regard to his/her inability to extend to other colleagues his unique skills and, in addition, with
1
Pixie is one of the characters of Lipman’s novels.
33
regard to the seductive effects on students which, in contact with this kind of teacher, tend to
adopt attitudes of imitation and dependence.
In this sense, the main character of the P4C settings is not the figure of a leading
philosopher, nor is it an alleged ‘philosophical child’ (Mohr Lone, 2015; Gopnik, 2010). The
whole community is always the real performer. This is because I prefer to read P4C as
‘Philosophy for community’ or ‘Philosophical practice of community’. What I’m suggesting,
in addition, is that the P4C curriculum is rather a corollary of a more general background
which has to do with the conception of philosophy as a ‘social practice’. This is more like an
‘ante-philosophy for children’ and goes sharply against the inconsistent idea of a post-
philosophy for children, as suggestive as the latter may be.
The P4C curriculum emerges from this background when the philosophical practice is
implemented in educational environments. To be clear, I think that the inner nature of the
P4C curriculum is well stated by the expression ‘philosophical practice of community’,
which summarizes a premise we can conceive of as a more general framework that is
thinkable before the curriculum, and beyond its specific tools and procedures.
Now, if we assume the philosophical practice of community (PPC) as a starting point,
a wider social horizon opens up for philosophy. During the first decade of this century PPC
has been explored as a field of research and experimentation in Italy and it has been tested in
several contexts: prisons, drug addict communities, hospitals, companies, and, last but not
least, in public squares like, for example, the Campo de’ Fiori in Rome, and so on.
Meanwhile, books have been published on this topic (Cosentino, 2006; Cosentino, 2008;
Volpone, 2014) and I believe it may be particularly significant that the first essay by Lipman
published in Italy in 1988 was titled Pratica filosofica e riforma dell’educazione (Lipman,
1988). This extension of the field of action marks the social and political value of philosophy
when it is interpreted as the practice of shared inquiry and contributes to binding more closely
together reasonableness and democracy (Lipman, 1991).
Finally, when the purely pedagogical aspects of P4C are set aside, we can throw light
on the three main pillars of PPC: community, dialogical inquiry and philosophy. As far as the
topic of community is concerned, I would like to point out that seeking community is
‘seeking safety in an insecure world’, (Bauman, 2000, p. 25). So, it is not enough to transform
some classrooms into CoI. The quest for community appears as a widespread and, at the same
time, dangerous answer to globalization. It is dangerous because community, in order to
warrant security, tends to raise barriers and borders and to nourish the tribal spirit. PPC, on
the contrary, insists on the challenge of cultivating open communities, engaged in creative
and democratic relationships and inquiry.
If community is the primary pillar of PPC, the second very important pillar is dialogue.
In this regard, many questions arise. One is that of comparing and contrasting PPC dialogue
with the Platonic tradition. How could there be an epistemology of dialogue which could
overcome the Socratic dual and negative scheme? How can dialogue become really choral?
And how may dialogue be ‘not a conversation but an existential ‘form’, a way of existing-
with’? (Biesta, 2017). Although we might consider Socrates an unattainable model for PPC,
what we want to overcome is the agonistic spirit which characterizes the Greek dialegesthai.
Can we modify the Greek sense of dialegesthai, its essence as a fight in which the ultimate
purpose is to put the interlocutor in difficulty, the index of a competitive and deconstructive
vision of dialogue, destined, for these reasons, not to produce new immediate knowledge?
Only a constructive vision of dialogue can broaden the communicative space to include more
voices and turn them into a choir, even though they will continue to speak one at a time.
34
With regard to philosophy, there is a primary question to be asked: What kind of

philosophy can there be after Postmodernism pronounced it dead? I believe that from the
point of view of a ‘philosophical practice of community’ the death of philosophy is to be
understood only as the end of the metaphysical tradition and by no means of philosophy as a
style of thinking. Perhaps, we must go back to the platonic cave allegory and invent a
different conclusion, a different image of the philosopher capable, in the end, of dwelling
inside the polis; a figure who would be recognizable, in any case, as a philosopher in the light
of our tradition. All philosophies pass away, but we hope that philosophy will continue to
live as an unmistakable style of thinking and acting, the same as was used to announce its
death.
REFERENCES
Bauman, Z. (2000). Missing Community, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Biesta, G. (2017). ‘Touching the soul? Exploring an alternative outlook for philosophical
work with children and young people’, Childhood & Philosophy, 13 (28), 420.
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formazione con operatori psico-socio-sanitari, Napoli: Liguori.
Cosentino, A. (2008), La filosofia come pratica sociale, Milano: Apogeo.
Kant, I. (1996), What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking? Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Dewey, J. (1929) The sources of a science of education, LW, vol. 5, Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press.
Gopnik, A. (2010), The philosophical baby, New York: Picador.
Lipman, M. (1988). Pratica filosofica e riforma dell'educazione, Bollettino SFI, 135.
Lipman, M. (1991), Thinking in Education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Mohr Lone, J. (2015). The Philosophical Child, Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Volpone, A. (ed.) (2014). Pratica filosofica di comunità, Napoli: Liguori.
35
The Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Regulative Ideal
Dina Mendonça
IFILNOVA-FCSH-UNL
mendonca.emotion@gmail.com
Magda Costa-Carvalho
NICA-UAc/IFIL-NOVA-FCSH-UNL
magda.ep.teixeira@uac.pt
CV
Dina Mendonça is a research fellow at IFILNOVA, FCSH NOVA, New University of
Lisbon, Portugal. She took the Master’s degree at Montclair State University with Matthew
Lipman and Ann Sharp, and holds a Ph.D on John Dewey’s Concept of Experience from the
University of South Carolina, USA. Her research focuses on Philosophy of Emotions and
Philosophy for Children. She is an invited collaborator of the Master Course in Philosophy
for Children at University of the Azores and offers Philosophy for Children sessions in a
variety of settings (schools, museums, in preparation of creative projects, and pedagogical
projects meetings, etc.).
Magda Costa-Carvalho teaches at the University of the Azores, Portugal, and is a research
member of IFILNOVA, New University of Lisbon, Portugal. She holds a Ph.D. on Henri
Bergson’s Concept of Nature. Her research focuses on the ethical dimension of P4C, as well
as on Environmental Philosophy. She holds Levels 1 and 2 of SAPERE’s P4C training (UK).
She coordinates a Master Course in Philosophy for Children at University of the Azores and
offers Philosophy for Children sessions in a public school.
ABSTRACT
The paper proposes that understanding the notion of ‘community of inquiry’ as a regulative
ideal is a valuable working move for the refinement and improvement of the practice of
Philosophy for Children (P4C). Reed (1996) and Sprod (1997) have already drawn attention
to this, stating that the community of inquiry is more a regulative idea than a typical
occurrence. Building on these claims, we will show that taking the notion of community of
inquiry as such gives new light to many of the items and aspects of the description of what
constitutes a community of inquiry. Consequently, it provides ways to identify important
moments in the philosophical practice that consolidate the community of inquiry, and a
working tool to grasp and handle some of the crucial moves that the facilitator makes, as well
as other participants, to install and strengthen the community in the sessions.
KEYWORDS
Regulative ideal; Utopia; Community of Inquiry; Methodology; Reasonableness.
RESUMEN
Este artículo propone que entender la noción de “comunidad de investigación” como un ideal
regulativo es una iniciativa de trabajo valiosa para el refinamiento y la mejora de la práctica
de la Filosofía para Niños (FpN). Reed (1996) y Sprod (1997) ya han llamado la atención
36
sobre esto, afirmando que la comunidad de investigación es más una idea regulativa que un
caso concreto. Sobre esta base, demostraremos que tomar la noción de comunidad de
investigación como tal aporta nueva luz a muchos de los ítems y aspectos descriptivos de lo
que constituye una comunidad de investigación. En consecuencia, proporciona formas de
identificar momentos importantes en la práctica filosófica que consolidan la comunidad de
investigación, y una herramienta de trabajo para captar y manejar algunos de los movimientos
cruciales que hacen tanto el facilitador como los otros participantes, para instalar y fortalecer
la comunidad en las sesiones.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Ideal regulativo, utopía, comunidad de investigación, metodología, razonabilidad.
The Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Regulative Ideal

The concept of a ‘community of inquiry’ can be usefully considered an ideal such that
it becomes valuable for the refinement and improvement of the practice of Philosophy for
Children (P4C). Reed (1996) and Sprod (1997) have already argued that the community of
inquiry is more a regulative idea than a typical occurrence. Building on their work, we show
that taking the notion of a community of inquiry under the guise of the notion of an ideal
gives new light to many of the descriptions of its own structure and nature. In addition to
highlighting the notion of a community of inquiry in the relevant manner, it provides ways
to identify important moments in the philosophical practice that consolidate the group as a
community. Thus, the paper shows how the notion of a community of inquiry is a working
tool to grasp and handle some of the crucial moves that the facilitator, as well as other
participants, can make in order to install and strengthen the community itself.
The paper will start by focusing on the nature of the community of inquiry, engaging
with Lipman’s and Sharp’s definition. Taking it as an epistemological infrastructure and a
pedagogical tool, we refer to the community of inquiry as an ideal, through the work of two
major philosophers from the Western tradition, Thomas More and Immanuel Kant. This
second part of the paper will show that the concept of ideal is only complete if we take up
these two dimensions of the ideal – as a regulative ideal and as a utopia. Using More and
Kant’s uses of the notion of the ideal will make even more visible two dimensions of the
ideal that stand as two axes of analysis that pertinently intersect. This will allow us to explain
that the ideal nature of the community of inquiry must be understood through its perception
as a concept, a methodology and an attitude, leading to the conclusion that if we miss one of
the dimensions, the community of inquiry will end up being a fragmentary notion. However,
if practitioners acknowledge all these dimensions and see how they interact creatively, they
will do justice to the notion of community of inquiry as claimed by P4C, and growth and
development will inevitably occur in the philosophical sessions.
1. What is a community of inquiry?
We assume Matthew Lipman and Ann Margaret Sharp’s notion of a community of
inquiry, based on the pragmatist tradition: a group of persons (that may be of different ages)
similarly dedicated to the use of like procedures in pursuit of identical goals (Lipman,
2003, p.20). The community uses philosophical procedures (such as raising questions,
examples, assumptions, reasons, hypothesis, etc.), and it also draws on philosophical
contents (such as specific perspectives and concepts of the philosophical tradition),
installing a communication based on a reasoned attitude, so that the practitioners are willing
37
to reconstruct what they say and what they hear and submit it to the self-correction process
of further inquiry (Sharp, 1987).
A community of philosophical inquiry is an intentional speech community who
dialogues regularly about philosophical concepts (Kennedy, N. & Kennedy, D, 2012,
p.97). The community of inquiry also envisions communal action, such that it seeks to
build consensus or compromises beyond a merely theoretical level (Weber, 2008) because
participants adopt concepts and perspectives under discussion while they experience the
community of inquiry, and acquire a general posture towards knowledge and reality.
This means that the community of inquiry amounts to much more than a set of
classroom learning activities, and both Lipman and Sharp already pointed out that it
carries normative (ethical as well as political) commitments to the world, facing questions
about how we want to live and the kind of persons that we want to become (Lipman,
2003).
2. The community of inquiry as an ideal: More and Kant
The normative role of the community of inquiry may be explained by two different
philosophical uses of the concept of ‘ideal’ – as a utopia and as a regulative ideal. When we
look at the community of inquiry through the glass of the philosophical concept of utopia of
Thomas More (More, 1975), and through Kant’s use of the notion of regulative ideal (Kant,
1998, B222-223), we acknowledge that, despite the complexity of the community of inquiry,
it is not an unrealizable enterprise; and that those two ways of conceiving the concept of an
ideal must be necessarily present in the way that P4C practice is structured such that they
become pertinently intertwined.
2.1. Immanuel Kant: the ideal as regulative
Kant’s notion of a regulative ideal is a core concept of his Critique of Pure Reason,
being essential for the author’s understanding of the faculty of reason, in its theoretical as
well as in its practical use (Kant, 1998, B222-223). The regulative ideal functions as an
orientation for praxis, being a focus imaginarius (Emmet, 1994, p.11) that, as a
transcendental idea, stays outside the bounds of possible experience (Kant, 1998,
A644/B672).
Taking Kant’s use of the notion of regulative ideal highlights the practical function of
the community of inquiry because it becomes, in the mind of all its participants, an imaginary
point. That is, it becomes a precious element to stand as criteria for cognitive and
metacognitive judgment during the dialogue. Thus, the regulative dimension of the
community enables facilitator and participants to be guided by certain patterns of questioning
and discussion (Lipman, 2003, p.156). These epistemological patterns have been previously
settled by its members, and stand in a continuous test for the refinement of the practice with
subsequent and continual sessions.
When the community of inquiry stands as an end in view, it illuminates the concrete
practice of the group and reinforces the need for the establishment of rules, and sharing
responsibility for the ongoing process of thinking with others. It is also important to highlight
that the need to adapt and accommodate the rules to make the community of inquiry a solid
and comfortable environment for insightful thinking practices is also recognized within the
ideal nature of the community. The continuous adaptation of the rules, respecting the
sensitiveness to contexts claimed by Lipman (2003, p.219), does not jeopardize the integrity
of the community of inquiry’s structure and purpose, and is an integral part of the
establishment of the rules.
38
The use of the concept of the community of inquiry as a regulative ideal is already clear
in Lipman’s work when he writes in Thinking in Education (2003) that democracy and
reasonableness are regulative ideals for an inquiry-driven society (Lipman, 2003, p.204).
Even though we build the notion of a regulative ideal upon Kant’s work, it is important to
state that Lipman and Sharp’s notion of a community of inquiry has its base on the pragmatist
philosophical tradition and thus the use of Kant’s regulative ideal is in line with Peirce’s
statement that the choice of the name pragmatism is made under Kantian terms, ‘expressing
a relation to some definite human purpose’ (Peirce, 1955a, p.252). Thus, it should be
interpreted in view of Peirce’s claim that the problem of fixation of belief is not to be
considered simply within the individual’s perspective but within a community (Peirce,
1955b, p.13) because ultimately ‘the very origin of the conception of reality shows that this
conception essentially involves the notion of COMMUNITY, without definite limits, and
capable of definite increase of knowledge’ (Peirce, 1955c, p.247). And this notion of a
community as an ideal is not only ‘within the bounds of human experience’ (Splitter & Sharp,
1995, p.18) but also, as Splitter and Sharp point out, ‘prominent in the writings of the
Pragmatists’ (Splitter & Sharp, 1995, p.18). When Dewey writes in Art as Experience that,
‘in the degree in which art exercises its office, it is also a remaking of the experience of the
community in the direction of greater order and unity’ (Dewey, 1989, LW 10: 87) he is
describing the very dynamics of the notion of the ideal.
One of the important consequences of this perspective is to recognize that ‘if the
community of inquiry is a regulative ideal, it is one that is non-static.’ (Reed, 1996, p.93) Thus,
when there is a community of inquiry it continually and increasingly gets transformed into a
community of inquiry in the full sense of the concept. First, because time and a well-oriented
experience of P4C practice necessarily reinforces itself, and second because P4C embodies the
idea that reasonableness is acquired in several degrees (Pritchard, 1996, p.53) to the point of
creating the conditions for a reasonable community of inquiry in itself. This is why previous work
showed how P4C does not aim to teach members of a community of inquiry to merely think for
themselves individually, but it understands that an individual thinker can only become fully
reasonable by thinking and acting as a participant of a community. Consequently, to think with
others constitutes a necessary part of being reasonable. Ultimately this means that, ‘what begins
with the ability to reason in a community has to grow into the practice of reasoning as a
community.’ (Costa-Carvalho & Mendonça, 2017, p.128).
Thus, Kant’s notion of regulative ideal allows us to highlight two important features
about the ideal nature of the community of inquiry, the first having a heuristic value, and the
second asserting itself as a guiding role. On the one hand, just like a regulative ideal guides
reason and action, the notion of a community of inquiry unfolds the features that practitioners
ought to recognize as marks of quality within the sessions (in terms of dialogues and
attitudes). On the other hand, just like a regulative ideal stands as a guiding role, it postulates
what should be accomplished and refers to a concept that is ‘not realizable in particular
instances but which has a role in setting standards for practical reason.’ (Emmet, 1994, p.2)
The community of inquiry as a regulative ideal is not just present in the methodology
but is also implicit in Lipman’s novels. Lipman claims that his stories reveal an infrastructure
correspondent to the paradigm of inquiry (Lipman, 2008, p.150), meaning that the way the
fictional characters think and act is meant to model philosophical practice for the real P4C
participants. This is also an important feature of the community of inquiry as an ideal and
has a significant impact on the second way of conceiving an ideal: through the glass of the
concept of utopia.
39
2.2. Thomas More: the ideal as Utopia

Concerning the normative role of the community of inquiry, and in addition to looking
at the concept as a regulative ideal, the notion’s semantic richness can be made explicit when
also considered through the philosophical concept of utopia of Thomas More.
Thomas More’s Utopia (1975) held an image of a better society and encapsulated hopes
for the future, including a revision of educational practices (Halpin, 2001, p.307). The notion
of a Utopia does not ‘negate the present in the name of some inconceivably alternative future’
(Eagleton, 2000, pp.25-26); it aims to ‘bridge between present and future in those forces
within the present which are potentially able to transform it’ (Eagleton, 2000, pp.25-26). And
More thinks that if one does not have a clear and lively experiential take on the utopian state
it is impossible to think according to it. Thus, he writes, ‘I’m not surprised that you think of
it this way’ he said ‘since you have no image, if only a false one, of such a commonwealth.
But you should have been with me in Utopia and seen with your own eyes their manner and
customs, as I did – for I lived there more than five years, and would never have left, it if had
not been to make that new world known to others’. (More, 1975, p.39).
Given that the P4C program can be seen as an educational practice that aims to
contribute to a better society, it is easy to establish a similarity with utopian projects inspired
by Thomas More’s work. The community of inquiry is also a ‘master educational paradigm’
(Lipman, 2003, p.83) because, just like a utopia, its main goal is not about going from where
we stand to a different place, but rather about using those different places as reflexes of our
present location (Eagleton, 2000, p.33). This could be the etymological meaning of a ou-
topos, for the community of inquiry is a ‘no place’ that the children can bring to every
(philosophical) dialogue. Similarly, the community of inquiry projects an ideal to aim for, so
as to refine and correct present practices, and it does not look at the real contexts as something
that should necessarily be overcome. The context of a community of inquiry mirrors what
practitioners can reasonably look at, in a cognitive and in a metacognitive way, helping
participants to ground the foundations for their actual as well as for their future choices as
individuals, and as a community.
The similarity in the projected revision of educational practices brings to the surface
other similarities between Lipman and Sharp’s notion of a community of inquiry and that of
Thomas More’s utopia.
First, both make use of the fictional space as a way of opening possibilities. That is,
they both present literary playfulness as a way to create a space in which people can question
ideas, as well as ways of thinking that have been fixed for a long time. This would be
equivalent to creating a space of freedom that enables deeper thinking beyond the usual
boundaries set for thought and action.
In addition, the free playfulness of the fictional space not only opens up possibilities
for future thinking but also explores these possibilities effectively. This can be seen in the
way that the characters (mainly children, in the case of Lipman’s novels) speak and think,
for they probe, discover and explore desirable ways of thinking and speaking. The fictional
space becomes, then, an illustration and a model for the possibilities it suggests. And, just as
Lipman states, what is modeled by the fictional characters in the novels is ‘subsequently
continued by internalization and appropriation, by the live children in the classroom, as they
talk about what they have learned.’ (2003, p.156).
Third, the fictional space is also used to experiment with ideas because it explores in
dialogue the philosophical concepts at stake, and enables participants to freely develop the
consequences of the positions put forward in practice. This experimentation with ideas also
40
allows participants to assimilate habits of empathy for people who argue such stances
(D’Olimpio & Teschers, 2017, p.147). In sum, by giving such a crucial place to fiction to
bring forth, illustrate and explore the ideal of a community of inquiry, Lipman and Sharp use
the same procedures that Thomas More used to make the utopia real.
Therefore, we think that the notion of a community of inquiry as utopia is
complementary to the notion of a community of inquiry as a regulative ideal, and the overall
concept of an ideal can only be fully understood when considered within the intersection of
these two axes. When the community of inquiry is presented as an ideal, just like Kant’s
regulative ideal, it has both a heuristic role, enabling interpretation of events within the
practice, and a guiding role, helping the community of inquiry to continuously grow into a
solid group. At the same time, just like More’s fictional utopia, the notion of a community of
inquiry opens possibilities and illustrates them, enabling an experimental space in which to
test and explore ideas.
Consequently, we think that when we miss one of these axes, the notion of a
community of inquiry ends up being a fragmentary one, not doing full justice to its total
impact within the practice of P4C. If considered only in a utopian perspective, the
community of inquiry might appear as an impossible-to-reach state of affairs, unleashing
frustration and disbelief in its members. However, if only the regulative ideal side of the
notion is considered, it might easily slip into a closed and fixed concept and its meaning
and potential scope will be established only by the adults that prepare the practice
pedagogically and philosophically. Without Kant’s inspiration, the community of inquiry
will turn ineffective; without More’s insight it may become an educational resource with
a second order agenda.
The dialogue that a community of inquiry, in the full sense of the word, aims to
empower is a practice that helps to develop ideas in thoughtful communication that is a
crucial and necessary tool for joint action. It does so by combining these two aspects of the
ideal: its regulative role and its utopian impact. Likewise, the facilitator necessarily embodies
an understanding of the community of inquiry not as an end in view which when
accomplished provides a closure, but as a guiding principle for an open future that goes
beyond the school walls, adopting a posture which makes use of the concept both as a
regulative ideal and as a utopia.
3. The community of inquiry as a concept, a methodology, an attitude
In addition to the varied dimensions of P4C recognized in the literature, the added
awareness that there are different roles for the notion of community of inquiry as an ideal, as
we have specified, can help participants (including the facilitator) to maintain a continuing
care for the integrity of its practice. Despite the unattainable character of an ideal, it is
possible for practitioners to recognize a community of inquiry while experiencing it
whenever they experience P4C sessions. This is why, as Phillip Cam states, ‘the Community
of Inquiry is as near a philosophically neutral way of engaging in philosophical inquiry as
any other cannot easily be gainsaid.’ (Cam, 2011, p.119).
One important consequence of recognizing the regulative ideal and the utopian traits
of the sense in which the community of inquiry is an ideal is to provide a way to better
understand how previous research has clearly stated that ‘if the community of inquiry is a
regulative ideal, it is one that is non-static’ (Reed, 1996, p.93). Thus, we can easily add that
the non-static nature of the community of inquiry still maintains a coherent process because
practice reinforces what is given, and the content can only be vivid when clearly mirrored in
41
the practice. And it is precisely because of its dynamic and lively nature that it is of the utmost
importance to better describe the interconnectedness of what it means to take the community
of inquiry as an ideal.
Ultimately, in order to explore the far-reaching consequences of the community of
inquiry as an ideal, it is important to recognize how it is visible not only in its theoretical
conception, but also in how it mirrors the general conditions for its membership. The
suggestion here is that the ideal nature of the community of inquiry requires unfolding
different connections between the different meanings of a community of inquiry. Similarly
to the way in which Dewey interprets the sentence ‘the cure for the ailments of democracy is
more democracy’ as meaning that ‘the need of returning to the idea itself, of clarifying and
deepening our apprehension of it, and of employing our sense of its meaning to criticize and
remake it political manifestations,’ (Dewey, 1988, LW2: 325) we think that the way to grow
the sense of community of inquiry is in a more conscious and critical practice of the
community of inquiry.
In light of the theoretical suggestion just stated, we propose that to fully understand
the community of inquiry, in theory and in practice, requires understanding it as a
theoretical concept, as a pedagogical and a philosophical methodology and as an inner
attitude of its members. We state that it is only when the ideal as regulative and as utopia
is further described under these three categories that the community of inquiry can be
grasped in its full sense.
3.1. The community of inquiry as a concept
The community of inquiry is a notion of a paradoxical nature, for it unites two concepts
that are not ordinarily found together (Lipman, 2003, p.83). Communities can be fixated and
closed entities, where rules and practices are well prescribed and settled. In the case of P4C
communities of inquiry, the traditional reading is a misfit because it is rather an open and
much more unconventional notion, supported by its determinant: “of inquiry”. When
together, the two words create a totally different entity: the transformative notion of a
community of inquiry (Lipman, 2003, p.84). This notion represents a contrast between
securely belonging to a group and being permanently challenged to go further in building its
own aims and structure.
To probe the sense of the community of inquiry as a theoretical concept seems important
to establish how it grows and develops. Framing it as an ideal might help its members to
differentiate what nurtures it and identify what threatens its integrity. In this line of thought,
we highlight two important tendencies that support the concept: its procedural nature and its
dialogical, intersubjective and multidimensional dynamic.
As such, the community of inquiry does not live from its substantive dimension,
meaning that the specific philosophical concepts and perspectives that are present in the
dialogues are not its main mark. To be a part of a community of inquiry is much more about
experimenting with new ways of thinking and discovering its positive impacts on life, than
about learning what to think, and consequently the procedural instances that build it are
crucial for the nature of the community of inquiry.
The second tendency that structures the community of inquiry is its dialogical practice.
The linguistic dynamic is built upon an intersubjective model of reason (Daniel et al., 2002),
and the dialogues produced in the pedagogical circle aim to establish a set of parameters
(rational and reasonable) from which to deliberate (Lipman, 2003, p.92). It is not a derivative
conversation nor is it just a logical discourse; it is rather lively communication among
42
different people that brings together rationality, creativity and care into the
multidimensionality of thinking.
As we have stated, these two aspects of the concept need to be framed in the regulative
use of the ideal in order to warrant the integrity of the practice and bring its members together
around the same focus. However, the utopian dimension of the concept serves also as a way
of opening up to different contexts, and enables a reworking of what it means to belong to a
community of inquiry. In fact, in spite of having been at the heart of Lipman and Sharp’s
P4C program, the community of inquiry is an autonomous framework and stands at the core
of different programs and projects all around the world.
3.2. The community of inquiry as a methodology
The community of inquiry can also be envisaged as a pedagogical and a philosophical
methodology. In a very broad understanding of what a methodology might be, as a path
through which one puts certain goals in practice, it is possible to enumerate some of its
specific moments and some of its crucial traits. The methodological nature of the community
of inquiry does not have to do with a sequence of strict pedagogical moments,
chronologically established, but with three main aspects that should be present in the
intentionality of the practice:
a) the democratic circle reinforces communication because, among other things, its
spatial closeness and democratic approach to everyone’s position, promotes reading
people’s eyes. The dual function of gaze—collecting information from the
environment (an encoding function) and communicate one’s mental states to others
(a signaling function) (Risko et al, 2016, p.70) —has been identified as a factor for
strengthening communication;
b) the group makes things that come up in the dialogue obvious because the
conclusions reached within thinking in a community reach different levels of
expertise and depth than does individual thinking, as is now commonly accepted in
research and scientific inquiry;
c) meta-cognition & meta-emotion: stand as reflexivity of both thinking and of
emotional activity which increases depth and widens scope of ideas and strengthens
the impact of learning process (Brandford et al., 2000, Costa-Carvalho &
Mendonça, 2017).
3.3. The community of inquiry as an attitude
In his autobiography, A Life Teaching Thinking (2008), M. Lipman recalls the
beginning of the work with A. Sharp at the IAPC in the terms that follows: ʽNew or modified
methods of teacher education had to be devised, and new or modified relationships for the
children with each other had to be worked out in the classroom. (The most successful entity
in this respect has been what we called the community of inquiry.)ʼ (p.125).
When it was born, the community of inquiry was much more than a pedagogical
methodology, it was an entity through which children, and adults worked out a different way
of connecting and communicating with each other. We might now add that the community
of inquiry was born inside the P4C project as a new focus for thinking and acting, one that
demands practitioners to be more than judicious individuals. The community of inquiry as
an attitude of its members, that the participants take with themselves, and which allows an
examination of the conditions for its membership, as well as the place of marginality and
exclusion within communities.
43
Taking the community of inquiry within means two things. First, while participants
internalize what it means to be in a community of inquiry, their participation changes and
develops. Some will speak more, some less, they will be more precise about knowing when
and how their participations can richly contribute to the dialogue, and when to ask questions to
others, which overall makes them develop a more sophisticated criteria for philosophical
inquiry (Laverty & Gregory, 2007). Second, participants will take the community of inquiry
within them and will participate, act, and think in other communities with the same principles
(Lipman, 1997; Costa-Carvalho & Mendonça, 2017).
In order not to fall into the traps of ambiguity we need to find ways to become aware of the
plurality of meanings of the ideal dimension of the community of inquiry, and aim to find
how these different meanings interact. For example, when we elaborate on how the
community of inquiry is internalized by the participants, it becomes clear that the concept
entails a sense of shared responsibility that can be taken into the methodology as part of its
traits. Similarly to the way that Dewey states that, ‘democracy must begin at home, and its
home is the neighborly community.’ (Dewey, 1988, LW2: 368).
Lipman himself established closeness between the community of inquiry and democracy
through the lens of the concept of ideal, when he writes: ‘What are the chief regulative ideas
of an inquiry-driven society? There are at least two. The first has to do with the sociopolitical
character of the society, or with procedures in that society, while the second has to do with
the character of the individual citizen. The first is democracy and the second is
reasonablenessʼ. (Lipman, 2003, p.235).
Conclusion
Family resemblances
Each and every community of inquiry is as unique as each individual, and no
community of inquiry is equal to any other. Reinforcing its ideal nature is a way to recognize
that all communities of inquiry are connected by a series of similarities that are perhaps best
grasped by the notion of family resemblances. We inevitably ‘see a complicated network of
similarities overlapping and crisscrossing in the same way: sometimes overall similarities,
sometimes similarities in detail’. (Wittgenstein, 1958, p.66).
The community of inquiry is a place that establishes a lively organized experience of
values, which reinforces democratic values, seeking for an interconnectedness of the different
values, and maintains the ongoing quest for justice in line with John Dewey’s educational
paradigm (Dewey, 1985). This family resemblance must be somehow included in the practice
of P4C, for no philosopher can expect to do philosophy in isolation. As Pierce claims,
‘individually [we] cannot reasonably hope to attain the ultimate philosophy which we pursue;
we can only seek it, therefore, for the community of philosophers.’ (Peirce, 1955c, p.229).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Dina Mendonça's research work is supported by the Portuguese Fundação para a Ciência e a
Tecnologia (SFRH/BPD/102507/2014) and within the research project (PTDC/MHC-
FIL/0521/2014). The Authors would like to thank the useful questions and comments
received at the presentation at the XVIII ICPIC Conference of a previous version of this
paper, as well as to the reviewers of the manuscript.
44
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‘Do Not Block the Way of Inquiry’:

Cultivating collective doubt through sustained deep reflective
thinking
Gilbert Burgh
School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
g.burgh@uq.edu.au
Simone Thornton
School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry, The University of Queensland
s.thornton@uq.edu.au
Liz Fynes-Clinton
School of Education, The University of Queensland
e.fynesclinton@uq.edu.au
CV
Gilbert Burgh is currently senior lecturer in the School of Historical and Philosophical
Inquiry at The University of Queensland. He was the founding president of the Queensland
Association of Philosophy in Schools from 1994 to 1996, and president of the Federation of
Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations from 2002 to 2003. His research interests
include: civics, citizenship and democratic education; collaborative philosophical inquiry as
pedagogy; the role of genuine doubt in classroom inquiry; and the history of philosophy in
schools in Australia.
Simone Thornton is a PhD candidate in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at
The University of Queensland. Her research interests include: epistemic violence; Val
Plumwood and the logic of domination; and Albert Camus and the logic of the Absurd, which
appears in a range of journals and edited collections. She is currently working on an edited
book (with Gilbert Burgh) to be published by Routledge, entitled: Philosophical Inquiry with
Children: The development of an inquiring society in Australia (2018).
Liz Fynes-Clinton is a casual academic and completing her doctoral thesis in the School of
Education at the University of Queensland. Previously employed at East Brisbane State
School as Head of Curriculum and Philosophy Coach, Liz introduced and implemented
collaborative philosophical inquiry as a whole-school pedagogical framework. Her research
has been published in edited collections and she is co-author of Philosophical and Ethical
Inquiry in the Middle Years and Beyond (2013) and Philosophy with Young Children: A
classroom handbook (2007).
ABSTRACT
We provide a Camusian/Peircean notion of inquiry that emphasises an attitude of fallibilism
and sustained epistemic dissonance as a conceptual framework for a theory of classroom
practice founded on Deep Reflective Thinking (DRT), in which the cultivation of collective
doubt, reflective evaluation and how these relate to the phenomenological aspects of inquiry
are central to communities of inquiry. In a study by Fynes-Clinton, preliminary evidence
demonstrates that if students engage in DRT, they more frequently experience cognitive
dissonance and as a result improve their ability to engage in further and more frequent DRT.
47
Sustained intellectual progress occurs when the inquiry reaches a point whereby students can
thoughtfully move between the position of disequilibrium (doubt) and equilibrium (belief)
whilst understanding the impermanency of any fixed belief, which, in turn, enables
reconstruction of thinking and appropriation of learning in the context of collaborative
philosophical inquiry.
KEYWORDS
collaborative philosophical inquiry, deep reflective thinking, Charles Peirce, John Dewey,
Albert Camus, Matthew Lipman, community of inquiry.
RESUMEN
Proporcionamos una noción camusiana/peirceana de investigación que enfatiza una actitud
de falibilismo y disonancia epistémica sostenida como marco conceptual para una teoría de
la práctica en el aula fundada en el Pensamiento Reflexivo Profundo (DRT, según las
iniciales en inglés), en el cual el cultivo de la duda colectiva, la evaluación reflexiva y cómo
éstas se relacionan con los aspectos fenomenológicos de la investigación son centrales en las
comunidades de investigación. En un estudio realizado por Fynes-Clinton, la evidencia
preliminar demuestra que si los estudiantes se involucran en DRT, experimentan en más
ocasiones disonancia cognitiva y como resultado mejoran su capacidad para participar más
frecuentemente en DRT. El progreso intelectual sostenido ocurre cuando la investigación
alcanza un punto en el cual los estudiantes pueden moverse pensativamente entre la posición
de desequilibrio (duda) y equilibrio (creencia) mientras que entienden la impermanencia de
cualquier creencia fija, que a su vez permite la reconstrucción del pensamiento y la
apropiación del aprendizaje en el contexto de la investigación filosófica colaborativa.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Diálogo filosófico colaborativo, pensamiento reflexivo profundo, Charles Peirce, John
Dewey, Albert Camus, Matthew Lipman, comunidad de diálogo.
INTRODUCTION
Matthew Lipman (1991) provides a model of education that focuses on the
development of students’ capacities to think reflectively, the aim of which is the development
of an educational philosophy (defined as the use of philosophy for obtaining educational
objectives) ‘redesigned and reconstructed so as to make it available and acceptable and
enticing to children’ (p. 262). There is an abundance of literature on Lipman’s educational
philosophy, especially regarding the idea of converting the classroom into a community of
inquiry (Lipman, 1991, 2003; Seixas, 1993; Splitter & Sharp, 1995; Sprod 2001; Gregory
2002; Pardales & Girod, 2006; Burgh, 2009) and the cognitive and social benefits of CPI in
schools (Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan, 1980; Burgh, Field & Freakley, 2006). In recent
years, well-designed research studies have, likewise, concentrated on cognitive benefits, i.e.,
schooling and thinking skills, and social benefits (Millett & Tapper, 2012). An analysis of
eighteen studies by García Moriyón, Rebollo and Colom (2005) concluded that ‘the
implementation of P4C led to an improvement in students’ reasoning skills of more than half
a standard deviation’ (p. 19). Topping and Trickey’s studies concluded that the practice of
CPI produces increases in measured IQ, sustained cognitive benefits, and clear performance
48
gains in other school studies (Trickey & Topping, 2004, 2006, 2007; Topping & Trickey,
2007a, 2007b, 2007c). Recent research conducted in Australia has shown the potential for
CPI to foster pedagogical transformation (Scholl, Nichols & Burgh, 2009, 2014, 2016), and
more effective learning in the science classroom (Burgh & Nichols, 2012; Nichols, Burgh &
Kennedy, 2017).
Lipman was heavily influenced by John Dewey’s conception of reflective education –
an educational tradition that has its roots in Socratic teaching – and by Charles Peirce, Lev
Vygotsky, and George Herbert Mead. In this paper, we return to Lipman’s pragmatist roots
in Peirce, most notably his notion of genuine doubt, which we reinvigorate by borrowing the
language and concepts of Albert Camus (Burgh & Thornton, 2016a, 2016b). We argue that
there is room to improve the fit between Lipman’s theoretical explorations and classroom
practice. To this end, we outline a theory of practice founded on deep reflective thinking, the
cultivation of collective doubt and reflective evaluation as central to inquiry (Fynes-Clinton,
2015; Nichols, Burgh & Fynes-Clinton, 2017), and how these relate to the phenomenological
aspects of inquiry. Our argument has implications for teacher preparation programs and
professional development, pointing to the need for greater emphasis on praxis, i.e., to be
informed by the theory and the theory by practice, or as Dewey would have it, by an
understanding of the interaction between habit and habitat.
Lucid Education
In this section, we will draw out what we consider to be the most important principles
of inquiry for classroom practice, highlighting how they connect to Peirce’s theories, to
inform how they can, and have been, implemented in the classroom.
In his ‘First Rule of Logic’, Peirce (1899) asserts the importance of eliminating barriers
to inquiry to permit methodical investigations that advance truth: ‘Upon this first, and in one
sense this sole, rule of reason, that in order to learn you must desire to learn, and in so desiring
not be satisfied with what you already incline to think, there follows one corollary which
itself deserves to be inscribed upon every wall of the city of philosophy: Do not block the
way of inquiry’. (p. 48, emphasis added).
In this passage, Peirce makes the connection between learning and the desire to learn,
which is necessitated by dissatisfaction with beliefs or uncertainty; a felt experience he called
genuine doubt. He proposed four methods by which people move from genuine doubt to
belief: tenacity, a priori, authority, and experimentation. The first three methods all resolve
doubt and fixate belief by opinion, but do so by blocking inquiry. In contrast,
experimentation, is an inquiry process of collecting observations and generating hypotheses
to account for these observations to reach a conclusion based upon an inferential process.
The feeling of uncertainty is indispensable to experimentation as it is essential for
wonder from which inquiry begins and continues. Genuine Doubt is a feeling that
accompanies uncertainty; that the knowledge we attribute to our experience of the world, the
belief-habits that routinely and unconsciously inform our actions, can no longer be sustained.
When we experience genuine doubt, our epistemic framework fails to deliver us a convincing
reality. That is, we are unable at the moment of uncertainty to shape the ‘great blooming,
buzzing confusion’ (James, 1890, p. 462) of the world into a familiar epistemic framework,
and the result is an experience of disequilibrium, an uncomfortable feeling or irritating
quality with an innate capacity to motivate us to substitute doubt with the satisfaction of
belief. It is ‘the void that is felt when connections with the world and others are severed’
(Burgh & Thornton, 2016a, p. 889); a void that cannot remain unattended. Camus referred to
49
this experience as the feeling of absurdity; ‘the phenomenological realisation that the
epistemic possibility of clarity or understanding of the world always remains out of reach’
(Burgh & Thornton, 2016a, p. 887). In response to this unsettling experience, ‘it becomes
either the catalyst for one to seek the absolute to overcome fear of nothingness, or the
beginning of lucidity when fear is faced and awareness of the absurd is sustained’ (Burgh &
Thornton, 2016a, p. 889). As Peirce points out, there are various ways to comfort the fear of
doubt, namely, we can grip tenacity and refuse to consider contrary evidence, accept the
authority of an institution’s dictates, or use a priori reasoning and embrace the most coherent
or elegant-seeming belief-set, or we can subject ourselves to rigorous communal inquiry to
correct and revise ideas. For Peirce, only scientific inquiry in the form of a community of
inquirers is legitimate as a method of settling opinion and fixing belief. Inquiry lies between
the states of doubt and belief, and the accompanying feelings of disequilibrium and
equilibrium. To avoid moving too quickly from disequilibrium to equilibrium, inquiry needs
to be sustained. In Camusian terms, such inquiry requires lucidity: ‘a sustained awareness of
the absurd that allows for increased creativity’ (Burgh & Thornton, 2016a, p. 889). In sum,
the uncertainty to which Peirce and Camus refer ‘is a passport to creation, an opportunity to
embrace flux and shape our human nature and the nature of others in a critical and considered
manner’ (Burgh & Thornton, 2016a, p. 889).
Ideally, rather than succumb to the fear of doubt and seek comfort and equilibrium by
any means (i.e., those that block inquiry), and subsequently embrace any belief that makes
us feel good about our actions, we need to strive to ensure that our belief-habits are
questioned in relation to the habitat we share with others, including their belief-habits. The
ability to do so is something that needs to be fostered, for as Peirce (1899) pointed out, we
cannot assume a social impulse or tendency to strive for or seek explanations that coincide
with fact. This is not to create a false dualism in the form of innate versus learnt, as Dewey
argued the ability to adapt is innate to all species, however, the possession of the ability does
not necessitate the ways in which adaption occurs; these can be influenced by thinking. In
practice, any of the inquiry blocking methods Peirce mentions can, all too quickly and easily,
be employed to ‘quell the irritation of doubt through retaining our own belief or uncritically
adopting someone else’s belief’ (Burgh & Thornton 2016b, p. 172). The teacher’s role,
therefore, is clear; to facilitate Peircean inquiry. To do so, however, a teacher needs also to
resist the impulse to uncritically adopt belief-habits themselves. To guide their students to do
likewise, they must adopt the perspective afforded by fallibilism, ‘that no empirical statement
is impervious to epistemological challenge’ (Powell 2001, p. 11). Fallibilism is not the same
as total doubt or scepticism, which can paralyse action; we cannot begin inquiry if we doubt
everything or almost everything, for any attempt at universal doubt would lead to self-
deception. Rather, it is to embrace the ‘scientific spirit’ which ‘requires a man to be at all
times ready to dump his whole cartload of beliefs, the moment experience is against them’
(Peirce 1960, 1.55).
To adopt an attitude of fallibilism, teachers need to assume a position of scholarly
ignorance. However, they should be careful not to feign ignorance, otherwise students could
become sceptical and see such ignorance as paper-doubting, or the pretence of doubt, which
lacks what Peirce called the ‘heavy and noble metal’ of genuine doubt.
Paper-doubt is merely self-deception, typically illustrated by Descartes’ cogito. For doubt to be
genuine, it must actually interfere with my firmly fixed belief-habit and accompanying habitual
action, causing me to hesitate and put my beliefs to the test in the form of inquiry. Genuine doubt,
50
therefore, also acts as a gadfly, a persistent irritant that challenges our view of reality, as well as
our established beliefs and values. (Burgh & Thornton 2016a, p. 892)
In other words, we cannot transmute our beliefs into doubts at will. As Peirce (1868)
said: ‘Let us not pretend to doubt in philosophy what we do not doubt in our hearts’ (p. 141).
The teacher’s role in facilitating inquiry is multifaceted. In addition to being co-
inquirer, the teacher is also facilitator; this position, although not authoritative, is not strictly
egalitarian.
The latter [facilitator’s] role requires teachers to draw on their expertise as members of professional
communities (i.e., members of the teaching profession with interests in key learning areas, such as
arts, mathematics, science or history). Students come to understand that teachers have subject
knowledge, but teachers need also be aware that their expertise and the expertise of their discipline
or profession is limited, and they must also convey or model this limitation in their role as co-
inquirer. (Burgh & Thornton 2016b, p. 173)
There is a need to acknowledge that all inquiry begins with prejudices, which are ‘not
to be dispelled by a maxim, for they are things which it does not occur to us can be
questioned’ (Peirce 1868 p. 140). As co-inquirers, teachers must be lucid and keep a vigilant
eye on their prejudices and prompt students to do the same. In other words, teachers need to
cultivate doubt in the classroom community to facilitate a lucid inquiry.
A Theory of Classroom Practice
But how are teachers to cultivate doubt? The answer requires a theory of classroom
practice, which can be tested in the classroom—as the study detailed in the next section will
illustrate. Curiously, while the literature on philosophy for children and the community of
inquiry pedagogy refers to fallibilism and genuine doubt, the literature aimed specifically at
classroom practice and professional development programs is mostly lacking in these
concepts and how to apply them. In response, we outline a theory of classroom practice that
is congruent with the concept of lucid inquiry, outlined above. Lucid inquiry is a praxis that
attempts to reinstate the centrality of genuine doubt in line with Peirce’s intent, and in doing
so add[s] a missing dimension to Lipman and Sharp’s reconstruction of the community of
inquiry into a model of educational practice. (Burgh & Thornton, 2016b, p. 166).
Lucid inquiry, therefore, makes the cultivation of genuine doubt central to CPI. To
bring lucid inquiry into a model of classroom practice we need to look at the relationship
between self-correction and inquiry. Self-correcting practice is the process of reflecting
critically on what is done before, during and after genuine doubt and recognising the
accompanying experience of moving from disequilibrium to equilibrium. To further flesh
this out we turn to the ways in which we differ from Lipman as to how self-correction appears
in the classroom.
Lipman’s process of inquiry has been variously described in the literature on
philosophy and classroom inquiry (see Lipman, 1991; Cam, 2006; Burgh, Field & Freakley,
2006; Davey Chesters, 2012). As part of this process, students need to learn to recognise and
evaluate the ways in which they think and participate with others. Self- and peer-assessment
can provide a means by which ‘students can teach themselves to be independent and effective
thinkers’ (Burgh, Field & Freakley, 2006, p. 131). Such means are usually limited to
reflection at the end of the dialogue, the aim of which is to allow students to make judgments
about the quality of the dialogue and their own participation as members of a community of
inquiry. Different procedures have been recommended, including check lists, criteria,
thumbs-up and thumbs down, and fishbowl discussions. These methods can ‘promote
51
individual responsibility for the functioning of the group and so bring about the sort of
educational climate required for a community of inquiry’ (Burgh, Field & Freakley, 2006, p.
130). However, as ‘self-direction and self-correction are integral components of the
community of inquiry, self- and peer-assessment should eventually be part of the
philosophical inquiry itself’ (Burgh, Field & Freakley, 2006, p. 130) rather than an
afterthought to inquiry. Integrating self- and peer-assessment into the process of inquiry
allows students to pay sustained explicit attention to metacognitive practices as an ongoing
part of inquiry. In a lucid inquiry, this means maintaining inquiry through an understanding
of fallibilism. Self- and peer-reflection enables students to gauge their position on the
spectrum between disequilibrium and equilibrium. Once doubt is recognised, a landscape
opens to the mind, and the children are invited to explore the terrain. Incorporating self- and
peer-assessment and self-direction into inquiry allows students the opportunity to reflect on
their own experiences of doubt, which opens the possibility of not only changing the direction
of the dialogue but of changing their notions of self. Giving students the tools to engage in
lucid inquiry increases their abilities to shape their own identities.
‘Deep reflective thinking’ (DRT) reconstructs the Lipman/Sharp notion of self- and
peer-assessment in inquiry (Fynes-Clinton 2015; Nichols, Burgh & Fynes-Clinton, 2017) in
a way that incorporates lucid inquiry. DRT is the overarching term used to define a specific
way of thinking and engaging in learning that emerges from a balanced, dynamic interplay
among four key elements: the first is immersion in CPI, the second the development of a
repertoire of intellectual skills and processes, and the third, explicit attention to metacognitive
practice, or lucid inquiry, which leads to the fourth element, the reconstruction of experience
(Nichols, Burgh & Fynes-Clinton, 2017). DRT is an ongoing method of self- and peer-
assessment for both students and teachers to measure and propel the intellectual progress of
inquiry. A further difference in the practice of DRT is the shift from books as stimulus to the
stimulus being derived from the children’s individual and group reflection.
Like Lipman’s purpose-written philosophical stories-as-text, in which philosophical concepts and
philosophical procedures directly relate to children’s experiences through the experiences of
fictional characters, so too with the community of inquiry, but children are the characters in their
own narratives directly relating to their own experiences. Prior to any judgements, the ‘story-
telling’ needs to be sustained … [without judgement]. This can assist the emergence of or it can
cultivate genuine doubt, not only in individuals, but also as a community, which can bring on the
need for inquiry, and subsequent critical analysis. (Burgh & Thornton 2016, p. 173)
To facilitate this in classroom practice teachers need to recognise when students are
experiencing genuine doubt. Indicators include:
 Student’s hesitation in relation to their own viewpoint or ideas
 Questioning relevant to the point under discussion
 Persistence with an idea that challenges the general views of the community
 Counterexamples
 Alternative suggestions
 A change of mind in response to the ideas of others
 Reconstruction of thinking habits
 Internalisation and reconstruction of a theory (Fynes-Clinton, 2015)
It is important to note that none of these indicators, on their own, are enough to
conclude that students are experiencing genuine doubt, however, the greater the combination
of indicators the greater the likelihood of this being the case. Each indicator can also be used
52
to prompt students to further inquire, providing ways for teachers to cultivate doubt in
individual students and, ideally, collective doubt in the community.
It is unlikely that all students will come to a position of genuine doubt together each
time they are engaged in DRT activities. However, because DRT includes an ongoing process
of self- and peer-assessment as part of philosophical inquiry, it helps to develop their capacity
to sustain awareness of their felt doubt that strips from the world ‘the images and designs
that [they] had attributed to it beforehand’ (Camus, 1977, p. 20). When a student experiences
genuine doubt, and as a result, begins to ask questions or expresses ideas that challenge their
own beliefs, this has greater capacity to cultivate doubt in other students. In the same way
that modelling philosophical inquiry in texts aids student acquisition of the concept of
philosophical inquiry, genuine doubt modelled by one student, aids others in acquiring the
concept of genuine doubt. Students who experience genuine doubt are more inclined to
grapple with ideas to create meaning and to engage in inquiry with others to find ways to
explore their ideas. One student’s doubt can lead to other students sharing similar doubts,
which has the potential to lead to ‘collective doubt’ that could become a significant indicator
of intellectual progress during CPI. For the teacher, it can be valuable as a kind of formative
assessment within the students’ zone of proximal development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978), and
for students, it provides a way of comparing their own experiences with that of the
community. Sustained intellectual progress occurs when the inquiry reaches a point whereby
students can thoughtfully move between the positions of disequilibrium and equilibrium
whilst understanding the impermanency of any fixed belief. This, in turn, enables
reconstruction of thinking within the community of inquiry and appropriation of learning in
the context of CPI and beyond.
Deep Reflective Thinking: Collective doubt in the classroom
This section outlines a longitudinal investigation by Liz Fynes-Clinton (2015) that
examines the extent to which primary school students engage in episodes of DRT within and
beyond the context of CPI. Commencing in 2012, the investigation was conducted in a
Brisbane state primary school, which, for two years prior to this investigation, had established
CPI as a whole-school pedagogic method that underpins all curriculum planning,
development and implementation at the school. Evidence suggests that if students engage in
DRT, they more frequently experience cognitive dissonance and as a result improve their
ability to engage in further and more frequent DRT. However, the evidence also shows that
for DRT to occur within class communities, a specific set of conditions needs to be set in
place for the students. These conditions include sustained practice in philosophising, the
explicit teaching of a repertoire of skills and practices, a deep focus on metacognitive
practices and the provision of stimulus material that will elicit genuine engagement and
connection to the ideas under discussion. In addition, the philosophical knowledge and skill
level of the class teacher and the ways in which the philosophy curriculum is presented both
impact on the students’ development of DRT and, in turn, the emergence of forms of doubt
within the community.
Fynes-Clinton’s investigation followed the classic design research model where the
researcher frames an intervention that could be used independently by any number of teachers
across a variety of learning contexts. As the investigation moved through various phases or
design cycles, the intervention was modified, improved upon and redesigned so that it could
effectively accommodate a variety of classroom contexts and a diverse range of student
learning needs. Design methodology is based on a strong underlying epistemological and
53
theoretical analysis of curriculum content and teaching and learning practices, with the aim
to increase theoretical and pedagogical understanding (Kelly, 2003). The methodology works
in harmony with the underpinning epistemological and theoretical framework of CPI and the
key research focus—the students’ acquisition and reconstruction of DRT practices.
McKenney, Nieveen and van den Akker (2006) maintain that design methodology brings
about a synergy between research and practice that is maximised when the researchers are
responsive to change. For Dewey (1916), responsiveness to change is a key factor to enabling
reconstruction of experience and democracy as an associated form of life.
The research was conducted over three overarching macro-cycles of intervention,
consisting of a number of micro-cycles. The three macro-cycles each had a distinct focus as
follows: 1. Development of DRT; 2: DRT and philosophising; and 3. DRT and doubt. During
each macro-cycle students were immersed in new learning processes. During Macro-cycle 1,
a considered selection of inquiry and reasoning tools based on Cam’s (2006) 20 Thinking
Tools, were introduced using a range of novel approaches to gain an understanding of the
students’ uptake and appropriation of the tools in the context of CPI and beyond. Each micro-
cycle within Macro-cycle 1 was designed to build on the previous, thus increasing the
complexity of the developing repertoire of skills. To enable students to understand how and
why the tools could assist them to think metacognitively and make intellectual progress
during the inquiry, the inquiry and reasoning tools were not only explicitly taught but the
philosophical tool of reflective practice was always introduced so that students assessed their
abilities to use the intellectual tools. This was accomplished through a ‘teaching COI’. This
type of COI differed from the general COI process in that tools were introduced at certain
points and were focused upon during the exploration of ideas. Generally, an inquiry would
progress with minimal interruptions by the teacher facilitating the inquiry. Traditionally the
facilitator’s role is to ask substantive and procedural questions that would assist the inquiry
to remain on track, probe for depth and model or draw the student’s attention to the use of
inquiry tools and processes. In a teaching COI, the researcher halted the inquiry at specific
points and stepped out of the role of facilitator to introduce or build on the use of the tool that
was the current focus of the design. Students were then asked to try to use the tools when
they felt it appropriate during the discussion. In order to draw students’ attention to the use
and impact of the intellectual tools during the inquiry, the flow of discussion was further
interrupted when the focus tool had been used. The use of the tools and its impact on the
discussion would immediately be reflected upon during the process. Following this, a number
of general COIs were implemented to identify students’ purposeful appropriation of the
newly acquired tools to further the intellectual progress of the inquiry. This method of
teaching encouraged the participating students to view themselves, individually and
collectively, as active inquirers within a community. Over time, a subtle ontological shift was
observed among the participating students. Students’ self-perceptions moved from being
participants in a process to becoming inquirers within a community of inquirers. This shift
in perception prompted the students to take greater responsibility for the path of the inquiry
and the collective understanding of the community.
Macro-cycle 2 focused on the students’ reconstruction of the thinking and learning
experiences gained from Macro-cycle 1. Whereas Macro-cycle 1 interventions had been
about building inquiry procedures and intellectual inquiry tools, the key focus for Cycle 2
was to build substantive understanding and to encourage students to connect with the ideas
under discussion thus facilitating reconstruction of previous experiences. Macro-cycle 3
focused on the emergence of doubt within the COI and its connection to DRT. The nature of
54
interventions during this macro-cycle enabled further development of the students’

substantive understandings. The students’ development of their collective identity as a
learning community both within and beyond the context of philosophical discussions was an
additional focus of all three interventions. As the notion of the classroom as a deliberative,
inquiring community is central to CPI (Burgh, Field & Freakley, 2006), for students to
become effective thinkers, CPI needs to extend beyond the philosophy lesson and become a
sustained practice throughout all learning areas. The aim of the interventions at each macro-
cycle of the research was to provide students with skills and understandings that would enable
them to develop their identity as a thinker and learner and for them to understand how their
reconstruction of thinking habits impacts on the progress of the class community (Burgh,
Field & Freakley 2006). Through students’ reflective comments in both small group focused
dialogues and the communities of inquiry, it was evident that many of the students greatly
valued this aspect of their new learning.
I also think the community ‘cause it’s like I’m bring up ideas and putting it into the subject and
then it’s getting bigger by people building on it. (Year 4)
Um, the thing that helped me most was evolving because I couldn’t have done, thought of anything
without like other people starting it for me. I can’t just think of a thought that just pops out of my
head, I need to, I need somebody to maybe clarify it. (Year 5)
I saw that our, our community of inquiry was getting – like it’s we were in the middle of a marathon
and now I know, we know that it’s like challenging to finish it because it’s like late in the year to
finish it but we kept on going – the whole marathon… (Year 5)
During Macro-cycle 2, Peirce’s notions of genuine doubt and paper-doubt became the
key focus of the research as further questions emerged: How is doubt cultivated within the
COI? In what ways are DRT and cultivation of doubt connected?
It was hypothesised that there was a significant interconnection between DRT and the
concept of doubt. For students to develop the desire to learn it is necessary for them to
experience doubt. However, as this desire is not always evident in primary school classrooms,
something further is needed to ignite this desire in the context of learning at school. In
response to this, the study proposed that a ‘metacognitive identity’ is the link that connects
what may begin as cultivated doubt and evolve into genuine doubt within a community of
inquirers, and that DRT provided a method for meta-reflection throughout the inquiry process
by building on a solid framework of reflective practices to bring this about. This model
encouraged students to think about ‘who they were’ in their own search for knowledge and
understanding. During Macro-cycle 1, students were given multiple opportunities to develop
DRT practices which could then be reconstructed within a new learning context. The
following examples are of students’ thoughts in relation to this hypothesis:
Sometimes people are sort of like lazy and they don’t really, they want to know something but
they’re not that desperate to have it but if you are desperate and you really, really want it, you want
the knowledge then you need to, you can try harder to get it and, because sometimes people that
don’t want it don’t try hard enough and they don’t get the real answer. (Year 4)
I think wisdom, well knowledge is like you have the power, wisdom is using that power um wise,
well wisely um like using it correctly and not doing stupid things but things that you know, help
people benefit. (Year 6)
Macro-cycles 2 & 3 took place in mixed year level classes in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
The intervention process during this stage of the research did not involve the introduction of
55
new tools or processes. Instead, the focus was on substantive understanding of philosophical
concepts, thus, student groups of mixed year levels were introduced to a range of
philosophical theories. The overarching inquiry question for each of these macro-cycles was:
How do we acquire knowledge and understanding? This was explored through a variety of
stimuli and connecting conceptual analyses. Key philosophical theories in relation to the
acquisition of knowledge, including the theoretical notions underpinning the study, became
the initial stimuli for discussion on commencement of each macro-cycle. Further stimuli were
provided by the students themselves, from their own experiences; like Lipman’s fictional
characters in his purpose-written stories-as-text, only the students were the actual characters.
When planning Macro-cycles 2 and 3, it was anticipated that the students would appropriate
the intellectual tools from the Macro-cycle 1 to enable them to examine the ideas and theories
presented and assist them to make connections to their own thoughts and experiences.
Evidence documented students’ reconstructions of their learning experiences from Macro-
cycle 1 to reflect metacognitively on their reasoning and reflective practices as they were
taking place during the inquiry. The framework for thinking during the inquiries required
students to think substantively in three key ways: through ontological, epistemological and
values inquiry. Students were encouraged to audit their thinking about ideas so that they ask
the following three questions:
 What is the essence of…?
 How do we know?
 Should we care?
Additionally, teachers were provided with the skills to include this approach in their
repertoire of teaching practices in and beyond the context of philosophy. It became a way to
plan, develop and implement rich, authentic teaching and learning experiences.
The inquiry direction in the Macro-cycles 2 and 3 followed the students’ connections
to key philosophical themes and their genuine interests during each inquiry process.
Students explored and connected the philosophical themes and made links to key
interrelated concepts. They were provided with opportunities to discuss theories and
connect to philosophical concepts and ideas explored during prior sessions. In addition to
this, they made substantive links to their own developing philosophical understandings and
life experiences. Following students’ genuine interests was fundamental to the process as
this sparked their motivation to formulate personal theories based on the ideas presented.
A key focus of the investigation was the ways in which students linked their own
reconstructed notions of philosophical theory, as the following example suggests: ‘I am
linking to [S]. Say that there are like two circles, one bigger than the other, and the first
circle is the circle you know the stuff that you don’t know and the other circle is the stuff
that you don’t know that you don’t know’. (Year 3).
When students actively engage in DRT and this becomes a habit of mind (a belief-
habit), then this reconstruction of thinking habits would enable them to perceive themselves
as inquirers. They develop an identity as a thinker and inquirer and this in turn facilitates the
inclination to examine their internal prejudices and the ways in which these prejudices impact
on their understanding of the world (Burgh & Thornton 2016a, 2016b). This proposition led
to further analysis of the data to determine ways in which doubt was cultivated amongst the
students.
Evidence from the data has highlighted an inextricable connection between DRT and
Peirce’s notion of doubt. The connection could be interpreted as a reciprocal one. The
56
recognition and examination of doubt within the community would require DRT. However,
if students feel no provocation to test their beliefs in response to their own or others’
disequilibrium then doubt would not be cultivated within the community, and, in turn,
students would not develop the skills to reconstruct the DRT experience. For students to
reconstruct their thinking experiences they would need to internalise their thinking in relation
to the doubt they experience. Students were asked to formulate their own theories in relation
to the acquisition of knowledge and understanding. The following are examples of students
using DRT to articulate their own theories, specifically in relation to the key theoretical
notions that shape this paper.
My theory on how we acquire knowledge is through doubting or testing an opinion’s legitimacy until
it is proven right or wrong; this can be done through inquiry or experiencing it. (Year 6 student 1)
I think you come to it [knowledge and understanding] through - like yes you need that genuine
doubt to start off but then um like you can do two things to further explore that genuine doubt. You
can have a discussion, see what other people think or then you can um experience it and make up
a decision for yourself … and um so like yeah, ‘cause that inquiry can be just talking or it can
actually be experience. (Year 6 Student 1)
Comments from this student suggest an understanding of the role of genuine doubt in
inquiry akin to that proposed by Peirce. In the first comment the student suggests ‘testing an
opinion’s legitimacy until it is proven right or wrong’, which echoes Peirce’s idea that inquiry
forms the space between genuine doubt and fixed or settled belief. In his second comment
the student makes the distinction between an inquiry that is ‘just talking’ or one that is an
actual ‘experience’. Here the student appears to suggest that it is the way you ‘further
explore’ the genuine doubt that provides the experience that could lead you to knowledge
and that ‘just talking’, similar to Peirce’s notion of paper doubt, would not generally lead to
knowledge acquisition.
I would agree with that about people’s experience of things that they do or they think but also with
doubt and wonder—like that’s like the trial and error to state things as facts; like a plant will grow in
dirt, you wonder about that but if you try it and it works, that’s like the settled belief … So, without
wonder or doubt I don’t think we would really have any facts or anything like that. The world would
be much different. Because, yeah, people wouldn’t really know... (Year 6 Student 2)
Student 2 concurs with Student 1 about doubt and experience, but in addition to this,
links doubt to wonder, for which doubt is a necessary condition to bring about inquiry:
without both doubt and wonder ‘we wouldn’t really have any facts’ and ‘people wouldn’t
really know.’ ‘Um well, I think there’s knowledge and that’s the, your settled beliefs then
there’s doubts and those are your doubts and there are your opinions and those are the things
that you are um always thinking about and agreeing with or even changing sometimes’. (Year
4 Student).
In the above comment, the student drew a relevant distinction between knowledge,
referred to as ‘your settled beliefs’, and opinion, understood as ‘things that you are always
thinking about’ that may change as your thoughts change. It appears that by making this
distinction the student is suggesting that doubt sits between opinion and settled knowledge.
When asked by the teacher about where thinking habits fit in the student’s theory, the response
was that if you see your thoughts as opinion then you can ‘bend’ but if thoughts are either
settled or you always doubted then reconstruction is not possible. The distinction the student
seems to be making is between certainty, absolute skepticism and fallibilism (opinion that can
be doubted): ‘Um, those are the three categories of thinking habits, like so um, um if all your,
57
if all your um, thoughts are in knowledge then you can’t bend, if all your thoughts are in
doubts then you, you can’t bend but if all your thoughts are in opinion, you can bend really
easily’. (Year 4 student).
In the following comment, the student raised the notion that the desire to question
arises from the experience of collaborative inquiry, suggesting that one desires to
question to ‘find out the truth’. The comment aligns with the views expressed by Peirce
in the ‘First Rule of Logic’, mentioned above, in which he makes the connection between
learning and the desire to learn that is necessitated by a dissatisfaction that accompanies
uncertainty over our beliefs. ‘Um I think like overtime you, you tend to just kind of naturally
start questioning new ideas, um because er you have been in a lot of, lots of community of
inquiries you tend to think a little bit more about things, think deeply and you kind of get,
you get a bit of like a um like er (laughs) like you want to find out the truth and, get to the
bottom of things’. (Year 6 Student 3).
During a community of inquiry, students were asked to consider why Socrates was
thought of as the wisest man in ancient Greece. The following comments demonstrate further
examination of the connection between learning and the desire to learn. One student
responded as follows:
I think he was wise because he was ignorant because um, if you know you’re ignorant then that
gives you something to um, go for um, you know and that ‘cause you know you’re ignorant you
also, your mind isn’t clouded with the thought that you’re perfect, and you know things, you’re a
genius, um, you’re the smartest man, when you know you’re ignorant then, you kinda just think,
you know, you think of yourself as not er, you know, not as this great awesome person that’s
perfect, you think oh well, you know, I, I want to pursue that knowledge and that gives you
something um, to work for…. (Year 6 student 1)
The above comment suggests that if a person remains in a state of infallibility, then
they are not likely to pursue knowledge. In the comment below, the student builds on this
comment by attempting to make a distinction between two kinds of ignorance; having a
desire to learn as being ignorant ‘in a good way’ as opposed to having no desire to learn, a
form of ignorance that would not be considered ‘good’.‘Well it depends what sort of
ignorance you are talking about, like literal ignorance is ignorance of wanting to learn um,
um, if you’re if you don’t desire to learn then basically you’re being ignorant but if you desire
to learn you are being ignorant in a good way – I guess’. (Year 5 student).
Conclusion
By highlighting the role of genuine doubt in community of inquiry pedagogy using
DRT, we have argued that the Peircean blocks to inquiry can be removed. Through the DRT
framework, students are provided with the philosophical tools to overcome the fear of doubt
through understanding their own fallibility and that of others.
As I was listening to everyone it made me think a bit more, and think about having wisdom. I don’t
think you can be afraid if you have no wisdom because what leads to being afraid is you think
about something and that leads to fear, like you are scared of something that you think of, and I
think wisdom is the key that can open any door. Like if you have wisdom you can open the door
to fear; you can open the door to, like, questioning the things you think in your mind and you
become a lot more wise. (Year 7 student)
Collective doubt emerges within the inquiry through a convergence of several of the above-
mentioned doubt indicators. This could be evident within an individual comment or collectively
throughout an episode of several comments. This convergence stimulates the collaborative
examination of doubt as part of CPI. Through the experience of DRT in relation to the examination
58
of collective doubt, students begin to understand their own fallibility and further to this, embrace
absurdity. This is evidenced by the considered way they structure their responses, punctuated with
thinking pauses in the form of ‘um’, ‘like’ and the inclusion of phrases such as ‘I think’ or ‘I guess’.
Students do not only begin to recognise their own fallibility, they welcome it. Consider the
following example: ‘I think it’s the fact that we get to explore what life actually is so let’s say I
think I’m alive but I, you know, you never normally think: How am I alive? Why am I alive? So,
it’s pretty much just like life is the wardrobe and philosophy is the Narnia’. (Year 6)
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Filosofía para Niños y Niñas en la formación del profesorado de

Secundaria: un cambio irreversible en la mirada
Gloria Arbonés Villaverde

Directora del IREF
glo.arbones@gmail.com
Sara Silvestre Anglès

sarasilvestre@ub.edu
CV
Gloria Arbonés. Profesora de Filosofía (Universidad Nacional de La Plata. Argentina.
Homologado en España al título de Licenciada en Filosofía). Formadora de formadores en
Filosofía para Niños (IAPC-EE.UU.). Introductora de Filosofía para Niños en Argentina en
1989. Formadora y asesora de FpN en escuelas de Argentina. Desde 2003 trabaja como
formadora e investigadora en el Proyecto Filosofía 3/18 en el GrupIREF (Barcelona), de
donde es la actual directora. Desde 2012 es también profesora de Didáctica de la Filosofía en
el Máster de Formación del Profesorado de la Universidad de Barcelona, así como
coordinadora, junto a Carla Carreras (UdG), del Máster on line de FpN (Universidad de
Girona). Participante y ponente en congresos, encuentros, jornadas, etc. en Argentina,
España, Italia, Austria entre otros países.
Sara Silvestre Anglés. Licenciada en Filosofía por la Universidad de Barcelona. Desde 2012
es profesora de Didáctica de la Filosofía en el Máster de Formación del Profesorado de la
Universidad de Barcelona.
RESUMEN
Este trabajo pretende abordar diferentes aspectos relacionados con el impacto de incluir el
proyecto Filosofía para Niños en los contenidos curriculares de las asignaturas del Máster de
formación de futuros profesores y profesoras de Filosofía. Proponemos esta presentación a
partir de nuestra experiencia como profesoras de las asignaturas de Didáctica de la Filosofía
que impartimos desde el año 2012 y también de la extensa trayectoria con el Proyecto
Filosofía 3/18-Filosofía para Niños/as de una de sus autoras.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Didáctica de la Filosofía; formación del profesorado.
ABSTRACT
This presentation aims to address different topics related to the impact of including the
project Philosophy for Children in the curricular contents of the subjects of the Professional
Master's Training of future teachers and professors of Philosophy. We start from our
experience as teachers of the subjects of Didactics of Philosophy we taught since 2012 in the
Faculty of Education of the University of Barcelona and also the extensive tray with the
Project Philosophy 3/18-Philosophy for Children by one of the authors.
62
KEYWORDS
Didactics of Philosophy; teacher training.
INTRODUCCIÓN
Esta presentación es en realidad una reflexión a partir de nuestra experiencia como
profesoras de las asignaturas de Didáctica de la Filosofía, en las cuales hemos introducido
teoría y práctica de Filosofía para Niños/as, bajo el supuesto de que la propuesta de Matthew
Lipman y Ann M. Sharp da respuesta al gran problema de esta área en la formación del
profesorado.
Es por esto por lo que hemos articulado la presentación alrededor de tres ejes que nos
parecen relevantes para nuestra reflexión:
1) El grado de aceptación o rechazo que genera el proyecto Filosofía para Niños/as en
los aspirantes a profesores/as de Filosofía.
2) La necesidad de dicho proyecto para trabajar por competencias.
3) Las propuestas de evaluación que se desprenden de un trabajo con FpN.
Grado de aceptación o rechazo de Filosofía para Niños/as
En primer lugar, entonces, pensaremos sobre el impacto que observamos al introducir
el Proyecto de Filosofía para Niñas y Niños en la formación didáctica de los futuros
profesores de Filosofía de Secundaria y Bachillerato. Podemos afirmar que, para muchos de
ellos, significa un cambio irreversible en la mirada docente, pero también en su comprensión
y definición de la propia disciplina filosófica. A través de un taller dentro de las asignaturas
de Didáctica de la Filosofía, en el Máster de Formación de Profesorado de Secundaria de la
Universidad de Barcelona, el futuro profesorado aprende de forma vivencial esta manera
completamente diferente de trabajar en filosofía, y muchos de ellos definen este aprendizaje
como el más significativo de su formación. Destacan como descubrimientos casi
maravillosos cuestiones como la necesidad de silencio del profesor, el papel del profesor
como guía, el descubrimiento de la posibilidad de que la pregunta parta del alumnado, la
existencia de un currículo tan amplio de materiales ya elaborados y adaptados, la comunidad
de investigación o el diálogo realmente filosófico y democrático. Cabe señalar, sin embargo,
que esta propuesta didáctica no tiene valor alguno para muchos de los estudiantes hasta que
no han pasado por las prácticas en el aula de Secundaria, y comprenden el desapego real e
insoluble de los estudiantes actuales de Secundaria hacia las prácticas didácticas eruditas y
de transmisión de información no contextualizada ni dotada de significatividad. Otro factor
importante que señalar es que en cada promoción un sector menor pero significativo del
estudiantado ni antes ni después de las prácticas considera digna de respeto esta propuesta
didáctica. Nos atrevemos a afirmar1 que este rechazo o aceptación están íntimamente ligados
con la formación inicial de grado que han recibido en las distintas facultades. Observamos
que el alumnado que viene de una estructura docente en la cual la clase magistral es la
metodología casi excluyente y cualquier metodología activa es despreciada o no practicada,
rechazan, muchas veces a priori, cualquier propuesta innovadora, en cambio, si han tenido
1
Somos conscientes de que esta afirmación es muy poco académica y mucho menos científica, pero no
hemos encarado una investigación sistemática para dar sustento a nuestra tesis. Nos basamos en la praxis,
en las valoraciones formales e informales del alumnado y en nuestra percepción subjetiva. En todo caso,
este trabajo podría ser un planteo inicial de algo que podría ser desarrollado a futuro.
63
experiencias más activas o participativas como alumnos, son más permeables a atender y
escuchar activamente. Seguimos afirmando lo que tantas veces decimos en nuestras clases
de Didáctica: enseñamos como aprendimos. Sin embargo, no deja de sorprendernos que
personas formadas en el espíritu crítico de la Filosofía reaccionen, muchas veces, de un modo
ciertamente altivo y despectivo ante propuestas innovadoras sólidas y con una larguísima
trayectoria internacional, como la de Philosophy for Children.
Filosofía para Niños y Niñas y la educación competencial
Las propuestas pedagógicas actuales nos piden, a los educadores de todos los niveles,
adaptarnos a los cambios sociales que han puesto la educación tradicional en cuestión y
caminar hacia una educación por competencias, el “invitado sorpresa” en el mundo de la
educación, como lo llaman Cázares y Cuevas (2014: 13). Si la educación tradicional ponía en
el centro de la mirada educativa los contenidos conceptuales que debían transmitirse a los
estudiantes, ahora debemos transformar nuestros contenidos en competencias, que implican
no sólo el saber, sino también el saber hacer, el saber ser y el saber convivir (Zabala y Arnau,
2007: 45), las cuales podemos caracterizar de la siguiente manera:
 SABER: datos, hechos, informaciones, conceptos, conocimientos.
 SABER HACER: habilidades, destrezas, técnicas para aplicar y transferir el saber a
la actuación.
 SABER SER: normas, actitudes, intereses, valores, convicciones,
responsabilidades.
 SABER ESTAR: predisposición al entendimiento y la comunicación interpersonal
y el comportamiento colaborativo.
El concepto de competencia puede resultar un tanto confuso o de difícil comprensión,
de modo que hay que clarificar a qué estamos haciendo referencia cuando hablamos de esta
idea en el ámbito educativo. Una posible definición precisa y completa de este concepto es la
siguiente:
La competencia ha de identificar aquello que necesita cualquier persona para dar respuesta a los
problemas a los que se enfrentará a lo largo de su vida. Por tanto, competencia consistirá en la
intervención eficaz en los diferentes ámbitos de la vida mediante acciones en las que se movilizan,
al mismo tiempo y de manera interrelacionada, componentes actitudinales, procedimentales y
conceptuales. (Zabala y Arnau, 2007: 45)
A partir de aquí, vemos que la educación competencial da un paso más allá de la
educación tradicional, ya que no sólo se contemplan los contenidos conceptuales, sino que
las dimensiones se amplían con la incorporación de los contenidos procedimentales que,
como ya veremos, son el centro de la acción educativa, y también de los contenidos
actitudinales, los cuales hasta ahora tenían un papel meramente residual.
En el nuestro ámbito específico, partimos de la experiencia que nos muestra que en el
conjunto del profesorado de Filosofía existe una gran resistencia al trabajo por competencias.
Esta gran resistencia tiene, en muchos casos, un contenido ideológico que podría resumirse
con la expresión ya clásica de “no admitir didactismos” con la que solemos despachar
frecuentemente lo que comprendemos como una intromisión de los pedagogos y didactas en
nuestro trabajo. Sin embargo, la resistencia al trabajo por competencias tiene también, a
nuestro entender, otra raíz mucho más sensata a la que debemos prestar atención. Profesores
conocedores de la didáctica de la filosofía, innovadores, entregados a su docencia, también
muestran esta resistencia, que se nos plantea como un acto casi intuitivo de resistencia a
64
perder lo esencial de nuestro discurso, esto es, lo filosófico. Es un miedo no sólo sensato,
sino que además señala al elefante rosa que tenemos en el comedor de nuestra tradición
docente, y del que creemos que debemos empezar a hablar: la ausencia de una sistematización
de contenidos procedimentales propiamente filosóficos.
Así pues, cuando nos planteamos hacer este paso hacia unas prácticas educativas no
centradas en el contenido conceptual, es decir, en las necesidades de la disciplina, sino
centradas en las necesidades de aprendizaje de nuestros estudiantes, un factor clave que no
debemos olvidar es la necesaria coherencia entre las metodologías docentes y las
metodologías evaluativas. Cualquier didáctica, para ser efectiva, debe conseguir armonizar
coherentemente estos aspectos.
Como hemos señalado antes, la tradición didáctica de nuestro país en el área de
filosofía está íntimamente ligada a las prácticas de trasmisión de contenido conceptual,
siendo la clase magistral, ya sea dialogada o muchas veces monologada, la gran
protagonista en el aula filosófica. En esta didáctica tradicional, en la que el contenido
conceptual es el centro y según la cual la fidelidad a la propia disciplina se contempla como
más importante que el aprendizaje del filosofar por parte del estudiantado, las formas
evaluativas clásicas, especialmente el examen de exposición o desarrollo de tema, son
totalmente coherentes. En este caso, efectivamente, se está evaluando lo que se ha
enseñado: contenido conceptual.
Por el contrario, las propuestas innovadoras en didáctica de la filosofía ya sean las
nuevas prácticas francesas, el diálogo socrático o la Filosofía para Niños, tienen como
componente común el hecho de haber dejado de contemplar el contenido conceptual como
centro del acto educativo y pasan a centrar su mirada e interés en el aprendizaje y ejecución
de la acción de pensar (filosóficamente) de nuestros estudiantes. Además, en todas ellas, el
componente social del diálogo deviene un elemento esencial, de modo que contribuye a poder
trabajar los cuatro elementos característicos de la educación competencial.
Sin esta visibilización y sistematización de contenidos procedimentales propiamente
filosóficos, el paso a una educación competencial en el área de filosofía no puede producirse,
ni es deseable.
Nuestra propuesta se basa en recoger el legado de la tradición didáctica que más ha
trabajado este aspecto, la Filosofía para Niños, para dar así contenido a las competencias
específicas de nuestra área, pero también a las competencias básicas o generales cuando se
trabajan desde el área de filosofía. Nos parece relevante citar el informe sobre la evaluación2
del desarrollo del Proyecto Filosofía 3/183 en diferentes centros educativos de Cataluña
realizado por el Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu del Departament
d’Ensenyament de la Generalitat de Catalunya en abril de 2012, que si bien estuvo realizado
en base a la aplicación de dicho proyecto en escuelas de educación infantil y primaria, y a
falta de un informe de evaluación similar en institutos, creemos que sus resultados pueden
ser extrapolables con facilidad.
Ahora bien, ¿cómo mantener la necesaria coherencia entre las metodologías docentes y
las metodologías evaluativas cuando nuestras formas didácticas han virado? Debemos,
análogamente, variar también las formas evaluativas; pero ¿cómo evaluar con efectividad y
2
Se puede consultar en la página en español del GrupIREF www.grupiref.org, en el botón Informe de
evaluación
3
Nombre con el que se conoce Filosofía para Niñas y Niños en Cataluña.
65
rigor algo tan difícilmente clasificable como es aprender a pensar de forma filosófica y que
nuestra tradición didáctica ni siquiera logra definir con exactitud?
Las propuestas de evaluación que se desprenden de un trabajo con FpN.
En una didáctica en la que el contenido conceptual es el centro, y la fidelidad a la propia
disciplina se contempla como más importante que el aprendizaje del filosofar por parte del
estudiantado, las formas evaluativas clásicas, especialmente el examen de exposición o
desarrollo de tema, son totalmente coherentes. Proponemos un acercamiento de la filosofía a
las nuevas formas de evaluación que propone el enfoque evaluativo competencial, y
especialmente la evaluación formadora y formativa, orientada a regular las dificultades y
errores que surgen a lo largo de un proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, más que a valorar los
resultados de dicho proceso. El proceso por evaluar es la acción de pensar filosóficamente,
pero para que sea enseñable y evaluable, debemos poder dividirla en partes, o concretarla en
acciones más específicas. Pero ¿cuáles son, estos componentes de la acción del pensar
filosóficamente? ¿Qué parte de nuestra tradición didáctica los recoge? Cuando intentamos
aplicar en el área de Filosofía este nuevo enfoque evaluativo, del que destacamos la potencia
de la coevaluación como herramienta para desarrollar una autorregulación del aprendizaje,
chocamos inmediatamente con la gran ausencia en nuestra tradición didáctica de una
sistematización de contenidos procedimentales propiamente filosóficos que permitan trabajar
innovadoramente y evaluar el aprendizaje de la acción de filosofar. Como adelantamos en el
apartado anterior, este gran vacío puede ser llenado con la sistematización de habilidades de
pensamiento de Lipman, aunque también con la propuesta en tres fases (problematizar,
conceptualizar y argumentar) de Michel Tozzi4. Serán estas propuestas concretas las que nos
permitan llenar la negligencia de nuestra tradición didáctica respecto de los contenidos
procedimentales, y partiendo de ellas podremos establecer esa necesaria coherencia entre
metodologías docentes y evaluativas que nos permitirán trabajar en filosofía de forma no solo
innovadora sino también sólida pedagógicamente.
Para poder entender la complejidad de este cambio, debemos, en primer lugar, tener
clara la concepción de la evaluación que se asocia a la educación competencial, y en este
sentido proponer la coevaluación y la autoevaluación dentro de la perspectiva de la
evaluación formadora. Si para la educación tradicional la evaluación solía ser un instrumento
para recoger los resultados del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, la educación competencial
rompe totalmente con esta premisa; el objetivo ya no es medir la asimilación de los
contenidos, sino identificar las dificultades y orientar al alumno en su proceso de
construcción del conocimiento.
Como ya hemos mencionado anteriormente, el mismo concepto de competencia
muestra la necesidad de conjugar teoría y práctica, de modo que el alumno continuamente
debe estar aplicando los distintos conocimientos en contextos determinados y así dotarlos de
sentido. Éste es el motivo por el cual la educación competencial tiene que partir de la
afirmación de que “sin evaluación de las necesidades del alumnado, no habrá tarea efectiva
del profesorado. Y sin autoevaluación del significado que tienen los nuevos datos, las nuevas
informaciones, las distintas maneras de entender o de hacer, no habrá progreso. Por ello, se
4
Profesor de Filosofía francés, especialista en Didáctica de la Filosofía. Profesor emérito de la Universidad
Paul-Valéry de Montpellier. Su trabajo se centra en la didáctica del aprendizaje filosófico (DAP). Es también
fundador de la revista Diótima.
66
puede afirmar que enseñar, aprender y evaluar son en realidad tres procesos inseparables≫.
(Sanmartí, 2007: 23).
Proponemos, pues, un acercamiento de la didáctica de la filosofía a las nuevas formas
de evaluación que presenta el enfoque competencial, especialmente a la evaluación formativa
y formadora. ¿A qué nos referimos con estas dos modalidades?
Por un lado, en la evaluación formativa las decisiones son tomadas fundamentalmente
por el profesor, mientras que en la evaluación formadora es el estudiante quien tiene un papel
activo. La primera, pues, tendría un carácter heterónomo, el cual contrastaría con el carácter
autónomo de la segunda.
A pesar de que puedan parecer procesos muy similares, los matices entre una forma y
otra residen en las funciones y objetivos que persiguen. Por un lado, la evaluación formativa
significa comprender por qué el alumno no entiende un concepto o no sabe hacer una tarea;
es decir, con este tipo de evaluación, no sólo debemos identificar dificultades y errores, sino
comprender sus causas. Así pues, se contempla no como una acción puntual, sino como un
recorrido a lo largo de todo el proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Por otro lado, la evaluación
formadora implica que el alumno autorregule su propio proceso de aprendizaje.
En estas dos formas de evaluación caben muchos instrumentos de evaluación
diferentes, como portafolios, carpetas de aprendizaje, proyectos, ensayos, disertaciones,
trabajos interdisciplinares, etc. A pesar de los matices entre cada uno de ellos, hay una
cuestión clave común a todos ellos: saber elaborar los criterios de evaluación para que
atiendan a las cuatro áreas de las competencias trabajadas. Esta tarea es bastante más
compleja de lo que se tiende a pensar, de modo que se han establecido algunos elementos
como guía. El más característico del enfoque evaluativo competencial es elaborar los criterios
en cuestión en forma de rúbrica y compartirlos siempre con los estudiantes, ya que así podrán
saber en qué momento de su proceso de aprendizaje se encuentran.
A partir de estas nociones básicas, si volvemos a nuestra área nos encontramos con que
el proceso a evaluar es la acción de pensar filosóficamente. El problema surge, pues, en que
para que este proceso sea enseñable y evaluable debemos poder dividir esta acción en partes,
o, al menos, concretarla en acciones más específicas. Sin embargo, ¿cuáles son los
componentes de la acción de pensar filosóficamente? ¿Qué parte de nuestra tradición
didáctica los recoge?
Siguiendo en la misma dirección que Lipman, podemos afirmar que una propuesta de
evaluación formativo-formadora necesariamente debe tener como ejes principales la
autoevaluación y la coevaluación. Según la educación competencial el proceso evaluativo
es indisociable del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, de modo que, si en este último son
los alumnos los que asumen el rol de protagonistas y deben construir su propio
conocimiento, también deberán ser activos en todo lo referente a la evaluación.
A partir de aquí, debemos asumir que “el proceso de enseñar-aprender-evaluar se
convierte en un acto de comunicación social con todas sus exigencias y posibilidades, y la
evaluación se revela como un elemento primordial en el proceso de auto-socio-construcción
del conocimiento.” (Sanmartí, 2007: 61) En este contexto, las evaluaciones formativa y
formadora nos permiten tener en cuenta estos dos elementos de autoconstrucción y
socioconstrucción del conocimiento, ya que a pesar de que el proceso y los objetivos de éste
sean comunes a todos los alumnos, debemos tener en cuenta las diferencias entre cada uno
de ellos.
En primer lugar, la autoevaluación es necesaria para que los alumnos se impliquen en
el proceso evaluativo y perciban los errores y dificultades en su aprendizaje, pero, por otro
67
lado, la coevaluación permite percibir la tarea de valoración como una ayuda mutua entre
los propios alumnos. Dado que la autoevaluación es más comuna y debería ser inherente a
cualquier proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, queremos destacar el potencial de la
coevaluación.
La finalidad de una propuesta evaluativa formativo-formadora nunca puede ser la de
constatar un nivel previamente establecido, de modo que las diferencias deben ser tomadas
como un elemento enriquecedor y no discriminativo. En este sentido, la coevaluación es la
mejor herramienta para poder fomentar el intercambio de ideas y la cohesión del aula y dejar
de lado cualquier idea de competición.
La coevaluación se entiende como la evaluación recíproca de los estudiantes teniendo
en cuenta unos parámetros prefijados previamente entre el docente y ellos. Así pues, a pesar
de que el profesor tiene un papel importante en la elaboración de estos criterios, su figura
ya no es la de juez, sino la de guía y mediador. Este hecho contribuye a que los alumnos
olviden la visión de la evaluación como la de un peaje y la perciban como un desafío
constante, como una oportunidad de conseguir los distintos objetivos a lo largo del proceso
de enseñanza-aprendizaje.
Como ya hemos apuntado, en la evaluación formativo-formadora los criterios se suelen
elaborar en forma de rúbrica y, además, son compartidos con los alumnos en todo momento.
Este instrumento, aunque incluye valores numéricos, no es hermético, es decir, los parámetros
a los que hacen referencia permiten identificar y recoger problemas muy distintos.
Precisamente, la coevaluación tiene la función de utilizar esta diversidad y confrontación de
puntos de vista como un motor de construcción de significados y, además, implica que el
alumno se esté autoevaluando constantemente en función de las réplicas que recibe.
No obstante, es importante poder complementar el proceso evaluativo con múltiples
instrumentos que permitan trazar una continuidad. El abanico de posibilidades que nos
ofrece la evaluación formadora-formativa es muy amplio, ya que combina herramientas
orales, como las mesas redondas y los debates; escritas, como por ejemplo el diario de clase,
los portafolios, dossiers, etc.; y, finalmente, prácticos, como pueden ser los role-playings o
la práctica supervisada. Y en este sentido, animamos a explorar la evaluación
figuroanalógica5, una propuesta de evaluación creada por Angélica Sátiro6 en 1993 y que ha
abierto una línea de desarrollo de la autoevaluación que aún sigue siendo novedosa.
Conclusiones
Conjugar todas las ideas expuestas hasta ahora y llevarlas a la práctica como docentes en
un instituto, pero también como docentes de Didáctica de la Filosofía en la formación del
futuro profesorado en la Universidad es una tarea muy ardua y que requiere dejar de lado
muchos prejuicios y maneras de proceder arraigadas a nuestra tradición didáctica. Intentar ser
coherentes en las aulas con lo que predicamos en la teoría y al mismo tiempo ser lo
suficientemente sólidas desde la teoría como para que la invitación a intentarlo sea aceptada,
es el desafío al que nos enfrentamos cada año ante el nuevo grupo de alumnos y alumnas que
quieren dedicarse a trabajar como profesores y profesoras de Filosofía. Nuestro objetivo es
5
Es una propuesta para repensar la evaluación como un instrumento de autoconocimiento, autonomía y
emancipación de los sujetos en lugar de un mecanismo de control y poder, utilizando símbolos que se hallan
presentes en la cultura visual de niñas, niños y jóvenes a modo de analogía para evaluar aspectos diferentes
de las prácticas de aula.
6
Angélica Sátiro (Brasil) es pedagoga, maestra, escritora y experta en creatividad. Es autora de más de 400
publicaciones.
68
que por lo menos nos escuchen con atención y se atrevan a probar esta propuesta que
seguimos llamando innovadora, aunque tiene casi cincuenta años de existencia y desarrollo
en todo el mundo.
Hasta el momento, los resultados son optimistas. Nuestra experiencia en Didáctica de la
Filosofía dentro del Máster de Formación del Profesorado nos indica que éste puede ser un
camino muy exitoso. Nuestros estudiantes reportan que ha sido especialmente a través de
tareas de coevaluación cuando más han aprendido y más implicados se han sentido con su
propio aprendizaje y el de su grupo de pares. También nos agradecen los conocimientos y las
prácticas con Filosofía para Niños realizadas durante el Máster después de haber pasado por
su período de prácticas.
Nuevamente y recuperando las ideas de Lipman, debido a que el conocimiento se auto-
socio-construye, no podemos concebir el aula de Filosofía, y en este caso, el aula de Didáctica
de la Filosofía, sin el diálogo. Por esta razón es muy importante crear un sentimiento de
comunidad que fomente el intercambio de ideas entre el alumnado —y futuro profesorado —
que permita una mirada crítica a esta propuesta.
REFERENCIAS
Andrés, I; de Castro, F; et alt. (2007). Reevaluar. La educación reflexiva en la escuela.
Barcelona: Octaedro.
Cázares Aponte, Leslie y Cuevas de la Garza, Fernando (2014). Planeación y evaluación
basada en competencias. México: Trillas.
Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu del Departament d’Ensenyament de la
Generalitat de Catalunya (2012). Avaluació del desenvolupament del projecte Filosofia
3/18. Barcelona.
Lipman, Matthew (1997). Pensamiento complejo y educación. Madrid: Ediciones de la Torre.
Sanmartí, Neus (2007). 10 ideas clave: evaluar para aprender. Barcelona: Graó.
Zabala, Antoni y Arnau, Laia (2007). 11 ideas clave: Cómo aprender y enseñar
competencias.. Barcelona: Graó.
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Philosophy for Children and Dewey’s Aesthetics:

A Teacher Educator’s Self-Study Through Narrative Inquiry
Jessica Ching-Sze, Wang

National Chiayi University, Taiwan
chingsze@mail.ncyu.edu.tw
CV
Jessica Ching-Sze, Wang is a full professor at the School of Education, National Chiayi
University (Taiwan). She is the author of John Dewey in China: To Teach and to Learn
(2007). Her major work is to prepare pre-service teachers for inquiry-based learning, to
work with in-service teachers to implement philosophy for children Hawaii (p4cHI) in
elementary schooling, and to innovate new ways to make P4C more attuned to societal
challenges and cultural needs, which includes using Chinese philosophy, such as The
Analects, to do P4C.
ABSTRACT
This paper uses self-study through narrative inquiry to examine a teacher facilitator’s
aesthetic experience in Philosophy for Children. This analysis blends theoretical discourse
and narrative explications. It draws from Dewey’s aesthetics in developing the concept of
ʽphilosophical mindfulnessʼ as the defining feature of such pedagogical aesthetics.
Philosophical mindfulness means attention to the present; it requires a special type of
listening; it serves to stimulate and enrich imagination; and it helps to dig beneath the surface.
It is a process that integrates thinking, feeling and being and that unites the body, heart, and
mind. A teacher facilitator’s sense of ʽmindingʼ the world is readily exposed in the here and
now of P4C and has a modeling effect for the community. The paper argues that the
cultivation of philosophical mindfulness will contribute to Deweyan democracy as full and
moving communication.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy for Children, Dewey, Aesthetics, Teacher Facilitator, Philosophical Mindfulness,
Self-Study, Democracy.
RESUMEN
Este artículo utiliza el autoaprendizaje a través de la investigación narrativa para
examinar la experiencia estética de un facilitador docente en Filosofía para Niños. Este
análisis combina el discurso teórico y las explicaciones narrativas. Se basa en la estética
de Dewey al desarrollar el concepto de “atención filosófica” como característica
definitoria de dicha estética pedagógica. La atención filosófica significa atención al
presente; requiere un tipo especial de escucha; sirve para estimular y enriquecer la
imaginación; y ayuda a cavar bajo la superficie. Es un proceso que integra pensamiento,
sentimiento y ser y que unifica el cuerpo, el corazón y la mente. Aquí se expone un sentido
del profesor-facilitador al que le importa el mundo en el aquí y ahora de FpN y tiene un
efecto ejemplificador para la comunidad. El artículo argumenta que el cultivo de la
70
atención filosófica contribuirá a la democracia deweyiana como una comunicación plena

y conmovedora.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía para Niños, Dewey, Estética, Profesor facilitador, Atención filosófica plena,
Auto análisis, Democracia.
P4C and Dewey’s Aesthetics

Philosophy for Children (P4C) is now an umbrella term for a variety of educational
programs and initiatives that attempt to ʽmergeʼ philosophy with education, as its founder
Matthew Lipman (2008) envisioned it. To ameliorate the pitfalls of traditional schooling,
P4C aims to help children learn how to think for themselves (Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan,
1980, p. 53). It cultivates a deep sense of wonder, an attitude of genuine questioning, and a
habit of thoughtful deliberation through inquiry and dialogue. Since Lipman and Ann Sharp
established the P4C program in the 1970s, the idea of philosophizing with children in a
classroom community of inquiry has spread worldwide. With its unique set of
epistemological, methodological, and educational presuppositions, P4C is ʽindebtedʼ to John
Dewey (Lipman, 2004) for his vision of pragmatic social inquiry and reflective education
(Cam, 2008; Ladd, 2008; Golding, 2011). However, the connection between Dewey and the
aesthetic dimension of P4C has often been overlooked (Leckey, 2017).
Recently, the relationship between P4C and Dewey’s aesthetics has received scholarly
attention (see Oral, 2013; Leckey, 2017). In my view, the reasons are manifold. The first reason
is the rich scholarship on Dewey’s aesthetics (see Alexander, 2013; Stroud, 2011); the second
is the awareness of the potential danger of instrumentalism associated with the rhetoric of P4C
(see Biesta, 2011); and the third concerns the caution against rationalistic logical reasoning in
representing the model of thinking in P4C (Vansieleghem, 2005; Steel, 2014; Wang,
2015/2016). In light of these studies, this paper proposes that a renewed engagement with
Dewey, especially his aesthetics, offers fresh perspectives for P4C theory and practice.
Lipman’s humanistic ideals and aesthetic orientation were actually the driving forces
shaping his original thinking about P4C (see Lipman, 2008). As a fervent reader and admirer
of Dewey, Lipman fleshed out Dewey’s philosophy of experience in his invention of ʽthe
pedagogy of a community of inquiry,ʼ which is now the standard pedagogical practice of
P4C. Although Lipman took inspiration from Charles Sanders Pierce for this term, Dewey’s
views of democracy as experience, morality, and the art of living, were the centerpieces of
his new educational vision. It is ripe time that we explore the nuanced connections between
P4C and Dewey’s aesthetics.
A review of relevant literature shows that some practitioners have already used P4C as
an alternative form of aesthetics education. They engage students with philosophical texts
about the arts or with art works (see William Hamrick, 1989; Leckey, 2017); or they employ
creative, deliberative pedagogy with aesthetic intent, such as through drama or improvisation
(D’Olimpio & Teschers, 2017). In this paper, I aim to elaborate on the pedagogical aesthetics
in P4C, attuning to Dewey’s emphasis on experience and everyday aesthetics. By ʽpedagogical
aesthetics,ʼ I mean to demonstrate how a teacher facilitator experiences P4C aesthetically.
Here, aesthetics is not construed as a form of content, but as a way of experiencing that
potentially opens ʽeducational possibilitiesʼ (Wang, 2015/2016).
71
Savoring Aesthetic Experiences in P4C: Perspectives of a Taiwanese Teacher

Educator
Since 2013, I have taught P4C-related courses at the teachers’ college at my university
in Taiwan; done P4C with children in elementary schools; integrated P4C into Chinese
classics education in my local community, where parents and their children participated
together; and worked with pre-service and in-service school teachers to experiment with P4C
in schools. As my passion drives me toward more ideas for new projects, I think that the time
for reflection upon the meaning and value of these experiences is here.
Building on my prior works on Dewey and democratic education, I assert that his aesthetics
is interrelated with his educational, social-political, and moral philosophy. Dewey’s aesthetics is
not a theory of art (works), but a philosophy of experience, or ʽan aesthetics of human existenceʼ
(Alexander, 2013, p. 1). It satisfies ʽthe human eros,ʼ ʽto seek to live with a concrete, embodied
experience of meaning and value in the worldʼ (Alexander, 2013, p. 6). As Dewey himself states,
ʽThe characteristic human needʼ is ʽfor possession and appreciation of the meaning of thingsʼ
(LW 1: 272). In this paper, I use Dewey’s aesthetics as an interpretive framework to discover
meaning and value through my pedagogical reflections.
Dewey takes aesthetic experiences to be ʽexperiences at their best and at their fullestʼ
(LW 13: 368) and ʽexperience in its integrityʼ (LW 10: 278). He sees the culmination of
experience in the embodied, lived experience of the everyday world, constituted not by
propositional statements, but by people as embodied thinkers; by events in ordinary affairs,
in stories, in bodily gestures, in facial expressions, in silences, emotions, and imagined
meanings—all of these ʽhappeningsʼ in human interaction and communication. That is why
Dewey exclaims, ʽof all affairs, communication is the most wonderfulʼ (LW 1: 132).
Anyone familiar with a P4C community circle will know that much is ʽhappeningʼ—
so much more than just ʽwords” or ʽclaims. ʼ A fuller picture can be better grasped through
what Dewey refers to as ʽaffective thoughtʼ or ʽqualitative thought. ʼ As Lipman interprets,
it is ʽthought in sounds and in colors, not just in words, concepts, or logical relationshipsʼ
(2008, p. 105). In my view, this qualitatively rich world of P4C deserves slow savoring
through narrative inquiry.
Using Self-Study Through Narrative Inquiry
In this paper, I use self-study and narrative inquiry to make sense of my aesthetic
experiences as a teacher facilitator in P4C classrooms. Self-study is a methodology often
used by teacher educators to understand teaching and learning (Beck, Freese, & Kosnik,
2004), and it can be traced back to teacher inquiry and action research. Self-study requires
in-depth reflection and moves teaching beyond the technicality of practice toward a deeper
understanding of self and the other in pedagogical contexts. Narrative inquiry is the study of
how people make meaning from experiences through immersing themselves in experience as
lived and told in stories. It is ʽa multidimensional exploration of experience involving
temporality (past, present, and future), interaction (personal and social), and location (place)ʼ
(Clandinin & Connelly, 2004, p. 576). In my paper, I use classroom transcripts, my own
teaching journals, and classroom observations as potential data sources. I present my analysis
by blending theoretical discourse with narrative explications.
Significance of the Study
As P4C spreads globally, it is no longer a product or construct of the Western
philosophical–educational experience. A balance between universality (the idea of P4C writ
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large) and locality (P4C as a culturally responsive practice) is crucial for present and future
P4C practitioners. This paper presents a local rendering of P4C; the objective is not to be
replicated or normalized but simply to beautify human existence.
A teacher educator’s experience in P4C deserves attention because there is a great need
to promote P4C at teachers’ colleges and in schools. However, P4C teacher education has
been described by Lipman as ʽthe Achilles’ heel’ (Lipman, 1980, p. 151), the most vulnerable
aspect in the field. Lipman and his colleagues endeavored to provide what Murris (2016)
regards as a ʽteacher proof’ P4C curriculum, which aims to model ʽphilosophy’ and
ʽphilosophical thinking’ for the classroom teacher and the would-be ʽphilosopher child’ in
the classroom. However, I agree with Murris (2016) that the success of P4C praxis in schools
largely hinges on the role of the teacher facilitator, not just on the philosophical novels or
texts.
Regarding the requirements for P4C teacher education, some suggest basic philosophy
courses; others stress the cultivation of philosophical sensitivity. Furthermore, others
recommend a broader base of philosophical knowledge and knowledge of children. This is
still a highly contentious field in P4C research. I do not intend to enter into this debate.
However, P4C teaching is perhaps inseparable from where all effective teaching comes from;
that is, ʽfrom the identity and integrity of the teacher,’ as Parker Palmer (1998) suggests. In
light of the mounting difficulties associated with P4C facilitation (Gardner, 1998) and teacher
preparation, this study reveals the internal landscape of a P4C teacher facilitator and is meant
to encourage teachers to have greater courage to teach P4C.
Experimenting with a ʽCurriculumless’ P4C in Taiwan
Experimenting with P4C without a set curriculum
I first encountered P4C through my exposure to P4C Hawaii, which is Thomas
Jackson’s (2001) adaptation of Lipman’s original P4C movement. It aims to ʽcreate
intellectually safe communities that nurture the ability to think for oneself in responsible,
respectful ways’ (Jackson, 2012, p. 5). It engages students in the activity of doing ʽlittle p
philosophy.’ As Jackson states, its content is ʽthe set of beliefs that we all possess to make
sense of the world’; and its activity is ʽthe process of reflecting on these beliefs as part of our
larger interactions with the world.’ This content is ʽunique to each of us,’ resulting from the
particularities of ʽour situatedness’ in the world and ʽour responses to them’ (Jackson, 2012,
p.5). Hence, the classroom philosophical activity can ʽbegin with any content or topic,
whether personal or public, academic or practical’ (Jackson, 2012, p. 6).
Jackson’s notion of ʽlittle p philosophy’ was emancipating for me. It took away the
pressure to confine myself with prescribed curriculum through registering the proper domain
of the philosophical. It afforded me the freedom to experiment with P4C through prioritizing
children’s own wonderment and puzzlement in life as potentially rich philosophical sources
worth digging. Hence, I usually begin my P4C classes without providing any predesigned
textual or visual stimuli; I simply elicit the children’s questions that they have been
wondering about and have the class vote on them. Their questions range from personal,
practical quandaries to contemplative, philosophical wonderment. The following are
examples:
 Why don’t adults answer children’s questions?
 Why do human beings have emotions?
 Why is there “time”? Are there aliens?
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 Are there ghosts?

 What is the meaning of life?
 Why do people die?
 Why do we have to go to school?
 Do you support same-sex marriage?
 Why do we compare ourselves with others?
 Can students be teachers?
In the actual unfolding of our classroom inquiry, the boundaries between the personal,
the practical, and the philosophical are often blurred.
Sometimes, we spend one class hour discussing a single question; at other times, we
pursue follow-up questions under the same theme for a couple of weeks. Occasionally, if I
find a strong text or video clip relevant to our theme, I use it as a new stimulus to deepen the
inquiry. Generally, the source of our inquiry comes from the community (students, the
classroom teacher, and myself) and our own wonderment or bewilderment about things that
matter to us.
This free curriculum puts everyone at a special vantage point to encounter each other
as unique individual beings. For example, one third-grade boy asked whether God exists
(classroom transcript, 2015/12/16). I later learned from the classroom teacher that his parents
often fought over religion, one being a Buddhist, and the other a newly converted Christian.
On that day’s discussion, the usually outspoken boy was relatively quiet but attentive,
because he was thinking intently and trying to make sense of the ʽrole’ of God in his ʽsituated’
world.
A free or ʽcurriculumless’ P4C is exciting, adventurous, and fun, but also challenging
and risky. It challenges teachers and students to confront themselves and reflect upon their
experiences, values, and beliefs about the world.
Combating the side effects of Taiwan’s educational achievement
Taiwan is known for high test scores in math and sciences. However, such an
achievement has a price. Our students are afraid of speaking in class, of giving the wrong
answers, and of losing face (Wang, 2015/2016). This fear is a real classroom challenge. I
remember my first P4C class with elementary school children: a ten-year-old boy was so
nervous when invited to speak that he burst out crying. I wrote in my journal:ʽI had huge
sympathy for his crying. And I had a deep sense of realization about children’s pressures in
school... When I asked everyone in the class to put up a question, one student even
approached me and asked, ʽWhat if I got it wrong?’ I sensed once again their fear of making
mistakes. I hope that through P4C, they will overcome this psychological barrierʼ. (journal,
2015/3/15).
On the other hand, I have also seen high-achieving girls reluctant to speak in P4C class
because they found it more interesting, as one girl wrote, to ʽguess what the teacher wants’
(journal, 2015/3/15). Related to this is the prevailing tendency to copy each other’s answers
or to produce what we call ʽofficially correct’ answers.
We were introducing ourselves by sharing our hobbies. My teaching assistant first said that he liked
bicycling, and then quite a few students seemed to copy this answer afterwards. When it came to
one particular boy, who initially murmured the same answer, ʽbicycling,’ his classmates seemed
startled and prompted him to say ʽfishing.’ We later learned he was sort of a fishing expert. When
he shared why he loved fishing, he had a shinier look on his face. I really loved this. This answer
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revealed his individuality and his uniqueness. I firmly believe that each of us is very different
because of our family backgrounds and experiences. Diversity itself is not only a given, but a
treasure, and a potential resource of enrichment for all. But making room for such diversity to reveal
itself and to honor it has always been a luxury in today’s schools. (journal, 2015/3/15)
I also wonder if the children felt obliged to give officially correct answers, that is, answers they
think adults want to hear. For example, one child says that he liked to play basketball, and the reason
he gave was, ʽfor health.’ I couldn’t help but think to myself: Is this the true reason for him? What
if he was given more time to think for himself, what would he actually say? I am really interested
in hearing what he truly thinks. (journal, 2015/3/15).
In my context, utmost patience is required to probe into children’s authentic worlds. In
one class, we were discussing whether one would choose to ʽstay sick but remain alive’ or
ʽdie and have no more suffering.’ One girl said that she would prefer to live, because she
could ʽexperience wonderful things in life.’ When I asked her to provide an example, she
thought slowly and took a long time to respond. Finally, she murmured her answer so that it
was difficult to hear. My teaching assistant, sitting next to the girl, tried to repeat her words.
With her murmured speech, she meant to describe an experience she had when she was sick
and hospitalized, and how her parents took care of her during those days. I thought to myself:
if an adult person was trying to explain this, he or she would simply say, ʽparents’ love.’
But ʽparents’ love — is just an abstract word. The picture this girl was struggling to paint with
words was concrete and real, full of colors, and warmth, and mixed with fresh memories and sincere
feelings—too hard to articulate for a ten-year-old girl—and not to mention, in public. Indeed, ʽthe
word is not the thing.’ I was very much moved by the thing she was describing with limited words.
I think that adults tend to take the word for the thing, whereas children are still very much alive
with their perceptions of the thing itself. (journal, 2016/5/4)
As a P4C facilitator, I knew that I had to prioritize my goals based on where the students
were. Encouraging them to ask genuine questions, to truly speak their hearts and minds (as
opposed to what they think adults expect them to say), to listen attentively to one another, to
value and respect multiple perspectives, and to build a loving community where high
achievers and low achievers all have a chance to grow—these are my priorities. This means
that I must be ʽgently Socratic’ (Jackson, 2001).
What it Means to Experience P4C Aesthetically: A Theoretical Construct and
a Narrative Account
On philosophical mindfulness
Dewey’s aesthetics inspired me to characterize my P4C experience as being
philosophically mindful. Such philosophical mindfulness is not a mere cognitive process of
information processing, but a process that integrates thinking, feeling, and being, and a
process that unites the body, heart, and mind. I believe my sense of ʽminding’ the world is
readily exposed in the here and now of P4C and has a modeling effect for the community.
Let me elaborate on its features.
The first is attention to the present. As Stroud claims, ʽA hallmark of what Dewey
calls aesthetic experience’ is ʽminding the present communicative situation in an intense,
absorbed, and engaged sense’ (2010/2011, p. 68). The implication I draw here is that the P4C
facilitator ʽwill not only sense the demands of the situation,’ ʽbut will also value all phases
of her communicative activity . . . at an equal level, thus rendering her experience absorbed
and aesthetic’ (Stroud, 2010/2011, p. 68, emphasis mine). This attentiveness to the rich
75
communicative present in all its depth and complexities requires one to forgo thinking
egocentrically. In the often uncertain circumstances of P4C inquiry, such mindfulness
implies yielding ʽnon-judgmentally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment’
(Kabat-Zinn, qtd. in Makaiau et al., 2016). Here ʽnon-judgment’ does not mean being empty-
minded or having to relinquish one’s prior knowledge. It means being non-reactive to beliefs
and values contrary to our own; and it means avoiding pre-value judgment that blocks the
way of genuine listening and intensive comprehension.
Second, philosophical mindfulness entails a special type of listening, which is not just
ʽhearing speech’ as if ʽlistening to a babel of tongues,’ but to have ʽmeaning and value come
home to us’ (Dewey, LW 10: 338). Jackson (2001) explains this clearly: ʽThis quality of
listening requires setting aside one’s own thoughts in order to be truly open to what the other
is saying. This is especially critical because the other in this case will most often be a child,
and gentleness must be foremost in one’s mind if one hopes to be privileged with an authentic
response from a child’ (Jackson, 2001, p. 459). The following quote by Luce Irigaray further
captures the nuanced meanings of listening:
To listen in a dimension in which I do not assume that I already know you or whatever your future
is. It is to listen with an encouragement toward the unexpected, toward your initiative and your
becoming. It is to listen without presupposition and without explicit demands, with a silence that is
a space–time offered to you with no prior, pre-established truth or trial. (quoted in Haynes and
Murris, 2012, p. 224)
Haynes and Murris (2012) refer to this as ʽphilosophical listening.’ Such subtleness of
attitude marks a dramatic difference between a teacher’s listening during P4C inquiry and
that during regular classroom instruction.
Third, ʽphilosophical mindfulness’ serves to stimulate and enrich imagination. On
Dewey’s account, imagination plays an essential role in artful communicative processes,
because it leads to ʽpenetration into the hidden meaning of things—meaning not visible to
perception or memory, nor reflectively attained by the processes of thinking’ (Dewey, EW
2: 171). As Dewey also reminds us: ʽAnything that hardens an experience in certain lines as
if they were the proper lines in which it should run becomes a burial to genuine esthetic
experience’ (LW 13: 362). Imagination runs counter to our mechanical, scripted responses
in communicative situations and helps us to engage with the world and the other anew.
However, according to Dewey, this –ʽnewness’– does not appear out of nowhere, but
from keen sensitivity toward existing elements in tension—another crucial feature of
philosophical mindfulness. This is what happens ʽwhen varied materials of sense, quality,
emotion, and meaning come together in a union that marks a new birth in the world’ (Dewey,
LW 10: 272). A philosophically minded P4C facilitator dwells on tensions, either conceptual
or interpersonal, and most importantly will work with these tensions to create ʽnew births.’
Dewey claims, ʽSince the artist cares in a peculiar way for the phase of experience in which
union is achieved, he does not shun moments of resistance and tension. He rather cultivates
them, not for their own sake but because of their potentialities, bringing to living
consciousness as an experience that is unified and total’ (LW 10: 21). If one is truly artful,
one integrates tensions harmoniously—tensions between ʽobjective material and personal
response, the individual, and the universal, surface and depth, sense, and meaning’ (LW 10:
301, emphasis mine).
However, the integration of tensions requires not only analytical reasoning, but also
ʽaffective thought’ or ʽqualitative thought,’ a unique manner of thinking often associated with
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aesthetic experience. As Dewey states, it is ʽthe logic of artistic construction and aesthetic
appreciation,’ exemplifying ʽthe control of selection of detail and mode of relation, or
integration, by a qualitative whole.’ Dewey also associates this manner of thinking with
intuition by saying that ʽthe penetrating quality… can be emotionally intuited’ (quoted in
Quay, 2013, p. 63). Here intuition is grounded in experience and is meant to oppose ʽabstract
logical reflection’ (quoted in Quay, 2013, p. 64).
Finally, with philosophical mindfulness, one can hope to ʽdig beneath the surface,’ a
vital goal Jackson (2001) stipulates for a P4C inquiry. Dewey’s comments are significant and
are worth quoting at length:
Only occasionally in the lives of many are the senses fraught with the sentiment that comes from
deep realization of intrinsic meanings. We undergo sensations as mechanical stimuli or as irritated
stimulations, without having a sense of the reality that is in them and behind them: in much of our
experience our different senses do not unite and tell a common and enlarged story. We see without
feeling, we hear, but only a second-handed report, second handed because not reinforced by vision.
We touch, but the contact remains tangential because it does not fuse with qualities of sense that
go below the surface. (LW 10: 27)
In P4C, philosophical mindfulness provides a glimpse into underlying realities,
ʽbreathes life’ into inquiry, and enhances the art of democratic communication.
The highest and most difficult kind of inquiry and a subtle, dedicate, vivid and responsive art of
communication must take possession of the physical machinery of transmission and circulation and
breathe life into it… Democracy will come into its own, for democracy is a name for a life of
enriching communion… It will have its consummation when free social inquiry is dissoluably
wedded to the art of full and moving communication. (Dewey, LW 2: 350, emphasis mine).
The cultivation of philosophical mindfulness through P4C inquiry contributes to the
realization of Deweyan democracy as ʽfull and moving communication.’
Let me end this section with selected lines from a poem by the English poet William
Wordsworth:
The world is too much with us.
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
And are up-gathered like sleeping flowers,
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not.
A moving story: ʽWhy I am named Zeng Zi-Rui?’
The relationship between identity and name is an attractive topic in Western
philosophy. People commonly question whether their name represents who they are, or
whether they would be the same person if they were called a different name. In a third-
grade P4C class, one boy wrote as his ʽwonder’ question, ʽWhy am I named Zeng Zi-Rui?’
ʽCould you say a bit more about why you asked the question?’ I asked. He shrugged his
shoulders and said, ʽI don’t know’ (classroom transcript 2015/12/2).
As the rest of us in the community proceeded with the discussion, we learned that the
boy did not like his given name, Zi-Rui. Zi literally means child or offspring, and Rui means
smart or wise. I asked him why he didn’t like his name. Again, he responded with ʽI don’t
know.’ However, he then tried to produce an answer. ʽI don’t like its sound,’ he said. In
response, the other children as well as the classroom teacher tried to comfort him: ʽI
actually like the sound of your name’; ʽI like the meaning of your name’; ʽYour name
expresses your parents’ hope and expectations for you’; and ʽYour parents hoped that you
77
would grow up to be smart.’ The classroom teacher asked, ʽNow that you know the meaning
of your name, do you like it?’ The boy still shook his head and said, ʽNo.’
While I was sitting in the circle, listening to all the comments intending to make him
feel better about his name, I was still feeling puzzled about why the boy disliked his name.
I sensed some tension between his firm stance and the others’ persuasive comments. From
his facial expression, I knew that he was sincere. I suspected more to this than what we
heard on the surface. Thus, I attempted to clarify through asking: ʽDo you not like the sound
of your name or do you not like its meaning?’ He answered, ʽIts meaning.’ Stretching my
imagination, I asked, ʽDo you not like it because you don’t want to be smart? Or because
you don’t think that you are smart?’ He responded with a clear statement: ʽI don’t think I
am smart.’ This was an ʽA-ha’ moment for me.
The boy was feeling uncomfortable about the apparent disparity between who he
thought he was and how he was named. This tension is philosophically rich as it is
concerned with the gap between appearance and reality. To create a sense of shared
experience in the community, I asked if anyone in the class also did not like their names
and why. A couple of students responded, and I said, ʽWell then, if we don’t like our names,
what should we do with this?’ One girl quickly said, ʽYou can change it.’ Another said,
ʽYou just don’t need to think so seriously about it.’
Subsequently, the class digressed as they turned to talk about the meaning of my
name, Ching-Sze. Some said, ʽChing-Sze,’ means ʽinnocence’; another said, ʽIt means clear
water.’ Looking puzzled, I said, ʽWell, I think it means clear thinking.’ ʽWow, you know
what? This made me realize that we can actually give different meanings to our names,’ I
exclaimed. ʽSo, what new meanings could we give to Zi-Rui’s name if he doesn’t want it
to mean academic smartness?’ One boy raised his hand excitedly and said, ʽIt depends on
what you like. If you like Lego, you could tell yourself that Rui means being good at Lego,
and that you want your offspring to be good at Lego.’ ʽOr, if you like jogging, you can
think of Rui as being good at jogging.’ Their responses made many in the class laugh. And
Zi-Rui looked interested in this new discovery. With support from his peers, he could
redefine the meaning of ʽRui’ according to what he liked. Next, we shifted the topic and
inquired into why we all need to have a name (rather than just a number), and we reached
the conclusion that our names display our specialness.
On that day, I wrote abundantly in my journal. This class experience reminded me
how lucky I was to be given a name that means ʽclear thinking.’ Also, I thought of other
things:
It also reminded me of a next-door neighbor I had when I was young—an auntie, whose name
was Chou, meaning ʽUgly.’ It never occurred to me how she might have felt being called ʽugly.’
What were her parents thinking when they named their baby girl ʽugly’? What kind of social or
cultural conditions legitimize such indifference to naming a girl? . (journal, 2015/12/3)
Also, I felt apathetic about the educational system in Taiwan.
If you are not academically smart, you suffer a lower self-esteem. The pressure children felt about
schooling is far greater than we thought, and it manifests in such innocuous things as naming.
(journal, 2015/12/3)
My philosophical inquiry with these children allowed me to reflect upon my
experiences and to regain a heightened sense of meaning.
Finally, this teaching event was an aesthetically rich experience for me because I was
being philosophically mindful in many ways. I attended to the situation as a living present;
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listened attentively and observed carefully; did not have a prejudgment about what the boy
had in mind; sensed a type of tension (a conceptual and emotional disparity in the situation);
to clarify what the boy meant by reading between the lines; stretched my imagination to
penetrate the hidden meanings; scratched beneath the surface and discovered the
underlying reality; and with the help of the community, we were able to co-create
something new in the form of new meanings for the boy’s name. I did not anticipate or
foresee such an ending. I followed the inquiry where it led—but I made a judgment about
what was educationally worth pursuing in the particular context. The boy’s genuine
problem required a practical resolution, and as a community, we were required to think
together.
My Method of P4C: Finding the Ground Where Confucius and Dewey Meet
In her book Metaphor and Metaphilosophy, Sara Mattice (2014) conceptualizes
different metaphors for philosophical activity: 1) combat, 2) play, and 3) aesthetic
experience. Her discussion of the third metaphor draws largely from Chinese intellectual
sources. Her work made me realize that my Chinese cultural sensibility and philosophical
outlook inclined me to practice philosophy ʽas aesthetic experience,’ stressing
understanding and appreciation (Mattice, 2014). This made me particularly attuned to
ʽsomething new, something not previously understood, or not what we expected it to be
beforehand’ (Mattice, 2014, p. 86).
Moreover, my story about the boy’s name resembled the sort of real life questions
that Confucius’ disciples raised in the Analects. For example, one disciple asked why
everyone has brothers except for him (Analects 12:5); another asked whether one should
jump to save a drowning person at the bottom of a well (Analects 6:26); and another asked
whether one should immediately act upon something one learns (Analects 11:22). As a
teacher, Confucius embraced any questions from his disciples as they struggled to make
sense of life and to cultivate themselves. The same question from different disciples would
lead to different answers, even contrary ones, as in the example of taking immediate action
or avoiding imprudent action. It depends on who was asking the question and what answer
might contribute to his or her wellbeing. Confucius did not provide any set answers that fit
everyone and every situation, only his own thinking based on the complexities of each
context and his practical, pedagogical judgment. This fundamentally pragmatic sensibility
and human ethos of growth permeated the teachings of Confucius. His teachings provide
me with a sense of validation to practice what is called life philosophy with my Taiwanese
children.
Like Confucius, Dewey also embraces the art of living itself. Dewey’s aesthetics and
his vision of philosophy also provide strong support for my method of P4C. I know clearly
that I do not want to commit ʽthe Philosophic Fallacy’ and treat philosophy as if ʽall
experiences are instances of knowing’ (Alexander, 2013, p. 9). I also do not want to
approach philosophy as a set of questions and skills without any ʽconcept of a human life
or lifetime entering it’ (Alexander, 2013, p. 11). I want to practice philosophy, in Dewey’s
words, ʽas a method,’ not for dealing with ʽproblems of philosophy,’ but with ʽproblems of
men’ (Dewey, MW 10: 46), which specifically in this case are the concrete, actual questions
from the children. In conclusion, I strive to practice P4C aesthetically through finding the
ground where Confucius and Dewey meet.
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The Philosophical Conversation as a Method of Examining

Children’s Perceptions, Mindsets, and Interpretations of the World
Kerstin Michalik
Professor of Educational Science at the Faculty of Education,
University of Hamburg (Germany),
Von-Melle-Park 8, 20146 Hamburg.
Kerstin.Michalik@uni-hamburg.de
CV
Kerstin Michalik is Professor of Educational Science at the Faculty of Education, University
of Hamburg. She holds a PhD in History and a Master’s Degree in Philosophy. She was a
Philosophy teacher in secondary schools and is now teaching pre-service teachers at the
University of Hamburg. She is Chairwomen of the “Society for the Promotion of
Philosophising with Children in Germany”. She has published several articles about
philosophising with children as an integrative part of teaching and learning in primary
schools. Her research interests include education, philosophising with children in inclusive
learning settings and philosophy as a subject in teacher-training.
ABSTRACT
Philosophising with children holds great potential for childhood studies. One important field
is the investigation of the content of children’s thoughts. Children’s perceptions and
interpretations of the world can be reconstructed on the basis of philosophical conversations;
these perceptions and interpretations can be compared with the results of other research
approaches and thus contribute to a more complex image of the child. At the heart of this
article is the act of philosophising with children as a research approach. The following work
also contains reflections on the relevance of this explorative approach to children for the
professionalisation of teachers in the context of higher education.
KEYWORDS
Philosophising as a research method; childhood studies; professionalisation of teachers;
higher education, rights of animals, death and dying.
RESUMEN
Filosofar con los niños entraña un gran potencial para los estudios de la infancia. Un campo
importante es la investigación del contenido de los pensamientos de los niños. Las
percepciones e interpretaciones de los niños sobre el mundo se pueden reconstruir sobre la
base de conversaciones filosóficas; estas percepciones e interpretaciones se pueden comparar
con los resultados de otros enfoques de investigación y así contribuir a una imagen más
compleja del niño. En el corazón de este artículo está el acto de filosofar con los niños como
un enfoque de investigación. Este trabajo también contiene reflexiones sobre la relevancia de
este enfoque exploratorio de los niños para la profesionalización de los docentes en el
contexto de la educación superior.
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PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofar como método de investigación, estudios de la infancia, profesionalización del
profesorado, educación universitaria, derechos de los animales, muerte y morir.
The philosophical conversation as a method of examining children’s
perceptions, mindsets, and interpretations of the world
Philosophising with children holds great potential for childhood studies. One important
field is the investigation of the content of children’s thoughts. Children’s perceptions and
interpretations of the world can be reconstructed on the basis of philosophical conversations;
these perceptions and interpretations can be compared with the results of other research
approaches and thus contribute to a more complex image of the child.
At the heart of this article is the act of philosophising with children as a research
approach. The following work contains also reflections on the relevance of this explorative
approach to children for the professionalisation of teachers in the context of higher education.
1. Philosophising with children and childhood studies
For a long time, the traditional methods of studying childhood – such as in the context
of Kohlberg’s research into the development of moral judgement in children – consisted of
clinical one-on-one interviews or experimental-testing, hypothesis-verifying processes
oriented towards theories of cognitive psychological development (Piaget). Questionnaires –
the evaluation of which takes place based on predefined category systems – were and are also
implemented. These research approaches have obvious limits and, at times, produce
questionable results because they are too far removed from the contexts of children’s lives
and fail to sufficiently take children into account as reflexive subjects. Even Gareth B.
Matthews, one of the originators of the practice of philosophising with children, made a
critical appraisal in the early 1980s of Piaget’s research methods and results in developmental
psychology in light of his own experience with children who philosophise; he reproached
Piaget for giving insufficient consideration to the special aspects of children’s thought
processes (cf. Matthews, 1991, p. 55 et seq.).
Since then, there has been a host of studies from various disciplines in which the
philosophical conversation has been implemented as a method of data collection. They reveal
a research approach well suited to providing access to children’s perceptions and
interpretations which remain inaccessible through other methods of studying childhood.
Important studies to mention include those on children’s understanding and ethics of nature
(Gebhard et al., 1997; Billmann-Mahecha et al., 1998; Billmann-Mahecha & Gebhard, 2014),
as well as investigations, following similar methods, of children and young people’s ethical
perceptions in the context of the formation of the everyday imagination (Born, 2007; Born
& Gebhard, 2005). Group discussions following the model of philosophising with children
have also proven particularly fruitful during investigations of children’s awareness of history
(Pape, 2006), the reception of ethical and moral issues in children’s literature (Gillebeert,
2007) or as an examination of children’s metaphorical thinking (Gansen, 2005). To date,
philosophical conversations – and this also applies to group discussions in general – have
found little application in childhood studies (cf. Brüning, 2000; Heinzel, 2000).
The particular advantages of the philosophical conversation as a qualitative method in
childhood studies can be neatly summed up in comparison with one-on-one interviews as
follows (Billmann-Mahecha & Gebhard, 2014):
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 Suitability of the object of research and proximity to everyday life

 The conversation’s openness to children’s positing of relevance and social processes
of negotiation and communication
 Less restriction of responses based on social acceptability
Group discussions constitute a method by which externally initiated communication
processes are launched in an actual – hence previously existing – group which approximates
a ‘normal conversation’ in terms of its progression and structure, at least intermittently. They
therefore demonstrate a closer proximity to everyday life than one-on-one interviews.
Children’s everyday forms of behaviour and expression are observed and recorded in a
familiar context (the conversation within the group); the children are able to express and
develop their thoughts and perceptions without content input or closed questions. Opinions,
attitudes and value judgements result not only from individual cognitive development, but
also from social processes of communication and understanding through which children
cultivate and mediate their opinions, attitudes and value judgements. Group discussions
reproduce these social processes of understanding ‘in miniature’, more or less, and are thus
particularly well suited to examining the process of social mediation of value judgements and
opinions.
Moreover, the method of philosophical inquiry – which relies on the person guiding
the conversation refraining as much as possible from intervening with regard to content – is
especially appropriate for ensuring the necessary openness for children’s positing of
relevance regarding the research question and/or the object of the conversation. Due to the
fact that children also prompt one another regardless of the questions and conversational
stimuli from the person guiding the conversation and develop topics further in unpredictable
ways, a restriction of responses based on social acceptability is also less likely to occur here
than in other methods, such as one-on-one interviews.
The philosophical conversation as a research method lends itself to different key areas
of research.
 Focusing on the content of children’s thought processes.
In terms of content, children’s thoughts and worlds of perception, perspectives and
interpretations can be reconstructed on the basis of philosophical conversations in terms of a
systematic engagement with children’s points of view regarding fundamental questions about the
meaning of human existence. What perceptions do children have, for example, of friendship,
justice or time? What do nature and natural things mean to them? Which aspects are developed
into a topic? What assumptions, opinions, convictions are expressed and developed? What
positions become apparent? What arguments are asserted? By focusing on content, children’s
rational abilities can also become the object of investigation, i.e. the ways in which children
approach abstract terms or comprehend these terms verbally (cf. Gansen, 2005).
 Focusing on structure – children’s interactions in conversation.
Processes of participation and interaction over the course of the conversation can be
examined alongside – or in a reciprocal relationship with – content. What forms do children
use to make arguments? Are they able to assess arguments or differentiate between better
and worse reasoning? How do children’s ways of arguing develop in a mutual exchange with
others? How do children deal with different opinions and arguments from other children;
how do they attempt to convince one another or reach a consensus? How do shared thoughts
arise in conversation, in exchange and in interactions with other children? How do collective
thought processes develop? (cf. De Boer, 2015; Helzel & Michalik, 2015).
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The focus of this article is on content; it concerns philosophical inquiry as a method of

data collection and reconstruction of children’s object-related perceptions, thought processes
and conceptions. Through the use of two examples – philosophical conversations on ‘humans
and animals’ and ‘death and dying’ – the intention is to demonstrate how these can be
identified and analysed.
The following contains a rough sketch of the attributes of data collection, evaluation
and analysis that will then be substantiated with two examples.
1. Data collection
Data collection takes place, in an actual group or school class, in the form of a
philosophical conversation with an open prompt, i.e. a story. The person guiding
the conversation orients themselves towards criteria which apply to philosophical
conversations – refraining in particular from making content-related interventions
(cf. Michalik & Schreier, 2006, p. 104 et seq.). Data are recorded by audiotape or
video and transcribed word for word.
2. Data evaluation
Various methods of qualitative social research are possible for data evaluation,
including qualitative content analysis (Mayring, 2015), the documentary method
(Bohnsack, 2010), grounded theory (Strauss & Corbin, 1996) and other methods of
analysing discourse and communication. In the following examples, content
analysis as defined by Mayring and grounded theory will be utilised in analysing
philosophical conversations.
3. Data analysis and interpretation
The collection and coding of data material in the context of the content-analysis
method is already an act of interpretation. The detailed interpretive analysis and
classification of data takes place within its own procedural stage on the basis of
theory and with the backdrop of research results from various disciplines. To
interpret the data, reference is made to research findings from fields such as
philosophy, sociology, developmental psychology, pedagogy and, of course,
especially from available research into childhood.
2. Substantiation – research results based on philosophical conversations
The following examples regarding the themes – humans and animals, and death and
dying – are intended to substantiate the research process.
1. Is it wrong to kill hornets?
The first example comes from a project on primary school children’s value retention in
the ethics of nature (Billmann-Mahecha & Gebhard, 2014). The basis for the conversation in
a third-grade class (children age 8-9) was a story in which two children argue over whether
it is wrong to kill hornets. Open coding was used in the conversation record, in line with
grounded theory. A thematic overview was created, listing all of the aspects discussed by the
children, grouped thematically.
The lists of themes and/or thematic overviews and an extract from the conversation are
reproduced below. The headings group linked individual statements into thematic categories.
In this example, the statements are still expressed using everyday language; it is only on later
evaluation that they are summarised and condensed on a more abstract level.
Extract from list of themes (Billmann-Mahecha & Gebhard, 2014)
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1. Hornets/natural gardens
 Hornets belong in a natural garden, as all animals are useful in some way (18-
23), as bees are useful, and hornets are related to bees (35-40)
 Weeds also belong in a natural garden (213-14/22-227)
[…]
2. Rights of animals/zoo animals
 Hornets are living things and living things have a right to life, as they have some
ability (65-66)
 Bringing animals to the zoo is unnatural/animal cruelty (291-300)
 Zoo animals have problems with offspring due to the strange feed (339-346)
[…]
3. Comparison with humans/change in perspective
 Animals are living things, just like people (29-31)
 Stinging to a hornet is like walking, drinking or hitting to a human (144-147)
 Animals belong to themselves just like humans belong to themselves (420-443)
[...]
A passage was selected from the thematic overview for detailed analysis and in-depth
interpretation: ‘Animals belong to themselves just like humans belong to themselves’ (420-
443).
Rebecca: My neighbours who have chickens kill them too, because when people have their own
animals, and they want to kill and sell them, then it’s up to them. [...]
Julia: No, no, the animals belong to themselves. […]
Lena: They belong to themselves. The same way that I don’t belong to my parents, I belong to
me. […]
Julia: So, my parents must look after me, but I can decide my own life anyway, and say I want
to become a teacher, for example. But my parents say: you should be a nursery teacher.
It’s my life and I can make the decision for myself, so I belong to myself too.
The content was summarised and paraphrased first of all for the purposes of further
interpretation: ‘Rebecca takes the view that people can certainly kill and sell chickens belonging to them.
[…] Julia and Lena do not accept that: Animals don’t belong to people, but to themselves. To reinforce
this view, they confer the right to self-determination they ascribe to themselves to animals’. (ibid., p. 155)
In the following interpretation of the conversation passage, the researcher(s) focus on
what is remarkable or special about the children’s arguments:
What is remarkable [...] on the one hand is the level of self-awareness with which these eight-to-
nine year old children are already formulating and employing modern, cultural concepts of the
autonomous subject and, on the other hand, how they naturally include animals in this worldview.
Even ‘animals belong to themselves’. For them, in terms of belonging to oneself, humans and
animals are the same. This thought is expanded later on in the conversation for other examples.
Proceeding from their own conception of self in our modern society, based on which their autonomy
could not be restricted by their parents, they justify their right to self-determination based solely
upon biologically autonomous existence and also extend this to animals. (ibid, p. 155)
If the children’s explanations were not investigated and interpreted with the purpose of
theory-building, but instead as theory-led, e.g. from the perspective of Piaget’s
developmental theory, this passage would be classed as an example of anthropomorphisation
of animals. A known phenomenon would be explicitly confirmed by the material once again.
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This would not necessarily be false. However, the content analysis procedure goes further,
as additional new and important aspects can be identified – for example, the motives
underpinning this anthropomorphisation in particular. According to Billmann-Mahecha and
Gebhard (2014), the children’s perceptions are not a form of misunderstanding reality, but
are rather a symbolic interpretation. In this instance, anthropomorphism should not (merely)
be interpreted in the context of general anthropological conditions or constants. Instead, what
becomes apparent is the fact and the extent to which this argument is shaped by cultural
conditions and our modern society – the idea of the rights of the autonomous subject.
The result makes it clear that the philosophical conversation as a method for surveying
children’s ideas and interpretations allows, through the particular openness of the research
process, new theory-related findings to be determined. This should be demonstrated based
on a further example.
2. Death and dying
The second example comes from an investigation into children’s ideas on death and
dying (Ahmling, 2015). This conversation in a second-grade class (children age 7-8) was
based on a thought experiment: What would it be like if we were immortal? The conversation
was evaluated based on Mayring’s summarising qualitative content analysis model (Mayring,
2015). This process involved paraphrasing the children’s statements first of all, before
generalising these and condensing them in the analysis categories listed here.
1. Consequences for human co-existence
 Immortality would lead to a lack of space on Earth
 A lack of space on Earth would lead to people leaving Earth
 Immortality would be associated with dangers and defencelessness
 At some stage, no new life would be able to emerge
 Death is a necessary prerequisite for new life […]
2. Human existence outside the Earth
 Survival on other planets appears impossible
 Alien life is likely [...]
3. Consequences for animals and nature on Earth
 Human immortality would lead to destruction of nature
 Plant immortality would have an impact on animal life
 Animal immortality would lead to food shortages [...]
4. Personal assessment of immortality
 Death may be considered desirable in certain situations (illness, weariness with
life)
 Immortality would have negative consequences, boredom and reckless behaviour
 Immortality would lead to less happiness
 Immortality would have positive consequences, as it would allow you to try out
life-threatening and painful things
 Immortality would be a positive thing, as you could celebrate more birthdays
 Immortality would be a positive thing, as then you would not have to mourn the
dead
As is clear from the overview, the children think about the consequences of immortality
from both global and individual perspectives. In doing so, the children’s assessment of
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immortality is thoroughly ambivalent. They can find arguments in favour and arguments
against. In-depth consideration of individual passages is interesting (Ahmling 2015, p. 68).
Lisa: I would never want that […], because thenyou can never die and at some point that would
get boring.
There’s no more adventure, nothing new, because you’ve already done everything, I don’t
know, millions of times. Some people would become totally reckless too, because they
think “Cool, I’m immortal”
Maria: Maybe you wouldn’t be so happy then.
John: Yes, because everything repeats itself, and that seems boring to me. Even at Christmas
and Easter and things like that.
In this conversation, the second-graders are one the one hand dealing with practical
consequences of human immortality on a very concrete level and developing their
imaginations with regard to life on other planets. On the other hand, they are questioning the
meaning of dying and death for human life. Things that seem important to the children in life
would lose significance without death. This is a very in-depth and highly abstract line of
thought.
Another example concerns the question: What happens after we die? I will not go into
details of the entire content of the conversation here but will focus instead on a selected
passage (ibid., p. 75).
Elsa: For example, if you knew now what happens after we die and it’s not something very
nice, then you might be afraid of death the whole time, and you might not be so happy
any more, and then you can’t enjoy your life as much.
Tom: Or if you knew that it was totally wonderful, then you might end up killing yourself before
your time, and your family would be sad, and then the whole world would be empty
because everyone would want to die if they knew it would be so nice afterwards.
In the conversation, the children are not only dealing with various ideas of a potential
‘hereafter’ (life in heaven, life on other planets, reincarnation as a human or animal, life
ending definitively with death). They are also considering the potential meaning or
significance of uncertainty regarding what happens after death in the context of their current
lives. This example is also remarkable in the context of existing research findings on
children’s ideas of death and their development. In general, it is assumed that questions about
death and the meaning of life and potential life after death are first linked with philosophical,
ethical and religious aspects during adolescence and/or puberty (cf. Gesell & Illg, 1962;
Orbach, 1990).
That being said, thanatological findings regarding the point at which children develop
a realistic understanding of death and dying and/or a realistic concept of death are not
definitive (cf. research overview in Gebhard 2013, 211 et seq.). A realistic concept of death
means that the finality and irreversibility of death, its inevitability and universality are
understood and associated with its corresponding biological characteristics (shutdown of all
bodily functions). In thanatology, there have been various attempts to develop a phase
sequence based on Piaget’s model of cognitive psychology (cf. Geuss, 1984). According to
this phase model, children do not acquire a realistic, biologically correct view of death as a
natural phenomenon, which ultimately and unavoidably affects everyone and may occur as a
result of natural or unnatural causes, until they are around nine years old. Some older studies
assume this happens at an even later stage, and very few have found that it happens early on.
The positions are controversial. However, it is agreed that the development of the concept of
88
death is somehow connected with cognitive development and stage of life. Personal
experiences with death, socialisation conditions and the general cultural environment also
play a key role (cf. Wittkowski, 1990).
The evaluation and interpretation of philosophical conversations demonstrate that
children in the conversation group aged seven to eight not only already possess a thoroughly
realistic concept of death, but are also developing thoughts on the potential significance of
human mortality and our uncertainty about what comes after death. Philosophical
conversations as a research method, it is therefore clear, can make a significant contribution
to the discussion surrounding research into the concept of death, as from that it can be
assumed that it is the specific form of the philosophical conversation, the research setting in
proximity to children and everyday life, that permits the development and collection of
children’s thoughts on this subject.
The results of the two example conversations – on the subjects of hornets’ right to live
and issues around death and dying – suggest that as early as primary school, children may be
capable of considering natural phenomena in terms of moral criteria and that they also, with
regard to existential and metaphysical topics, may arrive at reflections which previous
research results have determined ‘not yet appropriate’, so to speak, for their respective age
groups. The work at hand concerns insights that supplement or even call into question
previous studies; at any rate, these insights reveal hitherto existing images of the child to be
capable of expansion. As a research method in childhood studies, philosophising with
children can itself contribute to a kind of self-reflection; to a grappling with one’s own
perceptions and images, constructs of the child and childhood; and to a scrutiny of the
normative implications in childhood studies. To conclude, the application of this method in
university-level teacher training will be presented and discussed in this regard.
3. Philosophical conversations with children as part of research-based learning in
teacher training. Perspectives on teaching in higher education.
The results of this type of ‘basic research’ into children’s ideas, concepts and capacity
for thought are particularly significant for philosophising as a teaching principle and integral
part of professional learning. This is because the teaching can be influenced by whether and
how the children’s individual approaches to the subject matter of the lesson come into their
own in the learning process. From the perspective of teaching methodology, there are
connecting factors for teaching decisions, and from a pedagogical perspective, the research
process provides new experiences. Reflection on these experiences may be relevant to
behaviour around children and in particular to scholastic interaction processes.
When philosophising is used as a lesson principle, philosophical conversations are
integrated into the specific lesson in order to take into account the philosophical dimensions
of the lesson’s subject matter (e.g. epistemological and ethical aspects), with the aim of
inspiring and opening up the children’s own ideas and interpretations and encouraging
complex and joined-up thinking. I see philosophising with children as a lesson principle also
as an element of subject-oriented teaching, as this involves bringing the children’s own
experiences, thoughts, associations, questions, ideas, fantasies and interpretations into a
practical and scientific context with the world and for the purposes of a deeper understanding
of the world, and for children’s education processes in general (cf. Michalik, 2013).
Philosophical conversations in lessons, in which the children are invited to express their
thoughts, ideas and interpretations on a subject, without being judged or marked, with the
aim of sounding out the range of possibilities for interpretation, contribute on the one hand
89
to a deeper understanding of the lesson’s subject matter, and on the other hand, offer
important insights into the children’s ideas, mindsets and capacity for thought. Philosophical
conversations in lessons may provide a basis for conveying specialist subject matter from a
child’s perspective. They may demonstrate the importance of interaction processes between
children in the evolution of thought and may reveal the social structure of understanding and
interpretation in conversation and exchange with others.
Teachers’ knowledge of pupils’ ideas and the specific possibilities which lie in the
common development of ideas, opinions and interpretations has an impact on teaching and
on children’s successful learning. However, in practice, they still play a minimal role in
lesson planning and delivery. The idea is therefore to also incorporate philosophical
conversation as a research method in teacher training.
Philosophical conversations as a research method are also of interest from the
perspective of teaching in higher education, and particularly in the context of research-based
learning, i.e. students’ research-based access to the children. The experiences that students
gain as part of their active participation in research processes, in their own research
approaches to the children and to themselves, may provide the basis for a variety of learning
and reflection processes. As a research method for childhood studies, philosophising is
therefore another important practical application for the purposes of university teaching and
learning. What does ‘learning processes’ mean in practice here? As part of their Bachelor
and Master’s degree dissertations, and to a lesser extent during tutorials, students conduct
philosophical conversations with children and then evaluate these based on the content
analysis procedures already presented. They also analyse their role as a facilitator as regards
the method of philosophical inquiry.
Student feedback on this form of research-based learning is encouraging and
informative. Students report that the research process is exciting, interesting, and indeed
inspiring, as they developed a new insight into children’s thoughts, also established the limits
of their own understanding, and identified differences, but also many similarities, with their
own way of thinking. Some report that they have developed respect for children’s thoughts,
for the sincerity with which they deal with the subject matter, and for the originality of
thinking which comes to light. The depth of content which the children managed to produce
when exchanging their thoughts and during group reflection is also noted as being
particularly impressive. Ideally, these experiences and reflection processes will impact
students’ subsequent working lives, provided that they result in the development, on one
hand, of something of a habit of research among future teachers whereby they are curious
about children’s thoughts, and on the other, of an essentially appreciative attitude to the child
whereby the latter is perceived not merely as a subject to be educated, taught skills and
otherwise instructed, but also as an interesting conversation partner.
Philosophical conversations as a research approach to children’s ideas and
interpretations of the world do not only offer new insights into children’s ideas and ways of
thinking. The results of this specific approach to research may also create an important
foundation for learning and comprehension in lessons and for the professionalisation of
teachers.
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La filosofía con niños como jazz: un camino de improvisación

para una nueva pedagogía1
Marina Santi
Università di Padova. Italia.
E-mail: marina.santi@unipd.it
CV71, 94, 103, 104, 209

Marina Santi (PhD in Scienze psicologiche e pedagogiche) è Professore Ordinario c/o il
Dipartimento FiSSPA – Filosofia, Sociologia, Pedagogia e Psicologia Applicata
dell’Università di Padova per il SSD PED/03 Didattica e Pedagogia Speciale. Si occupa di
teoria dell’argomentazione e processi di costruzione di conoscenza; interazione sociale e
apprendimento di abilità di pensiero; discussione in classe; “Philosophy for Children” e
sviluppo di pensiero critico/creativo/valoriale, educazione alla cittadinanza, didattica della
filosofia, formazione dell’insegnante/facilitatore nella “comunità di ricerca”, educazione
inclusiva, didattica per l’integrazione, improvvisazione e didattica. Dirige il Corso di
Specializzazione per le Attività di Sostegno agli Alunni con Disabilità e il Corso in
“Philosophy for Children: Costruire Comunità di Ricerca in Classe e in altri Contesti
Educativi”. E’ membro della Commissione di Ateneo Disabilità e Handicap, della
Commissione di Ateneo TFA e Formazione degli Insegnanti, del Centro Ateneo Servizi e
Ricerca per la Disabilità, la Riabilitazione e l’Integrazione. E’ Coordinatore del Dottorato di
Ricerca in “Scienze Pedagogiche dell’Educazione e della Formazione”.
RESUMEN
Este artículo está basado en el contenido de una ponencia presentada en la XVIII Conferencia
Internacional del ICPIC en Madrid, titulada “La improvisación como forma de indagar e
inventar”, en la que se introdujo la metáfora del jazz para la educación y la filosofía. Los
argumentos propuestos están también adaptados para responder a algunas cuestiones críticas
planteadas por Gert Biesta en su conferencia sobre el trabajo filosófico con niños y la
consiguiente experiencia en las escuelas a través de programas de filosofía para / con niños
(Biesta 2017b). Mi aportación a la discusión se centra en dos focos principales. El primero
es teórico, y considera la improvisación como expresión del constructivismo cognitivo
humano y como una forma de adaptación / “exaptación” de la agencia humana en el medio
ambiente. La improvisación es interpretada como una forma privilegiada de “pensamiento
complejo”, donde los tres componentes identificados por Lipman —pensamiento crítico,
creativo y cuidadoso— se integran y se implementan mutuamente. El segundo enfoque es
pragmático y propone ocho características “jazzísticas” que encarnan la educación en la
dimensión de la improvisación, abriendo la enseñanza a la auténtica experiencia de cambio
implícita en el proceso de crecimiento/hacerse mayor y en la que la estabilidad de las
identidades está siempre en riesgo. Se propone una forma jazzística de hacer con los niños
como antídoto para el riesgo de la aprendificación de la educación y de la capitalización de
las habilidades humanas —a los que, según Biesta, la filosofía para / con niños parece estar
1
Este artículo fue publicado primero en inglés en childhood & philosophy, Rio de Janeiro, v. 13, n. 28,
septiembre-diciembre. 2017, pp. 631-647. Por acuerdo entre la revista del ICPIC y los organizadores de la
XVIII conferencia, lo publicamos en español en el libro. La traducción es de Ellen Duthie.
93
expuesta en su aplicación escolar— a la vez que proponemos un marco jazzístico para una
nueva “pedagogía pobre”.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Improvisación, pensamiento complejo, jazz.
ABSTRACT
This paper is based on the content of a talk held at the ICPIC Conference in Madrid, titled
“Improvising as a way of inquiring and inventing” in which a jazz metaphor for education
and philosophy is introduced. The arguments proposed are also adapted to respond to some
critical issues put forward by Gert Biesta in his paper about philosophical work with children
and the related experience in schools through philosophy for/with children programs
(BIESTA 2017b). My contribution to the discussion deals with two main foci. The first one
is theoretical, and considers improvisation as expression of human cognitive constructivism
and a form of adaptive/exaptive human agency in the environment. Improvisation is
interpreted as a privileged form of “complex thinking,” in which the three components
identified by Lipman —-critical, creative and caring thinking— are integrated and mutually
implemented. The second focus is pragmatic and proposes eight “jazz” features that embody
education in the dimension of improvisation, opening teaching to the authentic experience of
changing implied in growing/aging, and in which the stability of identities is always at risk.
A jazzing way for doing with children is proposed as an antidote to the risk of learnification
of education and capitalization of human skills —to which, according to Biesta, philosophy
for/with children seems to be exposed in its school application— while proposing a jazz
framework for a new “poor pedagogy”.
KEYWORDS
Improvisation, complex thinking, jazz.
En la XVIII Conferencia del ICPIC en Madrid (junio de 2017), Gert Biesta presentó la
ponencia “Tocando el alma: educación, filosofía y niños en una época de
instrumentalización”. La programación de mi ponencia “La improvisación como forma de
indagar e inventar”, justo a continuación de la suya resultó especialmente oportuna, ya que
mi ponencia contenía en esencia mi respuesta a las notas de Biesta sobre los riesgos a los que
está expuesta la Filosofía para/con niños. Así, pude transformar mi conferencia en una
oportunidad para dialogar con él, un diálogo que continuó en la revista childhood &
philosophy (v. 13, n. 28, sept.-dic. 2017), con las respuestas de otros muchos colegas
interesados en este tema, a modo de polifonía.
En aquella ponencia, presenté una visión jazzística de la práctica filosófica con niños,
a partir de la metáfora de “la educación como jazz”, que ya había propuesto en un reciente
libro (Santi & Zorzi, 2016). En dicho libro propongo ocho formas “jazzísticas” de escapar a
la tradición monológica de enseñar y aprender en educación (Santi, 2016), que pueden
ofrecerse como posible respuesta a los riesgos a los que está expuesta la Filosofía para/con
niños. La primera es visible en la crítica de Biesta a la instrumentalización de la filosofía
para/con niños cuando se transforma en un currículo con resultados de aprendizaje mediante
una mentalización del pensamiento (Biesta 2017b, p. 418). El segundo riesgo es el de reducir
el trabajo filosófico con niños a un ejercicio de fomento de destrezas para el pensamiento
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crítico (Biesta, 2017b, p. 418). Este reduccionismo se encuentra también en la base de un

tercer riesgo destacado por Biesta, concretamente, la aprendificación de la educación
contemporánea (Biesta, 2017, p. 422), que corresponde a una especie de “reduccionismo
invertido” por el que la filosofía para/con niños se reduciría a una estrategia para “enseñar
destrezas de pensamiento”. De hecho, todos estos reduccionismos emergen como riesgos
acordes con muchas aplicaciones del Currículo de Lipman —y de otras propuestas
similares— que acaban transformando la práctica filosófica con niños en la escuela en un
dispositivo de capital humano. Más recientemente, el marco del “capital humano” y sus
dispositivos parece menos inobjetable, estando inmerso en una crisis de competencia y
legitimidad (Biggeri & Santi, 2012). Como bien se sabe, en tiempos de crisis, las preguntas
sobre educación se vuelven cada vez más urgentes y cruciales, surgen llamadas a crear
nuevos paradigmas y se demandan soluciones. Los marcos que llevan a diversos modelos
pedagógicos podrían, en palabras de Biesta, orientar la educación hacia una praxis más
“adulta” (Biesta, 2017b, p.430), en lugar de una práctica basada en el desarrollo; es decir,
hacia un aprendizaje transformativo en lugar de un aprendizaje basado en la instrucción;
hacia la individualización personal frente a la socialización de la comunidad; y hacia la
determinación subjetiva frente a la evolución ambiental. Las diversas teorías del
conocimiento que subyacen a estos distintos marcos son también responsables de la
reducción de la educación a la mera instrucción, y de los diversos métodos de enseñanza y
aprendizaje aplicados en la escuela, que se conciben y se proponen como procesos
monológicos, dialógicos o polifónicos (Pasgaard, 2009; Wegerif, 2011).
En el núcleo del argumento de Biesta encontramos la afirmación de que la implantación
de programas de pensamiento crítico (incluida la filosofía para/con niños) en las escuelas se
basa principalmente en el reduccionismo de la educación a resultados de aprendizaje (y
enseñanza), que implica un conjunto lineal y secuencial de aproximaciones al desarrollo
curricular. Estos enfoques son coherentes dentro del marco de la actual carrera por la
capitalización del conocimiento y del know-how, y siguen siendo los objetivos dominantes
de las políticas educativas/de instrucción.
La convulsión que afecta al actual mundo globalizado exige nuevos paradigmas que
ofrezcan formas frescas de explicar y orientar el “desarrollo” humano (o incluso mejor, la
historia humana) de acuerdo con una visión estocástica, compleja y emergente de la
evolución, donde la creatividad y la emoción desempeñan un papel crucial. Una respuesta a
estas urgencias socioculturales exige propuestas sugerentes para el diseño de currículos,
como las elaboradas recientemente, por ejemplo, por Wiggins & McTighe, (1998). La idea
subyacente que guía estas propuestas educativas es el reconocimiento del hecho de que la
instrucción, como la vida, no siempre puede planificarse de antemano, especialmente cuando
a los estudiantes se les está enseñando “destrezas” para interactuar con situaciones y
problemas de la vida real (Donmoyer, 1983; Jackson, 1977; Lortie, 1975). Desde esta
perspectiva, la idea de que la instrucción deba considerarse como un sistema de “experiencia
ordenada en el desorden de la vida” y/o como “una experiencia desordenadora en el orden de
la vida” se vuelve interesante tanto desde un punto de vista teórico como práctico. Aunque
estas propuestas mantienen la enseñanza de destrezas como objetivos fundamentales del
currículo de instrucción, tienen la ventaja de introducir la idea de “crecimiento” en el proceso
educativo, una idea que se perdió durante un tiempo en el siglo pasado, y una idea que es
fundamental para la crítica de Biesta a la aprendificación, que ha llevado a la actual
mercantilización del logro.
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De hecho, el fomento de la creatividad significa no solo promover la “innovación”; la

creatividad tiene menos que ver con lo que es original (nuevo en comparación con otros
productos ya disponibles en el mercado) que con lo que es originario (que emerge de una
auténtica generatividad) (véase Ingold, 2014). Como expresión humana de la disposición al
asombro y a la reacción ante la novedad, la creatividad implica dimensiones críticas y
emocionales del pensamiento (lo que Lipman llama “pensamiento complejo”), y exige apoyo
educativo, tanto para el logro de fines extraordinarios (Bailin, 1988) como para el
reconocimiento de los medios extraordinarios que ofrece lo ordinario (Leddy, 2012). Este
tipo de apoyo supone para los educadores un reto de diseño interesante, en el que la necesidad
de planificar el mejor futuro deseable se entrecruza con la aspiración de obtener un posible
pasado mejor. Esto parece especialmente acorde con la afirmación de Biesta sobre los límites
del “aprendizaje adaptativo” (Biesta, 2017b, p. 433) que domina el diseño curricular y la
práctica en la actualidad. Como se destaca en el citado artículo, el principal supuesto de la
perspectiva evolutiva de la educación es que, posicionándose en distintos entornos de
aprendizaje, los aprendedores pueden mejorar su efectividad para adaptarse a las cambiantes
condiciones ambientales. Este supuesto es cuestionado por Biesta, que propone algunas
preguntas pertinentes sobre el asunto: “ ¿Es ésta una concepción adecuada de los estudiantes
en relaciones educativas? ¿Es ésta una visión adecuada de los seres humanos como seres-en-
el-mundo?” Según Biesta, no. Aunque reconoce que “aprender puede ser un concepto más
rico que lo que capta la idea de adaptación inteligente”, enfatiza lo extendida que se ha vuelto
esta idea en la teoría de aprendizaje contemporánea y argumenta que “en la medida en que
nuestra comprensión del aprendizaje depende del paradigma de la adaptación inteligente,
tiene carencias significativas, tanto en términos humanos como educativos” (Biesta, 2017b,
p. 423).
La respuesta de Biesta a la pregunta del aprendizaje como adaptación fue bastante
crítica por dos tipos de razones, que se resumieron del siguiente modo:
1) la pregunta que el paradigma del “sistema adaptativo inteligente” no puede hacer es
si el entorno realmente merece que nos adaptemos a él;
2) el acontecimiento que no puede darse en este paradigma es la reciprocidad: el
sistema no se puede enseñar, no es susceptible de que nos comuniquemos con él ni
de que nos dirijamos a él.
La primera pregunta desafía un paradigma totalmente funcional que busca la
supervivencia, no la vida (este es el algoritmo incorporado); la segunda pregunta sugiere que
el mundo y otros seres humanos solo pueden aparecer como obstáculos —algo a lo que
adaptarse—. Para aclarar este punto, Biesta nos refiere a las ideas de Dewey y Mead sobre la
comunicación, oponiendo a la visión “adaptativa” de la educación una perspectiva en la que
el mundo y otros humanos son algo/uno con lo que yo me comunico; algo/uno que me habla,
que me toca, que pregunta por mí, que me interpela al uno único que hay dentro de mí, como
sugirió Levinas (Biesta, 2017b, p. 426). He de reconocer que aprecio mucho este punto.
Coincido con Biesta en percibir como un peligro la reducción de la educación a la adaptación
al entorno, y de enseñar conforme al diseño, por parte de los profesores, de entornos
adaptables. De hecho, considero que estas cuestiones —la relación con el mundo como más
que un entorno, y la relación con otros en la misma medida que con pares— conforman la
cuestión clave de la crisis social global con la que se ha inaugurado el tercer milenio, y que
corresponde, según considero, con lo que Gould y Vrba (1982) denominaron “la dimensión
perdida de la evolución”—es decir, la “exaptación”.
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La “exaptación” puede considerarse como una especie de adaptación creativa que no

es demandada ni suscitada por el entorno; consiste en una variación dentro de una función
normalizada y regular, y en un viraje hacia usos inexplorados e “innecesarios”; se
correspondería con lo que yo llamaría “serendipia funcional”. De hecho, para Gould y Vrba,
no tener en cuenta la dimensión de la “exaptación” supone perder la dinámica creativa e
inesperada de la evolución, reduciendo su desarrollo a la adaptación y a la selección. La
metáfora de “la educación como jazz” podría resumirse como un modo de escapar del marco
funcional, monológico y selectivo de la enseñanza y el aprendizaje. Según este enfoque, una
filosofía para/con niños jazzística podría ser una oportunidad para experimentar la infancia
como una forma de temporalidad caracterizada como tiempo exaptativo.
Las ocho características (o “puertas”, o incluso “puentes”) que propongo para
desgranar la metáfora del jazz en términos educativos están reconocidas en la tradición
musical del jazz, pero en un sentido más básico, se corresponden con una forma jazzística de
vivir la vida en sus distintas dimensiones temporales. De hecho, la relación del jazz con el
tiempo es muy interesante desde un punto de vista educativo, particularmente en referencia
al diseño curricular (Dick & Carey, 2004). La naturaleza improvisadora del jazz nos empuja
a vivir el presente, donde la tensión hacia el futuro y el recuerdo pasado parece colapsarse en
una forma de temporalidad generativa –un tiempo donde la creatividad tiene lugar como algo
que disuelve el peso de la edad de un sujeto (adulto o niño) y emerge como una humanidad
que se hace mayor. Como expuso el fenomenólogo Bernhard Waldenfels (2004, p. 242),
“somos más mayores que nosotros mismos”, es decir, – como explicó Ingold –:
detrás de los individuos que estamos a punto de llegar a ser, pero aún no somos, están los individuos
que ya somos sin siquiera saberlo. En este proceso continuo e itinerante de devenir quien fuimos y
de haber sido la persona que llegaremos a ser, no hay límite, no hay ningún punto en el que podamos
descubrir alguna naturaleza humana básica que ya estaba ahí antes de que empezara todo. (Ingold,
2014, p. 137)
Esta dialéctica entre pasado y futuro que inunda el presente, transformándolo en
“existencia”, con su significado dinámico, también lo expresa maravillosamente F. Scott
Fitzgerald (autor de Cuentos de la era del jazz) en la frase final de El Gran Gatsby: “Y así
seguimos navegando, barcos a contracorriente devueltos sin cesar al pasado”.
Las ocho características que propongo como puertas o puentes a “la filosofía jazzística”
podrían interpretarse como posibles respuestas a la crítica de Biesta a la aprendificación de
la filosofía en la educación. La primera puerta la llamaría el jazzing (hacer jazz) y tiene que
ver con la experiencia jazzística de filosofar que tienen los niños. Decir que “el jazz es hacer
jazz” puede parecer una tautología pero, entendido de forma más profunda, no lo es. El
oxímoron es fructífero para generar la multiplicidad de significados que se atribuye a la
palabra, que, en su etimología y significado en argot, está relacionada con una colorida
metáfora de copulación y fluido seminal. El jazzing no estaba relacionado solamente con la
acción mecánica del coito, sino con el disfrute y el placer de un orgasmo compartido (en
Latín co-ire quiere decir literalmente “irse juntos”) y la promesa implicada en la eyaculación.
Por eso el jazz y el jazzing (hacer jazz) se refieren tanto a la intimidad de un espectáculo en
solitario como a la sintonía mutua en una sesión de jazz. El erotismo del jazz también es
reconocible en la encarnación musical que es evidente en las interpretaciones de jazz, que se
ven claramente enriquecidas con las tensiones psicofísicas de los músicos hacia oposiciones
dialécticas: momento versus duración; diferencia versus igualdad; gratificación versus
frustración; estabilidad versus estimulación; cercanía versus distancia (Gustavsen, 2010).
97
Cuando estas oposiciones se “congelan”, el arte del jazz está en peligro; cuando un dilema
crea flujos, el pleno potencial del arte del jazz emerge.
No es ninguna coincidencia que el jazz siempre dispare un proceso creativo o, mejor
dicho, una dimensión generativa de la creación musical compartida, que da lugar a nuevas
melodías y experiencias sonoras, dando forma a algo original que da forma a los formadores
para siempre. La misma encarnación puede reconocerse en un buen diálogo filosófico dentro
de una comunidad de niños: el erotismo de la indagación emerge también en la implicación
física, donde todos los sentidos están abiertos a captar sentido en la memoria, en la
imaginación y en el encuentro y desencuentro con otras mentes. La filosofía jazzística señala
en mayor medida al potencial humano para el pensamiento creativo, predominante en la
infancia, que al poder demiúrgico del conocimiento fabricado por humanos que domina la
edad adulta. La generatividad de la filosofía jazzística aparece más como una manera de ser
y de hacer que como la producción de hacedores individuales. Jazzing quiere decir animar,
llenar de vida, y llevar el jazz a la filosofía con niños significa rodear la experiencia de pensar
de la vitalidad y la animación propias de la infancia y siempre con un disfrute compartido
entusiastamente. La palabra jazzing también aparece en el argot con el significado de hacer
el tonto de forma creativa, ordenar de forma caótica o desordenar de forma armónica (Barrett,
2012), que es exactamente lo que transforma la actividad de niños pensando en razonamiento
filosófico.
El jazzing (o hacer jazz) es una actitud que busca crear orden en el caos, desorden en
la armonía, desviación de la melodía, pero nunca a partir de la nada: el jazz emerge cuando
las oportunidades que ofrece el momento se crean a partir de la memoria de modelos, a los
que se desafía intencionadamente a través de la repetición y de las infinitas alternativas de
variación. La repetición y la variación –de ritmos, secuencias, cadenas, riffs o frases– es la
principal “técnica” que genera novedad en el jazz, sin estropear la espontaneidad, que es lo
que caracteriza el juego libre de los niños, y es su manera propia de explorar el mundo interior
y exterior. La generatividad en el jazz, como en el filosofar auténtico, se encuentra justo entre
la técnica y la espontaneidad (Santi, 2010), y siempre en perfecto equilibro entre el arte y el
corazón (Pilc, 2012). La dimensión artística de la jazzificación de la filosofía —o del “sonido
de la filosofía” como destacó Tartaglia (2017)— es reconocible en el firme compromiso con
la repetición, la copia y la imitación de marcos de pensamiento, que están en el corazón del
jazz, de la filosofía y de la educación. Solamente mediante la repetición de una cadena de
pensamientos como notas, puede un pensador, al igual que un músico, encontrar su propio
sonido en el proceso de razonamiento, como si saliera de la nada, haciendo así su aportación
al diálogo de la improvisación (música, filosófica, educativa). Creo que este erotismo del
jazzing como componente del acto filosófico, sería el mejor antídoto que la filosofía para/con
niños podría ofrecer contra los riesgos implicados en la capitalización del aprendizaje (y de
los aprendices) denunciada por Biesta.
La segunda característica/puerta a la filosofía jazzística es la fusión. La filosofía con
niños fusional es una característica evidente, considerando la disposición natural que tienen
para fundir las diferencias y crear algo sorprendente. En el jazz, la fusión se refiere a la
mezcla de estilos, géneros y temperamentos interculturales; técnicas y entornos educativos
múltiples; teorías y prácticas alternativas. Pero principalmente implica el abandono de la
“pureza” y la apertura a la contaminación y a la promiscuidad, dejando la “zona de confort”
para vivir en el carnaval, el topos optativo de la heterodoxia en el que puede nacer el
neologismo (Folch-Serra, 1990): el filosofar para/con niños propone ese abandono como la
principal condición para la práctica de pensar en comunidad, como un proceso de unión
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donde el producto final es más que la suma de sus partes. El filosofar fusional —como el
jazzing— crea nuevas identidades en las que el recuerdo de los elementos combinados se
mantiene en la mezcla y cada uno puede reconocerse a sí mismo o a sí misma. El aspecto
fusional en la filosofía jazzística es lo que protegería a los niños de los riesgos identificados
por Biesta de perder la identidad subjetiva en la aprendificación del mundo y de perder el
mundo en la aprendificación de la existencia subjetiva. Además, como observa Ben-Josef
(2006), una pedagogía de la fusión sería la respuesta educativa preferente a la diversidad y la
complejidad.
La tercera característica de la filosofía jazzística es la libertad. El jazz y la filosofía
comparten una libertad en la medida en que ambos están relacionados con la libertad interior
y la heterodoxia propiamente dicha; ambos encarnan la necesidad de romper con las cadenas
sonoras tradicionales de notas (pensamientos) para explorar nuevas escalas armónicas
(discursos) y paisajes melódicos (marcos). La filosofía y el jazz, como prácticas libres, son
fuertes antídotos a la instrucción canónica y anticuerpos potentes contra la pedagogía
académica (tanto en escuelas como en conservatorios), donde la enseñanza y el aprendizaje
se reducen a la reproducción “pura” de las rutas clásicas y la repetición de contenidos
estandarizados. Claro que ser libres para transgredir normas establecidas no quiere decir estar
completamente libres de un marco de regulaciones y normas, pero sí que libera el sistema del
riesgo de volverse dogmáticos, limitados por marcos estéticos establecidos y con
restricciones y criterios rígidos para juzgar resultados predecibles.
La dimensión libre de la filosofía jazzística protege a los niños del riesgo de
adoctrinamiento que yace detrás de todas las formas de instrucción estandarizada y de todos
los currículos estandarizadores, que parece ser la principal preocupación de Biesta con
respecto a las tendencias educativas actuales. Considerados desde una perspectiva del free
jazz (jazz libre) los componentes de pensamiento crítico (como la lógica) dentro del
currículo de la filosofía para/con niños deberían considerarse como medios para la libertad
—herramientas para liberar actividad filosófica— en lugar de objetos de evaluación, que
encierran la práctica en estándares y meras “destrezas”.
El filosofar libre, como la fusión, requiere una experimentación fuera de la zona de
confort del éxito predecible y la exploración de otros espacios en un “entorno seguro de
creatividad” (Weinstein, 2016). La filosofía jazzística es siempre una “actividad al aire libre”.
Si Biesta reclama la importancia de la jardinería en la educación (Biesta, 2017b, p. 419), la
filosofía jazzística es una forma de hacer jardinería con mentes creativas. Como jardinero,
cada miembro de la comunidad de investigación tiene un compromiso con el pensamiento y
con la acción, lo que implica actitudes cuidadosas en la toma de responsabilidad por ese
pensamiento y en ser libres para participar en la exploración y la experimentación. La
filosofía-como-jardinería está abierta a una auténtica democracia del juego/jugar, donde
todos los instrumentos tienen tiempo y espacio para expresar sus sonidos y voces (y usos), y
decidir cuándo retirarse y dejar oportunidades a otros.
La cuarta característica requiere swing. Uno de los significados de swing es “columpio”
o, como verbo, to swing, “columpiarse”. A los niños les gusta columpiarse, actividad
comprendida como una forma de juego primordial no exenta de compromiso. La dinámica
del ir y venir, propia del jazz y del diálogo filosófico, es esencialmente juguetona y llena de
disfrute, recordando la evidencia física del paso del tiempo, un ritmo pendular y una
alternancia combinada con el movimiento intencionado de un cuerpo y su fuerza.
Columpiarse como una experiencia especial de la encarnación del tiempo, donde el ritmo
mecánico se transforma en un movimiento interior de emociones (placer, pero también
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riesgo). Columpiarse, como filosofar, es una actividad liberadora, pero requiere voluntad y
deseo de liberarse de la inercia de “quedarse colgando”, transformando así el tiempo y el
espacio en emoción y entusiasmo. El columpio transforma el chronos en aion (Kohan, 2014;
2015), tendiendo un puente entre la experiencia cuantitativa y cualitativa del tiempo en una
temporalidad generativa, y dotando de sentido a cada momento, que se convierte en un
acontecimiento en nuestra historia y biografía. Vivir la vida de esta manera es vivirla
filosóficamente, lo que refleja el interés de Biesta en el sujeto y la subjetividad en la
educación (Biesta, 2017, p. 420): en la filosofía jazzística el niño está columpiándose en el
mundo, sin una posición fija ni una perspectiva privilegiada. La posición del pensador está
siempre en movimiento…, como me dijo Lipman un frío día de 1991, en su despacho de la
Montclair State University.
La quinta característica es una aspiración al groove. Esta es una aspiración compartida,
una prerrogativa del concepto de comunidad, y la comunidad está en el núcleo de la
experiencia de la filosofía para/con niños. Literalmente, el groove es el surco espiral en un
disco fonográfico para que la aguja siga su curso; es el cursus (cfr. curriculum) dentro del
cual y a lo largo del cual todos los músicos, instrumentos, notas, puntos y contrapuntos se
suceden y encuentran el flujo. El groove es un flujo común, y encontrar el groove supone
encontrar una dirección compartida, una intención e intensión mutua y para “ser” en lugar de
“hacer” y “tener”, una especie de intenc(s)ionalidad “débil” que no está orientada a la
retención (de contenidos, información, destrezas y relaciones), sino que se mueve
promordialmente por la atención. La atencionalidad es lo que guía la “acción subyacente”
antes de convertirse o sin que se convierta en una decisión inmersa en agencia (Masschelein,
2010; Ingold, 2014). La atencionalidad hace del vulnerable ser humano, un ser revelado,
expuesto a los demás y a distintas posibilidades: en una posición débil, o mejor, una no-
posición que genera las condiciones para moverse y dejarse atrapar en el groove. Esta
atención recíproca es lo que nos inserta en un diálogo o en una polifonía, siguiendo el
pensamiento adonde nos lleve y siendo atraídos por el lugar a donde nos lleva. Sería, para
Lipman, el groove de la indagación en la comunidad filosófica. Encontrar el groove es un
sentimiento positivo, que requiere escuchar con emoción, empatía y con una actitud
cuidadosa, y que acompaña el logro de una satisfacción común sin suavizar la tensión de
la dialéctica. Podría representar la mejor respuesta a la preocupación de Biesta acerca del
modo de estar “ego-lógico (Biesta, 2017:9-10) que domina la educación actual; estar en
el groove significa salirse de los patrones egológicos.
De hecho, a mi modo de ver, la visión de Biesta de la filosofía para/con niños revela
una subestimación del componente “conjunto” del pensamiento, un componente que no
puede reducirse a la naturaleza comunicativa de los pensamientos ni a posiciones recíprocas
entre iguales, sino que está relacionado con una actividad multitarea que tiene una génesis
social: escuchar lo que se está diciendo mientras se está diciendo. Esto tiene que ver con lo
que mi amigo Bjorn Alterhaug me contó durante una cena en la celebración del Día del Jazz
de Padua hace dos años: “no saber lo que estamos diciendo antes de oír lo que estamos
respondiendo”… Pero también es mirar lo que está pasando y decidir asegurarse de que
ocurra no solo para mí, sino para todos los implicados; es tocar y degustar el evento con los
sentidos en alerta, y como un objeto de los sentidos de otros. Hacer filosofía con groove
está en el corazón de la indagación activa en comunidad como forma de jamming—una
expresión y condición de lo que Sawyer (2007) llama “el genio del grupo,” dejándose atrás
a uno mismo y convirtiéndonos en algo más grande; lo que Pilc define como “una ola
musical” (Pilc, 2012).
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La sexta característica requiere soul (literalmente, “alma”) y esto tiene una relación
directa con el núcleo y la conclusión del artículo de Biesta (2017b, p. 418), donde demanda
una forma de educación capaz de “tocar el alma”, dejando a un lado la prioridad de empoderar
a estudiantes en favor de una preferencia por desarmarlos. Biesta reconoce el potencial en esta
dirección que ofrece la filosofía para/con niños. Yo añadiría una interpretación desde el jazz de
la dimensión del soul (alma) del filosofar que podría enriquecer la oportunidad que esta práctica
ofrece a los niños. La filosofía con soul expresa la naturaleza espiritual de la intimidad de jugar
juntos. El soul en el acto filosófico no es un concepto ni una idea, sino un discernimiento y una
intuición que guía todas las formas de sabiduría humana no fundamentada en el dogmatismo,
equilibrando las dimensiones de soledad y compañía que tiene jugar con ideas con una
disposición cuidadosa hacia la humanidad como comunidad. Desde esta perspectiva, la
filosofía jazzística está “en contacto” con el alma —soul— al emerger en seres humanos en
comunidades, entornos mundiales, la historia y la evolución.
La séptima puerta es el cool. En el lenguaje de paisajes, cool es la atmósfera creada por
la salida y la puesta de sol, cuando las sombras son más alargadas y los sonidos más ligeros.
Esto mantiene la experiencia abierta al horizonte de posibilidades. En el cool jazz, cool no
significa frío, sino reductor, minorador y atenuante del “más”. La filosofía cool busca
ahorrarse el esfuerzo de satisfacer la sed de libertad. No es difícil para los niños, con su
valentía interior y su esperanza en lo posible. Es más difícil para los adultos y para el
pensamiento adulto. El pensamiento cool implica un compromiso con el enrarecimiento del
paisaje sonoro para revelar las delicadas líneas del discurso melódico. En términos del
discurso lingüístico significa dilatación, expansión, ensanchamiento y acentuación de hilos
de razonamiento y teorías armónicas para crear espacio entre pensamientos y voces, dándoles
tiempo para conversar y más espacio en el que pensar.
Quizás un papel para el profesor en la filosofía jazzística con niños —de acuerdo con
la necesidad identificada por Biesta (2017a) de redescubrir el papel de la enseñanza en la
educación— sea hacer cool el proceso de pensamiento. Implicaría incorporar la atmosfera
enrarecida en la propia acción de cada uno, suspendiendo el tiempo y cualquier programa
establecido de programación instructiva, y permitir y complacerse en el lujo de esperar a lo
que emerja de nuestra experiencia compartida. El profesor cool es una presencia ligera o
“débil” que destaca no por lo que añade al conocimiento acumulativo en el intercambio
educativo, sino por cómo es capaz de aliviarlo, dejando espacio para la comprensión. El
cooling asume una buena dosis de silencio, igual que la enseñanza asume una buena dosis de
ignorancia, el tipo de ignorancia ya atribuida a un buen profesor (Kohan, Santi, Wozniak,
2017) en la práctica filosófica con niños.
Por último, la última puerta (si bien la primera característica del jazz propiamente
dicho) sería la improvisación. De acuerdo con los anteriores comentarios, podemos
considerar la improvisación como algo inesperado y extemporáneo; como una (re)acción
creativa natural/cultural que permanece en la base de la evolución, que implica un
comportamiento tanto ad-aptativo en el entorno y la acción/agencia ex-aptativa con el mundo.
Por eso consideramos “la filosofía como jazz” como algo completamente coherente con la
educación “deseable” en la que Biesta deposita su esperanza (2017b, p. 430). Pero la filosofía
improvisada con niños tiene otras prerrogativas importantes que vale la pena desarrollar,
empezando con el acto de asombrarse ante el mundo, que es el inicio de la filosofía (y el
título del maravilloso manual de Kio & Gus en el currículum de “Filosofía para niños” de
Lipman y Sharp). Para improvisar hay que estar abiertos al asombro. El asombro es la
condición, pero también el objetivo de la improvisación: asombrarse ante lo que pasa en
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nuestro mundo tal y como nos viene dado; asombrarse ante lo que estamos tratando de
alcanzar cuando inventamos un mundo posible. Si la ignorancia es una condición necesaria
para un verdadero profesor, la invención es el principal compromiso del educador: estar
abiertos a lo que empieza a existir. Estar abiertos al asombro no quiere decir sencillamente
ser capaces de hacer preguntas, un punto que parece ser particularmente importante para
Biesta, y que da en el corazón de su problema con la filosofía para/con niños. De hecho, lo
que cuenta en el acto de filosofar —como cuando se hace jazz— no es quién propone la
mejor pregunta ni quien pregunta mejor, ni siquiera quién está “en cuestión” (Biesta, 2017b,
p. 434), sino quién tiene la disponibilidad (y no solo la capacidad) para implicarse e implicar
a otros en el asombro. Así, la improvisación, como un componente fundamental del jazz,
podría volverse un ingrediente secreto del auténtico acto de filosofar, que merece ofrecerse
a la imaginación cuidadosa de los niños pensantes.
De hecho, la improvisación es tan fácil de comprender como difícil de explicar, en el
sentido en que es muy parecido al juego o al acto de filosofar. Podría verse como un proceso
(la actividad y la dinámica de la improvisación); un procedimiento (el uso metódico de la
variación); o un producto (la improvisación que emerge). Sin embargo, nosotros lo
consideramos como algo caracterizado por una paradójica mezcla de actitudes, capacidades,
técnicas, motivos, deseos y aspiraciones que impulsan, en lugar de dirigir, el pensamiento en
una suerte de “juego infinito” más que en un juego finito, como sugiere Carse (1987). La
filosofía como jazz implica improvisación, y la improvisación es casi una forma de vida en
la infancia, un compromiso con lo que ocurre en el momento y una curiosidad acerca de todas
las sorpresas ocultas en el futuro, como es propio de aquel que tiene poco pasado (ruinas o
reliquias) ante sí. La improvisación en sí tiene algo de milagroso, que conmina al
improvisador a admirar lo que emerge de su propia acción/agencia como algo que supera sus
expectativas e intuiciones.
Traté de entretenerme buscando un acrónimo que contiene los principales elementos
de la improvisación y me encanta que (en inglés) di con CHRIST (Cristo):
C de creatividad, curiosidad, coraje y cuidado;
H de hope (esperanza), happiness (felicidad), honestidad y help (ayuda);
R de riesgo, reglas, resiliencia y reciprocidad;
I de indagación, imaginación, invención e implicación;
S de eSpontaneidad, sorpresa, suspense y sensibilidad;
T de técnica, trust (confianza), tensión y transgresión.
Claro que este acrónimo podría enriquecerse con muchas otras palabras como
componentes de la improvisación, traducidas a muchos otros idiomas o completamente
cambiadas en otro idioma. De hecho, lo propongo simplemente para ejercitar la memoria de
palabras y su potencial para “hacer cosas en el mundo” (Austin, 1962) y dar significado a
nuestra experiencia. Pero finalmente, lo que tenemos que tener en cuenta en el intento de
captar algo tan evanescente como la improvisación es que siempre tiene algo que ver con
relaciones especiales con:
 El tiempo / el tiempo verbal: vivir en el momento (… no a la hora);
 El mundo: quedarse en el medio (… no en el centro);
 Los otros: ser contemporáneo con uno mismo y con el otro (… no cualquiera);
 El trabajo: renunciar a la propiedad de ideas/productos (sin autoría) y evitar citarse
a uno mismo (sin repetición);
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La verdad: elegir la imperfección (como estética) y la incertidumbre (como ontología)

para seguir inspirado y aspirar a cosas, a pesar de todo.
No estoy segura de que estas notas de jazz sean útiles para provocar o enriquecer la
discusión iniciada al eco de la voz de Biesta. Espero, sin embargo, que estos reflejos inspiren
pensamientos en otras personas, o rompan otros hilos de razones para remarcar la
oportunidad de hacer filosofía con niños como una nueva “pedagogía pobre” (Masschelein,
2010) para nuestra era rica, que sigue en busca de la infancia perdida del pensamiento
humano.
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Taking it Slow: Enhancing Wellbeing through Philosophy for

Children
Rhiannon Love
Senior Lecturer, University of Winchester, UK
rhiannon.love@winchester.ac.uk
CV
Rhiannon Love. After ten years spent in secondary education, followed by eight years as a
primary school teacher, Rhiannon now works as a teacher educator. She is the Route Leader
for the Secondary RE PGCE and the Senior Lecturer responsible for Primary Religious
Education and Philosophy for Children in the Department for Teacher Development, at the
University of Winchester, UK. In addition, she teaches on the Masters in Education
programme and, in her role as a SAPERE trainer, delivers courses to schools in Philosophy
for Children.
Rhiannon is also a doctoral student, focussing specifically on Philosophy for Children (P4C).
Her research interests lie in the potentially transformational impact of P4C on pre-service
teachers, the children they teach and ultimately the whole school community, with a focus
on wellbeing and affective gains. Her research aims to investigate how embedding
Philosophy for Children in Initial Teacher Education might prompt a fundamental shift in,
not only the emerging teacher-formation of the student, but also their personal philosophy
and indeed their approach to a more holistic form of education.
ABSTRACT
We live today in times of accelerating change, where speed is often equated with progress
and success. There is a growing desire amongst educators to counter this current bias towards
performativity and results/data driven education. One example of this is a growing interest
in what is termed ‘Slow Schooling’ or ‘Slow Pedagogy’ – which advocates that children not
only learn better at a slower pace, but also report a decrease in stress. In the current climate
where there are increasing numbers of young people suffering from mental health issues,
there is a concern that these needs are not adequately addressed in education. This chapter
suggests that one possible approach to addressing and dealing with this current situation is to
embed Philosophy for Children (P4C) into a school’s pedagogy, values and curriculum.
KEYWORDS
Wellbeing, Slow pedagogy, Philosophy for Children, P4C, affective gains, holistic education,
Community of Enquiry/Inquiry.
RESUMEN
Vivimos tiempos de cambios acelerados, en los que la velocidad a menudo se identifica con
el progreso y el éxito. Existe, además, un deseo creciente entre los educadores de
contrarrestar esta obsesión mediante la performatividad y la educación orientada a resultados.
Un ejemplo de esto es el creciente interés por lo que se denomina ‘Lenta escolaridad’ o
‘Pedagogía lenta’, que aboga por que los niños no solo aprendan mejor a un ritmo más lento,
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sino que también disminuyan su nivel de estrés. En el contexto actual, con un número
creciente de jóvenes con problemas de salud mental, existe la preocupación de que estas
necesidades se ignoren desde el sistema educativo. Este capítulo sugiere que un posible
enfoque para enfrentar, desafiar y potencialmente lidiar con esta situación es integrar
Filosofía para Niños (FpN) en la pedagogía, los valores y el currículo de una escuela.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Bienestar, pedagogía lenta, Filosofía para Niños, ganancias afectivas, educación holística,
Comunidad de Investigación.
INTRODUCTION
We live today in times of accelerating change, where speed is often equated with
progress and success. There is a growing desire amongst educators to counter this current
bias towards performativity and results/data driven education. I propose that one potential
solution might be to return to, or indeed perhaps embrace for the first time, a slower
pedagogical approach to education, which research shows can encourage a more holistic form
of education as well as an improvement in pupil and teacher wellbeing. This approach,
commonly termed ‘Slow Schooling’ or ‘Slow Pedagogy’, advocates that children not only
learn better at a slower pace, but also report a decrease in stress. In the current climate where
there are increasing numbers of young people suffering from mental health issues, there is a
concern that these needs are not adequately addressed in education. My suggestion, which
will be explored throughout this chapter, is that Philosophy for Children (P4C) might be seen
as aligned with slow pedagogy, and that embedding P4C into a school’s pedagogy, values
and curriculum could be one possible approach to address and deal with this current
educational climate.
This chapter explores current research on wellbeing and slow pedagogy in education
and what P4C might have to offer this field, as well as illustrating the proposal with data
gathered from some small scale qualitative research I carried out, that examined children’s
reflections on the potential benefits of introducing P4C into primary education. The study’s
main focus was on whether children would independently identify that P4C had had impact
in more affective areas, that could be linked to wellbeing, rather than the more traditionally
reported cognitive gains. Thus, through this chapter I wish to pose two questions: firstly,
what does current research into wellbeing and slow pedagogy have to offer those who would
engage with philosophical enquiry; secondly, from the results of the study, did the children
perceive any change to their wellbeing as a result of engaging with P4C?
Wellbeing
Wellbeing resonates as a central discussion to P4C due to a growing awareness of the
number of young people that suffer from mental health issues, and a concern that these needs
are not being adequately addressed in education (Alexander & Armstrong, 2010; The
Children’s Society, 2015). In particular, the current focus on achievement in the UK could
be argued as a key driver for an ethos and curriculum that prioritises ‘speedy’ results, often
at the expense of the more holistic elements; which are paramount in the development of the
child (Adams, 2013; Clarke, Bunting, & Barry, 2014).
The concept of ‘wellbeing’ has long been part of educational discussions. I would argue
that an integration of wellbeing into primary education is not only opportune, but crucial in
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an era when every year; ‘up to one in five children are using mental health services’ (Hallam,
2009:133); with surveys reporting children as young as eight describing themselves as
‘stressed out by relationships and school’ (Füredi, 2004:112). Seen by Layard (2007) as
Britain’s most pressing social problem, these wide-ranging concerns have placed children’s
wellbeing high on both political agendas and public interest (Adams, 2013).
Defining wellbeing is problematic for education, due to the ‘bewildering array of terms
and labels to describe work in this field,’ with ‘emotional literacy, emotional intelligence,
positive mental health, and emotional well-being’ amongst the most common (McLaughlin
(2008: 353-4). Eaude (2009) adds that wellbeing is usually associated with ‘feeling good
about oneself, self-esteem, being aware of one’s own and other people’s emotions’ (p187).
Although an eclectic range of definitions can lead to ‘conceptual sloppiness’ (Morrison &
Ecclestone, 2011:203), McLaughlin (2008) clarifies that this distinction is often to do with
the context in which wellbeing is being referred to: for example the term ‘emotional literacy’
is used often by those in education and ‘positive mental health’ by psychologists.
For the context of my research I seek to interpret wellbeing as the non-cognitive or
affective outcomes of education, which include aspects such as; self-esteem, confidence,
empathy, and meaning making, to name but a few. I appreciate in doing so, this may give the
appearance of wellbeing as an affective/cognitive binary, however the intention is to proffer
a useful starting point for what is known to be a complex term. This position is supported by
Siddiqui, Gorard, and See (2017:9): ʽThe list of such personal qualities is long and could
include social and communication skills, resilience, determination, motivation, confidence,
self-esteem, and self-efficacy. Various collective terms are used in the literature such as non-
cognitive skills, soft skills, personal characteristics, personality traits, life skills, social and
emotional skillsʼ.
For consistency and clarity, we use the term non-cognitive outcomes (of education).
Champions of wellbeing in education have stressed how it can permeate all aspects of school
life and learning (Clarke et al., 2014; Eaude, 2008; McLaughlin, 2008). In the current
educational climate, England’s preoccupation with testing has engendered a climate of stress,
impacting on children’s self-esteem and feelings of being unable to cope, arguably presenting
an education system where ‘the product’ (i.e. test results) is the focus rather than education
of the child per se (Holt, 2002; Narayanan, 2007).
Nowadays, it is being increasingly argued that the aim of education should not only be
the obtainment of cognitive knowledge and skills, but also non-cognitive outcomes.
Opdenakker and Van Damme (2000) question whether schools are able to have as much
influence on the non-cognitive outcomes of their pupils as on their achievement, stating that
‘there is some evidence that schools [that are] effective in enhancing achievement are not
necessarily effective in enhancing the well-being of their pupils’ (p.106). If the concern being
offered here is that, as the current system stands, schools are not managing to influence both
cognitive and affective outcomes, I would suggest that it is imperative that we look afresh at
our approaches to education, to see if indeed there might not be a way to incorporate both,
perhaps, as I am suggesting through embracing a slower pedagogical approach.
There is criticism levelled at the concept of wellbeing as a foregrounder to education.
Ecclestone and Hayes (2009b) and Füredi (2004) equate programmes which encourage
wellbeing as a form of therapeutic education. Their proposal is that educators have moved
from critical engagement with knowledge to an over-emphasis on emotional well-being
(Ecclestone, 2011; Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009a). They argue that this has resulted in a
‘hollowed-out curriculum as an instrument for ‘delivering’ a plethora of attributes, skills,
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values and dispositions’ (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009a:385), suggesting this to be a profoundly
dangerous existence for education to be based upon. Füredi, in his foreword to Ecclestone
and Hayes (2009b), sees the main outcome of emotional education is ‘to disempower young
people’ in addition to distracting schools from providing ‘a genuine intellectual challenge’
(pvii). Critics argue that although ‘a therapeutic ethos in education appears benign and
empowering’ (Ecclestone, 2004:112), they see wellbeing evolving from a perception of the
child as diminished or fragile (Ecclestone, 2004; Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009a; Füredi, 2004).
Whilst there are many who would argue that childhood might be seen as in decline (Adams,
2013), the image of the child as ‘broken’ and as a consequence wellbeing as therapy, is
strongly refuted by Seligman and Csikszentmihalyi (2000:7) who state that ‘treatment is not
just fixing what is broken; it is nurturing what is best’.
At odds with wellbeing being portrayed as a purely therapeutic endeavour, The
Independent Review of the Primary Curriculum (Atkinson, 1998) strongly recommended less
subject teaching in lieu of a more holistic approach to education (Alexander & Armstrong,
2010). The shift in seeing wellbeing as an educational outcome challenges the discourse of
education as process by which young people are to accrue a body of knowledge (Ecclestone &
Hayes, 2009a). For many educators, knowledge is but one part, subscribing to a more holistic
view of education, which frames the academic curriculum around the development of the
social, cultural, spiritual and personal (Adams, 2013; Clarke et al., 2014; Korthagen, 2004).
My advocating the benefits of a return to a more holistic view of learning, which encompasses
wellbeing, is not meant to be at the detriment to knowledge, but to enhance the potential for
knowledge learning. My argument is that wellbeing should be seen as learning in its own right,
both as part of the curriculum, as well as integral to the principles or values of education.
That is not to say that there are no concerns or potential issues with the teaching of
wellbeing. One such concern is raised by Eaude (2009), who posits that there can be a danger
of over-focusing; ‘for happiness and emotional well-being to be explicit ends in themselves,
they would tend to promote introspection and a sense of vulnerability’ (p185). I would suggest
however, that wellbeing integrated into a holistic approach to education could allay these
concerns, becoming part of a strategy to help children develop in resilience and resourcefulness
(Claxton, 2002; Dweck, 2010), with schools creating ‘environments that support the young
person’s natural resilience in the face of the daily adversities of human existence’ (Dawkins et
al., 2004:10). Eaude (2008) states the necessity of striking a balance between too much support,
which could leave a child dependent and too little which could leave some vulnerable. The aim
is not to encourage introspection that could leave a child wallowing in negative emotions, rather
to create opportunities to enable children to become confident with dealing with their emotions.
Eaude adds that the effects of wellbeing should be seen as ‘by-products of children flourishing
as a result of sensitive relationships and the types of activities through which children’s
resilience and sense of agency are reinforced’. (2009:185).
There is a current focus in the UK around how to develop resilience in children. I would
argue that P4C provides genuine opportunities for children to develop their own personal
resilience. The Community of Enquiry (CoE), whilst engendering a feeling of safety and
security for the children, I would argue, also encourages an atmosphere of criticality and
creativity. The environment promotes an atmosphere that welcomes and actively searches for
multiple and contrasting viewpoints. There is an expectation that opinions that have little or
no reasoning to support them should be challenged. An understanding and acceptance that
children will be challenged and disagreed with (naturally with respect as part of Caring
thinking), facilitates an opportunity to explicitly encourage a development of robustness and
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resilience that might otherwise be lacking in children and young people in the current
framework of our curriculum.
When I began my journey as a practitioner of P4C, after approximately six weeks of
engaging in enquiries, I asked the children in my class to reflect on their impressions of it.
One pupil, who was extremely able, told me that he loved P4C, because it made his brain go
“durr”. When I queried his meaning, he said that up until this point in his education (he was
10), everything had been easy. He felt that he had never been challenged by anything and, in
his opinion, he had never had to think very hard to do anything. He continued, that P4C had
been the first thing he had experienced that could not be done easily. Whilst this had led to
periods of frustration, not being able to articulate his thoughts or opinions, he loved the
challenge and continued to embrace it. The ability to be challenged in one’s thinking, and
face challenge with a positive outlook, I would argue, helps to develop resilience in children
and is a foundation for any distinction on what it means to be educated.
Equally, I would suggest that P4C further ensures a sense of agency, as mentioned by
Eaude (2009). In this learning space, children lead the direction of the enquiries from the
initial question formation, thus placing the ensuing dialogue around their own interests,
concerns or ‘wonderings’. This in turn also supports the notion of the children having a voice
and being heard, central to the work of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the
Child (UNCRC) (United Nations, 1989).
Whilst educational policy has traditionally been driven by a focus on the economic
benefit for individuals, society, and indeed the nation (Siddiqui et al., 2017), it could be
argued that a more aspirational vision of education would value non-cognitive outcomes for
their own sake. Brighouse (2008) advocates a vision of education and expounds on the
educational and schooling implications for taking wellbeing, or ‘human happiness’, seriously
(p58). He claims that education ‘should aim to improve children’s prospects for leading
flourishing lives’ (Brighouse, 2008:60), and refers to Layard’s “Big Seven”: ‘Financial
Situation, Family Relationships, Work, Community and Friends, Health, Personal Freedom,
and Personal Values’ (2005 cited in Brighouse, 2008:61). Brighouse stresses that he does not
equate happiness with flourishing, and clarifies that: ‘Flourishing is a richer property than
happiness, sensitive to many more features of a person’s life than just her inner states.
Flourishing involves people making meaning, making sense, of important aspects of their
lives and the totality of their life’. (2008:62, emphasis mine).
Brighouse’s definition and vision of ‘flourishing’ is a quality that I would argue has
great affinity with what I am calling ‘wellbeing’, that is; non-cognitive or affective outcomes
of education, such as; self-esteem, confidence, empathy, and meaning making.
In my experience, P4C can help children to co-construct meaning, not just about
themselves and their lives, but about the people around them, and even of the world at large.
The link between flourishing, or wellbeing, and meaning-making, I would argue, is
significant with regard to P4C and the Community of Enquiry. As Kizel (2017:91 - 92)
writes:
The search for and finding of meaning also allows children to uncover their full humanity by
enabling them to recognize their uniqueness—i.e., their otherness from those around them and, by
the same token, the otherness of others, together with their responsibility towards others ... Meaning
is therefore a means of determining responsibility, philosophical communities of inquiry enabling
young people not only to discover the meaning of life but also the purpose and road this bestows
opens up for them.
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Kizel (2017) proposes that the CoE is relevant in this process because it ‘creates
relationships within and between people and the environment’ (p.87). He suggests that
the more the CoE engages with ‘social, cognitive and emotional’ relations that are
relevant to the world of the children, ‘the more they enable young people to search for
and find meaning’ (Kizel, 2017:87). Whilst an exploration of the definition of ‘meaning’,
and how this is realised in P4C, could be the subject of a whole new chapter, in my
opinion meaning-making is often central to one’s identity, relationships and sense of
wellbeing. In addition, it could be argued that this is a key ingredient of a more holistic
view of education. As Lipman stated: ‘Schools that consider education their mission and
purpose are schools that dedicate themselves to helping children find meaning relevant
to their lives’ (1980, cited in Kizel, 2017:93).
One of the things I love about P4C is its potential for awakening a social consciousness
or responsibility in not only the children, but also in the student teachers I work with. Kizel
(2017) proposes that in the CoE, the process of meaning-making can be an ‘incentive to
motivate children to be socially involved’ (Kizel, 2017:95). He refers to Lipman’s work and
the underlying principle that the CoE can help to develop children’s ‘sense of self and
community’ and suggests that ‘Philosophy is thus a motivating force not only for self action
but also for social and environmental activism, helping to transform personal competency
into social good’ (Kizel, 2017:95).
How then do I see P4C as potentially contributing to pupils’ wellbeing? It is first
necessary to consider the markers or indicators of wellbeing. As previously mentioned,
Layard identifies the seven key factors influencing our levels of happiness, of which I would
propose that four could be argued as being actively engaged regularly within P4C and the
CoE – namely: ‘Family relationships, Community and Friends, Personal Freedom, and
Personal Values’ (2005 cited in Brighouse, 2008:61), although it could be argued that
depending on the nature of the enquiry, the remaining three: Financial Situation, Work, and
Health, could easily form part of a CoE. Similarly, Opdenakker and Van Damme (2000),
when specifically discussing children’s wellbeing, encapsulated eight indicators: ‘wellbeing
at the school, social integration in the class, relationship with teachers, interest in learning
tasks, motivation towards learning tasks, attitude to homework, attentiveness in the
classroom and academic self-concept’ Opdenakker & Van Damme, 2000: 172). From these
eight indicators, all bar relationships with teachers and attitude to homework were
specifically mentioned by numerous children in my research, as areas they felt had been
impacted upon as a result of engaging with P4C. Furthermore, Humphrey (2013) describes
wellbeing as inextricably linked to Social and Emotional Learning; the process of ‘explicitly
developing skills such as empathy and self-regulation in children’ Humphrey, 2013:1. In my
own experience and in the views of the children as part of my research, empathy and self-
regulation were frequently cited as impact of engaging with P4C.
Slow pedagogy
A possible strategy to ameliorate the stresses that face children and young people might
be a rethinking of how we approach education. In the current educational climate in England,
where ‘slow’ often has negative connotations, this chapter will now seek to explain how
embedding philosophical enquiry as part of a slower pedagogical approach might enhance
wellbeing in children as a positive educational connotation.
My interest in possible connections between P4C and slow pedagogy were initially
sparked because of a comment that a teacher made to one of my pre-service teachers in their
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PGCE year. When the student asked if they could introduce the class to P4C, the teacher
responded that he would only allow this if the student could explain categorically how the
P4C enquiry would support student progress in that particular lesson. Whilst it might be
possible to evidence progress in the very first P4C enquiry, my reflections were that P4C
might sit more comfortably as part of a slower pedagogical approach, as endorsed by the
Slow Movement (Hartman & Darab, 2012), where practitioners and advocates have a longer
term, more holistic view of education and educational gains.
The current view that seems to proliferate in society today is that the faster we do
something, the more acclaimed it is. Research in schools shows that both staff and pupils
identify issues concerning time as a potential threat to wellbeing (Dawkins, Boardman, &
Jennifer, 2004; Ebersohn & Ferreira, 2012), with ‘the pressure to proceed from one targeted
standard to another as fast as possible, to absorb and demonstrate specified knowledge with
conveyor-belt precision, an irresistible fact of school life’ (Holt, 2002:265). There is a
growing desire amongst educators to counter this current bias towards performativity and
results/data driven education. One example of this is a growing interest in the above-
mentioned Slow Movement, which began in the 1980s as a reaction to the hurried pace of
life (Hartman & Darab, 2012). Whilst this movement initially was concerned with advocating
a better attitude towards food consumption and enjoyment in reaction to the Fast-Food
industry, the Slow Movement has embraced other areas of life; leading in 2002 to a call for
‘Slow Schooling’ or ‘Slow Pedagogy’ (Hartman & Darab, 2012:58; Honoré, 2009; Payne &
Wattchow, 2009:15).
Honoré (2009) reports that a growing body of evidence suggests children learn better at
a slower pace, resulting in children who are ‘less anxious, more eager to learn and better able
to think independently’ (Honoré, 2009:252). Narayanan (2007) posits countering ‘Acceleration
and Speed’ with ‘Slowness and Wholeness’ (Narayanan, 2007:1). In particular, he discusses
‘consciously embracing the core value of slowness – both as way of being and as a way of
learning’ (p.6). His argument is that a slow pedagogy frees the learner from the constraints of
the school day, releasing them to learn at the ‘metronome of nature, giving them time to absorb,
to introspect, to contemplate, to argue and rebut and to enjoy’ (ibid, p.6).
Critics of slow pedagogy are primarily those who espouse a preference for a rigorous
academic education, focussed on knowledge-acquisition, rather than what they see as ‘a
diminished curriculum for diminished individuals’ (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009b:164).
However, Payne and Wattchow (2009:17) discuss how this tendency towards ‘fast, take-
away, virtual, globalized, download/uptake versions of pedagogy’ potentially might restrict
children to viewing education as ‘snapshots rather than the fuller picture, let alone engaging
in reflection’ (Hartman & Darab, 2012:56). This ‘speedy pedagogy’ can, I would argue, result
in superficial learning, focussing more on short-term memory retrieval, rather than deep and
long-lasting learning that is connected to a more permanent change over time. For me,
learning is more than just the ‘acquisition of knowledge or skills through study, experience,
or being taught’ (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2017) and resonates more with definitions of
learning as proposed by Gagné (1985), where he suggests that learning affects a change in
disposition that persists long term and is not purely to do with growth, or as posited by
Bingham and Conner (2010:19): ʽWe define learning as the transformative process of taking
in information that –when internalized and mixed with what we have experienced– changes
what we know and builds on what we do. It’s based on input, process, and reflection. It is
what changes usʼ.
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Hartman and Darab (2012) support slow pedagogies and describe the characteristics
of what they call ‘slow scholarship’ as ‘engaging with ideas through deep reflection,
experiential learning, and reflexivity, ultimately resulting in critical insight, creativity, and
innovation’(p58). They advocate that the ‘freedom and time to engage in thinking, to
immerse oneself in experiential encounters, to synthesize information and reflect upon it—
this is how new ways of knowing are formed’ (Hartman & Darab, 2012:59).
At the heart of slow pedagogy, or slow learning, is the belief that the learner has agency
rather than being a passive recipient of knowledge. It celebrates taking time to go deeper, to
deliberate and foster genuine and sophisticated understanding. Advocates of slow pedagogy
would argue that this makes the learning richer, deeper and more meaningful. Honoré
(2009:14 - 15) supports this, summarising that: ʽFast is busy, controlling, aggressive, hurried,
analytical, stressed, superficial, impatient, active, quantity-over-quality. Slow is the opposite:
calm, careful, receptive, still, intuitive, unhurried, patient, reflective, quality-over-quantity.
It is about making real and meaningful connections - with people, culture, work, food,
everythingʼ.
Interestingly, Bracey states that schools that are focussed on performativity often lack
in developing personal characteristics related to virtue and morality, ‘these are as remote
from the activity of fast schools as is gastronomic pleasure from fast food’ (2001 in Holt,
2002:268).
So how then might P4C support a slow pedagogy philosophy? Sharp, Oscanyan, and
Lipman in their book Philosophy in the Classroom, proposed that the aim of a thinking skills
programme such as P4C was to help children become ‘more thoughtful, more reflective, more
considerate and more reasonable individuals’ (1985:15). These qualities or dispositions are
not achieved in a hurry. P4C gives children, students and teachers an opportunity to step off
the carousel that a data driven, and test-oriented school system dictates, to engage in deeper,
more meaningful encounters, that by their nature need time to develop, improve, and
internalise. It is interesting that when you study what Narayanan (2007) suggests are optimal
learning arrangements to ‘foster and promote slowness’ (Narayanan, 2007:7), 2007:7, there
are elements that resonate with P4C. For example, using a circle as an optimal learning
environment; which Narayanan suggests represents symbolically ‘the spirit of unity and
equality within the learning community’ ibid, p.7, also, themes or topics for study which are
not prescribed but are emergent. Narayanan advocates that these topics should be selected
from student talk, through dialogue with the community –a clear resonance with the
recommendation in P4C that the enquiry should stem, wherever possible, from a question
created by the children, not the teacher/facilitator. A final connection is suggested by
Narayanan: ʽall learning is the result of direct first person conscious experience. This method
or tool focuses on the transformation of the self and the awakening of the mind rather than
on the transfer of knowledge and the acquisition of skills’. (p7).
I would argue that this view not only supports a more holistic view of education, but
also attunes itself to the Community of Enquiry (CoE) and the aim of developing creative
and critical thinking skills/ dispositions. Teachers and schools have readily offered
qualitative feedback as to the potential non-cognitive/affective benefits of P4C. For example,
a key conclusion of Gorard, Siddiqui, and Huat See (2015)’s research was that ‘Teachers and
pupils generally reported that P4C had a positive influence on the wider outcomes such as
pupils’ confidence to speak, listening skills, and self-esteem, wellbeing and happiness’
(Gorard, Siddiqui & Huat See, 2015:28). Indeed, more recently Siddiqui et al. (2017) carried
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out research in 16 schools (with 1099 children) specifically looking at this area. However, it
can be challenging to substantiate these affective gains, thus the starting point for my own
research was a desire to move from the anecdotal to the informed. Specifically, I was keen
to explore how the children perceived the impact of P4C, and indeed whether they would
independently identify any impact that could be said to be related to affective benefits or what
might be termed wellbeing.
I gathered my data from fifty-seven children (two Year Six classes, 10 – 11 years of
age), in a junior school where philosophical enquiry is embedded. The research approach I
used was the qualitative method of Nominal Group Technique (NGT) (see Asmus & James,
2005; Chapple & Murphy, 1996; Van de Ven & Delbecq, 1971). There were several factors
that influenced my selection of NGT as my research method. At the heart of my research was
ensuring that I heard the voice of the child, as my research specifically aimed to foreground
the idea of democratic practice in schools – sometimes referred to as Rights Respecting
Education – strongly linked to the UNCRC (UNICEF, 2012). The methodology of NGT is
widely recognised to be a solidly democratic research method, which empowers participants
through valuing and considering all views equally, thereby also harmonious with the aims of
P4C. The children were asked to consider, discuss and rank the perceived impact they thought
P4C had on them, their class and their school.
As expected, cognitive areas were identified by the children. However, from the ten
themes identified by Class A, only three had a clear cognitive focus, with the remaining seven
areas focusing on affective impacts of P4C. In the case of Class B, eleven themes or
groupings were designated, of which only four were cognitively focussed.
Key headlines from my research showed children identifying that P4C had impacted
significantly on their personal development and understanding of the world, with concepts
such as happiness, empathy, confidence, and self-belief, recorded by the majority of the
children.
Children remarked that P4C had seemed to make, not only them as individuals, but the
class as a whole, and even the whole school community, happier. The children attributed this
to having more time to talk to others, as well as P4C having made them more passionate
about learning. The children found listening to each other’s opinions enjoyable, but also
being able to express their own feelings to everyone, or share their own personal moments,
if they wanted to, stating that this helped them understand their own emotions better. Siddiqui
et al. (2017) state that ‘enhancing the enjoyment of school for young people … should also
be a part of the policy agenda for education’ (p12), and is in stark contrast to the warnings
raised about the current level of stress and mental health concerns in primary schools (Füredi,
2004). This identified impact of enjoyment of learning and increased motivation towards
school links to both Opdenakker and Van Damme (2000)’s indicators of wellbeing, as well
as Honoré (2009) and Narayanan (2007)’s claims regarding impact from a slower
pedagogical pace.
A key factor for many children was that P4C had helped them to not only respect each
other’s ideas, but also to understand other people better, which they felt had developed and
improved their empathy. Humphrey (2013:1) describes developing social and emotional
skills such as ‘empathy and self-regulation in children’ as central to wellbeing.
The identification by the children that P4C had helped to develop their confidence and
self-belief is encouraging, considering Holt (2002) and Narayanan’s (2007) warnings of low
self-esteem and an inability to cope, that they suggest is a common experience for many
children in our schools. The children in both classes described the impact as being not only
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in terms of having the confidence to speak out and express themselves clearly, but also having
the confidence to challenge each other if they disagreed with opinions that were being
expressed. This was also seen in Siddiqui et al. (2017:9)’s research, which reported that P4C
could impact on areas such as ‘resilience, determination, motivation, confidence, self-esteem,
and self-efficacy’.
Many children in the two classes commented on the fact that P4C had helped them to
understand the world better and how it works, also to understand the differences in the world,
both in peoples’ thinking but also in their circumstances – leading some children to comment
that it had made them reflect on how lucky they were to have a home, food and a family. I
would propose that there are links here with Brighouse (2008) and his work on ‘flourishing’
as helping children to understand ‘important aspects of their lives and the totality of their
life’ (pp. 61-62), as well as Kizel’s (2017:91-92) aforementioned research on P4C helping
children to make sense of the world and of their own humanity and purpose.
Conclusion
I have argued in this chapter that the rising tide of children’s mental health issues in
the UK (Edwards, 2015; Fraser & Blishen, 2007) is affecting ever younger children, and must
be of concern to anyone involved in education. Parents, teachers and schools around the
country are actively engaged in looking for ways to halt this trend, and consequently interest
has grown around the role of wellbeing as an educational issue. Many schools are trying out
new initiatives aimed at increasing children’s emotional health. However, I would suggest
that a successful approach in addressing, challenging and potentially dealing with this current
situation that our children find themselves in, is to embed P4C into a school’s pedagogy,
curriculum and vision.
Through ongoing discussions with teachers, tutors and students, there has been an
overwhelming consensus that the current environment in schools promotes and prioritises
speedy results and that adopting a slower pedagogy could potentially garner positive
outcomes in all areas of wellbeing. Narayanan (2007:7) suggested that the pressure felt by
schools to modify and adapt in this climate of accelerating change is not sustainable, adding
that it can result in: ʽa disconnect between the means and ends of education. The larger
democratic ideals of social justice, of interdependence and of co-evolution through
cooperation and collaboration are being increasingly marginalised in favour of greater
accountability through testing, the drive towards nationalised curriculum, which suffers from
a ‘one size fits all’ mindsetʼ.
Brighouse (2008:71) further stresses that ‘understanding that the ultimate goal of
education must be to facilitate the flourishing of the children in their care, … can help
policymakers, administrators, and teachers to resist these forces to some extent, and to
promote an ethos, adopt a curriculum, and manage the day-to-day pace of school life better,
to serve the children under their care’.
At the start of this chapter I suggested that I would attempt to address two key
questions, namely; what current research into wellbeing and slow pedagogy had to offer those
who would engage with philosophical enquiry; and secondly, whether the results of my
research would demonstrate any links to wellbeing as identified by the children as a result of
engaging with P4C. I propose that many of the characteristics of the Community of Enquiry
fostered through engagement in P4C, could be argued to support the aims and ideals of slow
pedagogy and could in turn lead to increased wellbeing amongst children. Furthermore it
could potentially stir in them, and in the teachers that facilitate P4C, the social consciousness
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or responsibility referred to by Kizel (2017:95). Kizel (2017:92) claims that P4C can enable
the children or young people we work with ‘not only to discover the meaning of life but also
the purpose and road this […] opens up for them’. In my mind this sounds like a better
purpose or goal of education, and one worth striving for, than the data-driven alternative that
proliferates today. Reflecting on my own research I would suggest that the children in both
classes clearly identified many areas of impact from P4C, which could be linked directly with
wellbeing and slow pedagogy, significantly more than the cognitive impact.
My proposal is that P4C can be seen to facilitate a particular pedagogy across the school
curriculum and indeed community; to encourage deeper learning, moments of slowness, and
reflection, that will enhance both pupil and teacher wellbeing. As a result, I would further
argue the need to explore potential links between P4C, slow pedagogy and wellbeing and
how teachers can be supported to recognise and encourage these links in their practice.
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Becoming a Philosophical-Teacher: The Role of the Teacher and

the Nature of Teaching in Philosophy for Children
Riku Välitalo
Oulu University
riku.valitalo@oulu.fi
CV
Riku Välitalo is a teacher trainer and a lecturer at a Teacher Training School in Oulu (FI) and
has practiced P4C pedagogy for ten years. He is also a postgraduate student at the University
of Oulu, where he delivers courses for teacher students on teaching ethics. His PhD thesis
deals with P4C, with a special focus on the teacher’s agency in the practice.
ABSTRACT
Philosophy for Children (P4C) promotes a pedagogy that builds on a collective process of
truth-seeking and meaning-making. In contrast to seeing teachers as sources of knowledge,
they are often described as facilitators in this communal process. P4C is part of the larger
movement in education that has aimed to put the child at the center of the teaching and
learning process. Yet, P4C, like other child-centered pedagogies, brings new challenges to
understanding the role of the teacher. This article traces the questions concerning the
pedagogy of P4C by incorporating Alasdair MacIntyre’s (1984) notion of practice and the
scholarship of P4C. MacIntyre’s concept of practice offers the source for unveiling the
internal goods of teaching in P4C. This article locates the internal goods in the teacher and
in the work or performance of the teacher. The work of the teacher is approached by
examining two components that shape its role. One is orchestrating a fruitful platform for
growth grounded in epistemic criteria, and the other is another level of specifically
educational judgements the teacher must make. Together, they form the internal goods found
in the performance. The nature of teaching and the role of the teacher in P4C provides a set
of goods for the philosophical-teacher in his or her educational task.
KEYWORDS
Internal goods, philosophy for children, philosophy with children, Alasdair MacIntyre,
community of inquiry.
RESUMEN
Filosofía para Niños (FpN) promueve una pedagogía que se basa en un proceso colectivo de
búsqueda de la verdad y creación de significados. En lugar de verr a los docentes como
fuentes de conocimiento, a menudo son descritos como pesonas que facilitan este proceso
comunitario. PFCP4C es parte del movimiento más amplio en la educación que ha tenido
como objetivo poner al niño en el centro del proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje. Sin
embargo, FpN, al igual que otras pedagogías centradas en el niño, plantea nuevos desafíos
para comprender el papel del profesorado. Este artículo hace un seguimiento de las cuestiones
relativas a la pedagogía de FpN incorporando la noción de práctica de Alasdair MacIintyre
(1984) y la erudición de FpN. El concepto de práctica de MacIintyre ofrece la fuente para
descubrir los bienes internos de la enseñanza en PFCP4C. Este artículo localiza esos
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beneficios inherentes en el profesorado y en el trabajo que desempeña. El trabajo del profesor

se caracteriza por involucrar dos componentes que conforman su papel. El primero es
componer una plataforma para el progreso colectivo basada en criterios epistemológicos y el
segundo nivel consiste en juicios específicamente educativos que el profesor tiene que hacer
individualmente; juntos forman los bienes internos encontrados en la actuación. La
naturaleza de la enseñanza y el papel del maestro en FpN proporciona un conjunto de bienes
para el profesorado de filosofía en su tarea educativa.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Bienes internos, Filosofía para Niños, Filosofía con Niños, Alasdair MacIntyre, comunidad
de investigación.
INTRODUCTION
Philosophy for Children (P4C) was established in the 1970s as an educational program
that promotes a radical change in our understanding of growth, teaching, and the relationships
that are formed in educational contexts.1 From the start, the primary mission was to
emancipate the child by developing an educational practice that creates possibilities for his
or her agentic action (Lipman, Oscanyan, & Sharp, 1980; Matthews, 1984). The aim of this
pedagogical approach was to transform the classroom into a reflective environment where
young inquiring minds have a space for the mutual exploration of ideas.
By emphasizing collective reason in its pedagogy, P4C scholarship has promoted a
radical change in the teacher’s role, which shifts from being an authoritative figure to being
more like a co-inquirer in the classroom (Lipman, 2003; Gregory, 2004; Haynes & Murris,
2011). In recent decades, we have witnessed increasing interest in student-centered
pedagogies, which can be seen, for example, in the tendency to refer to teachers as facilitators
not only in P4C, but also in other fields of education (see, e.g., Biesta, 2010; 2012).
Although this new shift has been a triumph for student-centered pedagogies like P4C,
it has also brought about worrying developments in education, as reported by acknowledged
scholars in the educational field. Most notably, Gert Biesta has termed this as the rise of the
language of learning (Biesta, 2012). According to Biesta, this is an outcome of partially
related developments, such as the postmodern critique of authoritarian forms of education,
neo-liberal ways of thinking, the impact of the Internet, and especially, constructivism. Biesta
sees that the language of learning has led to a hollow notion of the teacher as a servant,
retrieving its justification from constructivism, which does not operate only as a learning
theory or as an epistemology, but also as a pedagogy in which students construct their own
insights and knowledge (see also Bingham, 2015).
P4C is grounded in a version of social constructivist epistemology and is also attached
to postmodern critics; this raises a need to address the role of the teacher and the nature of
teaching in P4C pedagogy. Bingham urges proponents of P4C to re-think some of its original
commitments and take a leading role as a teaching movement (Bingham, 2015). Surely this
depends on what we mean by teaching in this unique practice that is located at the crossroads
of education and philosophy. It is my primary task to give an account of the nature of teaching
1
This text was originally published in Childhood & Philosophy 2017. The text is revised and shortened, but
otherwise it is the same as the one published earlier.
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and the role of the teacher in the pedagogy of P4C. In doing this, my hope is to articulate
some central internal goods in P4C, as it is theorized and practiced. Furthermore, I will show
that the teacher confronts questions about educational purposes, which are unanswerable
only by leaning to the collective process of truth-seeking, and require teachers’ individual
judgement.
A point of departure is Alasdair MacIntyre’s conceptualization of internal goods, which
will serve as a framework for considering P4C in terms of teaching. MacIntyre’s moral theory
rests on the concept of social practice. According to MacIntyre, for something to be a
practice, it has to create internal goods, which capture a distinctive vision of what it is
worthwhile to achieve (MacIntyre, 1984). My primary mission is to articulate some central
internal goods in the pedagogy of P4C, which give shape to the nature of teaching in P4C
and unfold a particular commitment in the role of the teacher. My study advocates a view
that teaching in P4C entails more than simply inducting students into different practices with
a purely technical skill set. Moreover, I suggest that the teacher needs to take into account
three broad domains of educational aims or purposes, namely, qualification, socialization,
and subjectification (Biesta 2010). Together, these domains form the educational telos of the
philosophical teacher.
My paper is organized in the following way. I will start by briefly introducing
MacIntyre’s main idea of what constitutes a practice and the vital role of internal goods in it
(MacIntyre, 1984). Against this background, I flesh out the internal goods of teaching in P4C
by studying the scholarship of P4C. This is done by showing that the nature of teaching
shapes the internal goods located within the teacher. Other internal goods are located in the
work and the performance of the teacher, through which it is possible to articulate the role of
the philosophical teacher.
Defining a practice
Alasdair MacIntyre’s famous work After Virtue, published in 1981, has triggered
significant discourse among educational scholars, especially regarding whether or not we
should see teaching as practice. It is beyond the scope of this article to go into this debate,
except to suggest that there is something worthy in terms of teaching, in this case teaching in
P4C. In the book, he offers an account for what can be called “a practice”:
… any coherent and complex form of socially established cooperative human activity through which
goods internal to that form of activity are realized in the course of trying to achieve those standards of
excellence which are appropriate to, and partially definitive of, that form of activity, with the result that
human powers to achieve excellence, and human conceptions of the ends and goods involved, are
systematically extended. (MacIntyre, 1984, p. 187)
MacIntyre’s account of practice stays true to Aristotle’s by stressing action guided by
a telos, which is the good of an activity. A good could be most succinctly defined as that for
the sake of which we act. A crucial difference to Aristotle is in the way it locates the telos.
For MacIntyre, ethical authority is grounded in practices, which offers the first domain in
which goods receive their meaning.2 In other words, ethical understanding does not guide
practices, but is formed in them3. A good is something judged valuable to achieve or attend
to in a practice, and the goods of a given practice are the purposes for action. A virtue is
2
Life narratives and moral traditions are two other moral contexts where goods receive their meaning in
MacIntyre’s moral theory, but this article builds mainly on the context of practice.
3
In Aristotle, biology or human essence plays a bigger role in locating the telos.
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closely related to goods in the traditional Aristotelian way of thinking as a disposition to act
for the good and also as one constituting element of the good itself (Aristotle, 1959).
MacIntyre’s distinction between internal and external goods offers the starting point
for deepening our understanding of goods. Roughly put, external goods are achieved when
something is done for money, fame, or prestige and can be acquired in multiple ways. Internal
goods give meaning to a particular kind of practice and can be had only from the inside out.
MacIntyre gives an example of a boy who is learning the game of chess. As long as the boy
plays chess just because he is receiving candy afterward and receiving even more if he wins,
the goods are external. So the boy is motivated to win, but not by the game itself, which
might provoke an interest in cheating in order to reach his goal. MacIntyre explains that ‘there
might come a time when the boy will find those goods specific to chess, in the achievement
of a certain highly particular kind of analytical skill, strategic imagination and competitive
intensity, a new set of reasons’ (MacIntyre, 1984, p. 188). Thus, his actions would not only
be guided by external goods (winning) by any means necessary, but by internal goods (the
practice)4.
What becomes clear from this example is that internal goods are essential for the
realization of any practice. Chris Higgins (Higgins, 2010b) expands the notion of internal
goods by making a distinction between the telos and the literal aim of a given practice. Inside
each practice, there is a shared vision of what is worthwhile to achieve, and each practice has
its own way of envisioning a finally perfected work, which captures the shared telos of a
given practice. According to Higgins, ‘this evaluative teleology is closely related to but not
reducible to the more literal aims that structure the practice’ (ibid., p. 246). Higgins finds this
distinction in MacIntyre’s own examples; one of them is about a fishing crew whose aim is
to catch fish, but never simply to catch fish, rather, ‘to do so in a manner consonant with the
excellences of the craft’ (ibid.).
Another useful and important structural notion can be found from the typology of
internal goods also originally interpreted by Higgins. First, we can locate internal goods 1)
in the practitioner and 2) in the products. The goods located in the products are more
specifically located in works and performances, and the goods in the practitioner can be
located in what Higgins calls moral phenomenology, biographical genre, and the excellence
of character (Higgins, 2010b). I will address these components as they fit with my primary
mission, and they will become clearer as we move along.
Next, the task is to search for the internal goods for P4C based on this typology and to
see what it means in terms of teaching. If we accept the MacIntyrean characterizations of a
practice, we also accept that practices are the moral sources for action. Every practice is
framed by its telos, which is the good of that activity. To act virtuously is to identify the goods
and act towards the goods realized in a given practice.
The nature of teaching
As mentioned, the pedagogy of P4C builds on a notion of a community of inquiry, or
more specifically (to emphasize the philosophical nature of such inquiry), on a community
of philosophical inquiry (CPI)5. CPI works in the realm of concepts usually starting from a
4
MacIntyre’s theory as a whole is much more complex, and my brief sketch does not give credit to its overall
architecture.
5
My assumption is that a philosophical dimension exists (but can remain hidden) in all inquiries, and so I will
refer only to the community of philosophical inquiry.
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puzzlement or a problem and trying to find the best argument or truth of the matter that settles
the case, albeit just until a new problem is found (see Splitter, 2014). The complexities
originate in the fact that it is a shared experience, where the creation of dialogical relations
multiply. While I address something to someone, it is also addressed to the whole group and
interpreted individually by each member.
Ideally, the group works towards a mutually coordinated perspective while accepting
its fallibility and the possible errors and partialities in its pursuit. Still, it is striving towards
a certain epistemic telos that is bounded by the Socratic notion of ‘following the argument
where it leads’ (Kennedy, 2010, Ch.. 3). On the other hand, this telos is something out of
reach, something impossible to predict, because the multiplicity of ways to move forward is
dependent on the participants in the communal dialogue (ibid.).
If we take the distinction between the literal and the actual telos demonstrated in the
example of the fishing crew, it seems that the epistemic quest as a search for truth works
more as a literal aim of CPI and the telos has to do with (to use Aristotelian language) the
manner consistent with the excellences of CPI. The telos of CPI would then not only be a
communicative, but also a disposition towards dialogical relation, a wakened desire to
understand the other (see Juuso & Laine, 2005). For example, Sharp’s articulation of CPI as
an activity that ‘fosters an ability to put one's ego in perspective’ illuminates this internalized
ability that grows out of the dialogue towards ‘a slow realization of what it is to be human
and live the human predicament’ (Sharp, 2007, p. 5). Also, Kennedy sees that by moving
beyond epistemological ‘egocentrismʼ, a more radical form hinges ʽon a new experience of
alterity within the self’ (Kennedy, 2014, p. 27).
This distinctive aspect is related to the philosophical ‘meta’ nature of CPI. It is a
practice beyond practices in the way it tackles the questions imbedded in various practices
including itself. So we could say that the practice under investigation works on a meta-
practical level fostering a community where different voices, that is, different practices, can
also be heard in a substantive dimension. CPI aims to tackle various issues in a spirit that
MacIntyre also sees as crucial: ‘there is the question of whether it is good for that society that
the goods of this or that particular practice should have this or that place in its common life’
(MacIntyre, 1999, p. 66; see also Higgins, 2010b, p. 243). In other words, CPI aims to offer
a wider perspective to the cultural habits that cloud our thinking. Dewey talks about a
possibility for cultivated naïveté that can be acquired through reflective thinking or by means
of philosophical thought (Dewey, 1963; see also Gregory & Granger, 2012).
It is the activity, the doing of philosophy, the way of embarking with contestable,
common, central, and connected questions that shapes the nature of teaching in CPI (Splitter,
2014; also see Splitter & Sharp, 1995). The experiential landscape calls for a willingness to
take the risk of preparing for the unexpected and throwing oneself into a state ignorance. This
enables more authentic exploration of meanings, connections, and relationships between
ideas stemming from the dialogue. The fresh and open attitude seems to be more natural for
children, but for the teacher, it calls for a readiness to ‘be “killed and eaten’” by the group’
as a traditional authority figure (Kennedy, 2004, p. 753; see also Haynes & Murris, 2013).
Gregory and Granger see that CPI may enable the teacher to ‘decenter from adultism’ in
finding their own sense of wonder reawakening (Gregory & Granger, 2012).
Both of these characteristics (the process and a certain attitude required by the
substance) indicate a particular commitment to a state of being that seems worth pursuing
(see also Higgins, 2010b). This experiential landscape is something Higgins refers to as the
distinctive moral phenomenology that is realized as an experience (Higgins, 2010a). So,
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although the internal good, once realized, is located in the teacher, its source is in the nature
of teaching. To be more specific, the intelligibility is derived from the ideal nature of teaching
understood in the practice of P4C. If we accept this, it follows that a teacher who is entering
the practice should start by experiencing CPI. This might happen by arranging inquiries with
faculty members or partaking in inquiries with children facilitated by more experienced
members of the practice. This way, the teacher can get a grip on the nature of teaching in
P4C. Working through this process, the teacher might start to notice that he/she needs to
change something within him/herself, in the way he/she encounters the students, and in the
way he/she encounters the world. This would be the first step in entering the practice. The
challenge is that a distinctive moral phenomenology is hardly observable; instead, it is
something that is experienced. Still, an important proviso is that this experience is not
something deemed to be good because it is pleasurable; although at times it surely can be, in
the MacIntyrean sense, this experience is good for its own sake and also contributes to
general wellbeing (see MacIntyre 1999, p. 64).
Let’s look at an example. When the teacher patiently holds his/her urge to give an
account related to the issue at hand, but merely feeds the dialogue with questions, he/she can
occasionally feel discomfort or irritation at the course of the discussion. There may be
students intentionally distorting the dialogue by playing with double meanings or having
other sorts of agendas (see Michaud, 2014). On other occasions, even when the whole group
is interested in working together, the teacher might feel a state of panic when the dialogue
gets stuck or breaks down because of too much generality or some other reason, and a deadly
silence descends on the classroom. Still, every morning when the classroom is filled with
students, the teacher is dreaming of an astonishing experience of mutual exploration, and
sooner or later his/her perseverance is rewarded. This is to say that he/she is not doing it
merely for the pleasure, but because, for him/her, there is something valuable in the activity
itself. The experience of the distinctive moral phenomenology, with all the risks and feelings,
offers its practitioners a vision into how it is excellent to be. At the same time, by offering a
way of being in a particular world, it offers an insight into a way of being in the world (see
also Higgins, 2010a).
The role of the teacher
In the ethos of P4C, there is a commitment to creating a social, political, moral, and
aesthetic environment, a space where these aspects are under conscious scrutiny (see
Gregory, 2012). It is the creation of the environment where a teacher’s excellence is
measured and also techne comes into play. By this I do not mean purely technical reason,
which would outstrip the possibility to conceive CPI as a practice and render it to
technological or scientific formulations, ʽbut a techne (Greek: skill, art, craft) based on a
series of philosophical judgments, and in which the descriptive and the normative are in a
chiasmic relationshipʼ (Kennedy & Kennedy, 2011, p. 269).
To start with, this skill-like ability can be found in the readiness for the signs of fruitful
dialogue and in the momentous judgements made to discard the prepared lesson plan when a
promising slot appears. On the level of an ongoing dialogue, the teacher has to make
discursive moves like, for example, explicating the positions, summarizing, asking for
clarification or definition, giving or asking for examples, indicating contradictions, or
pointing out possible contradictions by generating alternative views (see, for example,
Kennedy, 2004, p. 754; Fisher, 2003, p. 130; Gregory 2007). Interestingly, a teacher’s
judgement about the epistemic progress is not concerned with how close the community has
123
moved towards the truth or consensus, but with criteria that Clinton Golding describes as 1)
reaching mutual understanding ‘by the degree to which we appreciate the views of the other
participants, or the degree to which they are mutually intelligible,’ 2) through advancing a
distributed inquiry in ‘the movement from a problem and through a collective process,’ 3) by
reaching inquiry milestones that are the products of each stage in an inquiry, for example, a
consensus about an uncovered assumption in a suggested resolution, and 4) last but not least,
by ‘reaching epistemic consensus about the procedures of our inquiry’ (Golding, 2013, p.
427‒434; also see Golding, 2017).
These epistemic criteria guide the community’s standards of epistemic progress in CPI,
and from an educational perspective, can be viewed as an induction to collective
philosophical thinking. The criteria also shift the focus from the literal aim toward the actual
telos. The literal aim of truth-seeking does not articulate the manner consonant with the
excellences of the craft, and there is a possibility that questioning becomes the most vicious
tool of manipulation as exemplified in the movie The Paper Chase from 1973, or by
Bingham’s study on the relational nature of authority (Bingham, 2008, Ch. 5; see also
Michaud & Välitalo, 2017). Although there is a kind of extra-moral element in the excellence
of questioning, the nature of teaching already sets some requirements for the proper spirit of
CPI. So, in order to think of questioning as something pedagogically significant, we need to
think of it as something more than just a technique to put to use in the classroom. A good
internal to P4C, which intertwines around the concept of questioning, works in both intra-
and inter-subjective modes of being; it is questioning as a permanent (dis)order of collective
and individual habit, or as Lipman sees it, ‘questioning, more narrowly a quest for truth, more
broadly a quest for meaning’ (Lipman, 2003, p. 95). Furthermore, when the internal good of
questioning is practiced in an educational context, it sets great possibilities, but also special
challenges for the teacher. As an educational telos, questioning needs to be articulated
accordingly.
Educational telos
As discussed earlier, there is a multiplicity of ways to move forward in a dialogue,
but we can also distinguish a multiplicity of aims at work in the educational task of the
teacher. The teacher is confronted with institutional aims fleshed out in the curriculum,
but we (especially P4C teachers) have a somewhat contrasting aim to free our students
from oppressing structures in society (see Biesta, 2012; Välitalo et al., 2016). This is a
complexity that comes into the picture when envisioning CPI as a structuring element of
our teaching as a whole, entailing all aspects of classroom life 6, and therefore, being
forced to face its institutional role. Biesta differentiates three broad domains of aims or
purposes in education that he labels as qualification, socialization, and subjecti fication
(Biesta, 2010). Qualification can be roughly described as the domain of knowledge and
skills; socialization, as the educational encounter with cultures and traditions; and
subjectification as emphasizing education’s orientation towards children and students as
subjects of action, not objects of influence (Biesta, 2012; 2010). Biesta describes the work
of the teacher thus:
6
This is something that is not always clear. Some seem to advocate Philosophy for Children as a separate
activity from otherwise restrained curricular activities, and some construe a more holistic framework that
entails a larger pedagogical vision.
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Three dimensional thinking and doing also begins to reveal the complexities of even the smallest
decisions and moments of action and doing in the work of the teacher […]the specific complexity
of teaching, viewed from the perspective of the three-fold character of educational purpose, is that
of three-dimensional chess, where three complete chess games are played on chess board hanging
above each other, and where the pieces not only interact horizontally on each of the chess boards,
but also vertically – so that a move in the ‘game’ of qualification not only impacts what happens
and can happen there, but at the very same time ‘does’ something in the ‘games’ of socialisation
and subjectification, and vice versa. (Biesta, 2015, p. 5)
Here, Biesta is also taking the game of chess as an example. Recalling MacIntyre’s
understanding of a practice, it offers the first domain of purpose for the practitioner. In terms
of P4C, the crucial question is: What is the game for? One current discussion inside P4C
concerns the rules of the ownership of questioning (see Turgeon, 2015), where we can see
that some are advocating students’ primacy in questioning and see P4C as a pedagogy
grounded in emergent epistemology where fresh and unique ways are prioritized and
subjectification is seen as the most fundamental educational aim (see Murris & Verbeek,
2014; Kennedy, 2010; Kohan, 2015). On the other hand, there are some who stress the
teacher’s role in the process and who are more inclined to see the historical canon of doing
philosophy central in educational efforts suggesting that socialization and qualification are
set as primary goals for the pedagogy of P4C (McCall, 2009; Worley, 2011). If we accept that
both of these domains shape the game the teacher is facing in her task, the role of the teacher
is also shaped in balancing between these purposes.
Therefore, what I am suggesting here is that we can distinguish two components in the
teacher’s task. One is orchestrating a fruitful platform for growth grounded in (weak)
epistemic criteria, and the other is another level of specifically educational judgements the
teacher must make. Educational judgements in themselves can then be divided into three
dimensions. On the one hand, to use Biesta’s terms (Biesta, 2010), the teacher has to consider
the knowledge and skills (qualifications) that are seen as relevant for a given practice (i.e.,
academic disciplines), the ways of building a nest of reasons through which it is possible to
comprehend the practice as a whole and find it meaningful to pursue (see White, 2009, p.
425). In P4C literature, this domain is often referred to as ʽthinking skillsʼ (Lipman, 2003) or
the ‘tools of thinking’ (Cam, 2006). The dimension of socialization is related to the previous
one, and it calls for judgements based on critical reflective engagement toward the traditions
and cultures of which the practices are a part. For example, Darren Chetty and Judith Suissa
see that ‘the vigilance and humility required of white educators, then, means reminding
ourselves of the moral and political context in which our educational efforts make sense,
reflecting on our own racialized identities and those of the people in our classrooms’ (Chetty
and Suissa, 2017, p. 16). Thirdly, the teacher should be occupied with the question of how
her actions impact the student as a person. What possibilities could the engagement with CPI
offer in terms of being and becoming a unique subject? (See Biesta, 2010).
Conclusion
I started with a problem: What is the nature of teaching and the role of the teacher in
P4C? To answer this, I applied MacIntyre’s concept of practice as a first context of internal
goods in P4C. Based on this definition, I located part of the internal goods in the practitioner,
which are characterized as a disposition towards dialogical relation and a certain willingness
toward a state of ignorance shaped by the nature of CPI. Other internal goods were located
in the work or performance of the teacher. Here I made a distinction between the actual telos
of questioning as a philosophically and educationally meaningful activity and questioning as
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mere search of truth. This makes P4C a distinct practice not only as a part of philosophy, but
as an educational practice.
I proposed, following Biesta, that education entails a multidimensional telos, and
teachers are confronted with questions about the purposes of education. Recalling Matthew
Lipman’s and Ann Sharp’s proposal of multidimensional thinking (critical, creative and
caring), we can notice some connections between these conceptualizations. Especially the
dimension of care, when approached as an educational telos, elucidates the good of the student
and the good of the culture adding a special responsibility for the teacher. The teacher’s care
for the student illuminates the helping of students in their search for a good life, and the care
for the culture animates the requirements and answerability for our co-existence.
In answering the question ‘how to educate?’ the teacher is balancing a
multidimensional purpose and is forced to take the role of a tragic protagonist in his/her daily
judgements. He/she must choose what he/she sees as the most desirable end in a particular
moment, and often, that comes at a cost in terms of some other end. Still, this challenge is
the moving force of a philosophical teacher, and P4C pedagogy can serve as a practice in the
encounter of the greatest good: the growth of the student. The way the philosophical teacher
can tackle this telos is by sustaining the continuous quest for the good beyond practices, a
quest MacIntyre declares as the good life for man: ‘the good life for man is the life spent in
seeking for the good life for man.’ (MacIntyre, 1984, p.219). The unexamined life is not
worth living, nor is it worth teaching.
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2. FUNDAMENTACIÓN FILOSÓFICA / PHILOSOPHICAL

BACKGROUND
Ha sido muy común usar la filosofía occidental (entendida en un sentido amplio
y flexible) como la base filosófica de FPN. Sócrates, por una parte, y el
pragmatismo americano (Mead, Peirce y Dewey), por otro lado, tuvo un papel
relevante en el trabajo realizado por el equipo original de IAPC, pero con el
tiempo otras personas han acudido como fuente de justificación a otras escuelas
filosóficas o tendencias, tales como el posmodernismo, la hermenéutica o la
filosofía feminista.
The Western philosophical tradition (understood in broad terms) has been

commonly used as the philosophical underpinning of P4C. Socrates, along with
American pragmatism (Mead, Peirce and Dewey) played an important role in the
work done by the original IAPC team. Over time, however, other philosophical
schools or tendencies, such as postmodernism, hermeneutics or feminist
philosophy have been applied.
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18th Century Scottish Moral Philosophers and Children

Elaine E. Englehardt
Distinguished Professor of Ethics, Utah Valley University.
Elainee@uvu.edu
Michael S. Pritchard
Professor Emeritus in Philosophy, Western Michigan University.
Michael.pritchard@wmich.edu
CV
Elaine Englehardt is a Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Professor of Philosophy at Utah
Valley University (UVU). Her PhD is from the University of Utah. She has written and
directed seven multi-year, national grants in the area of Ethics and Ethics Across the
curriculum from National Endowment for the Humanities, and from the Department of
Education. One grant founded the Ethics Across the Curriculum program at UVU and another
funded the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum and their official journal Teaching
Ethics. She is a SEAC board member and with Michael Pritchard was co-author of the journal
Teaching Ethics. She has authored ten text books. She has written numerous peer reviewed
articles and ten book chapters. She has served in various administrative positions at UVU
including Vice President for Scholarship and Outreach.
Michael S. Pritchard is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Western Michigan University.
He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin. He is a founding
board member for the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum, and was a seven year editor
of its journal Teaching Ethics with Elaine Englehardt. Among his publications are: On
Becoming Responsible (Kansas, 1991); Reasonable Children (Kansas, 1996); Professional
Integrity (Kansas, 2007); Ethical Challenges of Academic Administration (Springer, 2010),
edited with Elaine Englehardt, Kerry Romesburg, and Brian Schrag; Engineering Ethics, 6th
edition, (Cengage) with C.E. Harris, Elaine Englehardt, and Ray James; and Obstacles to
Ethical Decision-Making (Cambridge 2013), with Patricia Werhane, Laura Hartman, Crina
Archer, and Elaine Englehardt. Among his many published articles is ‘Philosophy for
Children,’ in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. He and Elaine Englehardt are co-
editors of the forthcoming (Springer, 2018), Ethics Across the Curriculum: Pedagogical
Challenges. He was the PI of several National Science Foundation and National Endowment
for the Humanities grants in various areas of ethics.
ABSTRACT
While acknowledging the pioneering work of Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, and
Gareth Matthews in making the case that the philosophical inquiry of children should be
supported both in the schools and in their everyday lives, we argue that a number of 18th
century Scottish philosophers were also receptive to the idea that children are capable of
philosophical inquiry. We focus on Thomas Reid and Adam Smith, both of whom discuss
the moral development of children at some length. We detail some of their views regarding
the moral sensitivities of children, including the relationship between those sensitivities and
the development of the rational abilities of children.
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KEYWORDS
Children, moral philosophy, ICPIC, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart,
philosophical inquiry, reasonableness.
RESUMEN
Si bien reconocemos la labor pionera de Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp y Gareth
Matthews al argumentar que la investigación filosófica de los niños debe apoyarse tanto en
las escuelas como en su vida cotidiana, sostenemos que varios filósofos escoceses del siglo
XVIII también se mostraron receptivos a la idea de que los niños son capaces de la
investigación filosófica. Nos centramos en Thomas Reid y Adam Smith, quienes discuten el
desarrollo moral de los niños con cierta profundidad. Detallamos algunas de sus opiniones
sobre las sensibilidades morales de los niños, incluida la relación entre esas sensibilidades y
el desarrollo de las capacidades racionales de los niños.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Niños, filosofía moral, ICPIC, Thomas Reid, Adam Smith, Dugald Stewart, investigación
filosófica, razonabilidad.
INTRODUCTION
When the International Council for the Philosophical Inquiry of Children (ICPIC) was
founded in 1985, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret Sharp, and Gareth Matthews were
recognized as leaders of a worldwide effort to establish a significant place for philosophy in
pre-college curricula. Especially in the USA, philosophy was largely restricted to higher
education. Insofar as the question of children’s philosophical aptitude was given serious
attention at all, it may have been presumed that they were not capable of serious philosophical
inquiry. Led by Lipman and Sharp, Montclair State’s Institute for the Advancement of
Philosophy for Children established a K-12 educational program that undermined this
presumption. Quite independently, the philosophical writings of Gareth Matthews offered
powerful illustrations of children’s thinking that challenged this presumption, as well.
Although all three of these pioneers have now passed away (just months apart, in 2010
and 2011), it is evident that their influence continues. This 2017 ICPIC meeting in Madrid,
Spain featured many discussions of their work, both supportively and critically. This shows
how their memory is being sustained even as new paths to the philosophical thinking of
children are being carved. This is as it should be. However, in this essay we encourage
looking back even further than these pioneering efforts. We focus on two 18th century
Scottish philosophers who had much to say about the moral development of children, namely,
Thomas Reid and Adam Smith. Others from this period in Scotland (such as Dugald Stewart)
could also profitably be examined. One might wish that David Hume, Scotland’s most
renowned philosopher of this era, could be included among those who have important things
to say about the philosophical abilities of children. Unfortunately, he seems to have written
little about children. Still, we can ask what he might have said, if only he had been asked.
After all, the author of the Treatise on Human Nature claims that he was only a teenager
when he first formulated the central ideas of what many contend is his finest philosophical
work. Nevertheless, in contrast to Reid and Smith’s writings, the skeptical undertones of that
early work might have stood somewhat in the way of Hume accepting a community of inquiry
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as the starting point of philosophical inquiry. The two philosophers we have selected for
special attention here seem to be especially open to the idea that philosophical inquiry can,
and should, play an important role in the lives of children.
Thomas Reid
We are not the first to suggest that the approach of Thomas Reid (1710-1796) to
philosophical inquiry is receptive to the notion that children, not just adults, are capable of
significant philosophical reflection. This is precisely what Fiachra Long argues in his
‘Thomas Reid and Philosophy With Children’ (Long, 2005). Reid’s receptivity to children’s
philosophical thinking is further supported in Jessica L. van der Shalk and Rene van
Woudenberg’s, ‘Philosophy With Children and Reid’s Thoughts About Children’ (Shalk and
van Woudenberg, 2011). Basically agreeing with the general tenor of these two articles, we
will discuss Reid’s account of the moral development of children and the space it provides
for their philosophical inquiry.
Central to Reid’s view of morality is that its basic principles, rules, and requirements
are accessible to philosophers and non-philosophers alike. He says ‘Moral conduct is the
business of every man; and therefore the knowledge of it ought to be within the reach of all’
(Reid, 2010, 185). He rejects the idea that ‘in order to understand his duty, a man must needs
be a philosopher and a metaphysician’ (Reid, 2010, 283). This does not mean that
philosophical reflection is not needed. However, it is not just philosophers who engage in
philosophical reflection, any more than it is only mathematicians who engage in
mathematical thinking. Furthermore, even though Reid is convinced that moral knowledge
should be within everyone’s reach, it is not his view that this is easily attainable. Education
can play a critical role in fostering moral development. There are many obstacles that one
must take care to recognize and learn to avoid, overcome, or constrain (Reid, 2007, 10) if
one is to attain a solid, reliable perspective on what morality requires of us, whether we are
children or adults. Reid notes that all of us, if only we had the will to do so, could do much
better at taking these obstacles into account.
Nevertheless, Reid holds that children are quite capable of comprehending and acting
in accordance with basic moral ideas. He offers an example:
One boy has a top, another a scourge; says the first to the other, If you will lend me your scourge
as long as I can keep up my top with it, you shall next have the top as long as you can keep it up.
Agreed, says the other. This is a contract perfectly understood by both parties, though they never
heard of the definition given by Ulpian or by Titius. And each of them knows, that he is injured if
the other breaks the bargain, and that he does wrong if he breaks it himself. (Reid, 2010, 329)
This knowledge is not based on an understanding of, let alone acceptance of, a
comprehensive moral system. Even adults need not have such an understanding. Resisting
the Socratic demand (made of Euthyphro in Plato’s early dialogue of the same name) to
explain what it is that makes all right acts right, Reid holds that such a demand is
unreasonable. There may be no one thing that makes all right acts right. But even if there is,
it does not seem necessary to know what this is in order to have a deep understanding of what
makes this or that kind of act right (or wrong).
Commenting on the desire to have a system of morality that rests on a single,
overarching principle, or at least a small set of overarching principles, Dugald Stewart,
Reid’s student and close follower of his views, warns us against having ‘an excessive love
of simplicity’ which will lead us to sidestep ʼ ‘the real complication of our active
principles’. (Stewart, 1829, 17-18).
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A central feature of Reid’s view of morality is that, although systematic thinking can
help us organize our ideas in useful ways, a system of morals is more like a system of botany
or mineralogy than a system of geometry. Empirically based systems like botanical or
mineralogical ones are amenable to new discoveries and changes that do not necessarily
depend on, or seriously alter, other portions of the system. Similarly, Reid believes, moral
learning can be piecemeal and revisable in light of further experience and reflection. This
comports well with how children’s moral development takes place (and is emphasized in the
writings of Matthews, Lipman, and Sharp).
The two boys in Reid’s example understand their mutual responsibilities in sharing the
top and scourge. Although they may lack a definition of ‘contract,’ they grasp the normative
implications of their situation. They understand the bindingness of giving their word, the
importance of mutual trust, the moral injury that can result from betraying that trust, and what
fairness requires of them in situations of this sort. Also, without relying on a comprehensive
account of morality, they can extend their understanding to related, but different situations.
For example, they can realize that circumstances may require them suddenly to stop, even if
one of them is deprived of his turn. ‘Next time,’ one may say to the other, ‘it will be your
turn first.’ This, they can agree, is the fair way to proceed.
Reid speaks metaphorically of ‘the seeds of morality’ that require a hospitable,
nurturing social environment as they slowly mature (Pritchard, 2011). Also, he insists: ‘Our
moral judgments are not like those we form in speculative matters, dry and unaffecting, but,
from their nature, are necessarily accompanied with affections and feelings’ (Reid, 2010,
180). So, although judgment (which involves reason and cognition) is an essential aspect of
moral approval and disapproval, affect is, too.
In illustrating this, Reid (like his contemporaries Adam Smith and Dugald Stewart)
discusses resentment in great detail —focusing on both the promise and challenges it poses
for moral agents. Although it is a natural sentiment, it requires considerable refinement and
constraint if it is to qualify as a moral sentiment —and this begins in early childhood, as
one’s rational and affective capacities are developing together.
Van der Shalk and van Woudenberg contrast Reid’s approach to philosophical
undertakings with Lipman’s Thinking in Education (2nd ed., 2003). With its insistence that
children be prepared to give reasons for whatever they assert, Lipman’s approach invites
failure, they warn —and, in the end, skepticism. In contrast, they say, Reid’s reliance on
‘common sense’ allows some statements to stand on their own, without needing to be
supported with reasons. However, it is not clear that this depiction is a good fit for either
Lipman or Reid. Lipman’s starting point is what he calls a community of inquiry, not
Cartesian solitude. Nor do either Reid or Lipman endorse the Cartesian quest for incorrigible
certainty. Both allow ‘common sense’ appeals, but they would insist that these appeals
themselves must be able to stand up to critical assessment by thoughtful inquirers.
Admittedly, Reid relies on an appeal to ‘self-evidence’ in support of basic moral principles,
but self-evident statements for Reid may need to be carefully examined before their self-
evidence becomes obvious. He notes that without such examination, one may spend one’s
entire lifetime without noticing or appreciating their self-evidence.
Reid’s example of the two boys sharing a top and a scourge should stand up well to
critical challenges by both adults and children. However, not all views that might initially
seem plausible fare so well. Consider this example provided by Gareth Matthews: ʽIan (six
years old) found to his chagrin that the three children of his parent’s friends monopolized the
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television; they kept him from watching his favorite program. ‘Mother,’ he asked in
frustration, ‘why is it better for three children to be selfish than one?’. (Matthews, 1980, 28).
Matthews invited a group of 8-10 year olds to discuss Ian’s question (Matthews, 1984).
What followed was a vigorous analysis of the situation. None of the children seemed tempted
to side with the mother’s utilitarian leanings in this case. This does not mean that they totally
lack utilitarian leanings. Perhaps different examples could bring this out. (For example,
would they support the fluoridation of water in their community in order to reduce tooth
decay even if a few members opposed it?) Children’s eagerness to discuss such issues
illustrates what Reid calls their ‘principle of curiosity’. Reid comments: ‘The curiosity of
children is the principle that occupies most of their time while they are awake. What they can
handle they examine on all sides, and often break in pieces, in order to discover what is
within’ (Reid, 2010, 100). As Matthews’ example illustrates, such curiosity is not restricted
to physical objects. It applies to the moral domain, as well.
Throughout his Essays on the Active Powers of Man Reid discusses ‘seeds of morality’
that he regards as precursors to the child’s moral understanding and moral agency. For
example, there is the principle of veracity (a natural tendency to say what one believes is
true) and the principle of credulity (a natural tendency to believe what one is told). These
‘seeds of morality’ eventually help shape the child’s moral assessment of, say, lying and
trust. The principles of veracity and credulity are instrumental in children’s language
learning. As time passes, of course, children learn that others are not always to be believed
(they may be mistaken, or even lie); and they learn that they themselves are often mistaken,
and they learn how to lie. Still, as Reid points out, even adults retain dispositions to take
others at their word, albeit somewhat guardedly, as they lend support to the acceptance of
testimony and the norm of truthfulness.
For Reid, an essential moral guide for young children is a first principle that, taken
seriously, requires caring about others and not just oneself: ‘It is a first principle in morals,
That we ought not to do to another, what we should think wrong to be done to us in like
circumstances. If a man is not capable of perceiving this in his cool moments, when he
reflects seriously, he is not a moral agent, nor is he capable of being convinced of it by
reasoning’ (Reid, 2010, 177). This principle presumes that those who accept it do think that
they can be wronged, and, similarly, so can others. It does not, by itself, indicate what is right
or wrong, only that judgments about right or wrong in particular circumstances should be
generalizable to other circumstances that are relevantly similar. A fundamental starting point
is that moral agents do have ideas about right and wrong —for, Reid insists: ‘To reason about
justice with a man who sees nothing to be just or unjust; or about benevolence with a man
who sees nothing in benevolence preferable to malice, is like reasoning with a blind man
about colour, or with a deaf man about sound’ (Reid, 2010, 178).
Recognizable as a version of the Golden Rule, Reid’s first principle is not always easy
to use appropriately. Resisting its use only for personal advantage, Reid holds that one ‘must
consult his conscience, or moral faculty, when he is calm and dispassionate, unbiassed by
interest, affection, or fashion’ (Reid, 2010, 179).
Whether adult or child, we can easily fall short of attaining such a disinterested frame
of mind, but we have reason to hope that, with effort, we can have some success. Reid
counsels: ‘The faculties which nature hath given us, are the only engines we can use to find
out the truth. We cannot indeed prove that those faculties are not fallacious, unless God
should give us new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old. But we are born under a necessity
of trusting them’ (Reid, 2010, 179-180).
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So, for Reid, the story of moral development is one of the gradual development of
rational powers, of having appropriate affective responses to what one perceives, of
correcting oneself, and of accepting responsibility (for both wrongdoing and for doing good).
But central to this story is the social setting within which the development of moral
understanding takes place. Exchanging ideas with others, examining uncritically held
assumptions, and coming to appreciate both similarities and differences in circumstances and
perspectives is crucial to that development for Reid. These are all central features of the views
of those today who encourage the philosophical thinking of children.
Adam Smith
Thomas Reid’s immediate predecessor in Glasgow University’s position as Chair of
Moral Philosophy was Adam Smith (1723-1790). Although Reid took issue with some of
Smith’s views in Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, there are some striking similarities in
their respective accounts of the moral development of children.
The highpoint of Adam Smith’s theory of the moral sentiments is its reference to an
imagined ‘impartial spectator’, a critical point of view we may strive to attain, but with only
imperfect results. As with Reid, what is urged is that we try to adopt a disinterested attitude
toward our own particular interests and those with whom we have close association. In regard
to self-assessment, what is required is that, ‘I divide myself, as it were into two persons; and
that I the examiner and judge, represent a different character from that other I, the person
whose conduct is examined into and judged of’ (Smith, 1790, 110). Thus, both Smith and
Reid can be seen as trying to push moral agents, including children, in the direction of seeking
full moral justification of their beliefs, motives, and actions.
Insofar as we succeed in viewing our own particular interests and circumstances with
such disinterest, we can ask what enables us to do this. Smith’s account of moral development
is intended to help us answer this question. Before any self-assessment, moral or otherwise,
is possible, says Smith, we need the help of others: ‘Were it possible that a human creature
could grow up to manhood in some solitary place, without any communication with his own
species, he could no more think of his own character, of the propriety or demerit of his own
sentiments and conduct, of the beauty or deformity of his own mind, than of the beauty or
deformity of his own face….’ (Smith, 1790, 113).
Although Smith characterizes the perspective of an impartial spectator as a voice from
‘within the breast’, it is clear that the development of this voice requires the assistance of
others. Others serve as social ‘mirrors’, telling us how we are seen, and assessed, by them.
Such engagement with others offer us opportunities for conversation, or dialogue. The
‘reflection’ provided by others can occasion mutual exchange and exploration. Thus, neither
those confronted by this social ‘mirror’ nor the ‘mirror’ itself remains passive. Each is
provided with the opportunity for acquiring new perspectives and for engaging in critical
assessment of these perspectives. This aids us in moving in the direction of attaining the sort
of disinterested perspective of an ideal examiner and judge. We do not need to deny totally
the hold that self-interest might still have on us. This can aid us in learning to keep it more
in check, by coming to regard oneself as simply ‘one among many’ in a shared moral world.
Smith illustrates what he has in mind in his detailed examination of resentment. As
with Reid, Smith’s account of resentment is inspired by the earlier writings of Joseph Butler,
whose sermons discussed the moral importance of learning to subject our anger to reasonable
constraints (Butler, 1970). Smith points out that resentment is seldom welcomed by others
—either when it is directed at them or even when it is seen as directed at others. At least
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when initially observed, its unpleasantness often directs negative attention toward the person
who is expressing his or her resentment. The resenter is perceived as an aggressor, and the
person against whom it is addressed may be viewed as an unfortunate victim. This may
change in favor of the resenter after the observer has acquired a fuller understanding of what
has given rise to the resentment, but only after his or her anger is toned down. In cases in
which the resentment seems excessive, Smith observes, ‘Society and conversation […] are
the most powerful remedies for restoring the mind to its tranquility, if at any time, it has
unfortunately lost it; as well as the best preservatives of that equal and happy temper which
is so necessary to self-satisfaction and enjoyment’ (Smith, 1790, 23). This, Smith likely
thought, is also the key, in general, to achieving and maintaining the sort of reasonableness
in attitude and behavior that is morally desirable. So Smith might well have welcomed the
sorts of discussions encouraged by today’s proponents of a community of inquiry approach
to philosophical reflection among children.
However, in a recent article, Virgil Henry Storr and Arielle John pose problems for
Smith’s account, problems that would seem to challenge community of inquiry approaches
in general (Storr and John, 2015). What Smith describes, they suggest, is a mirror provided
by others that expresses their own enculturization, rather than disinterested assessment. Thus,
the socialized individual may end up being a ‘quite parochial figure’ (Storr and John, 2015,
33). What assurance is there that the cultural values surrounding the developing child will be
free from the sort of bias that seriously compromises the hoped for disinterested perspective
of an impartial spectator? Smith himself expresses concern that the vast majority of adults
fall well short of attaining an impartial perspective, even with the aid of others as social
‘mirrors’. Ignorance, unruly passions and widespread ‘self-deceit’ are the primary culprits.
Matters become even more challenging when we consider different cultures. Here Storr
and John employ the metaphor of ‘cultural spectacles’. They contend that our moral
perspectives are formed by social processes that challenge our ambition to embrace
substantive, universal features of morality. Instead, it is more plausible to see us as looking
at the world through ‘cultural spectacles’, thereby raising the specter of moral relativism.
Storr and John’s suggested way of dealing with the problems this poses is to encourage more
dialogue across different cultures. However, they note that the very notion of an impartial
spectator ‘evolves through a process of enculturation, and, as such, the impartial spectator is,
like all of us, a cultural creature’ (Storr and John, 2015, 51). They worry that, even at its best,
the perspective of an impartial spectator will be affected to some extent by the particularities
of the culture within which that perspective has developed. Thus, they worry about any
claims to ‘universality’ that Smith might make on behalf of the impartial spectator.
Nevertheless, Storr and John conclude somewhat optimistically: ‘On a more positive
note, however, we should expect that the more we encounter people different from ourselves,
the more our passions are moderated, and more cultured our spectator becomes. Thus, the
more cosmopolitan our lives, the more understanding, tolerant, and cosmopolitan our views
become’ (Storr and John, 2015, 51-2).
Why we might expect such results is not explained. However, Storr and John provide
the germs of an answer that Smith himself might find suggestive. Here is how they describe
the process of enculturation: ‘Wanting to receive praise and to avoid blame, we simply try to
act as others around us act. However, since other people can be biased, we realize that other
people’s feelings toward us are not always the best barometer of our actions. Thus, the
impartial spectator within us becomes our judge as we seek to become people who are
‘objectively’ worthy of praise and innocent of blame. To judge us at all, the impartial
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spectator needs a lens to help it discern the right and wrong in our actions, and that lens is
our culture’ (Storr and John, 2015, 51).
Although Storr and John insist that ‘the spectator’s judgments are culturally specific’,
it seems that room is provided for at least some of the spectator’s judgments to be critical of
the judgments of others, and even one’s own. This opening is acknowledged by Storr and
John’s statement that ‘we realize that other people’s feelings toward us are not always the
best barometer of our actions’. That is, it is possible for a culture to encourage self-criticism
rather than simply social convention. Smith himself found fault with much of the world that
immediately surrounded him, as well as with such practices as slavery in faraway lands. He
also credited ‘self-deceit’ with causing much of the moral mischief in our world.
Did Smith believe that children were capable of entering into philosophical discussion
with other children, and even with adults, about what is better, what is worse, fair, unfair,
kind, cruel, insufficient, excessive, and so on? It is interesting, and important, to note that the
students who heard his lectures at Glasgow were typically young teenagers (as were Reid’s).
One would certainly hope that he believed they were capable of understanding, and putting
into practice, the critical perspective he was advocating.
Those who today advocate establishing communities of inquiry in the schools need to
take Storr and John’s challenge of ‘cultural spectacles’ seriously. A note of optimism,
however, is that if these communities of inquiry are started early enough, the ‘enculturization’
that concerns Storr and John will not yet have fully set in. Combined with the inclusion of
serious study of other cultures in early education, establishing philosophical communities of
inquiry in the schools would seem to hold some promise in addressing their concerns.
REFERENCES
Butler, J. (1970), Butler’s Fifteen Sermons, edited by T.A. Roberts (London: London Society
for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Englehardt, E. E. and Pritchard, M. S. (2013)., Teaching Practical Ethics, International
Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 27:2, pp. 161-173.
Gregory, M.-R-. and Laverty, M. (2017), In Community of Inquiry with Ann Margaret Sharp:
Childhood, Philosophy and Education. London: Routledge.
Lipman, M. (2003), Thinking in Education, 2nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Long, F. (2005). Thomas Reid and Philosophy With Children. Journal of Philosophy of
Education, 39 pp. 599-614.
Matthews, G. (1980). Philosophy and the Young Child. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press.
Matthews, G. (1984). Dialogues With Children.(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Plato (1975). The Trial and Death of Socrates, translated by G.M.A. Grube. Indianapolis,
IN: Hackett Publishing.
Pritchard, M. (2011). Thomas Reid on ‘the Seeds of Morality. Journal of Scottish Thought,
Vol. 4, pp. 1-13.
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Reid, T. (2007). Thomas Reid on Practical Ethics, Knud Haakonssen, ed. University Park,
PA: Penn State Press.
Reid, T. (2010). Essays on the Active Powers of Man, Knud Haakonssen and James A. Harris,
eds. University Park, PA: Penn State Press.
Roesser, S. (ed.) (2010). Reid on Ethics. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Smith, A. [1790] (1984). The Theory of the Moral Sentiments, D.D. Raphael and A.L. Macfie,
eds. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc.
Stewart, D- [1829] The Works of Dugald Stewart, Vol. V: The Philosophy of the Active and
Moral Powers of Man. Cambridge, England: Hilliard and Brown.
Storr, V.l and Henrietta, J.(2015). The Impersonal Spectator’s Cultural Spectacles. In Of
Sympathy and Selfishness, C.S. Thomas, ed. Macon, GA. Mercer University Press.
van der Shalk, J. L. and van Woudenberg, R. (2011). Philosophy With Children and Reid’s
Thoughts About Children. Journal of Scottish Thought, 4, pp. 169-181.
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The Limits of Constructivism and the Possibility of

Facilitating Ethical Dialogue in a Community of Inquiry:
Avoiding the Temptations of the Ring of Gyges
Emmanuel Skoutas
Assistant Principal, Dandenong High School, Melbourne, Australia
skoutas.emmanuel.m@edumail.vic.gov.au
CV
Emmanuel is a secondary Philosophy and English teacher and is currently an Assistant
Principal at the Dandenong High School. He is a PhD candidate in Philosophy of Education
researching the connection between the disposition of care and the role of the facilitator in a
Community of Inquiry. During the year he is a part time lecturer at the Melbourne Graduate
School of Education in the subject of Dialogical Pedagogy for Critical Thinking with a
special interest in dialogical pedagogy. He is a member of the Victorian Association for
Philosophy in Schools (VAPS) and regularly runs Philosophy in the Classroom teacher
professional development with teachers across Melbourne. He has delivered papers and
conducted workshops at international Philosophy of Education conferences and facilitated
communities of inquiry using art as a stimulus at the National Gallery of Victoria.
ABSTRACT
In this paper I will examine and analyse how the pedagogy of the community of inquiry (CoI)
resembles and reflects constructivist epistemologies. The key model is the maieutic pedagogy
in the Socratic dialogues of Plato. However, constructivism is limited by its epistemological
and ontological relativism. I will argue we can still have a commitment to constructivism by
focusing on an ethical heuristic. Referencing Levinas, dialogue is possible because an ethical
disposition to be responsible for the other and respond to the other motivates our desire to
care about and for dialogue. The way this can manifest in a CoI is in the disposition to ‘care’.
As per Noddings, care is essentially relational and therefore can be seen as an ethical
disposition that acts for the other and is felt by the other. One of the consequences of this
conception of care for the facilitator of a CoI is that rather than rely merely on a constructivist
epistemology, an ethical heuristic also becomes a source for pedagogical judgments. An
example, of caring facilitators is when they avoid the temptations of Gyges, from the Platonic
myth. This metaphor illustrates how facilitators ought not make an exception of themselves
and to subject themselves to their ethical responsibilities. In conclusion, I suggest a
procedural example from the Australian Aboriginal practice of the ‘yarning circle’ used as a
scaffold for dialogical inquiry. This structural device may support the conditions for the
facilitator to be passively open to the needs of interlocutors and active in their moral
responsibilities toward the community.
KEYWORDS
Community of Inquiry, Constructivism, Care, Ethical Heuristic, Facilitator.
RESUMEN
En este trabajo examinaré y analizaré cómo la pedagogía de la comunidad de investigación
(CoI) se asemeja y refleja las epistemologías constructivistas. El modelo clave es la
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pedagogía mayéutica en los diálogos socráticos de Platón. Sin embargo, el constructivismo

está limitado por su relativismo epistemológico y ontológico. Argumentaré que todavía
podemos tener un compromiso con el constructivismo al enfocarnos en una heurística ética.
Al hacer referencia a Levinas, el diálogo es posible porque una disposición ética de ser
responsable por el otro y responder al otro motiva nuestro deseo de preocuparnos por el
diálogo y hacerlo dialogar. La forma en que esto puede manifestarse en un CoI está en la
disposición de 'cuidar'. Según Noddings, el cuidado es esencialmente relacional y, por lo
tanto, puede verse como una disposición ética que actúa por el otro y se siente por el otro.
Una de las consecuencias de esta concepción del cuidado para el facilitador de una CoI es
que, en lugar de basarse únicamente en una epistemología constructivista, una heurística ética
también se convierte en una fuente de juicios pedagógicos. Un ejemplo de facilitadores
cuidadosos es cuando evitan las tentaciones de Giges, del mito platónico. Esta metáfora
ilustra cómo los facilitadores no deben hacer una excepción de sí mismos y someterse a sus
responsabilidades éticas. En conclusión, propongo un ejemplo procedimiental de la práctica
aborigen australiana del “círculo de la estera” utilizado como andamio para la investigación
dialógica. Este dispositivo estructural puede apoyar las condiciones para que el facilitador
esté pasivamente abierto a las necesidades de los interlocutores y activo en sus
responsabilidades morales hacia la comunidad.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Comunidad de investigación, constructivismo, cuidado, ética heurística, facilitador.
Listen quiet. I’m alongside here, teach people here. They used to camp here, and painted. Little bit
of paint here. What the story is, they used to sit down and remember. Ah, I better go draw something.
That just like school, might be.
1 Bill Neidjie
INTRODUCTION
The introductory quote from Bill Neidjie, a Gagadju elder from Kakadu National Park,
Australia recounting his elders teaching Dreamtime stories. In its description we can
appreciate an ethical dimension to teaching that is demonstrated by his elders’ invitation to
proximity and community as a condition for teaching. It is also clear that he sees this form
of teaching as a model by which to fulfil his own responsibility to continue their teachings to
the young today.2 It is included at the beginning of my paper to illustrate an example of
teaching that is possible from an ethical heuristic. But can an ethic—and in particular
collaborative dialogical inquiry in the classroom called the Community of Inquiry (CoI)—
inform pedagogy? We are accustomed in the West to consider the findings from educational
research to inform teacher practice from psychology, social sciences and philosophical
disciplines such as epistemology and ontology. But can an attitude and disposition of
responsibility towards others also encourage teachers to seek solutions to how they facilitate
1
Neidjie, Bill (2015) Old Man's Story, Aboriginal Studies Press, pp.41-42.
2
It is taken from a series of stories narrated to Mark Lang to be transcribed into text and represents a break
with the oral tradition because ‘Old Man Bill’, as he was called, recognised that as one of the last speakers of
his language, Gagudju, he felt a responsibility to continue his people’s legacy not only for his people but for
all Australians and the written text was the best way to capture and relay his teachings.
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dialogical inquiry? In the spirit of Bill Neidjie’s teaching this paper is my exploration of how
an ethical heuristic can be a practical guide for the facilitator of a CoI.
I will explain how constructivism is an epistemological justification for facilitating
dialogue and yet it can be argued to be a limited theory and therefore not a fully coherent
pedagogical instruction. In the first section I examine and briefly outline the practice of the
CoI and in the second section I discuss an interpretation of constructivism and how it informs
and relates to the practice of facilitating a CoI. In the third section I examine how
constructivism is limited and suggest whether this gap can be overcome by an ethical
heuristic. In the fourth section I explore and suggest through Plato’s metaphor of the Ring of
Gyges how we can overcome the limitations of constructivist theory with an ethical
disposition. And finally, I discuss a current example from the oral tradition of the Australian
Aborigine in the use of the 'yarning circle’3 to illustrate how an ethical heuristic can inform
structured communal oral dialogues such as the CoI.
Section 1
The Community of Inquiry
The practice of communal dialogical pedagogy called the Community of Inquiry (CoI)
originated from the Philosophy for Children programme (P4C) initiated by Mathew Lipman
in the 1970s (Lipman, 1980). The role of the teacher as the facilitator of the CoI is crucial in
bringing about the conditions for a successful CoI.4 Teaching in the classroom is usually
thought of as an adult acting in ways that brings about an edifying transformative experience
for a child. In the P4C classroom the teacher takes the form of a facilitator who acts in a way
that draws out latent meanings from the students who co-construct their learning. Much like
the Socratic midwife, the facilitator of a CoI enacts the maieutic pedagogy where the
classroom structure resembles the ancient Greek agora with Socrates and his interlocutors in
dialogue about central and contestable concepts such as freedom, love and justice. The
community of inquiry is a term co-opted by Mathew Lipman (2002) from C. S. Peirce’s
‘community of scientific inquiry’ (Cam, 2012) to describe a communal group of students
who collaboratively inquire together to learn and enact critical, creative and caring thinking.
In a reference to the Philosophy for Children program, Clinton Golding (2011) cites the
educational and philosophical context of its curriculum and the central function of the
community of inquiry as its pedagogy:
The core praxis is the Community of Inquiry involving critical dialogue and reflective deliberation
in a group inquiry. This praxis has a distinguished intellectual ancestry including Dewey’s reflective
and inquiry learning; Peirce’s community of (scientific) inquiry; Vygotsky and Mead’s theories of
social learning; and commonalities with the dialogue theories of Gadamer and Habermas. (Golding,
2011, p.413)
But before the community can mature as an autonomous collective capable of critical,
creative and caring dialogical inquiry, the teacher will need to encourage and scaffold their
development (Splitter and Sharp, 1995). A fundamental recurring theme in the literature of
3
The yarning mat is a name given to a mat that is placed on the ground where interlocutors sit. The word
‘yarn’ as used in Australia has the general English meaning that relates to spun fibres but it also has the added
meaning as is used in the ‘yarning circle’ to refer to narrated stories, or to have a conversation.
4
I have paraphrased Matthew Lipman from an interview; Sasseville, M. (2005) DVD Des Enfants Philosophent,
Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
141
the community of inquiry is centred on the role of the teacher as facilitator. The following
are just a few examples of how the facilitator is to be understood:
a provoker, a manager, a motivator, a modulator, a facilitator, a coach, a weaver of threads, a
midwife and a gadfly’(Splitter & Sharp, 1995)
(…) the facilitator is a coach and a catalyst for the inherent autopoeisis of group dialogue. (Kennedy,
2004)
Teachers have a distinctive role within the Community of Inquiry—they guide students to make
progress and to learn to make progress (rather than leading students to teacher-decided outcomes).
(Golding, 2014)
What emerges from these views is that the facilitator who makes judgments will make
decisions that affect the development and progress of the CoI. Matthew Lipman reinforces
this when he describes the role of the facilitator. ‘Classroom philosophy teachers are
conceived as facilitators of philosophical inquiry rather than as authoritative sources of
philosophical knowledge. The guidance of a philosophical discussion is an art that requires
great tact, skill and judgment’. (Lipman, 2014).
Apart from the crucial role of the teacher as facilitator as a guide and ‘gadfly’ that is
described above (notice the recurring analogy of weaving in Splitter and Sharp), the quotes
also illustrate a pedagogy that encourages active participation of the students, which is the
hallmark of constructivist theory. Even in these brief quotes we see a relationship between
the practices of facilitating a CoI to constructivist methodologies. In the next section I discuss
more fully what constructivism is and how an interpretation of it is related to the CoI.
Section 2
Constructivism and its Relation to the CoI
The pedagogical options available to a teacher can be corralled in part by their
epistemological and ontological commitments. If this is the case, then a teacher’s
assumptions, beliefs and knowledge about what knowledge is and how knowledge is formed
at the very least contributes to the range of choices they make to inform the dialogical
decisions for the CoI. The dominant epistemology in education is constructivism (Powell,
Farrar & Cohen, 1985). Constructivism in education today is influenced by the work of Piaget
(1984) to inform cognitive constructivism and further developed as radical constructivism
(von Glasersfeld, 1995) and social constructivism (Vygotsky, 1978). Its interpretations vary
between exponents but below are just a few of the collated quotes that provide an overview
of the scope of their position (Jones and Brader-Arajae, 2002). What is important for my
purposes is to note the epistemological consensus that knowledge is co-constructed and any
ontological commitment to a realist position is suspended.
(K)nowledge, no matter how it be defined, is in the heads of persons, and that the thinking subject
has no alternative but to construct what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience.
(von Glasersfeld, 1995, p.1)
The central principles of this approach are that learners can only make sense of new situations in
terms of their existing understanding. Learning involves an active process in which learners
construct meaning by linking new ideas with their existing knowledge. (Naylor & Keogh, 1999,
p.93)
(C)onstructivists of different persuasion (hold a) commitment to the idea that the development of
understanding requires active engagement on the part of the learner. (Jenkins, 2000, p.601)
Although there are a variety of interpretations of constructivism in education as
suggested above, at the core is the idea that the development of knowledge and understanding
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requires the learner to be an active meaning maker. In other words, the content of knowledge
is not something external to the knower but something already immanent. ‘ (…) knowledge is
not passively received but built up by the cognizing subject’ (Von Glasersfeld, 1995). Thus,
constructivists shift the focus from knowledge as a product to knowing as a process. Within
constructivist theory, knowledge isn't something that exists outside of the learner’. (Jones and
Brader-Arajae, 2002).
The Philosophy for Children program makes this epistemological lineage explicit
(Lipman, 1980, 1995, 1996 and 2003). Maughn Gregory articulates the fundamental principle
of active meaning making that is demonstrated in a CoI and how it is related to constructivist
pedagogy generally. ‘In terms made famous by John Dewey, the goal is to bring children up,
not as passive recipients of educational content, but as active makers of meaning, capable of
exercising independent judgment and of democratic collaboration. The classroom community
of inquiry is an example of constructivist pedagogy (…)’. (Gregory, 2002, p.400).
He then goes on in the same article to further elaborate and explain on the role of the
facilitator using a constructivist pedagogy on the need to ‘scaffold’ the learning.
It is imperative in the classroom community of inquiry, as in all constructivist pedagogy, that
the guidance provided by the educator merely “scaffold” the student’s active intelligence in
making and testing hypotheses, and never override that intelligence by attempting to
“condition” the student toward predefined outcomes, on the behaviorist model of stimulus -
response. (Ibid)
Phil Cam (2011) also notes the relationship between the social constructivism of Lev
Vygotsky and the cognitive development in students participating in a CoI. Cam clearly
elucidates the important Vygotskian point (Vygotsky, Mind in Society, p 57) about the
primary role of social relations on an individual’s thinking. ‘It is vital to note that in the
Community of Inquiry this reflective process is not just an individual one. It occurs between
people. It is in fact primarily inter-subjective, and only secondarily a process that goes on in
the individual. Vygotsky’s doctrine that ‘all the higher mental functions originate as actual
relations between human individuals’ certainly applies here’.
Generally constructivism can be characterised as an epistemology, which does not
subscribe to the realist and objective correlation between what we know and the world. Its
epistemology seeks to overcome the stunted ancient arguments about what knowledge is and
therefore is very appealing to the pragmatist approaches to education.5 This epistemological
commitment traces its lineage to Plato’s Socratic dialogues. Plato’s pedagogy is based on his
theory of recollection, anamnesis, but there are clearly very few if any facilitators of a CoI
who would subscribe to the Platonic argument of anamnesis today. But the Socratic midwife
model becomes a useful guide for facilitators who subscribe to the constructivist arguments
about the immanent knowledge of students and the social methods of the co-construction of
knowledge convincing.
Section 3
Limits of Constructivism
Even from the brief overview of constructivism we can, I think, already point out two
substantial limitations as a pedagogical theory. D.C. Philips (1995) memorably describes the
Good, the Bad and the Ugly of constructivism that summarises the benefits teachers see in it
5
For an insightful elaboration of the influence of Vygotsky on Lipman, see Lipman, M. (1991), Rediscovering
the Vygotsky Trail Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines, 7 (2), p.14 – 16.
143
but also its limitations. The ‘good’ refers to the active participation of the learner and the
social nature of learning; the ‘bad’ denotes its relativistic approach to truth and reality and
the ‘ugly’ is the ‘quasi-religious and ideological commitment’ it inspires amongst its
adherents. The ‘bad’ relativistic implications of constructivism for the pedagogy of a CoI
question the validity and truth of the community’s constructed meanings. This is a dilemma
if we as teachers have to ensure our students meet educational outcomes and standards. As
Gregory (2002) points out, the constructed truths of the community may not meet the
standards and may not be objectively verifiable. ‘Therefore, without the authority of the
teacher as an external disciplinarian of the procedures and outcomes of the students’
community of inquiry, it becomes less likely that educational aims regarding the mastery of
standards will be met’. (Gregory, 2002, p.400).
Apart from the epistemological problem of relativism there is, however, the related
ontological problem. Splitter (2009) argues in his critique of social constructivism that if
learning is ‘meaning-making’ then the consequences could be that we lose any objective
foundationalism about the correspondence between reality and truth. If the truth about facts,
texts and even identities of the participants is socially constructed from the CoI, then the
ontological status of reality is not settled. As Splitter (2009) asks, is there not a responsibility
on the part of the teacher to ensure that students discover and create truths that correspond to
the authoritative knowledge we have accepted in our community? For example, if students
collectively rationalised to accept the legalisation of a dangerous drug, without the wider
facts and consensus research from scientific community and the social sciences about its
associated dangers, then teachers would be negligent in their duty of care but also in their
capacity to teach to accepted standards of critical thinking. The point is the teacher is more
than a facilitator of knowledge; they should also carry the authority of an expert.6 ‘With very
few exceptions, no community of learners can construct knowledge of a discipline or field,
unless their deliberations and findings are linked to the deliberations and findings of relevant
expertsʼ. (Splitter, 2009, p.140).
Splitter goes on to argue the resolution to this problem is a commitment to a process of
inquiry that includes ‘warranted’ claims to truth and justified true beliefs and I agree with his
argument.7 While not shying away from the relativistic problems of constructivism, Splitter
still endorses it as a pedagogical approach as long as there is a commitment to deliberative,
participatory and justifiable inquiry.
It follows that as long as we build into our understanding of constructivism a dual sense of
commitment to that which is claimed as knowledge, and to the process of inquiry that ensures a
warrant or justification so to claim, then constructivism is safeguarded against accusations of
relativism. This commitment, on behalf of students and their teachers, will encourage both parties
to tread cautiously and watchfully in the realm of claims to know, but to do so collaboratively, by
way of an inquiry into what they, as well as the relevant experts in the field, believe and why.
(Splitter, 2009, p.145)
6
Gert Biesta (2015) has raised the issue of how the role and standing of the teacher in the community has
been eroded by the ‘learnification’ of the teaching profession.
7
For the purposes of my paper I have not done justice to convey the complex discussion and important
argument Splitter has made to more fully articulate the concept of authenticity see: Splitter, L.J. (2009)
Authenticity and Constructivism in Education Studies in Philosophy and Education, Vol. 28, Issue 2 pp. 135
- 151
144
Although I agree with Splitter and his argument for collective, deliberative and
justifiable inquiry, I seek to encourage a discourse for an ethical solution. From the discussion
of the limitations of constructivism what becomes clear are two things. Firstly, there are
problems with constructivism that make it untenable as a coherent pedagogy. Secondly,
despite the problems of epistemological and ontological relativism for constructivism, we as
teachers can still engage in the practices of constructivism in the classroom as long as we
make a ‘commitment’ to how we make this pedagogy manifest in our classrooms. I agree
with Splitter in particular when he describes the pedagogical issue as a normative issue. The
way we get out of the dilemma of a limited constructivism is to accept a normative
commitment to find how we ought to think collectively. I would argue that this kind of
commitment is an argument for an ethical heuristic. But what would that look like for a
classroom?
Section 4
The Ring of Gyges
The ethical dimension of dialogue is important for overcoming the limitations of
constructivism. To do so, I will use the myth of the Ring of Gyges to illustrate and provide a
context for my argument but also to provide a model of what it might look like for a facilitator
in the classroom engaged in a CoI.
The Platonic myth of the Ring of Gyges is a narrative that conveys my proposition that
the capacity of the facilitator to foster an ethical community is to be included along with
current pedagogical theory as a necessary condition for dialogical thinking to overcome the
limitations of constructivism. My interpretation of the myth and its ethical implications are
informed by the philosopher and educator, Emmanuel Levinas (1906 – 1995). His analysis
is pertinent because of the ethical orientation he has argued for in our relationship with the
‘Other’.8
The myth was recounted by Plato in Book 2 of the Republic as an explanation to
Glaucon’s question about whether anyone could be virtuous enough to resist the temptation
to do whatever they chose when they would never have to endure the consequences of doing
wrong? The myth recounts a shepherd from the Kingdom of Lydia who, after an earthquake,
discovers a golden ring in a crevice. He put it on and learns that if he turns the ring he becomes
invisible and he can do whatever he pleases with impunity. When he turns the ring the other
way he becomes visible again. With this power he is tempted and seduces the queen and kills
the king and becomes the King of Lydia.
According to Levinas what is fundamental to the narrative is Gyges’ willingness to
abuse the power of the ring to escape from his moral responsibilities. He wants to be invisible
to the communal obligations and make an exception of himself from the accepted rules.
8
The reference to include Levinas is fraught with problems and issues around the link between philosophy
and in this case, phenomenology and education, but that is the subject of another paper. Laverty (2014)
discusses the concern (Curren, 2010) that philosophy of education is at risk of becoming disengaged with the
central issues of education when ‘. . . To write about Derrida or Dualism, Wittgenstein or Whiteness, Levinas
or the Other, may be thought so obviously rich in practical implications that education need not be mentioned
at all’ (Curren 2010, 3)’ from Laverty (2014 p.43). However, I accept Laverty’s argument that educational
discourse benefits from the inclusion of an ethical dimension. ‘…[P]hilosophers of education seek to challenge
and disrupt presumptions of educational efficiency and certainty, wishing to make explicit the ethical,
aesthetic, and existential dimensions of education. If they gesture to the ineffable, it is because they are up
against the limits of a certain picture of education.’ (Laverty, 2014 p. 44)
145
Analogously, the teacher’s authority as a facilitator of dialogue becomes morally

questionable and I would say untenable if they make themself an exception to the established
communal rules for dialogue. ‘Gyges plays a double game, a presence to the others and an
absence, speaking to “others” and evading speech; Gyges is the very condition of man, the
possibility of injustice and radical egoism, the possibility of accepting the rules of the game,
but cheating’. (Levinas, 1969 p.173).
The facilitator has an obligation toward the other to scaffold and guide the shared rules
of interaction and participation that becomes the foundation and possibility for reasoning. If
the facilitator allows himself or herself to be an exception to the rule, then he or she like
Gyges is ‘cheating’ by evading the measures they are asking of their participants to abide by
while excusing themself from the same obligations. Gauthier (2012) sees the interpretation
Levinas provides to apply to an ethics of hospitality but essentially the point he reinforces is
the moral responsibility one person bears toward the other. ‘More specifically, what
Levinas’s analysis (Plato’s myth of Gyges) suggests is that our status as moral beings stands
or falls with our treatment of the strangers who present themselves on our doorstep. By way
of positing an ethics of hospitality, …’. (Gauthier, 2012 p.200).
In relation to the classroom, the commitment to inquire together is fostered through the
ethical disposition of the facilitator. If the students recognise his or her judgments are
motivated from an ethical disposition toward each of them and collectively, then there is a
signal that the teacher cares. This notion of care is meant in the relational sense of care from
Nel Noddings (1984) but as Lipman (2003) writes in his section on ‘Education for Caring
Thinking’ there is also a link between emotions and caring thinking and its effect on decision-
making and judgments. Here he is referring to the community of inquirers as a whole
including the facilitator.
I suspect we feel emotions when we have choices and decisions to make, and these choices are the
leading edges of judgment. Indeed, so important is the role of emotion in the thinking that leads up
to the judgment and in the thinking that leads down from and away from it that we would be hard
put to tell the one from the other. In fact, they may very well be indistinguishable; they may very
well be identical, in which case it would make perfect sense to say that the emotion is the choice, it
is the decision, it is the judgment. And it is this kind of thinking that we may well call caring
thinking when it has to do with matters of importance. (Lipman, 2003, pp. 270-271)
But firstly, I briefly examine the notion of care from Nel Noddings (1984), who makes
the distinction between ‘caring – about’ and ‘caring – for’ which is relevant here as it has to
do with the normative interpretation of Lipman’s phrase ‘matters of importance’. As with
Slitter above, the things we make ‘commitments’ to, and the things we think are important
reveal one’s normative disposition to judgment. For example, from Noddings’ distinction;
the ‘caring about’ is to do with one’s concern about someone or something whereas ‘caring
for’ is the feeling of being cared for that the other person senses in a relational encounter
such as between a teacher and a student. The distinction is seen in the intentional goals of
teaching such as learning outcomes and curriculum content as ‘caring about’ which could
have to do with the material conditions that make learning possible for example. Which
contrasts with the ‘relational sense of care’ that a student can experience from a teacher. ʽThe
relational sense of caring forces us to look at the relation. It is not enough to hear the teacher’s
claim to care. Does the student recognize that he or she is cared for? Is the teacher thought
by the student to be a caring teacher?’ (Noddings, 2005).
Both senses of caring disclose what it is that the teacher preferences and this distinction may
inform how the teacher of dialogue in the classroom can establish relations that will make
146
dialogue possible in the first place. ‘ʽI do not mean to suggest that the establishment of caring
relations will accomplisheverything that must be done in education, but these relations
provide the foundationfor successful pedagogical activity’. (Noddings, 2005, p.4).ʼ
Although Lipman noted the primary role for care in thinking, the discourse so far
including from his own contributions, has only given it limited attention (Lipman, 2003) that
focused on the judgment. The nature and role of care in the CoI deserves greater attention
particularly as it relates to the caring intentions of the facilitator which then found the
subsequent judgments Lipman (2003 p. 270-271) writes about. It is the facilitator who
instigates the ‘community’, it is the facilitator who mediates and models critical, creative and
caring thinking. Ann Margaret Sharp (2004) pointed to the prospect of saying ‘much more’
than what has been said so far.
… one cannot help but think that there is much more to be said about caring thinking and caring practice
than what Lipman suggests. Maybe the same can be said with regard to critical and creative thinking—
but certainly with caring thinking we seem to be in a realm of metaphysics, as well as descriptive
epistemology. Caring thinking suggests a certain view of personhood and a pedagogical process. It also
suggests a particular environment for the cultivation of such thinking. I am referring to the process of
communal inquiry and the democratic environment of the classroom community of inquiry. It is as if
you can't have one without the other, if you are interested in cultivating caring thinking among children
on a large scale. (Sharp, 2004 p.9)
In taking up her suggestion here I hope I have made a contribution to the discourse on
caring and explained its place in the pedagogy of the community of inquiry that can fill the
void left by the limitations of constructivism. But are there examples of this type of caring
pedagogy? I suggest that there are. We have each experienced a caring teacher at least once
in our lives and there is abundant anecdotal evidence of teachers who chose this profession
as a vocation because of their aspiration to make a difference and that they care. In the last
section I examine one example of communal dialogical teaching that demonstrates the ethical
heuristic of care evident in the words and actions of Bill Neidjie and his people in the opening
quote.
Section 5
Yarning Circles
Amongst Australians the word ‘yarn’ is used both to refer to threads used in knitting
or weaving and for storytelling. The storytelling meaning for yarn originated from the
nautical slang of 19th Century sailors to describe the stories they told each other while
preparing and repairing ropes by twisting them with yarn.9 For Indigenous Australians10,
yarning is a word that denotes the sharing of stories and knowledge and for inquiring
collectively in dialogue.11 Indigenous educators have incorporated the practice of the
‘yarning circle’ into formal school settings. It is usually facilitated by Indigenous educators
or at least overseen by them when used in formal classrooms or on school grounds. Below is
9
The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology (2003) ed. T.F. Hoad Oxford University Press online
version (Accessed, 3/10/2017). For more on the sailing etymology see: Isil, O. A. (1996). When a Loose cannon
flogs a dead horse there’s the devil to pay: Seafaring words in everyday speech. Camden, Me.: International
Marine.
10
The term Indigenous used refers to the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people of Australia. I
acknowledge that Indigenous peoples consist of many First Nations, each with their unique culture.
11
The pedagogical and philosophical significance of the analogy between weaving and dialogue has a poetic
resonance in the term ‘yarn’ and could be further explored but better suited to pursue in another context.
147
a description of its features and processes that are practiced in a state secondary school,
Lonalea State High School. They resemble many of the practices one finds in communities
of inquiries from the P4C curriculum in more than 70 countries across the globe.
- Yarning takes place in a seated circle; this is either a physical space (allotted yarning space) or a
reorganised classroom with participants sitting on the floor or chairs facing each other. A yarning
circle does not look like a lecture theatre or traditional classroom experience.
- Yarning circles, whether small or large circles have a physical presence of shared power.
- A Yarning Circle looks one person talking and all others listening. Movement around the circle is
clockwise. (Davis, 2013 p.6).
This description is taken from a schools’ newsletter that is shared with local primary
and secondary schools in the southern region of Queensland, Australia. It is an acknowledged
Indigenous practice with historical and cultural significance. ʽDespite local variations of
practice, yarning is a valuable Indigenous pedagogy and process that has enriched many
classrooms. Many people within our national network use yarning and the process of sitting
in a circle with students, professionals and community members in their daily workʼ (Davis,
2013 p.6).
The oral language tradition of the yarning circle is derived from Australian Indigenous
communities where it is referred to as ‘Dadirri’ in some regions of northern Australia. The
name Dadirri and also carries the connotation of ‘inner deep listening to the land’
(Ungunmerr-Baumann, 2002). Yarning circles range across a variety purposes from
scaffolding reading and writing literacy (Mills, Sunderland and Davis-Warra, 2013) to the
sharing and interpretation of cultural knowledge through the use of multimedia (K.A. Mills
et al, 2016) or identifying ecological connection with the land (Mills, Sunderland and Davis-
Warra, 2013). Included below is an image about the use of yarning circles at an independent
school Hymba Yumba Indigenous School in Springfield, Queensland, Australia.
Yarning circles are an example of a device for building a community of inquiry that is
informed not by a constructivist pedagogy. Such a pedagogy as argued above may be limited
epistemologically and ontologically. However, cultural practices such as the yarning circle,
build on an ethical heuristic of teachers by bringing people together to problem solve, share
and build on their knowledge. For example, in my school12 the philosophy teacher used it
after she reported behaviours that impeded the class from forming into a community.
A variant of the yarning circle called the ‘yarning mat’ was used at Dandenong High
School to scaffold rules for dialogue. It came at a stage when little progress was possible
because there was a lack of interpersonal respect amongst each other. Their teacher decided
to use the yarning mat as a device to foster a caring community in order to establish the
conditions for inquiry. It had an immediate positive effect on the classroom dynamic and has
allowed them to continue to mature as a critical, creative and caring community of inquiry.
The device fostered positive emotional interactions to underpin collaboration as depicted in
Figure 2 below. She and the students reported a positive emotional maturation of the class
members over the course of the year. They were exhibiting indicative behaviours of a
constructive community of inquiry such as: appreciative thinking, empathetic and caring
relational concern for the ‘good’ of their community (Lipman, 2003, p.271).
12
Dandenong High School, a state government secondary school in one of the lowest socio-economic regions
of Australia with a very high non-English speaking community and new refugee cohorts.
148
I contend yarning circles are evidence of an ethical disposition in teachers to facilitate

dialogue with children. Their use demonstrates the teacher’s moral motivation to find
educationally significant methods by which to teach. The way teachers and elders define that
moral imperative is demonstrated in their stated responsibility toward the young to pass on
significant cultural knowledge, for example, and to do it in a manner and with a method that
represents their ethical values. One of those values is the responsibility of the elders and the
teachers to continue the learning of their traditions and knowledge. In this respect, the yarning
circle is a scaffold and a model that can also be used for facilitating a CoI that can help realise
the ethical responsibilities of the teacher. The quote below is another teacher’s reflection on
how yarning circles help scaffold the affective dimensions of community of inquiry that can
support critical and creative thinking. ‘There is a great honesty and humility that emerges in
the reflections of those across our network who lead or are involved in yarning. Yarning
encourages a different way of engaging with knowledge through participant’s having to relate
to one another both physically and intellectually in a circle the principle of no one person
being afforded the role to dominate the circle’. (Davis, 2013, p.6).
Section 6
Conclusion
I began and ended this paper with examples of facilitators of dialogue who have an
ethical motivation toward the young in their care. As professionals, teachers of dialogue may
turn to the philosophy of education such as constructivism for a pedagogical theory to inform
and guide their decisions for facilitating dialogue amongst a community of inquirers. But as
I have argued there are limitations to constructivism and therefore it cannot adequately
provide the framework by which teachers can reliably inform their judgments. To fill the gap,
I suggest that teachers who are to be facilitators of a CoI be guided by Plato’s myth of the
Ring of Gyges to not make an exception of themselves in the normative principles they hold.
We also have an example from Indigenous Australians in the use of yarning circles to foster
a caring community of inquiry. Ultimately, as Ann Sharp reinforced many times, we have a
principal responsibility as facilitators for enabling and modelling ethical relations amongst
the young that we teach through our motivation and disposition to care. For a teacher,
adopting an ethical heuristic may help overcome the deficiencies of pedagogical theory. ʽIn
conclusion, if we are to foster caring thinking much more is needed than logic and reason.
What happens in communal inquiry is that children become aware of a meaningful structure
in the relationship of their lives to each other and to the worldʼ. (Sharp, 2004, p.14).
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De los pensamientos al destino
Félix García Moriyón

Profesor Honorario. Dpto. de Didácticas Específicas. UAM
felix.garcia@uam.es
CV
Félix García Moriyón, Dr. en Filosofía. Profesor honorario del Dpto. de Didácticas
Específicas (UAM), tras 35 años como profesor de filosofía en enseñanza secundaria. Autor
de 19 libro y co-autor o editor de otros 22 sobre temas de filosofía y educación, con especial
atención a la filosofía práctica. Ha publicado unos 200 artículos. Miembro fundador de: la
Sociedad Española de Profesores de Filosofía (1980); SOPHIA, la Fundación Europea para
la difusión de filosofía para niños; y del Centro de Filosofía para Niños de España, del que
fue presidente cuatro años. Es miembro del ICPIC desde 1987, vicepresidente en 2005-2007
y presidente 2009-2012. Director de Thinking. The Journal of Philosophy for Children de
2006 a 2014.
RESUMEN
Siguiendo el proverbio al que alude el título, explicaremos el objetivo central de FpN,
prestando atención a su contribución al crecimiento personal de los alumnos. Destacamos
que FpN es una propuesta holística en la que se busca un desarrollo integral de la persona,
siendo muy importantes los conceptos de metacognición, hábito y carácter, entendidos de
una manera específica que los aleje de propuestas como la educación del carácter de
Lickona. Una premisa central en esta presentación es considerar que el aprendizaje
implica un cambio de comportamiento estable: gracias al proceso de aprendizaje, una
persona cambia su comportamiento de manera estable, lo que puede y debe entenderse en
el sentido de que genera nuevos hábitos que guían su comportamiento cotidiano. FpN no
se diferencia de otras propuestas educativas en el intento de lograr esta modificación
estable del comportamiento, sino más bien en la forma en que se aborda la tarea, en el
modelo pedagógico propuesto y en los objetivos fundamentales que se buscan a lo largo
de un proceso educativo.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Metacognición, competencias, hábito, carácter.
ABSTRACT
Following the proverb to which the title refers we will explain FpN's central objective, paying
attention to its contribution to the personal growth of students. We emphasize that FpN is a
holistic proposal in which an integral development of the person is sought, being very
important the concepts of metacognition, habit and character, understood in a specific way
that distances them from proposals such as Lickona's education of the character. A central
assumption in this presentation is to consider that learning implies a stable change in
behaviour: thanks to the learning process, a person changes his or her behaviour in a stable
way, which can and should be understood in the sense that it generates new habits that guide
his or her daily behaviour. FpN does not differ from other educational proposals in the
attempt to achieve this stable modification of behavior, but rather in the way in which the
151
task is approached, in the proposed pedagogical model and in the fundamental objectives that
are sought throughout an educational process.
KEYWORDS
Metacognition, competencies, habit, character.
INTRODUCCIÓN
ʽWatch your thoughts. They become words. Watch your words. They become deeds.
Watch your deeds. They become habits. Watch your habits. They become character. Character
is everything. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/01/10/watch-your-thoughts/ʼ
Hace tiempo hice una presentación del programa de Filosofía para Niños y consideré
que este proverbio podía servir muy bien como hilo conductor. Efectivamente, partiendo de
la importancia concedida al cuidado de los pensamientos como producto y del pensamiento
como actividad, algo que coincide con el enfoque de FpN en el pensamiento
multidimensional, se puede ir avanzando a las dimensiones más profundas y en cierto sentido
más relevantes del programa: el cuidado del lenguaje y de la argumentación, el desarrollo de
competencias y de hábitos, todo ello orientado al objetivo final: lograr un crecimiento integral
de las niñas y los niños que les orienta hacia el logro de una vida en plenitud.
Este desarrollo de la exposición permite además explorar con algo de detalle aspectos
que hoy día gozan de amplia aceptación en el mundo educativo: el pensamiento crítico, la
adquisición de competencias fundamentales, que aquí relacionamos con el arraigo de hábitos
de conducta, y el aprender a conocer, aprender a hacer, aprender a ser y aprender a convivir.
Esto es, reflexionar sobre la persona que queremos llegar a ser y el mundo en el que queremos
vivir.
De los pensamientos a las palabras
No hay mejor estrategia para aprender a pensar que pensar en el propio pensamiento,
esa es una de las ideas centrales el novedoso planteamiento realizado por Matthew Lipman
hace ya casi medio siglo (Lipman et alia, 1992). Es decir, practicar de manera constante la
metacognición, pues la reflexión sobre los propios procesos de pensamiento es lo que permite
detectar los aciertos y los errores y da paso a generar cambios en la manera de pensar que
nos lleva a ser cuidadosos cuando pensamos.
Esta introspección reflexiva se centra en los procesos cognitivos en general, desde el
nivel de la percepción hasta los más complejos y abstractos procesos de argumentación y
razonamiento, como pueden ser problematizar, conceptualizar con precisión, realizar
analogías, argumentar las afirmaciones, refutar… Se parte del supuesto de que, aunque
contamos con esa capacidad cognitiva de manera innata, el pleno funcionamiento de la
misma exige un proceso de desarrollo (García Moriyón, 2010). Es más, en todo momento
su uso práctico es difícil en sí mismo pues siempre puede verse alterado por posibles
falacias o sesgos cognitivos que inducen a sacar conclusiones inválidas y nos llevan a tomar
decisiones equivocadas. Por eso mismo, no todos los argumentos tienen la misma fuerza o
valor y el desarrollo cognitivo consiste en incrementar la capacidad argumentativa y en
argumentar bien.
La metacognición permite, por tanto, ayudar a los seres humanos a ejercer con cuidado
su capacidad de razonar, detectando argumentos falaces y sesgos cognitivos, lo que conduce
a ofrecer razones que sean relevantes, pertinentes, apoyadas en evidencias, convincentes para
152
la audiencia a la que van dirigidas y coherentes con el conjunto de conocimientos que se

consideran plenamente verificados. Ahora bien, no es una actividad que pueda y deba
ejercerse en general de manera solitaria. Es una variante específica de la capacidad de
introspección, lo que apunta a una cierta exigencia de soledad, pero se genera y se desarrolla
fundamentalmente en el diálogo constante con otras personas, a las que se reconoce como
interlocutores válidos. Es precisamente la confrontación y colaboración con esos
interlocutores la que permite profundizar y avanzar en la comprensión de las situaciones y
en la búsqueda de respuestas y soluciones a las preguntas y los problemas que nuestra
relación con otras personas y con el mundo en general nos plantea. Vigotsky señalaba con
acierto que el crecimiento lingüístico y reflexivo era consecuencia de una progresiva
interiorización del diálogo mantenido con otras personas e indicaba también que la
interacción social que se da en el diálogo de cooperación o colaboración es crucial para el
desarrollo cognitivo.
Si bien existe pensamiento antes y al margen del lenguaje, es en este, y sobre todo en
el diálogo con otras personas, donde el pensamiento logra desarrollarse, madurar y crecer.
Iniciada la explosión lingüística en el segundo año de vida (Gopnik, 1987; Galián Conesa,
2015), lo que se inicia es un largo proceso de ampliación simultánea del lenguaje y del
pensamiento. La riqueza progresiva en las dimensiones léxica, sintáctica y pragmática del
lenguaje provoca y alimenta la riqueza progresiva del pensamiento, hasta el punto de que
podemos encontrar una relación bicondicional entre lenguaje y pensamiento: un lenguaje
pobre (deficientes construcciones lingüísticas, escasez y vaguedad de palabras, inadecuada
contextualización del discurso…) provoca un pensamiento pobre, y lo mismo sucede al revés,
el pensamiento pobre lleva a un lenguaje pobre. Casos extremos como el de Hellen Keller
(Keller, 1905), para quien el descubrimiento del lenguaje simbólico supuso una auténtica
conmoción, hasta el punto de considerarlo el inicio de su propia identidad personal, o el del
niño de Aveyron (Itard, 1982) que no llegó a hablar con fluidez, muestran con cierta claridad
la importancia del lenguaje para nuestra condición de seres humanos en sentido pleno.
La participación en una comunidad de investigación filosófica constituye un modo
potente de realizar esa metacognición centrada en los propios pensamientos. Por un lado, la
tradición filosófica occidental ha cuidado mucho la mejora de la argumentación y del uso de
la razón en general. Obras seminales, como la Retórica de Aristóteles, o mucho más tarde el
Discurso del Método de Descartes o el Tractatus logico-philosophicus de Wittgenstein dan
buena prueba de esa preocupación, como también la da la actividad filosófica de Sócrates
recogida por Platón y la práctica escolástica de las Questionae Disputatae.
Al mismo tiempo, la filosofía es un modo eficaz de problematización de ideas dadas
por supuestas y de precisión y rigor conceptuales, sobre todo en el manejo de conceptos de
alto nivel de abstracción. Las posibilidades reflexivas de la práctica filosófica vienen dadas
por algunos rasgos propios de la filosofía que la diferencian de otras disciplinas. Especial
importancia tienen los conceptos filosóficos porque: a) son generales; b) se usan con
frecuencia en la vida cotidiana, a pesar de su alto nivel de abstracción: c) son discutibles. Por
otra parte, la práctica filosófica se caracteriza por: a) potenciar las competencias analíticas y
argumentativas propias de la lógica informal: b) indagar sobre ambigüedades, conceptos
vagos, paradojas, incertidumbres y los límites de expresiones dotadas de sentido; c) se centra
en la experiencia concreta y en la búsqueda del sentido de la vida de uno mismo y del mundo
que nos rodea (Rondhuis, 2005).
Todo esto lleva consigo igualmente un conjunto de competencias o habilidades
exigidas por un pensamiento que debe ser cuidadoso. Por un lado, está el cumplimiento
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estricto de las normas de la buena argumentación: pensar cuidadosamente implica en este

caso no sacar conclusiones precipitadas, ponderar serenamente los argumentos presentados,
evitar falacias, no dejarse llevar por sesgos cognitivos… Pero además son necesarias otras
competencias o hábitos de pensamiento de enorme importancia. Algunas ya formaban parte
de las reglas de la discusión democrática en la Grecia clásica: la isegoría, o igualdad de todos
en el uso de la palabra para expresar sus opiniones, y la parrexía como voluntad de verdad
(Foucault, 2008), ambas vinculadas al respeto profundo al derecho de las personas a decir lo
que piensan, aunque no al respeto de todas las ideas que expresan puesto que el valor de estas
depende de los argumentos que las sustentan.
Por otro lado está la necesidad de cuidar la presencia de los sentimientos en el proceso
de argumentación. Como bien decía Aristóteles (2000, 173-240), son diversas las emociones
que podemos introducir en la argumentación. Si queremos convencer, es importante mostrar
sensatez, virtud (honradez) y benevolencia; pero las pasiones en general no facilitan una
serena argumentación y por eso dan paso a la persuasión más que al convencimiento y son
hábilmente utilizadas por quienes manipulan el discurso, de ahí que se busque con frecuencia
provocar la ira, el amor, el odio, el temor, la vergüenza…, y otros sentimientos que
Aristóteles llama pasiones, reforzando así el rasgo de que no están bajo nuestro control, sino
que las padecemos. Es más, en algún caso constituyen el núcleo de falacias bien conocidas:
ad misericordiam, ad baculum, ad hominem, ad populum, ad antiquitatem… Del mismo
modo, son los sentimientos los que convierten los estereotipos, que pueden ser útiles en
determinados contextos, en prejuicios, que se traducen en sesgos favorables o desfavorables
que imposibilitan un pensamiento cuidadoso.
Lo anterior exige diversas competencias o dimensiones de la personalidad. Para
empezar, coraje y fuerza del yo, para ser capaces de expresar en público con asertividad lo
que uno piensa, aunque no sea aceptado por la mayoría de los que escuchan. Debe ir
acompañada de varios requisitos planteados por Albert (1973), en especial la modestia o
humildad que nos lleva a admitir de entrada la posibilidad de estar equivocados. Dicho de
otro modo, ponemos en juego el principio de falibilidad doxástica. Esto va unido a la
exigencia de evitar la auto-indulgencia epistémica, que nos lleva a complacernos en exceso
con las creencias compartidas. Una variante es la tendencia a leer sobre todo a aquellos
autores que piensan como nosotros, siendo más sensibles a los argumentos que favorecen
nuestra opinión previa o pre-juicio (Pariser, 2017).
El pensamiento cuidadoso implica también la capacidad de escuchar atentamente, lo
que no solo requiere esfuerzo personal para comprender correctamente las ideas de los
interlocutores, sino también aceptar seriamente que pueden tener razón, incluso darle de
partida la razón, como exige el principio de cordialidad. Todo ello reclama hablar con pasión,
algo que está presente en el nombre de la filo-sofía o amor a la sabiduría, pero al mismo
tiempo sin ira y sobre todo con estudio, siguiendo el antiguo precepto de Tácito; es decir,
pensando bien lo que se dice y procurando afirmar solo aquello de lo que se posee evidencia
contrastada.
De las palabras a las acciones
Partiendo de esa profunda vinculación entre los pensamientos y las palabras, el
pensamiento se convierte en acto precisamente en el momento en que es expresado en
palabras. Lo interesante es que, siguiendo las reflexiones de Austin, más allá de la función
puramente enunciativa o descriptiva, los enunciados tienen también una función
performativa, es decir, con las palabras hacemos cosas (Austin, 1998). Austin ponía ejemplos
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concretos: las sentencias judiciales (inocente), las ceremonias matrimoniales (declaro marido
y mujer) o las promesas (la famosa frase del Presidente del Gobierno de España: Puedo
prometer y prometo”). No solo es eso, sino que el mismo acto de emitir un enunciado o de
escribirlo, crea una realidad nueva que puede, incluso, independizarse de su propio autor:
cuando estamos escribiendo un texto o simplemente conversando, el hilo del discurso impone
sus propias reglas de desarrollo y quien escribe o habla es consciente de que no todo lo que
surge desde su pensamiento responde a su propia intención. El texto nos pide decir algo que
no habíamos pensado. Es más, somos conscientes de que una vez emitido o publicado, el
texto pasa a ser propiedad de quienes lo leen o escuchan, quienes le otorgan una
interpretación propia que puede coincidir o no con la que tenía su autor (Barthes, 1994).
Hacemos cosas con palabras y la dimensión pragmática del discurso es muy
importante, reforzada por recursos diversos intrínsecos, como la entonación o el ritmo, o
extrínsecos, como el lenguaje corporal y los contextos en los que hablamos. Hay palabras
que cuidan: en los primeros meses de nuestras vidas ya somos capaces de distinguir el
lenguaje humano, sea en el idioma que sea. Y escuchar esas palabras, aunque ignoremos el
significado, nos proporciona tranquilidad porque somos capaces de distinguir los ritmos y
los tonos y la presencia protectora, en algún caso amenazadora, de un ser humano. Hay
palabras de amor, sencillas y tiernas, como decía la canción de Serrat; palabras que generan
profundos lazos de unión entre los seres humanos, como los discursos de Luther King;
palabras que curan y consuelan, como bien sabía Viktor Frankl; palabras que invitan y
acogen, palabras de bondad y hospitalidad (Derrida, 1997, 23; Levinas, 1971, 211.242). Pero
también hay insultos, descalificaciones, lenguajes discriminatorios, lenguajes que dan paso a
procesos de estigmatización y barbarización (Mosses, 2016), hay palabras como puños que
preceden a guerras y matanzas (Rey, 2011).
Cuidar las palabras es una propuesta que parte del reconocimiento de que lo que
decimos tiene consecuencias en cómo nos comportamos y en la realidad que nos rodea. De
un reconocimiento más profundo que hunde sus raíces en uno de los relatos fundacionales
del mundo occidental, el evangelio de San Juan, “en el principio era la Palabra”. La identidad
reflexiva propia de los habitantes de la ciudad se construye en la conversación exigente que
ejemplifica Sócrates; Aristóteles señala que lo que nos identifica como seres humanos
diferentes al resto de los seres vivos es que somos lo seres dotados de lenguaje. Ya en tiempos
muy cercanos, Ricoeur (1990) plantea que nuestra identidad personal es una identidad
narrativa y Emilio Lledó establece una continuidad entre lenguaje, memoria e identidad
personal. En cierto sentido con un enfoque más radical todavía, Gadamer insiste en que el
lenguaje no es una herramienta o un instrumento que utilizamos para comunicarnos, sino que
estamos insertos desde el principio en el lenguaje: “Aprender a hablar no significa utilizar un
instrumento ya existente para clasificar ese mundo familiar y conocido, sino que significa la
adquisición de la familiaridad y conocimiento del mundo mismo tal como nos sale al
encuentro” (Gadamer, 1992, 148).
El ámbito para el cuidado de las palabras sigue vinculado a la metacognición, pero se
da principal y prioritariamente en la comunidad de investigación. Hablar, el lenguaje, no es
un acto individual, pues siempre hablamos con alguien y hablamos sobre algo. La propuesta
de Lipman entronca directamente con una larga tradición para el que el diálogo es el hogar
de la palabra y el lenguaje. Ese ese el núcleo de la propuesta de Filosofía para Niños (FpN):
transformar el aula en una comunidad de investigación filosófica en la que todos los
interlocutores participan en condiciones simétricas de igualdad y reciprocidad. Lipman
(1998, 313) cita expresamente a Martin Buber: me convierto en un yo con identidad propia
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en el momento en el que alguien me nombra, me escucha y me dirige la palabra; no es posible

un yo sin un tú y, por tanto, sin un nosotros. Es el planteamiento educativo que encontramos
también en Freire y en Burbules, y que está presente en las aportaciones filosóficas de
Habermas y Bajtin. Por su parte, Barthes (ibídem) revela esa característica especial de la
dimensión performativa del lenguaje: las palabras producen una subjetividad, es decir, una
forma concreta de ser consciente y de entender el mundo.
La comunidad de investigación, que pivota sobre al diálogo entre las niñas y los niños,
con la profesora o el profesor ejerciendo el rol de facilitar y dinamizar, es el ámbito en el que
se da la palabra a quienes hasta ahora casi nunca la han tenido y a quienes no se les ha
reconocido, entre otros y de manera especial, a las niñas y los niños, en una interpretación
radical de la isegoría. Comprometidos con un diálogo exigente, fundamentado en la escucha
atenta del otro con el objetivo compartido de avanzar en la búsqueda de la verdad, se
potencian unas competencias cognitivas y afectivas que se transforman en genuinos pilares
del empoderamiento de los estudiantes, quienes tienen una experiencia de dialogar como
sujetos activos, lo que contribuirá a ser actores en la configuración de una sociedad
democrática (Sharp y Splitter, 1995).
De los actos a los hábitos
La educación busca provocar cambios estables de conducta. Se trata de un proceso que
está presente en todo el ciclo vital del ser humano, por más que tendemos a reducirlo a los
años que van del nacimiento al comienzo de la vida adulta, en el marco de un sistema
educativo que, en su etapa obligatoria y universal, dura en torno a quince años, de los 3 hasta
los 16 o 18. En su sentido más general, educar consiste en conseguir un cambio estable de
conducta que haga posible una integración creativa y personal de cada individuo en la
sociedad en la que ha nacido y crece. Si nos centramos en las aulas, la actividad que allí
desarrollamos de manera sistemática busca provocar en el alumnado, y también en el
profesorado, determinadas pautas de comportamientos que, en la medida en que pasan a
formar parte de nuestra propia manera de actuar, reciben el nombre de hábitos.
Ciertamente, destacar la formación de hábitos como objetivo de la educación tiene una
fuerte influencia inicial del conductismo, lo que puede derivar en condicionamiento
instrumental e incluso en adoctrinamiento. No obstante, eso es un reduccionismo no
justificado puesto que pretende el la integración sea precisamente personal y creativa. En la
actualidad se habla sobre todo de buscar el desarrollo e interiorización de competencias o
habilidades, un enfoque que pretende que adaptar la educación a las exigencias de la sociedad
actual, si bien puede también contribuir a una trivialización de la misma. Según el informe
DeSeCo (2005), las competencias clave involucran la movilización de destrezas prácticas y
cognitivas, habilidades creativas y otros recursos psicosociales como actitudes, motivación
y valores, que se movilizan conjuntamente para lograr una acción eficaz. Esta definición
permite establecer una continuidad profunda entre los hábitos y las competencias, y además,
dado que las competencias ponen énfasis en el aprendizaje y, por tanto, dan protagonismo
educativo a los estudiantes, pueden encajar muy bien en el enfoque de FpN. Aceptar esta
continuidad no implica pasar por alto las críticas que ha merecido este enfoque auspiciado
por la OCDE, bien por sus concesiones a la learnification de la que habla Biesta (Biesta,
2017) o bien por sus implicaciones y puntos de partida, excesivamente vinculadas a
planteamientos economicistas (Gimeno Sacristán, 2008).
Buscamos, por tanto, generar hábitos, algo que, en principio, podemos relacionar con
la ética de Aristóteles, quien definía los hábitos como disposiciones que se adquieren por la
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práctica constante y que nos inclinan a actuar de determinada manera, facilitando de este
modo nuestra conducta. Más importante es la advertencia que nos hace el filósofo griego:
para ser buenos, no basta con actuar de determinada manera, como lo haría quien solo actuara
por costumbre rutinaria automatizada. Cada acción concreta, facilitada por ese hábito que se
posee como segunda naturaleza, solo contribuye a nuestro crecimiento personal y a alcanzar
la plenitud que nos es propia, si la hacemos de manera consciente (sabemos lo que hacemos),
las elegimos nosotros mismos y lo hacemos de manera firme y constante (Aristóteles, 1985,
II, 1, 4-5). El hábito no inhibe la acción libre y responsable, sino que la facilita; cuando el
hábito está orientado hacia un buen comportamiento, Aristóteles lo llama virtud; si, por el
contrario, está orientado hacia el mal, es un vicio.
Esto último es importante para entender bien la propuesta de formación de FpN. Cierto
es que en el aula se practica de manera estable y constante un diálogo que exige determinadas
competencias que van a ir siendo interiorizadas por los estudiantes, hasta convertir el
ejercicio de un pensamiento multidimensional (crítico, creativo y cuidadoso) en un hábito o
una dimensión que forma parte de nuestra personalidad. Eso sí, se hace en el marco de esa
metacognición que invita al niño a pensar por sí mismo en el contexto de una comunidad de
investigación. Ese es el enfoque que da Dewey al concepto de hábito; distingue tres niveles
de acción: la que se produce motivada por el impulso y los instintos, atendiendo a necesidades
básicas; la que está regula por costumbres o hábitos socialmente arraigados, que operan de
forma inconsciente facilitando la vida de los seres humanos; por último, la que está regulada
por criterios que son al mismo tiempo sociales y racionales lo que exige un proceso de
reflexión consciente. Este tercer nivel es el realmente importante (Dewey, 1932, 37ss).
Los hábitos se aprenden desde la primera infancia, siendo interiorizados en el proceso
de socialización hasta formar parte de nuestra personalidad. No obstante, esas costumbres,
instituidas por la sociedad de manera intencional para resolver los problemas de
supervivencia, en un determinado momento pueden llegar a ser instintos rígidos que
obstaculizan la acción por lo que es necesario modificar esos hábitos para crear otros nuevos,
más adecuados. Esto exige una tarea educativa en la que el objetivo sea proporcionar hábitos
flexibles e inteligentes que sepan responder a los cambios y tener en cuenta las consecuencias
de nuestros actos (Anderson, 2014). Se trata de una educación que promueva hábitos de
pensamiento independiente, investigación crítica, observación, experimentación, previsión
de consecuencias e imaginación, y al mismo tiempo hábitos de empatía y cordialidad que
favorezcan la colaboración con las otras personas (Dewey, 1922, 127s.).
La propuesta educativa de FpN, como claramente decía Lipman, consiste en seguir el
modelo planteado por Peirce, para quien las creencias, esto es, las opiniones que mantenemos
los seres humanos, consisten en hábitos que orientan nuestra reflexión y la resolución de
problemas (Peirce, 1877). La forma mejor de fijar nuevos hábitos (creencias) que sustituyan
a creencias (hábitos) que chocan con nuevas experiencias o situaciones es la comunidad de
investigación científica, que posteriormente Dewey convierte en comunidad de investigación
filosófica y la aplica a la educación, para que por último Lipman y Sharp la conviertan en el
eje del currículo de FpN (Pineda, 2006). La formación de hábitos en este contexto, en el que
predomina la reflexión rigurosa, gobernada por normas democráticas de participación de
todos sus miembros, alumnado y profesorado, constituye un proceso dialéctico que
evoluciona para expandir el poder de los niños y las niñas, no para imponer constricciones a
su capacidad de reflexión y acción (Kennedy, 2012). Como decía Dewey, “sólo a través del
proceso de despojo crítico de la interiorización cultural ingenua es posible “el fomento
inteligente de la cultura” (Dewey, 1981, p. 40). El progreso moral se consigue en la medida
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en que alcanzamos hábitos de revisión reflexiva sobre nuestros juicios de valor y las acciones
que se derivan de esos juicios. La infancia y la adolescencia son etapas en las que los hábitos
ya adquiridos son todavía flexibles y pueden ser modificados con facilidad. La vida adulta
será el periodo de permanente revisión de estos hábitos, aunque la edad va dejando el poso
de hábitos petrificados y hace más difícil cambiar renunciando a respuestas que ya no sirven
cuando cambian las preguntas.
De los hábitos hasta la formación del carácter
Los manuales de psicología suelen distinguir entre temperamento, carácter y
personalidad. El primero es la parte biológica e innata y el segundo lo que vamos
construyendo según respondemos a las experiencias. La personalidad sería el conjunto de
ambas cosas: lo que aporta el temperamento y lo que logra el carácter reaccionando desde
ese temperamento a las circunstancias ambientales que nos toca vivir. Por eso tiene todo el
sentido decir que lo importante no es lo que nos ocurre, sea esto el temperamento o el
ambiente, sino lo que hacemos con lo que nos ocurre, pues siempre queda un margen para la
actuación que es genuina y exclusiva responsabilidad de cada persona. El papel fundamental
de la educación se centra en proporcionar un ambiente adecuado para potenciar que los
educandos crezcan como personas, lo que implica cuidar su carácter.
Esto es lo que, tal y como hemos venido exponiendo en los apartados anteriores, se
hace en FpN, por lo que puede ser entendido como un programa de educación del carácter.
Cierto es que es importante marcar distancias respecto a lo que habitualmente se entiende por
educación del carácter, una propuesta desarrollada por Thomas Lickona (1991) que cuenta
en estos momentos con una gran aceptación aglutinada en torno a un movimiento, Character
counts!, que defiende efectivamente la creación de hábitos morales, pero sobre todo en el
sentido de lograr que los estudiantes interioricen, mediante refuerzos y modelado, hábitos de
conducta, virtudes, que son consideradas fundamentales, los seis pilares del carácter. Esta
propuesta se presenta como respuesta a la crisis de valores morales en la sociedad y la
carencia de una efectiva labor educativa. Es criticable por su enfoque más bien adoctrinador
que deja poco espacio para el crecimiento autónomo de los niños (Geren, 2001), pero el
objetivo final es valioso: la formación del carácter. Por otra parte, una amplia y ambiciosa
investigación promovida por el Departamento de Educación de Estados Unidos llega a la
conclusión de que la aplicación del programa no tiene efectos significativos en el crecimiento
moral de los niños (Social and Character, 2011).
Tanto Lickona como Lipman intentaron proponer un modelo de educación moral como
respuesta a las insuficiencias de dos modelos muy aceptados en los años setenta y ochenta
del pasado siglo, la clarificación de valores y el enfoque cognitivista de Kohlberg. Ahora
bien, el programa de FpN se distancia de la educación del carácter por su enfoque, más
próximo al modelo de desarrollo defendido por Vigotsky, en el que se podía encontrar una
vía alternativa para resolver el problema (Tappan, 1988; Daniel, 1991). En definitiva, como
ya hemos señalado, el concepto de carácter y de hábito que se maneja es muy distinto y se
inspira en Dewey (1925), quien entendía el carácter como poder de actuación social, algo
que incluye: a) inteligencia o visión social (buen juicio); b) poder social ejecutivo (fuerza,
eficacia en la ejecución); y c) interés y responsabilidad social (hace referencia a la dimensión
emotiva de la conciencia del fin).
No se cuestiona la existencia de un conjunto importante de valores que son reconocidos
por las sociedades actuales, pero el énfasis se pone en fomentar en los niños el dominio de
hábitos y habilidades que les permitan con eficacia resolver los problemas que plantea la
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vida. La primera diferencia radical es que FpN parte del reconocimiento de la capacidad de
los niños desde muy temprana edad para razonar y tener una clara conciencia moral, lo que
les convierte en agentes de su propio crecimiento personal (Lipman & Sharp, 1988, Pritchard,
1991). Hay acuerdo, por tanto, en cuanto a la importancia de las virtudes y de la formación
del carácter, pero no lo hay en cuanto el modelo educativo, los procesos, que hay que
propiciar para que se consigan esos objetivos. Desde la perspectiva holística que aporta FpN,
el énfasis se pone en fomentar la capacidad de las personas para lograr: a) detectar le
dimensión moral de los problemas; b) analizar esos problemas buscando las soluciones mejor
fundamentadas y con más posibilidades de resolver el problema; y c) actuar para aplicar esas
soluciones en la vida cotidiana.
Son las situaciones concretas, como bien decía Aristóteles, pero también los moralistas
escoceses o los pragmatistas, las que acotan la aplicación de los grandes valores morales
sobre los que pivotan el desarrollo personal y comunitario. Por eso hace falta centrarse en
modelos de intervención pedagógica en los que las personas vayan desarrollando las
capacidades o habilidades cognitivas y afectivas que, interiorizadas como hábitos, les
permiten actuar como agentes morales responsables. Esos hábitos les ayudarán a descubrir
la complejidad de los problemas, la dificultad de encontrar soluciones y de aplicarlas, estando
abiertos además a escuchar seriamente otras opciones y a revisar las propias, reconociendo
el carácter falible de toda propuesta que exige una permanente revisión y reconstrucción de
lo que pensamos (Sharp, 2009). Por otra parte, en este caso, las evidencias de que el programa
de FpN sí consigue lo que propone de manera significativas son numerosas y nos animan a
seguir adelante con el proyecto (Cassidy, 2014; Colom & alia, 2014).
Del carácter al destino
Abordo este apartado más bien como conclusión de todo lo anterior y no como un
apartado más, pues también es la conclusión del proverbio que he utilizado como hilo
conductor de este trabajo. No basta con alcanzar un buen y sólido carácter, hace falta algo
más, dado que el carácter es una parte de lo que llamamos personalidad. Hace falta responder
con los actos a las dos preguntas básicas de la existencia personal: ¿qué clase de persona
quiero llegar a ser? y ¿en qué clase de mundo quiero vivir?
En primer lugar, el carácter no es algo que se pueda dar por terminado o cerrado, sino
que es un proceso permanente de auto-regulación. El largo ciclo vital de los seres humanos
pasa por diferentes etapas o estadios, todos ellos con límites borrosos, pero también con
rasgos diferenciadores. En segundo lugar, el carácter no se mantiene para siempre, puesto
que pueden darse retrocesos espectaculares o cambios de orientación radicales, motivados
también por circunstancias extremas o especialmente conflictivas. Retomando una frase de
dudosa atribución, lo adecuado es vivir de acuerdo con lo que uno piensa, aunque a veces es
posible, si no se cuida bien lo que se piensa, que se termine pensando cómo se vive.
Debemos recuperar el concepto clásico del floruit: florecer o alcanzar la plenitud, llegar
a la madurez de la propia vida. Es algo más importante que lo que recoge el propio concepto
de felicidad, en el sentido aristotélico que no estaba en absoluto desvinculado de la idea de
plenitud de realización de las posibilidades de un ser humano. Cuando la búsqueda de la
felicidad se vincula al floruit, se enriquece su definición puesto que este plantea exigencias
objetivables de realización, más que volátiles y endebles sensaciones de bienestar personal.
Al final, tras el largo relato biográfico que es nuestra propia vida llegamos al destino, y lo
crucial es que ese destino coincida con el floruit para, de este modo, llegar a ser quienes
somos. No hablamos solo de una etapa concreta de la vida plena, sino de ver el conjunto del
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ciclo vital como un floruit global, como un acontecimiento que rompe las limitaciones del
tiempo cronológico y se sitúa más bien en el tiempo kairológico (Kohan y Kennedy, 2015).
Debemos aquí utilizar la metáfora de la cadena y el cable (García Moriyón, 2008) para
entender bien lo que significa forjar un carácter y labrarnos un destino, una metáfora que el
propio Lipman utiliza en el episodio 24 de la novela Lisa: lo importante no es lograr
eslabones muy fuertes, sino trenzar un cable resistente a partir de hilos que, tomados
individualmente, son muy frágiles. Este es el resultado más acabado de una vida reflexiva,
una vida en la que, empoderados, asumimos las riendas de nuestro destino, reconociendo al
mismo tiempo nuestra profunda dependencia de los demás, pues solo podemos vivir en el
seno de una comunidad dialógica basada en el reconocimiento mutuo, y también nuestra
ineludible responsabilidad individual, nuestra autonomía, porque la respuesta a esas
preguntas fundamentales de la vida es siempre una respuesta personal.
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¿Tocando el alma? Explorando una perspectiva alternativa para

el trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes1
Gert Biesta
Professor of Education and Director of Research in the Department of Education Brunel
University London
www.gertbiesta.com
CV
Gert Biesta es Catedrático de Educación y Director de Investigación en el Departamento de
Educación de la Universidad Brunel en Londres. Además, ostenta a tiempo parcial la Cátedra
para la Educación NIVOZ en la Universidad de Estudios Humanísticos en Holanda, y es un
invitado habitual del Instituto de las Artes ArtEZ en Holanda y del Colegio Universitario
NLA de Bergen, Noruega. Desde 2015 es miembro del Consejo de la Educación de Holanda,
organismo asesor del gobierno y parlamento holandeses.
Su trabajo se centra en la teoría de la educación y en la teoría y la filosofía de la
investigación educativa y social. En los últimos años ha publicado trabajos sobre temas
como el currículum, acción del profesorado, educación democrática y aprendizaje durante
toda la vida. Su libro The Beautiful Risk of Education, de 2014, obtuvo ese año el Premio
al libro más sobresaliente de la Asociación Americana de la Investigación Educativa
(División B). Su último libro, The Rediscovery of Teaching, tiene prevista su publicación
por Routledge en 2017.
ABSTRACT
Philosophical work with children—which I take as an encompassing and slightly more
descriptive phrase to cover a range of educational activities with children and young people
in which philosophy plays a role—occupies a rather unique place in the contemporary
curriculum and the modern school in many countries around the world. It not just provides a
breath of fresh air, but also acts as a reminder that there is more to education than where
policy makers and politicians keep wanting to push it, and also that education ought to
be more than this. But the question I wish to ask is whether it is enough. In this paper, I I’ll
share some of my observations about my experiences with philosophical work with children
and young people, not to pass any judgement on this. Perhaps the best way to ‘read’ my
argument is to see it as the sharing of a question – a question relevant for all educational
projects, programmes, endeavours and practices, and hence also relevant for philosophical
work with children and young people. The question I raise is how particular educational
practices, settings and arrangements position the child in and in relation with the world. What
kind of subject positions are, in other words, made available in and through particular
arrangements and what kind of opportunities does this create for children and young people
to ‘work’ on their existence as a grown-up, non-egological subject: in the world but not in
the centre of the world.
1
Este artículo fue publicado primero en inglés en childhood & philosophy, rio de janeiro, v. 13, n. 28,
septiembre-diciembre. 2017, pp. 415-452. Por acuerdo entre la revista del ICPIC y los organizadores de la XVIII
conferencia, lo publicamos en español en el libro. La traducción es de Walter Kohan
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KEYWORDS
Philosophical work with children; egological and non-egologial subject; grown-up-ness.
RESUMEN
El trabajo filosófico con los niños —que considero como una frase abarcadora y
ligeramente más descriptiva para cubrir una gama de actividades educativas con niños y
jóvenes en los que la filosofía juega un papel— ocupa un lugar singular en el currículo
contemporáneo y en la escuela moderna en muchos países del mundo. No sólo proporciona
un soplo de aire fresco, sino que también sirve como un recordatorio de que hay más en la
educación que el lugar adonde los políticos y gestores desean impulsarla, y también que la
educación debería ser más que esto. Pero la pregunta que quiero hacer es si eso es
suficiente. En este trabajo, compartiré algunas de mis observaciones sobre mis experiencias
con el trabajo filosófico con niños y jóvenes, no para emitir un juicio sobre esto. Tal vez la
mejor manera de “leer” mi argumento es verlo como el compartir una pregunta -, una
cuestión relevante para todos los proyectos educativos, programas, esfuerzos y prácticas, y
por lo tanto también relevante para el trabajo filosófico con niños y jóvenes. La pregunta
que planteo es cómo las prácticas educativas, los ajustes y los arreglos particulares sitúan
al niño en y en relación con el mundo. En otras palabras, ¿qué tipo de posiciones están
disponibles en y por medio de arreglos particulares y qué oportunidades crean para que los
niños y jóvenes “trabajen” en su existencia como sujetos crecidos y no egológicos: en el
mundo, pero no en el centro del mundo.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Trabajo filosófico con niños; sujeto egológico y no egológico; crecimiento.
Preámbulo
Una de las principales preguntas que exploro en este texto es qué “arreglos” educativos
particulares, para usar un término amplio, “hacen” a niñas, niños y jóvenes a los que buscan
alcanzar. Más concretamente, pregunto qué tipo de posibilidades existenciales (Biesta,
2015a) o, en un lenguaje más técnico, qué tipo de posiciones de sujeto (Foucault, 1983) esos
arreglos ofrecen. Sin embargo, esta cuestión, ciertamente existencial, no está sólo en juego
en escenarios y contextos educativos, sino que puede plantearse en relación con cada
situación en la que nos encontramos. Por lo tanto, también puede plantearse en relación con
la propia lectura de este texto y, como este trabajo se basa en una presentación oral, también
se podría preguntar esta cuestión sobre la propia presentación. Por lo tanto, la pregunta con
la que deseo pre-ambular este artículo es dónde “llega” realmente en nosotros lo que se dice.
En otras palabras, ¿dónde se recibe lo que se está diciendo? Esto es todo lo que deseo decir
por ahora, pero espero que el lector lleve su respuesta a esta pregunta consigo durante su
lectura del texto.
La importancia del trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños
El trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños —que considero una frase abarcadora y
ligeramente más descriptiva para cubrir una gama de actividades educativas con niñas, niños
y jóvenes en los que la filosofía ocupa un lugar— tiene un papel en cierto modo singular en
el currículo contemporáneo y en la escuela moderna en distintos países del mundo. Este es
sin duda el resultado de los esfuerzos de muchas personas que han luchado y siguen luchando
para hacer de la filosofía una parte legítima del esfuerzo educativo. Ya se ha avanzado
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bastante y estos logros deben ser bien recibidos y celebrados. Después de todo, en una época
en la que las políticas y prácticas educativas tienden a centrarse en llenar a niñas, niños y
jóvenes con respuestas, la filosofía —también en su forma más activa de filosofar, de hacer
filosofía— ha creado un espacio para un gesto diferente, esto es, para hacer preguntas, para
hacer mejores preguntas y para hacer mejor las preguntas. Esta contribución no debe ser
subestimada, particularmente en una época de instrumentalismo educativo y, más
específicamente, una edad de medición (Biesta, 2010), en la cual muchos sistemas educativos
están orientados a la producción de resultados para las pruebas de la Industria Global de la
Medición Educativa (Biesta, 2015b), aparentemente “necesarias” para juzgar qué sistemas
educativos funcionan mejor que otros y cuáles son los mejores. El trabajo filosófico con niñas
y niños no sólo proporciona un soplo de aire fresco, sino que también sirve como un
recordatorio de que hay más en educación que los lugares adónde los políticos y políticos
quieren empujarla, y también que la educación debe ser más que eso.
Todo esto, así deseo enfatizarlo, es bueno. Pero la pregunta que quiero hacer es si es
suficiente. Mirando el trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes relativamente desde fuera,
tengo dos preocupaciones. Una es el riesgo de la instrumentalización, es decir, que el trabajo
filosófico con niñas y niños se entienda como pensamiento crítico, y que el pensamiento
crítico se vea nada más que como una habilidad útil para navegar el mundo incierto del —o
como dirían algunos: creado por el— capitalismo global. Si el trabajo filosófico con niñas y
niños terminara en la lista de habilidades del siglo XXI, en mi opinión habría perdido no sólo
su “fuerza” crítica, sino también filosófica. No estoy seguro de cuál es la mejor palabra para
la otra preocupación que tengo —quizás podríamos llamarlo el riesgo de la mentalización—
, pero lo que estoy insinuando es que, a pesar de la ambición explícita de hacer que el
pensamiento no sólo sea crítico, sino también creativo, cuidadoso y colaborativo, sigue
siendo pensamiento y por lo tanto permanecería “en la cabeza”, por así decirlo.
Mi preocupación es que el trabajo filosófico con jóvenes alimenta su pensamiento, pero
realmente no alcance su corazón ni toque su alma. Uno podría por supuesto argumentar que
la educación no tiene nada que hacer allí, que este es un terreno peligroso y la educación
debería mantenerse alejada de él (pero cf., por ejemplo, Ruitenberg, 2010) y que debería
centrarse más en ayudar a los estudiantes a mantener una cabeza clara. Este es el argumento
para el pensar y, más específicamente, para pensar bien. Por supuesto, no hay nada de malo
en pensar bien, aunque una pregunta clave podría ser cuál es el criterio para el “bien” del
pensar, pero el punto que quiero plantear aquí es si puede haber límites al pensamiento y si
hay límites para lo que el pensamiento puede lograr.
¿Hay límites para el pensar?
Una de las razones por las que soy un gran fanático de la jardinería en las escuelas no
es porque ofrece oportunidades para formas experimentales de las clases de física o química,
sino porque lo notable de las plantas es que se puede pensar en ellas tanto y tan
profundamente como se desee, pero, por lo que sabemos, eso no alterará la velocidad a la que
crecen. En la jardinería, encontramos así una realidad que, en cierto sentido, es inmune a
nuestro pensamiento; una realidad que no puede ser tocada por el pensamiento, sino que pide
una actitud diferente: la paciencia, por ejemplo, o la tenacidad. Hay una razón similar por la
que soy un fanático de los animales en las escuelas, una vez más porque su existencia no es
susceptible a nuestro pensamiento, sino que pide algo diferente de nosotros, por ejemplo,
atención y cuidado. Es también por esta razón que soy un aficionado de las escuelas, no como
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lugares de aprendizaje (ver más abajo), sino como lugares de encuentro, donde las personas
se reúnen (véase también Masschelein & Simons, 2013).
Digamos, pues, que no hay nada malo en pensar, siempre que no olvidemos prestar
atención a la diferencia entre nuestros pensamientos sobre el mundo y, si me atrevo a usar
esta expresión, el mundo mismo. De lo contrario, podríamos terminar viviendo en una idea
sobre el mundo en lugar de vivir en el propio mundo (véase también Biesta, 2017a). Por
supuesto, soy consciente de las complejidades filosóficas de lo que estoy sugiriendo aquí,
pero lo que me preocupa son las implicaciones existenciales de esto. Me preocupa, por
ejemplo, el hecho de que la juventud —y no sólo ella— vivan una idea de su cuerpo más que
su cuerpo y terminen por querer ajustar su cuerpo a esa idea sobre su cuerpo (y, por supuesto,
existe una gran industria disponible para resolver esto para ellos). Del mismo modo, existe
el peligro de confundir nuestra idea del mundo con el mundo real, lo que puede conducir al
deseo de querer ajustar el mundo a nuestra idea del mundo, lo que podría tomarse como una
definición de tecnología, pero también como una definición de guerra e incluso de terrorismo
(véase también Heidegger, 1977).
La pregunta educativa
En este lugar —y voy a dar más detalles a continuación— me gustaría ubicar la
cuestión educativa que, por lo que quiero sugerir, no es la cuestión del aprendizaje (véase
Biesta, 2004, Biesta, 2013), sino la cuestión de llegar a existir en y con el mundo como sujeto.
Existir como sujeto, como ha dicho muy bien Philippe Meirieu (2007, p.96), es existir en el
mundo —y no, como me gustaría añadir, en una idea sobre el mundo— sin ponerse a uno
mismo en el centro del mundo. Existir como sujeto significa estar en diálogo con el mundo,
natural y social, si pensamos que el diálogo no es una conversación, sino una “forma”
existencial, una manera de estar-con. La tarea del educador en relación con esto, como lo he
puesto en otra parte (Biesta, 2017b, capítulo 1), es despertar el deseo en otro ser humano de
querer existir en el mundo como sujeto. Tal comprensión de la cuestión educativa y de la
tarea educativa sugiere un enfoque de la educación que no está ni centrado en el niño ni
centrado en el currículo, sino que puede caracterizarse mejor como centrado en el mundo
(véase también Böhm, 2017 y Böhm, 1997), como también se centra en el desafío de que
niñas, niños y jóvenes —y en un sentido cada ser humano— existan en y con el mundo.
Encontrando el trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños
Si este trabajo tiene una ambición —tiendo a ser cuidadoso con las ambiciones— es
quizá acercar más el trabajo filosófico con los jóvenes a la cuestión educativa, o al menos
proporcionar un marco para explorar lo que podría significar comprometerse más
explícitamente con la cuestión educativa en el trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes.
Antes de decir más sobre esto, puede ser útil mencionar que mis encuentros con el trabajo
filosófico con niños, que han tenido lugar en una variedad de países y lenguas diferentes, no
han sido enteramente “felices”, si esa es la palabra correcta. He visto principalmente prácticas
que eran fuertemente conceptuales y verbales, enfatizando los argumentos y la
argumentación y trabajando a menudo hacia la conclusión lógica. He visto poco que sea
explícitamente experiencial, es decir, tratando de hacer conexiones con las experiencias de
niñas y niños (no sus ideas o su pensamiento), y también he visto poco que proporcionara
oportunidades para comprometerse más allá de la discusión y la argumentación. Por lo tanto,
funciona bastante bien para niñas y niños que pueden manejar palabras y argumentos,
conceptos y conversaciones, pero mucho menos para niñas y niños que no están 'allí'.
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También me dio la impresión de que allí sólo se representaba una “rebanada” particular
de la tradición filosófica, más del lado analítico-lógico del espectro filosófico, y menos del
extremo fenomenológico y más especulativo. Ahora bien, puede haber sido desafortunado en
los ejemplos que he encontrado —aunque el esquema ha sido bastante consistente— y estoy,
por supuesto, dispuesto a que me corrijan. Sin embargo, lo que me preocupa —y ésta es la
cuestión que perseguiré— es cómo estas “etapas” particulares del encuentro entre los jóvenes
y la filosofía los sitúan en el mundo y en relación con él. ¿Qué clase de “yo”, por decirlo de
otra manera, emerge de estos encuentros y de dónde y cómo surge este “yo”? ¿Qué tipo de
posiciones de sujeto se crean y fomentan y qué tipo de posiciones de sujeto están, en
consecuencia, desalentadas o ausentes? Mi intuición aquí es que, al menos en los ejemplos
que he presenciado, el foco estaba más en el “yo” que hace preguntas que en el “yo” que,
para usar una expresión de Levinas (1981, p.111), se pregunta. Para identificar lo que está en
juego aquí, necesito ahora acercarme a la cuestión más general sobre lo que sucede con el
“yo” del niño y el estudiante en la educación contemporánea para, al final del trabajo, llevar
esto de nuevo al trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños.
La aprendización (learnification) de la educación contemporánea
Si hay una tendencia que se ha apoderado de la educación en los últimos quince a veinte
años es el giro hacia los estudiantes y su aprendizaje. Como he documentado en detalle en
otros lugares (véase particularmente Biesta, 2006a, 2010), el cambio hacia los aprendices y
su aprendizaje es ante todo visible en el crecimiento del lenguaje del aprendizaje en
educación. Este aumento es visible en una serie de cambios discursivos, como la tendencia a
referirse a los alumnos, a los estudiantes, a niñas y niños y a los adultos como “aprendices”,
a referirse a la enseñanza como facilitación del aprendizaje, a hablar de las escuelas como
ambientes de aprendizaje o lugares para aprendizaje o renombrar el campo de la educación
de adultos como de aprendizaje permanente.
Definitivamente, estas dimensiones se han fortalecido, sobre todo en la medida en que
son una respuesta a formas autoritarias de educación que sólo se interesaban por el lado
transmisor de la educación o por la enseñanza como un acto de control. Pero hay también
lados más oscuros en estos cambios, particularmente en la forma en que se enmarañan con
políticas neoliberales que buscan desplazar las responsabilidades del colectivo hacia los
individuos, algo que es particularmente visible en la transformación del derecho a la
educación de adultos en el deber de seguir aprendiendo durante toda la vida, a menudo para
poder seguir siendo empleado en un mercado de trabajo siempre cambiante (véase Biesta,
2006b).
A nivel discursivo, uno de los principales problemas con el surgimiento del “nuevo
lenguaje de aprendizaje” es que ha desplazado la atención de una serie de cuestiones e
inquietudes educativas clave. Después de todo, el punto de la educación —es decir, cuando
reunimos personas, recursos y tiempo para que la educación sea posible— no es que niñas y
niños o estudiantes aprendan, sino que, para decirlo brevemente, aprenden algo, aprendan
por una razón y que lo aprenden de alguien. El lenguaje del aprendizaje es un lenguaje de
proceso, pero dice poco sobre el contenido y la dirección de tales procesos. La educación, sin
embargo, siempre plantea preguntas sobre contenido, propósito y relaciones y se podría
argumentar, como he hecho, que el lenguaje del aprendizaje ha alejado la atención de estas
cuestiones educativas cruciales.
Esto no quiere decir, por supuesto, que bajo el lenguaje del aprendizaje el contenido
haya desaparecido, la dirección esté ausente o las relaciones ya no jueguen un papel. Se trata
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más bien de resaltar que el lenguaje del aprendizaje corre el riesgo de ocultar la toma de
decisiones sobre el contenido, el propósito y las relaciones. Esta es, creo yo, una de las
razones por las que el culto (cultura) de medición y de resultados de aprendizaje mensurables
parece haber logrado redefinir lo que la educación se supone que debe ser, con docentes que
se convierten en sirvientes del sistema en lugar de ser agentes claves en el esfuerzo educativo
(véase también Priestley, Biesta & Robinson, 2015). En esta medida, el surgimiento del
lenguaje del aprendizaje es un ejemplo clásico de ideología, en el sentido de que expresa y
oculta las relaciones de poder que están operando (véase Eagleton, 2007).
El surgimiento del lenguaje de aprendizaje y la más amplia “aprendización” del
discurso y la práctica educativa no sólo han cambiado la conversación educativa, sino que
también han afectado identidades, relaciones y posiciones de sujeto. Han puesto a los
aprendices y su aprendizaje en el centro de la atención educativa y han movido a los maestros
de ser “un sabio en el escenario” a ser “un guía a su lado” y, según algunos, a ser un
“compañero en el fondo”, un aprendiz entre otros aprendices en lo que, en el lenguaje de
moda, a menudo se conoce como una “comunidad de aprendizaje” o “comunidad de
aprendices.” Permítanme enfatizar una vez más que en mi opinión estas expresiones son
ideológicas en tanto ocultan más de lo que hacen visible. Ocultan, por ejemplo, el diferencial
de poder que siempre está en juego en las relaciones educativas, pero también, y en mi
opinión más importante aún, ocultan las diferentes responsabilidades de maestros y
estudiantes en tales relaciones.
Lo que me interesa para la línea que sigo en este artículo es la pregunta de cómo la
“lógica” del aprendizaje posiciona a los estudiantes en el mundo. En otras palabras, estoy
interesado en la(s) posición(es) particular(es) creada(s) por la lógica del aprendizaje o, en un
lenguaje más preciso, lo que la lógica del aprender y de ser un aprendiz “hace” al yo del
estudiante.
Teorizar el aprendizaje: el paradigma de la adaptación inteligente
La cuestión de la definición del aprendizaje es al mismo tiempo simple y complicada.
En el extremo simple del espectro, una definición de aprendizaje como cualquier cambio
más o menos duradero que no sea resultado de la madurez da una buena indicación de lo
que es el aprendizaje. Para decirlo en términos generales, indica que el aprendizaje tiene
algo que ver con lo que adquirimos de las interacciones con los entornos. Wikipedia
también es útil, ya que la frase inicial de su entrada sobre el aprendizaje proporciona una
descripción un poco más detallada de esta definición general cuando define el aprendizaje
como “el acto de adquirir preferencias, comportamientos, habilidades, o conocimientos
nuevos o de modificar y reforzar los ya existentes, que puedan conducir a un cambio
potencial en información de síntesis, profundidad de conocimiento, actitud o
comportamiento en relación con el tipo y rango de experiencia”. Es interesante, al menos
para la línea que deseo seguir aquí, la oración inmediatamente siguiente a ésta, que declara
que “la habilidad de aprender es poseída por seres humanos, animales, plantas y algunas
máquinas” (Wikipedia, accedido el 25 Julio de 2017).
A nivel de comportamiento, el aprendizaje se refiere a las formas en que los organismos
o sistemas se adaptan a las condiciones cambiantes del medio ambiente y a las formas en que
los organismos o sistemas cambian como resultado de esto. A nivel de conducta, tales
cambios dan lugar a cambios en estándares de acción a los que John Dewey, que tiene una
extensa teoría sobre cómo aprenden los seres vivos, se refiere como “hábitos”, a los que
define como predisposiciones para actuar (véase Biesta & Burbules, 2004). Mientras que
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Dewey se centra en los organismos vivos —y considera al lenguaje como factor clave para
transformar el ensayo y error “ciego” en acción inteligente—, la comprensión subyacente del
aprendizaje se aplica tanto a los organismos vivos como a los sistemas no vivos.
Un buen ejemplo (y también revelador, véase más adelante) de un sistema adaptativo
inteligente en ese sentido es el robot aspirador. Las aspiradoras robot son capaces de moverse
de forma autónoma en el entorno en el que se las coloca —es decir, siempre y cuando sus
baterías estén suficientemente cargadas— y si en una primera ejecución pueden chocar con
objetos en la habitación que están limpiando, con el paso del tiempo se mueven alrededor de
tales objetos y se vuelven más eficaces en la tarea de limpiar el piso. Por lo tanto, el aspirador
robot no es sólo una buena imagen de un sistema adaptativo, sino también de un sistema
inteligente, es decir, un sistema que puede aprender como resultado de su “encuentro” con
(objetos en) un entorno.
La imagen de la aspiradora robot realmente proporciona una figura bastante precisa de
la educación centrada en el aprendizaje, en la que los maestros no están allí para impartir
conocimientos a los estudiantes, sino que son vistos como diseñadores de entornos de
aprendizaje que establecen tareas particulares para los estudiantes, y son los estudiantes, a
través de la interacción con entornos de aprendizaje, quienes reconstruyen sus patrones de
acción y pensamiento. Como las aspiradoras robot que se vuelven más eficaces en su tarea
cuando son puestas en una gama diferente de entornos, los aprendices adquieren hábitos y
habilidades que les permitan adaptarse más eficazmente a nuevos entornos.
Así, la aspiradora robot no sólo proporciona una imagen precisa de la lógica de los
aprendices y sus entornos de aprendizaje, sino que también se ajusta a las tendencias de la
educación contemporánea, donde se argumenta que, en lugar de proporcionar a los
estudiantes conocimientos “antiguos”, estos deberían ser equipados con las habilidades para
ajustarse y adaptarse a nuevos y desconocidos ambientes. Curiosamente, el aspirador robot
también se ajusta a la crítica de la enseñanza como transmisión, una crítica que ya puede
encontrarse en la obra de Dewey (1966, p.19), quien argumentó que “nunca educamos
directamente, sino indirectamente mediante el medio ambiente”, es decir, poniendo los
sistemas adaptativos en contextos nuevos y diferentes.
¿Qué falta?
La idea de sistemas adaptativos inteligentes, tal como los robots aspiradores, no sólo
nos proporciona una visión bastante precisa de la dinámica básica del aprendizaje. También
nos proporciona una pintura notable y exacta de lo que he denominado educación centrada
en el aprendizaje, y tal vez también podemos llamarla educación centrada en el aprendiz.
Además, aunque sólo he insinuado esto, la idea de aprender como adaptación inteligente
también encaja bien con muchas variedades del constructivismo educativo, y de nuevo
podríamos decir que el robot aspirador nos proporciona una imagen notablemente exacta del
aula constructivista. Aunque el ajuste parece ser “perfecto”, deseo argumentar que hay dos
cosas que faltan en el cuadro y que éstas comienzan a indicar algunos de los límites de esta
descripción particular del aprendizaje y su aplicación educativa.
Lo primero que falta es que los sistemas adaptativos inteligentes, ya sean orgánicos o
no, son capaces de adaptarse inteligentemente a condiciones ambientales cambiantes (y en el
proceso adquieren disposiciones, habilidades y conocimientos), pero la cuestión que no
pueden resolver por sí mismos es si vale la pena adaptarse al medio ambiente en el que se
encuentran. La idea de aprender como adaptación inteligente se quiebra, o al menos alcanza
un límite importante, en el hecho de que los sistemas adaptativos inteligentes son sistemas
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enteramente funcionales, destinados a la sobrevivencia pero, por así decirlo, no son capaces
de una vida con sentido. Para decirlo brevemente, son capaces de ejecutar un algoritmo pero
no son capaces de generar un criterio.
La segunda cosa que falta es que los sistemas adaptativos inteligentes no pueden
recibir. En otras palabras, no se les puede hablar, no pueden ser abordados, lo que también
significa que no se les puede enseñar. Lo único que pueden hacer es (intentar) ajustarse a lo
que encuentran. Esto significa que en el “paradigma” de los sistemas inteligentes adaptativos,
el mundo, natural y social, sólo puede aparecer como un obstáculo, como algo que se
interpone en el camino y que requiere un ajuste del sistema u organismo. En este paradigma,
por lo tanto, otro ser humano sólo puede aparecer como un obstáculo al que adaptarse, y no
como alguien con quien me comunico, alguien que me habla, que se dirige a mí, que me toca,
que me pide o, con una frase de Levinas (1989 p.195), que llama “lo singular en mí”.
Hay dos maneras de enfrentar estas observaciones. Una es argumentar que el
paradigma de la adaptación inteligente es verdadero y que los elementos que faltan son, a lo
sumo, epifenómenos, pero no dimensiones que realmente cuenten. La otra opción es
argumentar que hay algo fundamentalmente equivocado con el paradigma porque pierde
dimensiones esenciales de lo que significa existir como ser humano en y con el mundo, en
particular, que tal existencia no puede ser reducida a la cuestión de la sobrevivencia y que la
experiencia de ser hablado, de ser enfocado, de recibir las palabras de otro ser humano, es
una experiencia real.
Quiero seguir la segunda línea, lo que significa que no sólo estoy defendiendo la idea
de que la vida humana con sentido no puede reducirse a cuestiones de sobrevivencia, sino
que también estoy argumentando que el discurso del otro es una experiencia real y algo que
podemos recibir y que puede “llegar” a nosotros. Como consecuencia, es también un
argumento para decir que la enseñanza es posible y real y no sólo una cuestión de organizar
ambientes. Estoy dispuesto a admitir que el aprendizaje puede ser un concepto más rico que
lo que se capta en la idea de adaptación inteligente —aunque deseo enfatizar lo penetrante
que esta idea se ha convertido en la teoría del aprendizaje contemporáneo— pero quiero
argumentar que en la medida en que nuestra comprensión del aprendizaje dependa del
“paradigma” de la adaptación inteligente, tendrá carencias significativas, tanto humana como
educacionalmente.
Considerando dos posiciones de sujeto
Cuando llegamos a la educación a través de la lógica del aprendizaje —aunque también
podríamos decir: cuando llegamos a la vida a través de la lógica del aprendizaje—,
encontramos un alumno en el centro, como el “yo” que hace preguntas y crea sentido o, en
lenguaje filosófico, que es el origen de la significación. La posición de sujeto en juego ahí es
aquella en que el sujeto existe ante el mundo, tanto temporal como espacialmente, y en la
que el mundo, natural y social, aparece como un objeto para los actos de significación del
sujeto. Las preguntas centrales son “¿cómo puedo entender esto?” y “¿cómo puedo encontrar
sentido en esto?”. En otras palabras, la posición del sujeto en juego en la lógica del
aprendizaje literalmente es de comprender el mundo en su totalidad. Esta es la posición de
sujeto que se está haciendo disponible en la educación enfocada en el aprendizaje. Pero no
es la única posición concebible de sujeto.
Hay una pregunta diferente, un gesto diferente, podríamos decir, y una posición de
sujeto diferente, que se centra alrededor de la pregunta “¿Qué me está pidiendo esto?” —una
pregunta que se refiere a lo que viene al sujeto, por así decirlo. Esta es la manera en que
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Emmanuel Levinas aborda la cuestión del sujeto, en la que el sujeto no es visto como el
origen de la significación, sino más bien “despertado por el otro” (Levinas, 1989, p. 209,
énfasis mío). Levinas se refiere a este “acontecimiento” del despertar como ética, pero la
ética no es lo que los sujetos (pre-éticos) se comprometen con o deciden. La ética es más bien
el acontecimiento del despertar, porque es cuando encontramos (una) responsabilidad,
cuando somos llamados por el otro, que nuestro subjetividad se convierte en un “asunto”, por
así decirlo, que nuestra subjetividad importa. Zygmunt Bauman (1993, p.13) capta esta idea
maravillosamente cuando la resume con la frase que “la responsabilidad es la primera
realidad del yo”.
Si la primera posición de sujeto puede ser caracterizada como la posición del sujeto de
aprendizaje, la segunda posición de sujeto puede llamarse la posición del sujeto de la
enseñanza o, más exactamente, la posición de sujeto de ser enseñado, de encontrar (una)
enseñanza, es decir, una dirección que nos viene desde el exterior (y radicalmente desde el
exterior, deseo agregar, no como algo construido por nosotros). La dirección, el otro que me
habla y al hacerlo “me singulariza”, como se dice en inglés (singles me out), pone en juego
mi subjetividad. Levinas quiere enfatizar que el origen heterónomo de mi sujeti-vidad no es
una sumisión total. Sostiene que debe entenderse como una “heteronomía que no implica
servidumbre, un oído receptivo que aún conserva su razón, una obediencia que no aliena a la
persona que escucha” (Levinas, 1989, p.207). La dirección, en otras palabras, llama al sujeto
al mundo, y es en este punto que deseo volver a lo que, arriba, he identificado como la
cuestión educativa.
Existir como sujeto, en el mundo, sin estar en el centro del mundo
He argumentado anteriormente que la educación no puede ni debe reducirse al
aprendizaje y, en relación con esto, he intentado demostrar lo que podría faltar si limitamos
la comprensión de la educación y, por lo tanto, nuestra comprensión de lo que significa existir
humanamente en el mundo, a la cuestión del aprendizaje. Al contrario, he sugerido un
“alcance” más amplio y más existencial para la educación, al argumentar que la cuestión
educativa trata de llegar a existir, en y con el mundo, como sujeto.
Existir como sujeto, como la frase trata de indicar, es una cuestión existencial, y no
debe confundirse con la cuestión de la identidad. Yo veo la identidad principalmente como
una preocupación con la pregunta de quiénes somos en términos de cómo podríamos
identificarnos y con qué nos podríamos identificar. La cuestión de la subjetividad, por otra
parte, es una cuestión de existencia. Es, aunque el término suene demasiado estático, acerca
de nuestra posición como sujetos, y ya he intentado indicar que la posición del sujeto del
aprendizaje como adaptación inteligente es muy diferente de la posición del sujeto
levinasiano donde nuestra subjetividad está siendo llamada desde fuera.
Aquí nuestra subjetividad está siendo “puesta en juego” en situaciones donde nos
encontramos con una responsabilidad o, más exactamente, donde yo encuentro una
responsabilidad, y donde depende de mí —y nadie más puede hacer eso por mí— asumir
responsabilidad por esta responsabilidad o alejarme de ella. Y en ambas “opciones” nuestra
libertad, nuestra posibilidad de decir sí o no, de permanecer o de alejarnos, de ir con la marea
u ofrecer resistencia, entra en juego. El llamamiento a la subjetividad no es, por lo tanto, un
acto de supresión, no es un llamado a renunciar a nuestra libertad, sino una especie de “doble
movimiento” en el que, al ser llamados al mundo, también estamos llamados a entrar en una
relación con nuestra libertad. No se trata de que en este doble movimiento nuestra
subjetividad emerja, ya que tal descripción correría el riesgo de convertir la subjetividad en
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una cosa, sino que es más preciso decir que en este doble movimiento nuestro existir como
sujetos está “en cuestión”, importa, llega a ser relevante y, por lo tanto, llega a ser real.
Por lo tanto, existir como sujeto no es algo que ocurre en el vacío; se produce
necesariamente en el mundo, natural y social. Sin embargo, el mundo no debe ser entendido
como un contexto o telón de fondo, sino que es lo que encontramos cuando tomamos
iniciativas, cuando iniciamos algo. En primer lugar y de modo más importante, el mundo
aparece en la forma en que ofrece resistencia —literalmente— a nuestras iniciativas. La
experiencia de la resistencia, de algo o alguien que ofrece una contra-fuerza, por así decirlo,
es una experiencia crucial porque revela que el mundo (una vez más: natural y social) no es
una construcción sino que existe fuera de nosotros e independientemente de nosotros. La
experiencia de resistencia es a este respecto un encuentro con lo que, según Freud, podríamos
llamar principio de realidad. Así como revela un mundo independiente que existe fuera de
nosotros, la experiencia de resistencia revela al mismo tiempo nuestras iniciativas y, más
específicamente, lo que deseamos iniciar (véase también Biesta, 2017a).
El encuentro con la resistencia es una experiencia frustrante porque nos encontramos
con algo que, en cierto sentido, se interpone a nuestras iniciativas (aunque también es la
misma condición bajo la cual nuestras iniciativas pueden entrar en el mundo, puede llegar a
ser reales). Una posible respuesta a esta frustración es empezar a presionar más duro,
poniendo más esfuerzo y energía y fuerza en nuestras iniciativas para superar la resistencia
que encontramos. Esto es importante para que las cosas sucedan y se vuelven reales, pero
uno puede imaginar que si uno empuja demasiado fuerte llegará un punto en el que nuestras
iniciativas destruirán el mundo en el que tratan de entrar. Por lo tanto, en un extremo nos
encontramos con el riesgo de destrucción del mundo. Pero el mismo sentimiento de
frustración que surge de encontrar resistencia también puede surgir si renunciamos, si
tomamos nuestras iniciativas y nos retiramos. El extremo que encontramos aquí es la total
retirada del mismo mundo en el que buscamos existir, un extremo al que podemos querer
referirnos como autodestrucción.
Estar en el mundo, existir en el mundo como sujeto, significa permanecer en el difícil
y precario “término medio” entre los dos extremos de la destrucción del mundo y la
autodestrucción. Permanecer en este terreno intermedio es un desafío continuo —podemos
decir, de por vida—, una pregunta que surge cada vez que iniciamos, cada vez que tomamos
una iniciativa, cada vez que buscamos traer algo al mundo. Permanecer en el medio-terreno
puede entenderse, como ya he indicado, como una cuestión de diálogo, de estar en diálogo
con, siempre y cuando no creamos que el diálogo sea una conversación verbal, sino una forma
existencial. Por último, si es que la cuestión de la educación es la cuestión de cómo llegar a
existir como sujeto, entonces podríamos decir que el punto medio entre la destrucción del
mundo y la autodestrucción es el espacio y el lugar de la educación.
Existir en una forma crecida2: lo deseado y lo deseable
En otra parte (Biesta, 2017b, cap. 1), me he referido a la “condición” de existir como
sujeto como una forma de existir crecida. Aunque el adulto es una parte del vocabulario de
la educación, se ha visto manchado por las interpretaciones del desarrollo que ven a la
madurez como el resultado de una trayectoria educativa o de desarrollo, y por lo tanto como
una especie de logro que, una vez logrado, permanece con el que ahora se puede ver como
“habiendo crecido”. Me gustaría sugerir una forma diferente y existencial de entender la idea
2 N. del T.: en esta sección “crecida” traduce el inglés grown-up.

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de crecimiento, precisamente no como resultado del desarrollo, sino como una forma de tratar
de existir en y con el mundo, una forma de existir en diálogo con lo que es otro y con quien
es otro.
En términos más técnicos, existir como sujeto de modo crecido significa intentar existir
de una manera no egológica, es decir, de una manera no dominada por la lógica del ego. Si
la manera egológica de existir es aquella en la que se persiguen los propios deseos,
cualesquiera que sean, la forma no egológica siempre plantea la pregunta de si lo que se
desea, lo que se encuentra en uno mismo como deseo, es lo que se debería desear. La manera
no egológica es, en otras palabras, la manera en la que uno trata de poner sus propios deseos
en perspectiva.
Hacer la pregunta de si lo que uno desea es lo que uno debe desear no es sólo una
pregunta que uno debe hacer en relación con la propia vida, sino que es también y
crucialmente una pregunta que uno debe hacer en relación con la vida que vivimos con otros
en un planeta que tiene una capacidad limitada para cumplir todos los deseos proyectados
sobre él. Llevar la cuestión de lo deseado y deseable consigo mismo a lo largo de la vida no
pretende suprimir los deseos, sino cuestionarlos, seleccionarlos y transformarlos, para que
puedan apoyar formas crecidas de tratar de estar en y con el mundo. Aquí la definición de
educación de Spivak (2004, p. 526) como un “re-arreglo no coercitivo de los deseos”
permanece perceptiva y útil.
El trabajo educativo, más allá de (facilitar) el aprendizaje
Esperemos que resulte obvio que nadie puede ser forzado a existir como sujeto, de una
manera crecida, no egológica, porque justamente el punto de existir como sujeto es que uno
entra en relación con la propia libertad. Por eso la educación, si está interesada en la
subjetividad de niñas, niños y jóvenes, no puede ser entendida en términos de producción o
de cultivo, porque el sujeto no es una cosa, sino que la subjetividad es una forma de existir,
de traer la libertad de uno, incluida la libertad de iniciar, en relación con el mundo. Esta es la
razón por la cual tiendo a referirme al trabajo educativo como despertando el deseo en otro
ser humano de querer existir en y con el mundo como sujeto, es decir, en un modo crecido.
Esto sugiere una serie de cosas para la manera en que se realiza la educación.
La primera cosa que destaca es que la educación, si está dirigida a la temática de niños
y jóvenes, es fundamentalmente de naturaleza interruptora. La educación es una interrupción
de los deseos, una interrupción del estar-con-uno mismo, una interrupción de la identidad, en
todos los casos con la intención de llamar al niño, niña o estudiante a una existencia no
egológica en y con el mundo. Esta, quiero sugerir, es la “forma” básica de la educación,
aunque hay otras preguntas que hacer sobre cómo esta forma puede y debe ser realizada. Una
cosa es interrumpir donde están niñas, niños y los jóvenes para hacer girar su atención hacia
el mundo y hacia la posibilidad de existir como sujetos en y con el mundo. Otra es hacer
espacio, crear formas y dar tiempo a niñas, niños y jóvenes para hallar el mundo, encontrar
resistencia, satisfacer sus propios deseos en relación con qué y quién es otro, y probar lo que
podría significar entrar en diálogo con el mundo.
En este sentido, la educación no se caracteriza únicamente por su naturaleza
interruptora, sino también por la calidad de la suspensión: de frenar, de dar tiempo, de
proporcionar formas en las que niñas, niños y jóvenes puedan encontrarse a sí mismos y al
mundo, y comprometerse con la cuestión de lo deseado y lo deseable, es decir, practicar
maneras crecidas, no-egológicas, de estar-con. Después de la interrupción y la suspensión, la
educación, si está orientada a la subjetividad de niñas, niños y jóvenes, necesita proveer
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sustento para ayudarlos a permanecer en el difícil medio terreno para que su deseo de
permanecer allí pueda crecer. Sostén es particularmente necesario porque en la difícil mitad
del campo a menudo lo que, a primera vista, no parece atractivo o motivante, a largo plazo
puede llegar a ser bastante significativo.
Despertar el deseo en otro ser humano de querer existir en el mundo de un modo
crecido, interrumpiendo modos de ser egológicos, suspendiendo el foco en lo inmediato para
que haya tiempo para encontrar el mundo, encontrar los propios deseos con respecto al
mundo y trabajar en el reordenamiento de estos deseos, y proveer sustento para que niñas,
niños y jóvenes no sólo logren permanecer en la difícil mitad del campo sino que desarrollen
un apetito para ese espacio particular, no es el vocabulario común que encontramos en la
educación contemporánea. Pero es un intento de poner de relieve lo que el trabajo del
educador implica si está interesado en la subjetividad, el existente como sujeto, de niñas,
niños y jóvenes.
Comentarios finales: tocar el alma
En este trabajo, he tratado de desarrollar lo que caracterizaría como un argumento
indirecto. He compartido algunas de mis observaciones sobre mis experiencias con el
trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes, pero no he transmitido ningún juicio sobre
esto - aun porque sé que siempre hay más de lo que el ojo ve. Tampoco deseo expresar a
quienes están involucrados en el trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes lo que deben
o no deben hacer. Sin embargo, siempre estoy interesado en explorar si las cosas se
pueden hacer o ver de manera diferente, al menos para que sepamos mejor lo que estamos
haciendo y lo que no estamos haciendo.
Tal vez la mejor manera de “leer” mi argumento es verlo como el compartir una
pregunta —una pregunta relevante para todos los proyectos, programas, prácticas y
esfuerzos educativos, y por lo tanto también relevante para el trabajo filosófico con niñas,
niños y jóvenes. La pregunta que he planteado es cómo las prácticas, los ajustes y los
arreglos educativos particulares sitúan al niño en y con relación al mundo. En otras
palabras, ¿qué tipo de posiciones están disponibles en y por medio de arreglos particulares
y qué oportunidades crean para que niñas, niños y jóvenes “trabajen” en su existencia
como sujetos crecidos y no egológicos: en el mundo, pero no en el centro del mundo?
He planteado algunas preguntas sobre el pensamiento, particularmente indicando
los dominios de la vida y el vivir que realmente no pueden ser afectados por el
pensamiento —el crecimiento de una planta, la existencia de un animal y la existencia de
otros seres humanos— y parecen preguntar algo de nosotros. También he planteado
preguntas sobre el aprendizaje como un modo de ser, por así decirlo, resaltando que el
paradigma del aprendizaje como adaptación inteligente carece (al menos) de dos cosas
que, a mi juicio, son dimensiones esenciales de nuestra existencia como seres humanos.
Lo primero que le falta es criterio. La pregunta aquí es dónde, en el paradigma del
aprendizaje como adaptación inteligente, hay un lugar para la pregunta de si el ambiente
en el que nos encontramos es un ambiente al que vale la pena adaptarse. Quiero enfatizar
que no estoy negando que como seres humanos somos capaces de plantear tales
preguntas. Lo que estoy argumentando es que el paradigma del aprendizaje como
adaptación inteligente no puede dar cuenta de esto y éste es un defecto grave de ese
paradigma.
La segunda cosa que falta en este paradigma es la posibilidad misma de enseñar o,
más exactamente, la posibilidad misma de ser enseñado, de recibir una enseñanza, de ser
174
direccionado, de ser hablado. El paradigma del aprendizaje como adaptación inteligente,

y las muchas versiones del constructivismo que forman parte de este paradigma, es
incapaz de explicar esto. Y de nuevo, quiero recalcar que para mí —aquí reside el
significado de la pregunta con la que abrí este artículo— la experiencia de recibir el
discurso del otro, de ser direccionado, de ser tocado, es una experiencia real, lo cual
muestra una limitación importante del paradigma del aprendizaje como adaptación
inteligente.
Desde mi experiencia, el trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños es particularmente
fuerte para ayudarles a hacer preguntas —sobre el mundo, sobre su propio papel y
posición en él— y así puede contribuir a la comprensión y el aprendizaje del mundo. La
posición de sujeto que se pone a disposición de esta manera, es la del yo que hace
preguntas, que crea sentido, que busca entender. Este sujeto, como lo he intentado indicar,
existe ante el mundo, tanto espacial como temporalmente, lo que significa que el mundo,
natural y social, aparece para este sujeto como objeto de aprendizaje, comprensión,
creación de sentido, incluso, por supuesto, si tal toma de sentido es limitada y la
comprensión nunca llega a su fin.
Lo que he intentado sugerir es que hay al menos otra posición de sujeto posible, no
como el sujeto que hace preguntas, sino como el sujeto que se está poniendo en cuestión
y por medio de esto está siendo llamado al mundo. Aquí el sujeto no existe antes del
mundo y el mundo no es el objeto de los deseos del sujeto de aprender y entender. Lo que
aparece como mundo, por así decirlo, es más bien lo que se dirige al yo, llama al yo a
existir como sujeto —en el mundo, pero no en el centro del mundo.
Si el trabajo educativo con respecto a la primera posición de sujeto consiste en
agregar preguntas, agudizar las preguntas, ayudar a niñas, niños y jóvenes a plantear
preguntas diferentes, cada vez más y mejores preguntas para incrementar su aprendizaje
y comprensión y sus “capacidades”, el trabajo con respecto a la segunda posición de
sujeto es de una cualidad bastante diferente: se caracteriza por interrupción, trabaja a
través de suspensión y requiere sustento. En parte, esto es para proporcionar a niñas,
niños y jóvenes oportunidades de descubrir lo que podría significar entrar en diálogo con
el mundo, tratar de existir como sujeto. Pero el trabajo educativo también está ahí para
tratar de despertar el deseo de niñas, niños y jóvenes por querer existir en y con el mundo
de esta manera.
Esto, quiero concluir, no es una cuestión de proporcionarles conocimientos,
habilidades y comprensión, un enfoque que tiene su lugar en el primer “gesto” educativo
de empoderar a niñas, niños y jóvenes para que sean mejores en el cuestionamiento. En
lugar de aumentar su poder y tratar de darles poder, el segundo “gesto” educativo busca
más bien despertar su deseo de querer existir en el mundo como sujetos, en el difícil
terreno del medio. Esto es mucho más una cuestión de desarme (véase Masschelein,
1997), para que su corazón pueda ser alcanzado y su alma pueda ser tocada.
Si el segundo gesto educativo es visto como una dimensión y dirección relevantes
de la educación —dudo en llamarla un paradigma alternativo— es un juicio que dejo al
lector. Desde mi perspectiva, creo que el enfoque existencial de la educación que he
tratado de esbozar en este texto proporciona una orientación educativa que bien puede
ampliar el alcance y la importancia del trabajo filosófico con niñas, niños y jóvenes más
allá de donde gran parte de este trabajo parece actualmente estar localizado.
175
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Dissonance: Disagreement and Critical Thinking in P4/wC1
Peter Worley
King’s College London, The Philosophy Foundation.
CV
Peter Worley is the co-CEO and co-founder of The Philosophy Foundation, a registered,
award-winning charity with a commitment to bringing philosophy into the public sphere and
particularly into education. He is widely published in the field of doing philosophy in schools,
having written, co-written or edited nine books including The If Machine, The Philosophy
Shop, The If Odyssey and 40 lessons to get children thinking. He is currently working on his
next book for Bloomsbury’s 100 ideas series: Questioning for the primary classroom. He has
also written papers and articles including two papers for the Journal of Philosophy in Schools
(‘Open thinking, closed questioning’ and ‘Ariadne’s Clew’) that inspired a cover feature on
questioning for the UK teacher magazine the Times Educational Supplement in April 2017.
He was invited to be a Visiting Research Associate at King’s College London, he was invited
to become a Fellow of The Royal Society of Arts and was elected to become the president of
SOPHIA, the European foundation for the advancement of doing philosophy with children.
He was also invited to contribute to a special issue of The Journal of Philosophy with
Children to be published in November 2017 addressing the question ‘Should philosophy be
taught in schools?’ edited by Professor Michael Hand (Birmingham University).
ABSTRACT
I begin with two beliefs about the value of P4/wC that are widely held in P4/wC practice: a)
that P4/wC is good because there are no right and wrong answers and b) that P4/wC is good
because it develops critical thinking/reasoning skills. I identify a problem that follows from
the holding of these two beliefs: that, under one construal, if there are no right and wrong
answers then there can be no possibility of criteria necessary for the development of proper,
formal critical thinking, which is an evaluative and eliminative process. I explain how a
working ‘weak’ definition of ‘critical thinking’ is insufficient and that a ‘stronger’ definition
is needed. I provide such an understanding by appealing to a distinction between ‘internal’
and ‘external’ critique. My claim is that disagreement is not sufficient for critical thinking to
be taking place in critical philosophy sessions, as this may be no more than the sharing of
opinions or expressions of disapproval. What is needed is attention to the internal structure
of arguments that have been offered during philosophical discussions.
KEYWORDS
P4/wC, critical thinking, disagreement, no right and wrong answers.
RESUMEN
Comienzo con dos creencias sobre el valor de Fp/c/N que se mantienen ampliamente en la
práctica Fp/cN: a) que Fp/cN es buena porque no hay respuestas correctas e incorrectas y b)
que Fp/cN es buena porque se desarrolla el pensamiento crítico y las habilidades de
1
When I use the term ‘P4/wC’ I am using it widely to refer to all practices of doing philosophy with children
or in schools.
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razonamiento. Identifico un problema que surge de compartir ambas creencias: que, por un
lado, si no hay respuestas correctas ni incorrectas, entonces no cabe posibilidad alguna de
que haya criterios necesarios para el desarrollo de un pensamiento crítico propio y formal,
que es un proceso evaluativo y eliminativo. Explico cómo una definición “débil” de
“pensamiento crítico” es insuficiente y que se necesita una definición “más fuerte”. Lo
explico apelando a una distinción entre crítica “interna” y “externa”. Mi afirmación es que el
desacuerdo no es suficiente para que el pensamiento crítico tenga lugar en las sesiones de
filosofía crítica, ya que esto puede no ser más que el intercambio de opiniones o expresiones
de desaprobación. Lo que se necesita es prestar atención a la estructura interna de los
argumentos que se han ofrecido durante las discusiones filosóficas.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Fp/cN, pensamiento crítico, desacuerdo, respuestas incorrectas y erróneas.
INTRODUCTION
I will begin this paper with two claims2:
1) It is widely held that P4/wC is good for developing critical thinking/reasoning skills.
2) In addition to 1, it is widely held that P4/wC is good because ‘in philosophy there
are no right and wrong answers’.
If one holds to both claims, this can lead to an important problem with regard to how
critical thinking is understood in P4/wC. One possible tension is that if there are no right and
wrong answers in P4/wC (in the sense that ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ have no place in philosophical
discussions because, unlike other subjects, assertions made are only opinions) then there can
be no criteria for critical thinking. This is a problem, given that critical thinking entails
evaluation (including evaluation of truth claims, logical consistency and entitlement to draw
certain inferences) for which criteria is needed.
Claim 2 is vague, deliberately so. This and other phrases such as ‘No one can be wrong
in philosophy’ or ‘You can’t be wrong in philosophy’ are often said by students taking part,
teachers and some P4C practitioners. It is not clear exactly what is meant by these phrases.
When one of these phrases is used, it could be that the speaker intends to express one, or a
combination, of the following propositions:
1) It is impossible to establish any truth in a philosophical/P4C enquiry. (Metaphysical)
2) The objects of investigation have no final/settled answers. (Epistemological)
3) All opinions shared are of equal value. (Axiological)
4) There is only ‘one’s own truth’ in philosophy – all contributions are expressions of
opinion only. (Relativist/Subjectivist)
2
In order to support these claims I will direct the reader to page 1 of a Google search on ‘p4c no right and
wrong answers’:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=p4c+no+right+and+wrong+answers&oq=p4c+no+right+and+wrong+an
swers&aqs=chrome..69i57j69i59.13883j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
If one clicks through each of the links one will see either one or both of these beliefs being expressed (or words
approximating to these two beliefs) in most if not all of the links (Jason Buckley’s piece – the first link –
identifies a similar problem to the one I am identifying in this piece). I am not claiming that these properly
represent the theory behind P4/wC practice(s), merely that these are – correctly or incorrectly – widely held
beliefs about P4/wC.
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However, the important thing for the purposes of this paper is not so much what is
meant by these kinds of phrases (and sometimes it might only be used to encourage students
to speak drawing upon meaning 3 above) but how they could be heard by the students. It is
precisely because the phrases are vague that the onus is on the students to interpret them,
probably as one of the above four meanings or as a confused combination of more than one
of them. I think that in most cases, what is meant with these phrases is not something precise,
but rather something confused. By contrast, I would like to suggest that there is, at least, one
way that a philosophical enquiry may be understood to contain ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ answers:
in a logical way. It may be established that what one says either a) leads to a contradiction,
or b) does not lead to a contradiction or c) there may be good grounds for thinking that an
inference drawn is or is not justifiable (e.g. ‘Just because… doesn’t mean that…’).
Disagreement
The language of disagreement is prevalent in P4/wC practice in classrooms. Many
children, whether or not they have been instructed or advised to do so, and quite
understandably, will often resort to the following default sentence structure: ‘I agree/disagree
with… because…’3 Some practitioners and teachers may feel satisfied that this is sufficient
that their class is engaged in critical thinking, however, being critical is more than saying ‘I
disagree… because…’. One reason for this misconception is that teachers are not, as part of
their teacher-training4, taught any formal critical thinking, so many teachers are working with
a weak definition of ‘critical’ such as ‘disagreeing with someone else’. But there are many
ways to disagree and not all of them are ‘critical’ in the formal sense. Take this example:
A: ‘I think that we should always help each other when we can.’
B: ‘I disagree, I don’t think we should.’
The second speaker (B) is expressing disagreement with the first (A), but they are not
yet employing any critical thinking. One may suggest that this is an example of the first step
for the development of critical thinking because the student is assertive enough to verbalise
aloud his/her disagreement and that this takes courage. I would agree that this is indeed a first
step towards critical thinking, but I would also say that there is still missing an important
structural dimension to this example for us to consider it to be critical thinking proper.
Intellectual courage may well be considered an important part (though not quite necessary,
for instance, if the agent experiences no fear or anxiety in speaking out) of critical thinking,
but it is not sufficient for the reasons I will go on to give. One might think that B’s response
is not critical because there is no reason given. This might suggest that the first definition I
claimed teachers work to is something of a straw man; it is reasonable to assume that teachers
might define ‘critical’ as ‘disagreeing with someone and providing a reason’. So, let’s
suppose a reason is given:
B2: ‘I disagree, I don’t think we should, because it’s up to people to help themselves.’
3
You may think that I have a practice like CoPI in my sights, but, in fact, a CoPI practitioner is trained to have
an eye on the logic of the discussion. A well-trained CoPI facilitator will facilitate the inquiry so that the right
kind of disagreement (dissonant and not simply diverse – see below) is engaged with by the participants.
4
Very often they are also not taught any formal critical thinking on P4/wC training courses either. This is often
because of limited time on such courses and that to train teachers in critical thinking properly requires a good
deal of time and practice.
180
Though a reason has been given, there is still no formal critical thinking going on. This
disagreement has done nothing other than express a difference of opinion. B2’s ‘because’ is
functioning here to answer the why of motivation and not the why of justification.
A word to the whys:

There are at least four functions of ‘why?’/‘because’:
Causal – where an explanation is sought or given
Purpose – where the overall aim or goal is asked for or given.
Motivation – where someone asks for a psychological explanation, or where one
is given, for why they said what they said. E.g. ‘Why did you disagree?’ ‘I
disagreed because he and I always disagree’
If the aim of a P4/wC session is no more than to share opinions then this would be
sufficient, but it would not be meeting the second claim, that of developing critical
thinking/reasoning skills.
So, as I have shown, one may disagree without engaging critically, and conversely, two
people may agree and engage with each other critically. For instance, they may agree that
‘immigration needs to be controlled’ but not offer the same reasons, and they may even think
that the other’s argument offered in support of the claim is flawed; they may agree but not
for the same reasons.
What’s more, sometimes the words ‘agree’/’disagree’ are used where it can be
misleading to do so. For instance:
A: ‘I think Marmite is delicious!’
B: ‘I disagree: I think it’s disgusting!’
There is a sense in which one may offer reasons for why one thinks Marmite is
disgusting (e.g. ‘It’s gloopy’ or ‘It’s too salty’). And though reasons in themselves do not
constitute critical thinking (see above), they do provide an opportunity for critical thinking –
or invite it. So, it depends on what it is that is intended to be expressed with the statement, ‘I
disagree: I think it’s disgusting.’ If I were to say it, I can’t disagree with you that you like the
taste of Marmite: if you do, you do. And if I am able to disagree that you genuinely like the
taste of Marmite, such as, that you are saying so to impress someone, then I will not be able
to do so on the basis that I find it disgusting. So, in cases like this, disagreement can be
misleading.
Internal and external critique
I would like to draw a distinction between what is commonly called internal and
external critique5. Internal critique is critique of an argument’s validity (structure) and
external critique is to do with whether or not one approves of/assents to the conclusion or
whether one thinks that the conclusion is true or false. According to this analysis, one can
agree with the conclusion of a poor argument (e.g. ‘The answer to the question ‘What is 2 +
5
I first encountered this distinction in an unpublished talk/paper given by Oscar Brenifier on a similar theme
at a SOPHIA network meeting in which he credited the distinction to Hegel. When I asked him if I could cite
him he said, characteristically, ‘Don't’ worry about citing me, I never invented anything.’ I have been unable
to find a specific reference directly sourcing the idea to Hegel but the distinction does seem to be in common
usage.
181
2?’ is 4, because 4 is my lucky number’ – the conclusion is, ‘2 + 2 = 4’) and one can disagree
with the conclusion of a good (valid) argument (e.g. ‘All sausages are vegetarians, all
vegetarians have been to the moon, so all sausages have been to the moon’ – the conclusion
is: ‘all sausages have been to the moon’).
So, there are three relevant ways that disagreement may function in the context of
discussion with implications for critical thinking:
1) It may be an expression used to indicate that the speaker is to share a new or
different opinion.
2) It may signal that someone is about to provide an external critique. (Implicit critical
thinking)
3) It may signal that someone is about to examine the structure and content of what
has been said by the speaker, with whom they disagree, in other words make an
internal critique. (Explicit critical thinking)
In the case of 1, which is a common way that ‘I disagree…’ is used in classrooms of
young children, I would contend that no critical thinking is taking place. Only when one
critiques what has been said and/or when one critiques the structure in which what has been
said has been said, implicitly or explicitly, is critical thinking taking place. And in the case
of 2, critical thinking will not necessarily follow or be present following the disagreement,
this will need to be facilitated either by the group itself or by a facilitator.
A word about the structure of statements
‘X is F’ is a predicative statement; it attempts to say something that is true of X. This
kind of statement has a truth-value: either it is true, or it is false. It implies that if someone
says, ‘Marmite is disgusting’ then they are making a truth-claim in virtue of the structure of
the claim X is F. And truth-claims allow for genuine disagreement: ‘either ‘X is F’ is true or
it is false, so let’s examine the reasons for thinking whether ‘X is F’ is true or false in order
to establish what belief we should hold about it’. The problem occurs when the expression
‘X is F’ is used to express a non-predicative proposition, such as ‘I prefer X’. Children – and
many adults too – do not always have a firm grasp of how predicative statements function
and will often use predicative forms of sentence to express non-predicative thoughts or
opinions. So, in cases where someone wishes to express the proposition, ‘X has a preferential
attitude towards F’ (‘I prefer Marmite because…’) but uses the form ‘X is F’ (‘Marmite is
disgusting because…’) it may appear that there is an implied truth-value to the claim when
actually, according to the intention behind the expression anyway, there is none. This is not
trivial because it is this kind of structure that incites passionate responses in others (think of
‘God does not exist’ – putting to one side now whether or not existence is a predicate). It
cannot be true that ‘Marmite is disgusting’ but it can be true that ‘I like Marmite’, or that ‘I
think Marmite is disgusting’ or that ‘it is my opinion that Marmite is disgusting’ (the fact, in
these cases, is my attitude towards Marmite, not that Marmite is disgusting). My claim is
that, often in philosophy with children discussions, something like this is happening. This
leads teachers, facilitators and observers to conclude that genuine disagreement is occurring
or even that genuine critical thinking is taking place when it may not be.
Here’s an example: during a discussion about what the children think the picture book
The Rainbow Fish6 is about, one 7-year-old child says, ‘I think it’s about friendship’, and
then another says, ‘I disagree, I think it’s about happiness, because the rainbow fish wasn’t
6
The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister (North South Books 2007)
182
happy until he shared.’ The use of the word ‘disagree’ and the presence of a reason, may for
some, be enough to suggest that these children are critically engaging with each other. But it
can, of course, be both: the story may well be about friendship and happiness with no conflict
between these two beliefs. So, as I have already demonstrated, one may disagree and provide
a reason but not be engaging critically.
Controversy, diversity and dissonance
I have previously argued that (dialectical/critical) philosophy begins with controversy.
In summary: When an individual, or a group, recognize that there are good reasons for
thinking X and not-X then there is a genuine controversy. The sensitivity to this controversy
motivates the individual or group towards an investigation through reflection, reasoning and
questioning together around the perceived problem. I have also previously argued that,
though (dialectical/critical) philosophy focuses on reflective positions, it begins with
intuitions (pre-reflective positions either held by the individual or that are widely-held) about
the object of inquiry, and that a genuine philosophical controversy is characterized by the
presence of conflicting intuitions, where it seems right to hold on to both conflicting
intuitions. It is the co-presence of plausibility and conflict that leads to many dialectical
philosophical problems7. For example, ‘Time is constant because it ticks around a clock at a
constant speed’ / ‘Time is not constant because when I am having fun it goes quickly but if
I’m bored it takes ages’. The problem consists in the following implied contradiction, that
time is and is not constant (which, by the way, progress can be made with regards to, usually,
in these kinds of examples, by drawing distinctions between different notions of ‘time’ such
as (a) ‘time-measuring devices’ and (b) ‘the phenomenon that a time-measuring device is
designed to help us track’).
If progress can be shown to be possible in a philosophical discussion, this shows us
another way that we can understand a philosophy discussion to have ‘right’ and ‘wrong’
answers: where we are able to provide good answers to the question through thinking tools
such as distinction-drawing. I have also previously recommended that the path to a group of
children recognizing a problem as a problem – a necessary starting point for doing
philosophy – begins with diversity: invite as many ideas as possible and intuitive conflicts
are more likely to occur. However, I would now like to suggest that diversity is not sufficient
for genuine critical thinking in philosophy, there also needs to be dissonance. Diversity
means ‘variety’, and a variety of ideas will not necessarily entail (even if it makes more
likely) the right kind of ideas for philosophical conversation (think of The Rainbow Fish
example above: each child may have a different word to describe what the story is about none
of which may conflict with the other words). The right kind of ideas comes from dissonance.
by ‘dissonance’ I mean that the ideas in some way compete with each other – where they do
not sit comfortably with each other. So, if idea A is thought to be right then idea B (held
either by another or the same person) must be wrong, or at least in need of revision or
refinement, and vice versa. What this means is that when conducting a philosophical
conversation with children or adults, among the requirements for it to be a genuine critical
philosophical conversation are that the ideas present should be dissonant and not merely
diverse and that disagreements should be more than the sharing of differing opinions; they
need to be critical disagreements. A facilitator seeking only diversity will ask, ‘So, is there
anybody who has something different to say to what’s been said before?’ or merely allow
7
Thank you to Steven Campbell-Harris for this sentence formulation.
183
another speaker. Whereas the facilitator seeking dissonance will ask dialectical8 questions
such as, ‘So, we’ve heard from a few people who think X (e.g. ‘It is the same ship [once the
parts have been gradually replaced].’ Is there anybody who thinks not-X [e.g. ‘It’s not the
same ship…’]?’ or ‘Is there anybody who thinks both [e.g. ‘In a way it is the same ship and
in a way it isn’t the same ship…’]?’ or they may ask, ‘What would someone say if they
disagreed with that? And what reasons might they give?’ or ‘Is there anything wrong with
this? Let’s write it up and have a closer look.’ etc.
I would like to emphasise that this is not a reductive thesis: Of course, both approaches,
seeking diversity and dissonance (and others), are to be welcomed in a philosophy session,
but my claim is that the facilitator’s questions should not be limited only to the first kind: the
facilitator of a philosophy session is not looking only for differences of opinion or even
disagreement but the right kind of differences of opinion and disagreement.
Back to Marmite
So, imagine someone says, ‘Marmite is delicious’. Let’s consider some alternative
responses to this:
Response A: I disagree; you like Marmite: you have it every morning for breakfast.
Response B: I disagree, it’s lovely!
Response C: I disagree: you can only say whether it’s delicious to you. It might be disgusting
to me.
Response D: (an exchange)
Felicia: You can’t say ‘Marmite is delicious’, you have to say: ‘I like Marmite’.
Leo: Yes, I can: ‘Marmite is delicious’. See: I just said it!
F: That’s not what I meant. I meant: you can’t say ‘Marmite is delicious’ because it’s not
delicious to everybody. If, what you said: ‘Marmite is delicious’, then it has to be delicious
to everybody.
L: No, because some people might not like it.
F: But then it wouldn’t be true – what you said – that ‘Marmite is delicious’, it would only
be true that some people like it and some people don’t.
L: What?! I don’t get that!
F: Look: ‘Marmite is delicious’ is the same as… I don’t know… ‘Henry is tall’. Henry is tall
for everyone!
L: Not for Luke in 6B.
F: That wasn’t a good example. Erm… it’s the same as… er… ‘That bottle is made of glass’.
L: But Marmite isn’t made of glass!
F: You don’t understand…
8
‘Dialectic’ is used here to mean the systematic investigation and evaluation of opinions by the use of
conversation, questioning and replies. The use of formal critical thinking ensures that the investigation is
systematic.
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Response A is complex, because the speaker doesn’t disagree with the statement,
‘Marmite is delicious’, they dispute the sincerity of the claim. This is a legitimate objection
about the psychology of the claimant, but not internal to the claim (see distinctions in box:
‘A word to the whys’ above).
Response B is not a genuine disagreement in the sense that I have identified as
significant in this paper. The word ‘disagree’ can, of course, be used meaningfully in this
sentence, loosely and colloquially, but the disagreement simply expresses a difference of
preference, so it represents diversity but not dissonance: they are not competing opinions
with inherent tensions; that is to say: both the statements may be simultaneously true whilst
resulting in no conflict. So, here, though the word ‘disagree’ has been used, it is not the sort
of disagreement that would constitute or lead to critical thinking.
Responses C and D are more interesting from a critical thinking point of view. C is a
counter-argument that challenges what the first speaker said without examining the structure
of the argument; the problems with the claim are left implicit. This is a very common form
of critical thinking in classrooms and there is a clear role for a facilitator here in helping the
class unpack what has been left only implicit. D is an example of explicit critical engagement
from Felicia that challenges what follows from the claims made by Leo (where it is assumed
that Leo said the original statement ‘Marmite is delicious’). This shows a greater degree of
sensitivity to internal critique. At one point, Leo critically engages, too, by providing a
counter-example to her example of ‘Henry is tall’. Counter-example is a common way that
children critically engage with each other, this move being very intuitive to children. The
depth of critical engagement is more sophisticated from Felicia because of her sensitivity to
the structure of Leo’s reasoning. Notice also, that Leo engages critically with Felicia,
successfully providing a counter-example, however, he does not understand her overall
position. This is very common in classrooms of children doing philosophy: they can engage
with the philosophical conversation piecemeal but often will not have a synoptic view of the
discussion as a whole. Being able to take a synoptic view of the conversation is where a
facilitator has a clear role in a philosophical discussion, and, I would argue, it is something
the facilitator should be able to attain in order to properly facilitate a philosophical
conversation. This implies that not all teachers or philosophers would necessarily be good
philosophy facilitators; the best facilitators will be those that, in addition to other qualities,
are good at taking a synoptic view of the conversation as a whole.
Below is a plausible series of contributions that help me delineate progress towards
proper critical thinking. First of all, here are two different opinions (without reasons) around
the question ‘Should people help each other?’:
A: ‘I think people should always help each other.’
B: ‘I think that people don’t have to help each other.’
However, even where a reason is provided or disagreement is expressed it does not
mean that critical thinking is necessarily taking place:
A2: ‘I think people should always help each other because it’s nice to help each other.’
B2: ‘I disagree. I don’t think people have to help each other because they can do what they
want.’
The last example is no more than the sharing of different opinions and this short
exchange shows how the presence of reasons is not sufficient for critical thinking to be taking
place. For it to be critical the disagreement has to be critical analysis of what was claimed
with consideration of the structure of that claim. What’s more, the disagreement has to be
relevantly linked to the previous claim.
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A3: ‘I think people should always help each other because it’s nice to help each other.’
B3: ‘Just because it’s nice to help each other doesn’t mean that we should always help each
other’.
Now, this (B3’s response) is properly and relevantly connected and we can express the
critical aspect in terms of a specific critical thinking skill: in this case the identification of a
false inference: a false inference is where X does not follow from Y, but person F has
assumed that it does. Although, I think, we can say this is the kind of exchange that shows a
sensitivity for those aspects of discourse (relevance and structure) that can be described as
‘critical’, B3 has still not provided a reason for why we should see this as a false inference,
they’ve merely asserted that it is one. Either the students or the facilitator should question
further in order to elicit a reason for this conversation to be an example of critical thinking:
E.g. ‘And why do you think that is?’.
The student/group, depending on their age and ability, may or may not be able to
answer this question; they may, for example, simply reiterate: ‘Coz you don’t have to just
because it’s nice’ Or, they may go on to say something like, ‘Sometimes it’s nice to help but
it’s wrong; sometimes we need to be ‘cruel to be kind’.’ And they may go on to provide an
example (in this case a counter-example), especially if another student or a good
teacher/facilitator asks them to. However, whatever happens, already we have reached a point
where we can see that the aim of the session and of the teacher/facilitator is to ensure that the
discussion moves in a genuinely critical direction and that proper opportunities for critical
thinking have been made open and apparent. I think, whether or not this particular exchange
goes further, this is sufficient for us to be able to claim that critical thinking is taking place.
If it were a P4/wC (or similar) session and the student merely reiterated, then the exchange
would probably stop at this point, but if, for example, it were a critical thinking A level
course, then the teacher may expect more, saying something like, ‘You need to try to explain
why it doesn’t follow, or you need to provide a clear counter-example, such as an example
of a situation where it might be nice to help someone but where it’s not the right thing to do.’
One of the challenges of developing critical thinking skills in children is not just that the
facilitator is aware of what’s needed from a critical thinking point of view, but that this
sensitivity is in some way transferred to the students so that they can, autonomously, begin
to see what is needed to be done to progress the discussion in a genuinely critical way.
From the examples provided above we can see how we might be able to identify and
suggest some practical facilitation strategies for helping a group become more ‘critical’.
Facilitation responses such as, ‘What is it about what X said that you agree/disagree with?’
or ‘Which bit of what X said do you agree/disagree with?’ or ‘When you said ‘Just because…
it doesn’t mean that… can you explain why it doesn’t mean that…?’ or ‘Let’s write that up:
‘Everything is a thing so that means that holes are a thing’. What do the rest of you think
about this?’ These kinds of facilitation responses help to bring attention to the arguments
(premises and conclusions), the structure of statements and the relationships (logical and
otherwise) of statements and claims to one another, attention to which is essential for a
genuinely critical appraisal of not just what is being said but how what is being said is being
said (formally: the validity of any argument). If the children have been explicitly taught
critical skills, such as counter-examples, distinction-drawing and inference-making, then
questions such as these may be asked to facilitate the students’ own critical analysis: ‘Are
there any counter-examples/distinctions to be drawn?’, ‘Did anyone hear any inferences
being made?’ or ‘Did anyone hear any false inferences?’ and so on.
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Conclusion
It should now be clear the extent to which disagreement may be identified or associated
with critical thinking and the extent to which it may not. My concern is that the discourse of
disagreement is equated, wholesale, with genuine critical engagement. Finer distinctions,
however, between kinds of disagreement need to be drawn, because, as we have seen,
participants in a discussion may very well say that they ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’ with their peers
without (a) genuinely disagreeing and (b) without any genuine critical engagement
necessarily taking place.
One implication of this paper is that for genuine critical philosophy to be taking place
during a P4/wC session the facilitators need to have a good grasp of formal critical thinking
to be able to successfully help it towards a more critical, evaluative goal. If P4/wC is a
programme aimed at developing reasoning skills in children (an aim I claim is held by many
practitioners), and if teachers should be trained to an expert level in that which they
teach/facilitate, then it would follow that teachers and facilitators of P4/wC should be trained
in both formal and informal logic, the latter being concerned with argumentation, something
the children will use and engage in whether or not they have been explicitly taught to do so.
I should point out, however, that my claim is not that philosophy is reducible to critical
thinking, only that it is a necessary, or at least important, part of philosophising, and certainly
to those practitioners that accept the assumption that philosophy helps to develop critical
thinking skills. In many cases, the level of understanding possessed, of what critical thinking
is and what it entails, will very often be insufficient for those facilitating P4/wC to be able to
properly meet the aim many of them hold dear: namely, to develop critical thinking/reasoning
skills in their students.
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P4C’s Rediscovery of the ‘Other Side’ of Aristotle’s Logic.

An Interpretive Hypothesis
Stefano Oliverio
University of Naples Federico II (ITALY)
stefano.oliverio@unina.it
Alessandro Volpone
University of Bari (ITALY)
alessandro.volpone@uniba.it
CV
Stefano Oliverio is senior lecturer of Education at the Department of Political Sciences of the
University of Naples Federico II. He holds a degree in philosophy and a PhD in Education.
He publishes and teaches in the areas of philosophy of education, Philosophy for Children,
intercultural education, educational theory. From 2013 to 2017 he was vice-president of the
International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC).
Alessandro Volpone is a secondary school teacher of philosophy as well as a professor
of History of Biology in the degree course of Biological Sciences (University of Bari). He
holds a degree in philosophy and a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science. He publishes
and teaches in the areas of logic, history of genetics, Darwinism, Philosophy for Children,
“philosophical practices.” He has published extensively in each of the aforementioned field.
One of the founding members of CRIF (the Italian Centre for P4C associated to ICPIC), he
has been the President since 2013.
ABSTRACT
This paper pursues a double and interwoven goal: on the one hand, it reconstructs how
ancient philosophy had a prominent role in the way in which the founders of P4C understood
their undertaking. In this perspective, it is argued that P4C can (and even should) be construed
in terms of a ‘repetition’ of ancient philosophy (in the quasi-Heideggerian meaning of
Wiederholung). On the other, it is shown how Lipman and Sharp revived an oft forgotten
strand of ancient philosophy, that is, the dialectic as distinct from the epistemic reasoning.
After presenting the specificities of the ancient dialectic (as Aristotle has delivered them to
us), we explore the ‘family resemblance’ between this mode of ‘communal’ reasoning and
what happens within the community of philosophical inquiry, and we suggest capturing their
affinities as a form of ‘exaptation’.
KEYWORDS
Ancient philosophy and P4C; dialectic; syllogism.
RESUMEN
Este artículo persigue un objetivo doble e interrelacionado: por un lado, reconstruye cómo la
filosofía antigua desempeñaba un papel preponderante en la forma en que los fundadores de
P4C entendían su tarea. En esta perspectiva, se argumenta que P4C puede (e incluso debe)
ser interpretado en términos de una “repetición” de la filosofía antigua (en el significado
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cuasi-heideggeriano de Wiederholung). Por otro lado, se muestra cómo Lipman y Sharp

revivieron una vieja corriente olvidada de la filosofía antigua, es decir, la dialéctica como
distinta del razonamiento epistémico. Después de presentar las especificidades de la
dialéctica antigua (como nos la ha entregado Aristóteles), exploramos el' parecido familiar'
entre este modo de razonamiento' comunitario' y lo que sucede dentro de la comunidad de
investigación filosófica, y sugerimos capturar sus afinidades como una forma de
‘exaptación’.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía antigua, dialéctica y FpN, silogismo.
INTRODUCTION
It is a widespread view and a warranted piece of scholarly knowledge that the
theoretical and pedagogical device of P4C1 can be construed in terms of three main sources:
1) the model of the Socratic dialogue; 2) the tradition of philosophical and educational
pragmatism, which operates not only on the idea of the community of inquiry (as is well
known, Lipman and Sharp drew the notion from Pierce [see Kennedy, 2010; Oliverio, 2011,
2012b]) but also at the level of the fundamental ‘activist’ view of education according to a
Deweyan matrix2 and, finally, in the Meadean view about social consciousness as a
prerequisite of learning;3 and 3) the psychology of Vygotsky (see Lipman, 1996).
There is nothing wrong in this ‘basic’ reconstruction and, indeed, one of the present
authors has contributed to it (e.g. Oliverio, 2017). In this chapter, however, we will explore
one more genealogical level of P4C, particularly in reference to the kind of logic and dialogue
occurring within the community of philosophical inquiry (henceforth CPI).4 We want to
discuss the theoretical and epistemological hypothesis that through the workings of the CPI
a way of understanding the logical procedures of thought – Aristotle’s dialectic – comes to
the fore, which the ‘epistemocentric’ tradition of Western philosophy has often overlooked.
This could help us both to better understand some texts of Aristotle and, perhaps, to discover
new dimensions of the CPI. For this reason, the title of this chapter hints at that of Lipman’s
(1974) pioneering novel (Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery), in which he implicitly refers to
1
Throughout this paper, by P4C we refer to the IAPC approach developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp.
2
‘I took from Dewey the idea that a classroom session must begin with something that stimulates the interest
of the children and then leads them to reflect on the meaning of their experience, while continuing to maintain
the same interest without breaking the continuity right to the end of the session. The lessons may begin with
a poem, an observation about a painting, a scientific demonstration anything that encourages the children to
think’ (Striano, 2012, p. 522).
3
‘It is often assumed that children are born as little savages and that they must learn to become civilized.
Education is thought to have a decent influence upon them. As a result of its benign influence, they become
social beings. It was this doctrine that George Herbert Mead stood on its head when he wrote that ‘the child
does not become social by learning. He must be social in order to learn.’ It was Mead, therefore, who first
grasped the profound educational implications of fusing together, as Peirce had, the two independently
powerful notions of inquiry and community into the single transformative concept of the community of
inquiry’ (Lipman, 2003, p. 84). From Mead, who in his turn took it from ‘the Platonic Socrates,’ Lipman takes
also what is one of the guiding principles of the work of the dialogue in the CPI, namely ‘the notion of following
an argument where it leads’ (Ibid., p. 85).
4
The reasons for the combination of ‘logic and dialogue’ in the last sentence will become clear in the following.
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the discovery of the Aristotelian syllogism that the main character makes. To put it a bit
humorously, we can say that we want to complement Lipman’s story by showing how his
characters—and, on the basis of their model, many generations of students over the last five
decades—have discovered, by unawarely practising it within the CPI, the other side of
Aristotelian logic.
It is appropriate to specify that, although this kind of inquiry may appear merely as a
piece of scholarship, it has actually been originated by the engagement of the present authors
as practitioners of P4C. One of us, in particular, realized at a certain point that his practice as
a facilitator of P4C sessions enabled him to better understand some texts of Aristotle, shaking
off some deep-seated (and even encrusted) interpretive prejudices. In this perspective, the
movement which gave rise to this chapter is the reverse of that which resulted in the writing
of Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery. In the latter case, starting from some topics and texts of
the history of philosophy by ‘dramatizing’ them and ‘casting [them] in the modality of
fictional narrative’ (Lipman, 1995/1996, p. 64), Lipman created a story in which different
characters ‘not only portray philosophical styles of thinking but often take philosophical
positions drawn from the history of philosophy’ (Sharp, 1992, p. 166).
In our case, instead, starting from the practice of P4C based upon Lipman’s and Sharp’s
curriculum we have gained some insights into topics and texts of the history of philosophy.
That all this could lead also to an enrichment of the practice and not only to a broader
interpretation of its theoretical device is something about which we are convinced but needs
further confirmation.
P4C and the Wiederholung of ancient Greek philosophy
Ancient philosophy has ‘haunted’ the project of Philosophy for Children since its very
inception. To begin with, as aforementioned, the model of Socrates was fundamental in
Lipman’s theoretical device in at least two respects: first, he is the model of doing philosophy
as opposed to applying philosophy: ‘The paradigm of doing philosophy is the towering,
solitary figure of Socrates, for whom philosophy was neither an acquisition nor a profession
but a way of life. What Socrates models for us is not philosophy known or philosophy applied
but philosophy practiced. He challenges us to acknowledge that philosophy as deed, as form
of life, is something that any of us can emulate’ (Lipman, 1988, p. 12). In this sense, Socrates
appeals to Lipman less as the inventor of the concept than as the embodiment of philosophy
as a way of life pursuing wisdom. Lipman re-discovered and educationally operationalized a
view of (ancient) philosophy set free from the ‘epistemocentric’ understanding typical of
modern philosophy. This view reverberates in the complex understanding of judgement that
Lipman elaborated, culminating in the idea of judgement as ‘a microcosmic version of
person’ (Lipman, 2003, p. 292).
Secondly, Socrates represents a model of dialogical inquiry, that is, of the way in which
philosophy as doing is realized: ‘[…] those educators who wish to learn from Socrates should
take the following lessons to heart: 1. All major concepts should be operationalized, and these
operations should be properly sequential. 2. Intellectual inquiry should begin with the
interests of the student. 3. One of the best ways of stimulating people to think is to engage
them in dialogue. 4. Excellent thinking is logical and founded upon experience. (It is also, as
we know from Plato, imaginative.) Thinking skills programs should, therefore, stress both
formal and creative reasoning’ (Lipman Sharp, & Oscanyan, 1980, p. xv).
The following passage from the preface to Philosophy in the classroom is particularly
instrumental in highlighting the role that ancient philosophy has in P4C: ‘What happened in
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the sixth century B.C. is that thinking turned round on itself: people began to think about
thinking, and that momentous event, the culmination of the long process to that point, was in
fact the birth of philosophy. But what the early Greeks recognized is much the same as what
many teachers and administrators are beginning to realize today: just as the perfection of
the thinking process culminates in philosophy, so too is philosophy, par excellence, the finest
instrument yet devised for the perfection of the thinking process’ (Ibid., p. xi. Italics added).
By hermeneutically bending (and possibly twisting) this passage, it is worth noting that
Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan do not confine themselves to reconnecting the project of
Philosophy for Children generally to a Greek matrix—insofar as Greece is the cradle of
philosophy in its Western meaning—but, more radically, they seem to intimate that teachers,
educators and administrators have been having an experience of the quality of philosophy
which matches the Greek dawning.
In other words, what happens in P4C is a repetition of the Greek beginning. The notion
of ‘repetition’ is here introduced in the quasi-Heideggerian meaning of Wiederholung, that
is, understood not as a duplication of something already said (or done) but rather as the
disclosing re-appropriation of a tradition in which one is her/himself inscribed. As a
repetition in this sense, what is at stake in P4C is not an updating—still less the mere parrot-
like replication—of old theories but rather their re-discovery. In this understanding, Harry
Stottlemeier with his discovery of Aristotelian logic is really the paradigm of one of the chief
axes of P4C as a whole.5
It is precisely the reference to Harry Stottlemeier’s discovery that provides us with a
good avenue to the core of our argument as will be developed in the rest of this contribution.
Indeed, there seems to be an ambivalent relationship with Aristotle in Lipman: on the one
hand, as is well known, the Greek philosopher casts his shadow over Lipman’s inaugural
novel: ‘Logic forms the backbone of the Harry syllabus, although it is by no means the only
philosophical theme that arises there. […] The logic in Harry is known as traditional, or
Aristotelian logic because it leads up to, and focuses on the syllogism’ (Splitter, 1992, pp.
107-108). And in his autobiography Lipman states: ‘[…] I needed Aristotelian logic because
it was evidently relevant to two important contexts: language and the world […] The
invention of Aristotelian Logic may have been what Dewey once called it (in his China
Lectures), the greatest single intellectual invention in human history, but even if it wasn’t, it
cannot keep us from wondering what brought it out, and what it was that Aristotle in turn
brought about in the generations that followed his’ (Lipman, 2008, pp. 109 and 120).
More specifically, the appeal to Aristotelian logic as a privileged tool for education for
critical thinking emerged also from Lipman’s ‘need for protecting children from types of
advertising and propaganda that foreclosed on their freedom of choice rather than opening it
5
This movement of Wiederholung, which is at work in the rising of the P4C project, also shines, in our
symptomatic reading, through passages like the following (from Lipman’s autobiography): ‘As I continued to
formulate Philosophy for Children, another question came to my mind—Could the mind of a child be able to
conceive of the principles that somewhere, somehow, guided the invention of that work we call to this day
Aristotelian Logic? I cannot say for sure. But such a work does in fact exist, and so did Aristotle once. Unless
he was even more remarkable than we think him to be, he was once a child, and probably it wasn’t
instantaneously that he became an adult. This insistence upon continuity in nature leads us to think that there
was once a twelve-year-old Aristotle who was an incipient adult Aristotle and whose head may already have
been swirling with theories of class relationships, valid inference and so on’ (Lipman, 2008, p. 120). Isn’t
Lipman insinuating that the fictional Harry and the real children educated through P4C may ‘repeat’ the path
leading to the invention of Aristotelian logic? Isn’t this Wiederholung at its best?
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up’ (Lipman, 2008, p. 103) as well as from his concerns about the lack of abilities in logical
and critical thinking that the young generations, and people in general, showed and about the
impact that this could have on the workings of a democratic society, which thrives on public
debate and on the capacity of citizens to participate in courses of inquiry.
On the other hand, in this search for new teaching strategies to promote rigorous
thinking, what had to be overthrown was precisely the Aristotelian format of the ‘treatise’ in
order to reconnect to a more educationally promising way of ‘presenting’ philosophy: ‘For
the great part of their history in Western civilization, literature and philosophy have been
estranged from one another. But this was hardly the case during those early centuries in
Greece that saw the emergence of philosophical thinking. Prior to Aristotle, in fact,
philosophy was virtually always embodied in some literary vehicle’ (Lipman, Sharp, &
Oscanyan, 1980, p. xi-xii. Italics added). As a consequence, it was clear to Lipman ‘that the
logic of Aristotle, insofar as it was to be presented in the children’s book (his logic being the
most akin to language), would have to be accompanied by such philosophical ideas as the
pre-Socratics discovered, as well as in some similarly appropriate literary vehicles’ (Lipman,
1992, p. 6).
In other words, in this (self)interpretation of P4C Aristotle provided (some of) the main
philosophical contents of the first novel but not its literary form, which reconnected rather to
the vehicles offered by the pre-Aristotelian philosophy. In this respect, a double discovery
and a double Wiederholung of the Greek tradition presided over the very beginning of the
P4C project: on the one hand, there is the discovery of Harry and, thus, a refreshing take on
the possible educational meaning of ancient philosophy, even in its apparently most abstract
form, that of the syllogistic logic. Instead of contenting themselves with designing one more
curriculum of critical thinking disregarding the rich philosophical heritage, the main move
of Lipman and Sharp was precisely to re-establish the bond with that heritage. This, on the
other hand, required an adequate literary vehicle, which could not consist in ‘expository
texts’: indeed, Lipman and Sharp felt the need to make recourse to ‘narrative texts’ (see
Lipman, 1991 and the valuable discussion in De Marzio, 2011). However, this choice was
only subsequently (see for instance Lipman, 1991, p. 214) construed in the vocabulary of
contemporary hermeneutical philosophy (Gadamer, 2004; Ricoeur, 1983-1985), educational
theory (Egan, 1985) or psychology (Bruner, 1986); at the beginning, it was supported by a
‘recovery’ of those forms of philosophical-literary textuality which were usual prior to the
emergence of the ‘Aristotelian’ expository mode typical of the didactic communication of
philosophy and science.
In this sense, we have been speaking of a double Wiederholung and of an inventive
combination or even a grafting of some Aristotelian ‘contents’ onto pre-Aristotelian literary
forms. Against this backdrop, we would like to suggest that actually a third Wiederholung
occurs in the P4C project and it is connected, once again, with a discovery of Aristotle’s logic
and syllogism, though not with that kind of syllogism discussed by Harry, Lisa and their
friends but rather with what Aristotle called ‘dialectic syllogism’. This third ‘repetition’
concerns not the level of the texts of the curriculum but the CPI. Although, as
aforementioned, we know that this pedagogical device stems from a creative re-appropriation
of some tenets of pragmatism, we will intimate that knowing what happens within the CPI
helps us to understand the ancient dialectic, redeeming the latter from some
misunderstandings that have accrued to the interpretations of it. In order to make our point,
we will first reconstruct some main characteristics of the ancient dialectic (as Aristotle
mapped them out chiefly in his Topics and Sophistical Refutations) and, then, in the
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conclusions, we will explain in what sense we believe that the dialogues taking place within
CPIs can be read, to a certain extent, through the lens of this part of Aristotelian logic.
Aristole’s dialectic, the question-and-answer structure and the communal
inquiry
In this section, we will look at the ancient dialectic by focusing on its logical and
argumentative form. We aim at showing how this form could enable us to gain some insights
into (at least) some levels of the philosophical inquiry as it occurs within the CPI. In
particular, we will distinguish two kinds of philosophical dialogue: the dialectic one, in which
interlocutors work with an agreed-upon and shared articulation of the discourse, and the
demonstrative one, in which each participant develops her/his own arguments in an
autonomous and independent way with no real connections with those of her/his fellow
interlocutors. This character of constitutive sharedness is an implicit presupposition of the
dialectic, which resonates in its very name: indeed, dia-leghein refers to a kind of logos which
builds itself by going through different positions. In this respect, the Aristotelian idea – which
we will explore in this section – of a ‘dialectic syllogism’ should be approached by keeping
in mind the character of togetherness which presides over it: there is no ‘dialectic syllogism’
without the presence of a plurality of interlocutors (at least two interlocutors need to be
involved).
By playing with the word ‘syllogism’ we can say that in the dialectic the prefix ‘sun-’
(= with) of the word syllogism does not refer only to the con-catenation of the logoi, which
guarantees the cogency (etymologically: co-agere, acting together) of the reasoning, but also
to the co-action of the fellow members of a dialogue, who build together (sun-) the
argumentation by exchanging their logoi. As we will see, this co-action (this ‘dialectic’ co-
agency, and thus, ‘cogency’ in an idiosyncratic meaning of the word) is spelled out, in the
ancient reflection on the dialectic, in terms of a ‘question-answer’ (erōtēsis kai apokrisis)
structure.
A detailed reconstruction of the history of the ancient dialectic exceeds the scope of
this paper. We will confine ourselves to pointing out that, while it would be illegitimate to
speak of two kinds of dialectic as far as the argumentative structure is concerned, Plato’s and
Aristotle’s approaches are fairly different, the difference lying in the interpretations that they
provided of this form of discourse and reasoning. For Plato, the dialectic is a science in itself
and, indeed, the only true science, whereas for Aristotle it is not a science but only a
procedure of inquiry. This difference does not exclude the possibility of analyzing the
Platonic dialogues in the light of the procedural indications provided by Aristotle and,
alternatively, of using the Platonic dialogues as a litmus test of the Aristotelian reflections.
To put it in another way: in both cases, we have to do with one and only one thing, namely
the ancient dialectic in its full-blown flourishing (whether acted – in Plato’s dialogues – or
reflected-upon – in Aristotle’s logical treatises). This correspondance allows us to deploy
some insights coming from the way in which the dialectic is staged within Plato’s dialogues
in order to complement Aristotle’s remarks.
In particular, this interpretive strategy enables us to capture a specific (and pivotal for
our argumentation) trait of a key aspect of the dialectic syllogism, namely its middle term (or
minor premise), what Aristotle calls the endoxon. It is worth noting that in Plato’s dialogues
the endoxon is established after a(n often gruelling) discussion aiming at the definition of a
long series of (major) premises approved by the interlocutors. In this procedure, many
premises – on which it was impossible to reach any agreement – are discarded. What is
193
significant in this apparently marginal procedural aspect is that it makes manifest a

fundamental dimension of the dialectic syllogism (as distinct from what we will call the
‘epistemic’ syllogism, which is the ‘traditional’ one, i.e. also that discovered by Harry in
Lipman’s novel). We will define this dimension as ‘argumentative heteronomy’ (Volpone,
2015) to be opposed to the ‘argumentative autonomy,’ which thinkers display whenever they
reflect in solitude.
In this perspective, we suggest that the epistemological device of the dialectic
procedure is composed of two main elements: the endoxon (the only one on which
philosophical and historiographical research tends to focus) and the ‘argumentative
heteronomy,’ that is, the way through which the endoxon is attained (and this is an additional
element rarely if ever thematized by the Aristotelian scholarship, while it is, in our view, a
most significant aspect for a real take on the kind of rationality and logical discourse
characterizing the dialectic as a specific form of reasoning). By exploring the intrinsic co-
belonging of these two elements we will be able to identify the specifities of the dialectic
logic and to establish its difference from the epistemic logic. In this way, not only will we do
justice to the rich understanding of rationality that Aristotle used to have, by contributing to
a much-needed broadening of the ‘biodiversity’ of forms of logical thinking, but contextually
we will have a tool to revisit the kind of logic at work within the CPI.
In order to substantiate our claims we will take our cue from the first pages of
Aristotle’s Topics:
Reasoning [syllogism] is an argument in which, certain things being laid down, something other
than these necessarily comes about through them. (a) It is a ‘demonstration,’ when the premises
from which the reasoning starts are true and primary, or are such that our knowledge of them
has originally come through premises, which are primary and true; (b) reasoning, on the other
hand, is ‘dialectical,’ if it reasons from opinions that are generally accepted. Things are ‘true
and primary,’ which are believed on the strength not of anything else but of themselves: for, in
regard to the first principles of science, it is improper to ask any further for the why and
wherefore of them; each of the first principles should command belief in and by itself. On the
other hand, those opinions are ‘generally accepted’ which are accepted by every one or by the
majority of by the philosophers – i.e. by all, or by the majority, or by the most notable and
illustrious of them. (Top. 100 a 27-b 23)6
For many centuries the stress was laid exclusively upon the difference between ‘the
true and primary premises’ of science (epistēmē) and the ‘endoxa’ of the dialectic, by
interpreting it in terms of degrees of truth: the former are absolutely true, while the latter are
only likely, probable (indeed, one of the Latin translations of ‘endoxa’ was probabilia,
probabilities). In this perspective, we cannot speak of two different logical
discourses/reasonings, but there would be only one, that of science, in comparison with which
the dialectic would be derivative and subordinate in that it works with less sound and certain
premises. There would be a ladder (or, if one prefers it, a ‘great chain of thought’) at the
highest rung of which we find the epistēmē with its absolutely certain truth, the second rung
being occupied by the dialectic and its conclusions based on only probable premises. This
stereotyped image, massively influenced by the mediaeval understanding of Aristotle, which
remained active also in modern philosophy, has been problematized and revised by studies
over the last fifty years. Since the third event in the series of Symposia Aristotelica (held in
6
We have drawn upon the translation by W.A. Pickard-Cambridge, included in the edition of the works of
Aristotle edited by W.D. Ross (see Aristotle, 1928, p. 326).
194
Oxford in 1963 and specifically dedicated to the dialectic), a new view has held sway,
consisting in the abandonment of the reading of the dialectic in the light of and according to
the model of the epistēmē. A vast scholarship has contributed to pinpointing the breadth of
Aristotle’s view of rationality and its procedures, which cannot be reduced to the sole
epistemic mode. It is in this horizon that a new interpretation of the endoxa has come to the
fore, not pivoting any longer on their ‘truth’ but rather on their being, as premises, something
already known, re-cognized, and shared. It is an interpretation that recovers the etymological
meaning of endoxon, as something which is-in-the-doxa, without giving to this being-in-the-
doxa any derogatory meaning of something epistemologically fragile, unsound, and
ultimately flawed (much according to the Platonic opposition between doxa and epistēmē)
but rather by understanding it as a being agreed-upon, appreciated, deemed as worthy of
consideration and, therefore, reliable for a (specific kind of) inquiry. In this view, the endoxon
as a middle term of a syllogism (and, therefore, its minor premise) is the comparison element
on which the argumentation developed by the interlocutors turns in order to reach a sound
conclusion.
Differently from the true and primary premises of the demonstrative reasoning
(=epistēmē), what counts in the endoxon is less its truth than the fact that it is agreed-upon
and shared so that the fellow interlocutor(s) cannot avoid accepting it as a step in the
reasoning. It is worth noting that the endoxa should be accepted also by the audience, which
plays the role of a witness and an umpire in the public discussion (and the dialectic,
differently from the epistemic reasoning which ultimately happens in the head of the
thinker(s), has always to do with public discussion and, therefore, with plurality).
The shift of focus originated by the most recent reflections has thus led us to recognize
that what characterizes the endoxon is not its probability but rather its being a sort of maxim
of commonplace (in the literary and not disparaging meaning of the word) shared by the
participants in a dialogue. It is a tenet that they cannot put in question not because it is
logically incontrovertible but because people are ready to assent to and recognize it as valid
(e.g. every virtue has its opposite; nobody likes to die etc.). In the dialectic reasoning, the one
who asks questions (ho eroton) adopts the endoxon at the end of her/his reasoning in order
to accomplish her/his work of criticism and confutation of the positions of the fellow
interlocutors. The latter, in their turn, try to resist these confutations not by gainsaying the
endoxon but by putting into question their (previous) concession of the major premises. Here
below is a diagram of the dialectic reasoning:
195
While the most recent scholarship has had the merit of disengaging the analysis of the
endoxon from the epistemic model, it has ended up focusing almost exclusively on an inquiry
into its nature (= what kind of maxims can play the role of endoxa? What is the source of
their being accepted and taken for granted? etc.) and, thus, it has overlooked what is most
significant in the dialectic reasoning and represents its real driving force: at any step,
interlocutors participate in and contribute to the establishing (= approving, accepting) of
the premises, they act together, co-act, in this endeavour and this is the specific co-(a)gency
of this kind of reasoning.
Let a short historical remark be allowed: one of the most important and insightful
ancient commentators of Aristotle, Alexander of Aphrodisia, makes no mention at all of the
endoxa, while insisting on the fact that, differently from other forms of reasoning which
produce ‘continuous discourses’ (diexodikos poieisthai), the dialectic unfolds as a question-
and-answer movement (dialektikē en erōtēsei kai apokrisei). (Alex. Top. 27, 13). We can say
that Alexander sees the specific feature of the dialectic not in the endoxa per se but rather in
the question-and-answer structure, which de-linearizes the process of reasoning by building
circuits of mutual interrogation.
196
At an epistemological level, it is worth noting that the question-and-answer structure

introduces a specific communicative dimension, alien to the epistemic reasoning (or at least
not constitutive of it to the extent it is of the dialectic reasoning): all interlocutors are
supposed to contribute to the reasoning. It is this dimension that we propose calling the
‘heteronomy of the argumentative elements’.
We should capture the epistemological relevance of this aspect: indeed, it is something
that gets into the very building of the kind of reasoning which unfolds. In order to better
illustrate this point, we can distinguish four cases:
1) The logical reasoning of the lone thinker, who moves from absolutely certain
premises and by building on them, through strict logical passages, arrives at certain
conclusions;
2) The intellectual confrontation between two or more interlocutors, in which each one
simply enunciates and links together in a strict and autonomous way a series of n
argumentative elements in order to support her/his thesis ‘against’ her/his fellow
interlocutor(s);
3) The dialectic discourse, in which all the argumentative elements are and should be
mutually ‘recognized’ and shared;
4) The kind of discourse predominant in a talk show (here understood as a powerful
cognitive matrix [see Livingston & Lunt, 1994]), in which every participant aims
just at having the upper hand over the fellow interlocutor(s), whatever the tools s/he
has to deploy (usually not through logical but rhetorical strategies).
It is manifest that case 4 does not represent any kind of reasoning stricto sensu or of
communal inquiry. The participant(s) can reconnect their ‘arguments’ to those of their fellow
interlocutor(s) but a) the sharing of (some) statements, even if not excluded in principle, is
not required and b) we have to do precisely with statements and not with ‘premises,’ that is,
terms in the development of an argumentation. In this respect, the plurality which is at stake
in this kind of discourse has nothing to do with an epistemological constraint within the
building of a reasoning.
The first three cases, however, represent instances of reasoning and, in this sense, they
all belong to the realm of logic (and not to that of rhetoric). Case 2 is particularly interesting:
despite the presence of several interlocutors it should be considered more as a sub-species of
case 1 than as akin to case 3. Indeed, in it each interlocutor develops her/his argumentation
without any consideration of the other’s acceptance of the argumentative elements and by
elaborating on argumentative elements autonomously chosen. One could object that, in order
to build sound arguments, s/he has to draw upon elements which appeal to the other’s reason
and are, therefore, universally acceptable. The point is, however, precisely this: the
potentially universal acceptance refers to a domain in which actual plurality (and, therefore,
real communication, negotiation, and contextual agreements) makes no sense or, to put it
bluntly, the ‘universal other’ is a magnified and de-contextualized I, and case 2 is just a
possible evolution of case 1.
Case 3 introduces a real difference by situating (in all the meanings of the word) the
development of an argumentation within the context of an actual discussion, in which the
positions are negotiated and have to be approved/accepted in order to be the terms of a
reasoning. This is what the heteronomy of the argumentative elements amounts to. To use
once again the idiosyncratic phrase introduced previously, the co-agency of the interlocutors
leads to the specific cogency of the reasoning and the dialectic syllogism is literally a sun-
logos, the interweaving of logoi together.
197
In other words, in cases 1 and 2 the thinker(s) is (are) self-sufficient, relatively

independent and free in the laying of the foundations of her/his (their) own reasoning; in case
3, instead, one interlocutor can propose one element, but the other must accept it in order for it
to be included as an element of the argumentation. At the end, the reasoning does not belong
to the single thinkers and not even – strictly speaking – to the combination of their endeavours
taken in their isolation but it happens through them (dia-leghesthai). The dialectic reasoner is
thus structurally linked and even subject to ‘the dialogic other’ and s/he must be ready to change
the heuristic path if the situation requires it.
In the light of this reconstruction, it becomes understandable in what sense the dialectic
should be considered as a privileged form of dialegesthai. It is worth noting that the middle
voice of the verb in Greek indicates that the activity named by the verb is received by the
subject her/himself. In other words, the subject is not only the active pole of the activity but
also, in some respect, the passive pole. This means that the dialectic-as-dialegesthai can take
place only insofar as the speakers speak their words as the words of the other(s), that is, as
those words that the other(s) is/are ready to accept.
At the logical level, this implies that the conditio sine qua non of a dialectic syllogism is
that the fellow interlocutor(s) concede(s) the argumentative premises. For this reason, as
aforementioned, we should distinguish two kinds of philosophical reasoning: the epistemic one
is performed (in principle) by the single thinker in her/his solitude, independence, and
autonomy (e.g.: a thinker elaborates a theory and, subsequently, makes it public by illustrating
it to an audience – real or virtual – without looking for any agreeement of any interlocutor
while building her/his argumentation. This is the model of the Academic philosopher in the
strong sense of the word [see Landesberg, 1923; Oliverio, 2017]); the dialectic kind of
reasoning requires, instead, the presence of (at least) one interlocutor in that it is predicated
upon the sharedness and agreed-upon-ness of the premises.
In this respect, the dialectic thinker can only partly ‘plan’ the development of her/his own
argumentation, understood as the identification and concatenation of the elements of the
reasoning, as in performing it s/he must calibrate, adjust and accommodate them according to
those argumentive hinges which will be conceded by the interlocutor(s) and some of these
hinges can emerge unexpectedly from within the dialogic situation.
Adapting an analogy of Levi-Strauss (1962), the thinker of the ‘autonomous syllogism’
is the engineer, who works on the basis of a well-devised plan, while the thinker of the
‘heteronomous syllogism’ is more like a bricoleur, who must draw upon the materials which
s/he finds in the dialogic situation in which s/he participates. In the former case, we can think
of a blueprint of the reasoning sketched out in advance; in the latter, the plan is at most a draft,
as it must be continuously re-defined and re-modelled in itinere in accordance with what the
other(s) concede(s) and offer(s) in terms of the argumentive elements to use.
Introducing the notion of the ‘heteronomy of the argumentive elements’ is, therefore,
instrumental in giving ‘logical substance’ to the question-and-answer structure of the dialectic
reasoning and in enabling us to recognize its epistemological relevance. In the light of these
considerations, it should have become clear why we have claimed that it is not only the endoxon
that characterizes the dialectic syllogism. This should be defined as that kind of syllogism
which displays both these argumentive elements:
 Major premises: they are conceded, negotiated, and approved;
 (at least) one minor premise: opinions, convictions or principles which are taken for
granted, accepted, and shared.
198
In distinguishing between major and minor premises we have been distinguishing

between two moves/stances: the approving and the sharing. However, it is evident that all
that is shared is somehow ‘approved’ and vice versa. In other words, there is an area of
semantic overlapping which refers us to the more general heteronomy presiding over the
dialectic procedure. In order to remain within the Aristotelian matrix we could rephrase the
distinction as follows: there is something which is primary and essential (the major premises)
and something which is secondary and derivative (the endoxa): the former must be
‘conceded’ by the interlocutor in the position of the one who is questioned (ho erōtōmenos)
and, then, they are shared among the interlocutors, while the latter are essentially shared and,
then, approved (also) by the interlocutors, for whom the endoxa are thus mutually conceded.
However, these are technicalities, important as they are in order to flesh out the
interpretive hypothesis here advanced. The main point is that the inquiring subject of the
dialectic is never a self-sufficient or autarchic (autarchēs as Aristotle puts it) thinker but a
community of inquiry, that is, the ‘plural subject’– or, to adopt the engaging phrase of David
Kennedy (2004), the intersubject—coming to the fore through the dialogic interactions of the
interlocutors. These are involved in a ‘common work’ (koinon ergon) because, as Aristotle
remarks with his usual clarity, in the articulation of the dialectic syllogism ‘[…] it is not in
the power of the one side only [i.e. the questioner or the answerer] to effect properly a result
that depends on both alike.’ (Top. 161 a 20).
Concluding remarks: The CPI as the exaptation of the ancient dialectic

We can recap the argumentation in the previous section in the following table:
Kind of logical Kind of Model of Model of

reasoning argumentation philosophical work philosopher
Solitary and
Autonomy of the
autarchic inquiry by The ‘Academic’
Epistemic argumentive
building chains of thinker
elements
reasonings
Communal inquiry
Heteronomy of the
(according to the
Dialectic argumentive The ‘public’ reasoner
question-and-
elements
answer structure)
It would obviously be far-fetched to argue that Aristotle’s dialectic is the source of the
CPI. Not only is the pragmatist origin of the latter very well documented but in the CPI there
is an experimental thrust (deriving from the scientific matrix of the notion of community of
inquiry [see Oliverio, 2011, 2012b]) which is substantially alien to the ancient logic, whether
epistemic or dialectic, as John Dewey (1976 [1900]) was ready to recognize (see Oliverio,
2017, p. 98). Despite this necessary hermeneutical caution and vigilance, we think that some
insights of Aristotle into the dialectic could be serviceable to read the CPI. Actually, we
should put the matter the other way around. As aforementioned, much like Harry in Lipman’s
novel, we bumped into this other side of Aristotle’s logic and we experienced it as a
discovery. This is not a facetious way of expression but rather a faithful account of what
happened. As should have become clear from the previous section, Aristotle’s dialectic has
199
been mostly misunderstood, essentially in two different directions. First, there has been the
major misconstrual of it due to the exclusive predominance of the epistemic view of the logic.
In this perspective, the proprium of the dialectic was reduced to the fact that it had to work
not with ‘true and primary premises’ but with only probable ones, thus leading to only
probable conclusions. The dialectic syllogism was, therefore, a way of proceeding suitable
for those matters, which could not aspire to the perfect knowledge provided by science as
epistēmē and had to settle for probable knowledge. Secondly, there has been the great season
of the new Aristotelian scholarship, which has given a major impetus to a reviviscence of the
reflection on the dialectic and has contributed to studying it as a specific kind of logic.
Unfortunately, as has been argued above, it has too exclusively focused on the (indeed
pivotal) topic of the endoxon and has given less attention to the peculiar way in which the
dialectic syllogism is built.
Being conversant with the ‘operations’ of the CPI, instead, we had a privileged access to
what we have ended up seeing as a major trait of the dialectic procedure. Unless we had been
practising P4C for years and inhabiting multiple CPIs, we would have had trouble in lending
weight to what we have called the ‘heteronomy of the argumentive elements’ (Volpone, 2015),
that is, the fact that the argumentation is a ‘common work’ arising from negotiations, the flow
of questions-and-answers between the participants in a dialogue, and the sharing and mutual
approval of positions before being able to go ahead with the argumentation. In other words, a
scholarly position on Aristotle’s dialectic (the identification of two main features of the
dialectic syllogism as distinct from the epistemic one) was the outcome of a familiarity with
the procedures of the CPI. Conversely, we would like to argue that—without gainsaying its
pragmatist sources—Lipman's and Sharp’s CPI has re-discovered and ‘repeated’ (in the
aforementioned meaning) an important but often forgotten strand of the Western philosophical
tradition and has re-situated it within contemporary classrooms.
By adapting a notion of the biological sciences, we could also speak of a sort of
exaptation of the ancient dialectic. Exaptation is the utilization of a structure or feature for a
function other than that for which it was developed through natural selection. In our view,
whatever the ‘original’ meaning of the dialectic in the contexts of Greek culture, one of its
main characteristics was the dialogical and communal understanding of the process of
thought, reasoning and philosophical inquiry. In this perspective, with a slight hermeneutical
twisting, we have opposed in the table above the ‘Academic’ thinker—the solitary
philosopher involved in the solitary contemplation of the eternal essence of reality
(Landesberg, 1923)–to the ‘public’ reasoner who not only builds her/his arguments with other
people and before an audience but through a constant exchange with them. By
pragmatistically betting on social intercourse as the source of thought (see Mead, 2008, p.
85), Lipman and Sharp have also re-activated this layer of the Greek heritage. In this horizon,
their de-academization of philosophy has consisted not only in the dramatization of the
curriculum (= the creation of the stories) and of the students (= the creation of the manuals),
thus distancing themselves from the expository mode typical of so many didactic tools for
classes of philosophy (Lipman, 1995/1996), but also in re-discovering and re-performing a
‘public’ way of doing philosophy, by breaking the model of the lecture (which classically
embodies–at the educational level–the ‘epistemic’ kind of argumentation).
The indication of this ‘family resemblance’ between P4C and the ancient dialectic shows
that an innovation at the level of pedagogy and educational practice (the CPI) can have an impact
also on the domain of scholarship on very specific topics of the history of philosophy. We
mention this fact because we suggest reading it as a radicalization of Dewey’s idea that
200
philosophy is ‘the general theory of education’ (Dewey, 1980[1916], p. 338). Elsewhere it has
been argued that Lipman–by ‘inventing’ the child as a philosopher–went beyond Dewey along
Deweyan lines as to the relationship between philosophy and education (see Oliverio, 2012a,
esp. pp. 63 ff).7 The interpretation of the ancient dialectic in terms of the CPI is a further instance,
in our understanding, of how radically Lipman (and Sharp) did great philosophy by developing
their educational creativity.8
In conclusion, we do not want to pass over in silence that our insistence on this latter
point also has a specific, culturally determined, reason. In our context, while there has been
a long-standing proclivity to valorize the study of philosophy at the high school level, and
there is an increasing interest in new ways of doing philosophy with children and adolescents,
there continues to be, on the part of professional philosophers, a looking down on the
pedagogical dimensions of this endeavour, as if philosophy were a self-sufficient (autarchic!)
undertaking, in comparison with which any educational and pedagogical reflection is
derivative, subordinate, and merely instrumental. Emphasizing that the familiarization with
a specific pedagogy can contribute to a revisitation of some scholarly themes is also a
strategic move to redress the balance between philosophy and educational theory and practice
and to prove that we should look at their relationships as a circuit, in which not only is
philosophy considered in its educational potential but educational creativity is discovered as
a source of philosophical insights.
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Un ¿diálogo? acerca del trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños.

A propósito de la intervención de Gert Biesta en la
Conferencia del ICPIC
Walter Omar Kohan

Profesor de la Universidad del Estado de Río de Janeiro (UERJ)
wokohan@gmail.com
CV
Profesor de la Universidad del Estado de Río de Janeiro (UERJ). Investigador del Consejo
Nacional de Investigación del Brasil (CNPQ) y de la Fundación de Apoyo a la Investigación
del Estado de Río de Janeiro (FAPERJ). Actualmente es becario PDE del CNPQ en la
University of British Columbia, Canadá. Es co-editor de la revista childhood & philosophy
(http://www.e-publicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/childhood/) y autor o co-autor de más de 30
libros en castellano, italiano, inglés, portugués y francés. Entre ellos, en castellano: Infancia.
Entre Educación y Filosofía (Barcelona: Laertes, 2004), Filosofía: la paradoja de aprender y
enseñar (Buenos Aires: Libros del Zorzal, 2008), Sócrates. El enigma de enseñar (Buenos
Aires: Biblos, 2009), La escuela pública apuesta al pensamiento (Homo Sapiens, 2013);
Infancia. Política y Pensamiento (Paraná: La Hendija, 2014); El maestro inventor: Simón
Rodríguez (Miño y Dávila, 2014; 3a Ed. Ediciones del Solar, 2016); Viajar para vivir:
ensayar (Miño y Dávila, 2015).
RESUMEN
Este texto puede leerse como un ejercicio de crítica a partir de una mirada externa al
movimiento de filosofía con niñas y niños. En él presentamos y comentamos las principales
tesis del texto de Gert Biesta en la última Conferencia del ICPIC en Madrid. Ofrecemos
también un breve resumen de las respuestas generadas por diversos colegas al texto de Biesta
y publicadas en la revista childhood & philosophy (v. 13, n. 28, set.-dic. 2017), en forma
electrónica y en formato papel. Finalmente, entregamos nuestras propias perspectivas sobre
los riesgos sugeridos por Biesta al trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Gert Biesta; riesgos; trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños.
ABSTRACT
This text can be read as a critical exercise on an external look at the movement of philosophy
with children. In it we present and comment the main theses of Gert Biesta's presentation at
the last ICPIC Conference in Madrid. We also offer a brief summary of the responses
generated by various colleagues to Biesta’s text published in the journal childhood &
philosophy (v. 13, n. 28, Sept.-Dec. 2017), in electronic form and in paper format. Finally,
we give our own perspectives on the risks suggested by Biesta to the philosophical work with
children.
KEYWORDS
Gert Biesta; risks; philosophical work with children.
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INTRODUCCIÓN
Durante la XVIII Conferencia Internacional del Consejo Internacional de Investigación
Filosófica con los Niños (ICPIC) realizado en Madrid asistimos el 30 de junio de 2017 a una
conferencia de Gert Biesta, prominente teórico en el campo de la filosofía de la educación.
Aun cuando Biesta ya haya escrito —tanto directa como indirectamente— sobre la
teoría y la práctica de la filosofía con niñas y niños en diversas ocasiones en el pasado, su
conferencia reciente en la XVIII Conferencia del ICPIC significó un acontecimiento especial
por el hecho de presentar directamente sus ideas ante una nutrida platea de personas
comprometidas en distintos lugares del mundo con el movimiento. Para Biesta, fue una
oportunidad de repensar su propia visión del trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños (FpN), como
él mismo gusta de llamarlo, a partir de las reacciones que generó en una platea tan
específicamente interesada. Para los participantes de la Conferencia, significó una rara
oportunidad de tener un diálogo significativo con un “extranjero” que ha participado de
algunas experiencias de la propuesta y, además, inscribe su visión en una perspectiva más
amplia en relación con la realidad educacional contemporánea. Para el movimiento de
filosofía con niñas y niños como un conjunto, ha sido una oportunidad de profundizar su
valor educativo y filosófico a partir de ese diálogo entre los de “adentro” y el de “afuera”.
En este texto, en primer lugar, sintetizaré las principales ideas de Biesta que se
encuentran aquí publicadas en su versión castellana en el texto que antecede inmediatamente
a este. Enseguida ofreceré un breve resumen de las respuestas generadas por diversos colegas
al texto de Biesta y publicadas, en su mayor parte en inglés, en la revista childhood &
philosophy (Dosier, 2017), en forma electrónica y en formato papel1. Finalmente, ofreceré
mis propias perspectivas sobre las cuestiones sugeridas por Biesta.
Las tesis principales de Biesta
Para entender mejor lo que Biesta propone, en lo que sigue vamos a sintetizar sus
principales tesis. El blanco preferido de su apuesta teórica en los últimos años, no sólo en este
texto, sino en muchos de sus textos más recientes, es lo que ha dado en llamar de “aprendización”
(en inglés, learnification), esto es, la tendencia de centrar la teoría y la práctica educativas en
torno del estudiante y, en particular, de su aprendizaje (véase, en especial, Biesta, 2006, 2010).
En un escenario educacional contemporáneo que califica como de “instrumentalización”, este
giro es observado particularmente en los últimos veinte años en los discursos educativos que han
pasado a referirse a los estudiantes como “aprendices”, a los docentes como “facilitadores del
aprendizaje” y a las escuelas como “ambientes de aprendizaje”.
Para Biesta, el principal riesgo de la aprendización es político, esto es, se trata de un
discurso que se ajusta muy bien a los tiempos neoliberales que vivimos en la medida en que
acompaña y consolida un estado de cosas que pone el acento en aspectos como la
competencia, el individuo, el mérito, la libertad, por encima de otros como la cooperación,
lo colectivo, la igualdad. Según Biesta, la aprendización ha también vaciado el discurso
educativo que ya no se ocupa más de cuestiones educativas esenciales, como los contenidos,
los propósitos y las relaciones que una práctica educativa cualquiera pone en juego. En otras
1
La versión electrónica se encuentra en: http://www.epublicacoes.uerj.br/index.php/childhood/. La versión
en papel ha sido publicada por el Núcleo de Estudios de Filosofías e Infancias de la Universidad del Estado de
Río de Janeiro (Río de Janeiro: NEFI, 2017). El texto de Biesta contiene, como anexo, la presentación que
proyectó en su intervención en la XVIII Conferencia del ICPIC, parcialmente diferente a la versión revisada de
su texto. Todas las respuestas están publicadas en inglés, salvo la de Félix García Moriyón (en castellano)
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palabras, Biesta considera que si FpN se suma al discurso de la aprendización estará dando
un buen servicio al neoliberalismo que hoy domina la educación.
En este sentido, podríamos decir que el principal mensaje de Biesta a la comunidad de
filosofía para niñas y niños llega bajo la forma de una advertencia, más o menos así:
“¡cuidado! No sea cosa que, bajo el nombre de FpN, y al sonido de palabras bonitas como
democracia, diálogo, pensamiento crítico y creativo, habilidades de pensamiento,
comunidades de aprendizaje y otras semejantes, se esté participando de un dispositivo propio
del estado de cosas neoliberal, esto es, se acabe contribuyendo a consolidar esos valores hoy
en supremacía en las instituciones educativas”.
De hecho, el modo en el que, en algunos países, los sistemas de educación oficiales
han dado la bienvenida a FpN e incluso, al menos en América Latina, muchas redes
educativas privadas hacen de FpN una herramienta de marketing, muestra que la
advertencia de Biesta merece ser considerada con mucha atención. También algunas
presentaciones de FpN en la propia Conferencia del ICPIC que reproducen con cierta
ingenuidad el discurso educativo dominante en nuestros días, hacen pensar en lo relevante
y oportuno del mensaje de Biesta.
Veamos, con todo, como Biesta despliega, presenta y fundamenta esa advertencia. Lo
hace sobre un fondo de teoría filosófica y educacional: el fondo filosófico se basa en una cierta
lectura de Emmanuel Levinas y se manifiesta preocupado con la promoción de FpN como un
programa de pensamiento, aun considerando su multiplicidad de dimensiones (crítica, creativa,
cuidado): eso podría restringir el trabajo filosófico a una esfera intelectual y no existencial.
Biesta lo dice de muchas maneras: a) el trabajo podría quedar limitado a la mente o la cabeza
de los estudiantes y no a su alma o existencia; b) la práctica de filosofía con niñas y niños
podría situarlas y situarlos frente al mundo como sujetos que toman al mundo como objeto, por
tanto, situándose a sí mismas y a sí mismos en el centro del mundo, con potestad sobre él y no
poniendo al mundo como centro y a sí en perspectiva frente al mundo; lo anterior supone dos
posiciones diferentes de sujeto: un sujeto egológico, que se sitúa como centro del mundo, y un
sujeto no egológico que sitúa al mundo como centro, y que tiene un diálogo existencial y no
apenas intelectual con el mundo; c) podría generar un mundo ideal que haga que estudiantes
confundan su idea del mundo con el mundo real y que piensen que están viviendo en el mundo
cuando en realidad estarían viviendo en su idea del mundo; o que se relacionen con una idea
de su cuerpo y no con el cuerpo que efectivamente son, de carne y hueso.
El fondo educacional en el que se sustenta el texto de Biesta es su idea de que es
justamente la educación la que prepara para existir como un sujeto no egológico, en diálogo
existencial con el mundo. Biesta sugiere que cuando un sujeto encuentra resistencia en el
mundo puede optar por dos alternativas: a) querer imponer su deseo y provocar una cierta
destrucción del mundo, o b) renunciar a su deseo y provocar una cierta autodestrucción. Este
es, para Biesta, el mayor desafío de cualquier propuesta educacional: cómo ayudar a los
sujetos a habitar ese espacio intermedio entre la autodestrucción y la destrucción del mundo,
cómo poder establecer con el mundo un diálogo existencial éticamente responsable, una
posición que muestre crecimiento (grown-upness) en relación con el mundo. La conclusión
de Biesta es que, para llevar a cabo tal desafío, FpN tendría que tocar el alma de niñas y niños
y no apenas su pensamiento; en otras palabras, debería también abandonar la lógica del
aprendizaje y centrarse en una lógica educativa que ayude a niñas y niños a descentrarse,
dejarse tocar y afectar por una enseñanza que los ponga en diálogo existencial y responsable
con el mundo.
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Las respuestas a Biesta desde FpN

En un trabajo colectivo de crítica sobre ese texto de Biesta, la revista childhood &
philosophy (Dossier, 2017) ofrece un conjunto de textos y también un nuevo texto de Biesta
quien, por su parte, respondió a esas críticas. Esos dos textos de Biesta están publicados en el
original inglés y los acompañan más de una docena de textos en inglés y uno en castellano, de
Félix García Moriyón, quien presidió el comité organizador español de la conferencia del ICPIC.
Todos los trabajos están precedidos por resúmenes en tres idiomas: inglés, español y portugués.
Considero que ese trabajo a partir de la provocación de G. Biesta es un proyecto vital
para FpN en la medida en que propicia el pensamiento y discusión crítica sobre lo que
estamos haciendo en su nombre. Por tratarse de un proyecto filosófico y educativo podría
suponerse que se trata de algo habitual. Sin embargo, no es así. El proyecto FpN suele
generar, particularmente en la academia, adhesiones, rechazos y hasta cierta indiferencia,
pero poco debate crítico. En sus casi cincuenta años de historia son contados los casos como
el que acabamos de mencionar2. Por eso nos parece relevante presentarlo como una forma de
invitar a la realización de espacios similares.
Por tratarse de un movimiento, en el mundo de la FpN existen diversas posturas filosóficas
a partir de las cuales se piensa el proyecto: pragmatismo, filosofía analítica y post-analítica,
existencialismo, marxismo, teoría crítica, estructuralismo y post-estructuralismo, humanismo y
post-humanismo, fenomenología, feminismo, teoría queer, y teoría y práctica de pensamiento
latinoamericanas, etc. En ese trabajo colectivo publicado en childhood & philosophy, esas
posturas están expuestas frente a las ideas de Biesta quien, justamente, sostiene que en las
prácticas por él observadas hay un dominio casi exclusivo de la filosofía analítica.
Una de las cosas que ese conjunto de textos muestra es que hay un buen número de
acuerdos entre Biesta y muchos de sus críticos y, más específicamente, en la manera en que
Biesta y una buena parte de quienes participan del trabajo filosófico con niñas y niños
conciben la educación. Por ejemplo, de ambos lados se entiende la educación como un trabajo
de formación y, más en particular, como la formación de un sujeto descentrado o “ex-
céntrico”, no “egocéntrico”, típica formulación de un humanismo clásico con aportes del
socio-constructivismo. Esta idea es compartida no sólo por muchos practicantes de FpN, sino
también por sus propios creadores, Matthew Lipman y Ann Margaret Sharp. Claro que
también muchos críticos del humanismo forman parte del movimiento y entonces ese
conjunto de textos también contiene una serie de críticas post-humanistas a Biesta o a quienes
entienden FpN a partir de un humanismo clásico.
Entre esas respuestas, justamente Karin Murris, en “Learning as ‘worlding’: decentring
Gert Biesta’s ‘non-egological’ education” (Dossier, 2017, p. 453-469) expone la lectura de
Biesta al post humanismo crítico, que produce un cambio ontológico aún más radical que el
de Biesta: el “yo” no pone al mundo como centro sino que es una parte más, como tantas
otras, del mundo. A través de la lectura feminista de la teoría quántica de Karen Barad, Murris
expone la naturaleza política (occidental) del “yo” como significante trascendental y
descentra la educación “no egológica” propuesta por Biesta a través de la inclusión de
cuerpos no humanos. Así, el aprendizaje no ocurre en el sujeto ni entre dos o más sujetos
2
Entre los que conocemos, destacó el realizado en Philosophy for Children: Some Assumptions and
Implications Ethik Und Sozialwissenschaften, v.12, heft. 4, 2001, el que Lipman publicó un texto disparador de
diversas respuestas, Philosophy for Children: Some Assumptions and Implications, pp. 405-415 y un nuevo
texto de respuesta a esas críticas, Answers to My Critics, p. 465-479. La revista en la actualidad se titula
Erwägen. Wissen. Ethik
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humanos y el mundo, sino que es un proceso de construcción del mundo discursivo-material:

una “mundanización”. Darren Chetty en “Philosophy for children, learnification, intelligent
adaptive systems and racism – a response to Gert Biesta” (ibidem, pp. 471-480) se pregunta
y se permite dudar si acaso la comunidad de FpN es de verdad sensible, más allá de su
retórica, al problema del racismo. Lo hace a partir de una vivencia y una constatación: en los
propios congresos del ICPIC hay una marcada minoría no sólo de trabajos sobre el racismo
sino en la participación de personas de otras etnias que la blanca. Por su parte, en “Grown-
upness or living philosophically?” (ibidem, pp. 481-492), Claire Cassidy se pregunta si la
idea de crecimiento (grown-upness) propuesta por Biesta para determinar una educación en
lo deseable no supone una visión deficitaria de la infancia y si en lugar de ella no habría que
pensar en una educación que permita llevar una vida filosófica. A su vez, Walter Kohan y
David Kennedy se cuestionan en “On the risks of approaching a philosophical movement
outside philosophy (ibidem, pp. 493-503) sobre los riesgos que implica una postura como la
de Biesta, de considerar FpN por fuera de la filosofía, siendo ella, como él mismo lo advierte,
una propuesta filosófica y pedagógica. ¿Cuáles son las implicaciones de un tal análisis? En
“Persons, subjectivity, language and the world: an “analytic” alternative to Gert Biesta’s:
“Touching the soul: education, philosophy and children in an age of instrumentalism”
(ibidem, p. 505-519), Laurance Splitter ofrece algunas críticas a Biesta desde su perspectiva
de la filosofía analítica y, con base en D. Davidson, propone una estructura alternativa,
dialógica, para afirmar la posición del sujeto en el mundo. En “Pragmatism and the
unlearning of learnification” (Ibidem, pp. 521-536), Megan Laverty y Maughn Gregory
cuestionan el uso que Biesta hace del pragmatismo, en particular de John Dewey, como
representante de lo que Biesta llama de aprendización y argumentan que el pragmatismo ni
devalúa la enseñanza ni restringe el aprendizaje a la mente del individuo como supone Biesta
en su lectura de Dewey. A su vez, Magda Costa Carvalho en “The question of desirability:
how is education a risk?” (ibidem, pp. 537-546) cuestiona la idea presente en otros textos de
Biesta de la educación como riesgo y pregunta si esa postura no supondría una cierta
inconsistencia en el propio planteo de Biesta. En otro sentido, en “The third subject position”
(ibidem, pp. 547-555), Marjan Simenc agrega una tercera posición de sujeto a las dos
contempladas por Biesta: la del sujeto que se incluye en un mundo alterado por su propia
presencia. De modo próximo, Riku Välitalo in “Considering subject positions with Biesta”
(Ibidem, p. 557-566) defiende FpN como una filosofía de la enseñanza, es decir, una
propuesta que permite a los docentes repensar su práctica considerando niñas, niños y otras
criaturas del mundo como sus iguales. En “Existing in the world: but whose world—and why
not change it?” (ibidem, p. 567-577), Arie Kizel, recientemente electo Presidente del ICPIC,
problematiza la idea de que las comunidades de investigación puedan reproducir el estado de
cosas como afirma Biesta: sostiene que ellas cultivan la habilidad de niñas y niños para
identificar injusticias y participar activamente de la sociedad a la vez que sirven como fuerzas
motoras de transformación social. En “Diálogo con Gert Biesta: filosofía y educación”
(ibidem, p. 579-587), Félix García Moriyón cuestiona la contraposición afirmada por Biesta
entre aprendizaje y educación, sosteniendo la necesidad de encontrar un equilibrio entre
ambos. Destaca también que la evaluación y la medición son elementos imprescindibles de
la educación, aunque impliquen riesgos que deban ser evitados. En “Parallel convergences:
thinking with Biesta about philosophy and education” (ibidem, p. 589-603), Stefano Oliverio
defiende que las preocupaciones de Biesta pueden ayudar a FpN a redescubrir una visión
específica de lo que el “filosofar-junto” puede significar, y también a mirar a la comunidad
de indagación filosófica como el lugar de un “polémico acuerdo entre filosofía y educación”.
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En “Teachers as Gardeners: thinking, attentiveness and the child in the Community of

Philosophical Inquiry”. (ibidem, p. 605-614), Patricia Hannam toma una frase de Biesta sobre
su gusto por la jardinería para profundizar esa analogía y pensar la relación entre el papel del
jardinero y del maestro, alcanzando una reflexión más amplia sobre el papel docente en una
comunidad de investigación filosófica.
Recibidos todos estos comentarios, Biesta responde a ellos en “P4c after Auschwitz: on
immanence and transcendence in education” (2017b). En verdad, no se trata de una efectiva
respuesta a los argumentos ofrecidos sino de un intento por situar su intervención como
respuesta a la pregunta de Adorno sobre la (im)posibilidad de la educación “después de
Auschwitz”. Es en cierta medida un diálogo consigo mismo, pasando por algunas respuestas
recibidas de la comunidad de FpN. Se presenta a sí mismo como defensor de la trascendencia
y trata de mostrar por qué (la posibilidad de) la trascendencia importa, educativamente y para
nuestra existencia como sujetos. En ese sentido, sugiere que la educación no debe afirmar una
dimensión normativa, sino comprometerse con la “experiencia de la libertad”: la experiencia
de poder actuar y, más aún, de actuar de manera diferente.
El Dossier también contiene un texto de Marina Santi (Dossier childhood &
philosophy, 2017, “Jazzing philosophy with children: an improvisational path for a new
pedagogy, p. 631-647, cuya traducción al español se incluye en este volumen) que introduce
la metáfora del jazz para pensar una educación filosófica y responde a algunas cuestiones
críticas planteadas por Gert Biesta en su conferencia. Considera la improvisación como una
forma privilegiada de “pensamiento complejo” (crítico, creativo y cuidado), tal como
considerado por Matthew Lipman, a la vez que una forma de aprendizaje (expresión del
constructivismo cognitivo humano y forma de adaptación / exaptación humana al medio
ambiente). Santi también propone una forma jazzística de hacer filosofía con niñas y niños
como antídoto contra el riesgo de la aprendización de la educación y de la capitalización de
las habilidades humanas señalados por Biesta.
Los desafíos actuales de la práctica filosófica con niñas y niños
Podríamos objetar muchas cosas afirmadas por Biesta, tales como sus supuestos
metafísicos, su lenguaje en términos como alma (o como transcendencia en su texto de
respuesta a sus críticos). También podríamos considerarse otras cuestiones. Por ejemplo, que
su crítica a la educación centrada en el niño o en el currículo frente a la educación centrada
en el mundo parece otorgar más importancia al diálogo en la relación entre sujeto y mundo
que entre los propios sujetos, como por ejemplo al diálogo entre niñas y niños con personas
adultas. Otra cuestión dice respecto a su visión de la escuela, de la que, aunque poco se refiere
en este texto, podría inferirse una visión algo conservadora, al menos en la lectura más obvia
de las metáforas de la jardinería y los animales que usa para referirse a ella. Además, la
infancia parece tener un lugar demasiado pasivo y debilitado en su propia educación. En fin,
podríamos seguir listando otras cuestiones polémicas afirmadas por Biesta. Con todo, nos
centraremos en su crítica al aprendizaje (o a lo que llama “aprendización”) por la importancia
que tiene en su aproximación a FpN y en las propias prácticas filosóficas con niñas y niños.
Biesta objeta a FpN que ponga en el centro al niño como sujeto de aprendizaje y no
descentrarlo en relación con el mundo. Inscribe esa crítica en su más amplia impugnación a
la reducción contemporánea de la educación al aprendizaje. Como ya sugerimos, creemos
importante este llamado de atención por sus implicaciones políticas, en particular, por la
manera en que los discursos y prácticas en torno de FpN pueden estar reproduciendo esa
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misma estrategia neoliberal. Con todo, el modo en que Biesta realiza esa crítica merece ser
considerado con más detalle. Veamos.
En su texto, Biesta afirma que la educación no puede reducirse al aprendizaje porque
no se trata de que niñas y niños simplemente aprendan, sino que “aprenden algo, aprendan
por una razón y que lo aprenden de alguien”. Esas cuestiones de contenido, propósito y
relaciones del aprendizaje serían asuntos educativos de la mayor importancia a los que el
discurso del aprendizaje no puede dar respuesta. En otras palabras, Biesta considera que el
lenguaje del aprendizaje se concentra en el proceso de aprender, pero no dice casi nada —o
más bien oculta decisiones tomadas— sobre el contenido, el propósito y las relaciones
afirmadas en ese proceso que serían cuestiones educacionales cruciales. Abandonarlas sería
un suicidio educativo y serviría a la transmisión de los valores neoliberales que sustentan los
discursos del aprendizaje sin aquella discusión educativa.
Para justificar su crítica a la aprendización —poner al sujeto que aprende como centro
de la práctica educativa— Biesta ofrece una concepción comportamental del aprendizaje: “el
aprendizaje se refiere a las formas en que los organismos o sistemas se adaptan a las
condiciones cambiantes del medio ambiente y a las formas en que los organismos o sistemas
cambian como resultado de esto”. Para presentar la dinámica del aprendizaje, el ejemplo que
ofrece es el de una aspiradora robot que muestra un sistema inteligente capaz de aprender,
esto es, de adaptarse a las modificaciones que surgen en su entorno. La aspiradora robot sería
un ejemplo adecuado a una educación centrada en el aprendizaje y a un profesor facilitador
de ambientes de aprendizaje. Son efectivamente capaces de moverse por sí mismas en su
entorno y de aprender a mejorar su relación con todo lo que encuentran a su alrededor,
volviéndose cada vez más eficaces en la tarea de limpiar el piso a la que están destinadas.
Las aspiradoras robot se adaptan a las dificultades que encuentran y, al hacerlo, aprenden.
Biesta realiza dos objeciones a su propio ejemplo. La primera es que las aspiradoras robot
pueden adaptarse a un ambiente pero no son capaces de decidir si vale la pena o no adaptarse a
ese ambiente. Se adaptan y listo, no pueden hacer consideraciones de propósito, valor o sentido
sobre esa adaptación. En términos de aprendizaje, son capaces de aprender pero no de decidir si
vale la pena aprender algo o no. La segunda objeción es que las aspiradoras robot sólo ven al
mundo a su alrededor como un obstáculo a superar, pero no pueden recibir nada de él, no pueden
ser enseñadas o formadas por ese mundo, ni siquiera habladas o tocadas desde una perspectiva
más allá de la física. O sea, pueden aprender pero no se les puede enseñar.
¿Qué conclusión podría sacarse de estas dos objeciones? Que el aprendizaje es algo
más complejo que la adaptación inteligente y el ejemplo de la aspiradora robot es bastante
limitado para ilustrar de qué se trata cuando se aprende. Es lo que concluye Biesta. ¿Qué
esperaría un lector a partir de esta crítica y conclusión? Que Biesta al menos postule la
necesidad de una concepción más compleja del aprendizaje, para dar cuenta de las carencias
presentes en aquel modelo y otros ejemplos que igualmente ilustren esa complejidad. Sin
embargo, no es lo que hace Biesta, quien pasa a argumentar que es necesario referirse a la
educación más allá del aprendizaje. Si nos referimos a la educación según la lógica del
aprendizaje, sostiene, ponemos a la alumna o al alumno como centro, frente al mundo como
un objeto. De ese modo, se contribuye a un modelo liberal, individualista. Considera preciso,
entonces, abandonar la lógica del aprendizaje y colocar en el centro a un sujeto que precisa
ser “enseñado por” otro, que lo llame a establecer un diálogo existencial con el mundo. Si la
educación basada en el aprendizaje sigue una lógica identitaria, cuando está basada en la
enseñanza puede seguir una lógica existencial y es ella la que debería habitar el discurso
educativo. A partir de este argumento, Biesta desarrolla su parte más propositiva, de
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inspiración en Emmanuel Levinas que otorga al trabajo educativo una dimensión ética como
“acontecimiento del despertar”, en el que un alumno o una alumna se deja enseñar, afectar,
despertar desde el exterior y es llamado al mundo.
El movimiento de Biesta es, claro, legítimo, pero tiene algunas limitaciones y riesgos.
La principal limitación es que considera los problemas de una teoría del aprendizaje
inherentes al aprendizaje en su conjunto, lo que es claramente un exceso y una limitación de
su análisis; o sea, descarta el aprendizaje a partir de señalar los problemas de sólo una manera
de entender el aprendizaje; además, al desplazar el problema del aprendizaje a la enseñanza
no consigue resolver o deja más bien abandonados el significado y sentido del aprender que,
de cualquier manera, tiene lugar en un proceso educativo. Si la concepción de los sistemas
adaptativos inteligentes es insuficiente para dar cuenta del proceso de aprendizaje, Gert
Biesta no ofrece ninguna otra en su lugar, lo que no resuelve el problema sino lo desplaza.
Por otro lado, al dejar de lado el aprendizaje, Biesta puede estar “tirando el bebé con el
agua sucia”, o sea, estar desplazando un proceso educativo principal junto con una
concepción inadecuada de ese proceso. En otras palabras, lo que Biesta muestra es el
equívoco de situar el aprendizaje como centro del proceso educativo a partir de una
concepción específica del aprendizaje. Sus adversarios son el constructivismo, el
funcionalismo pragmatista y todas las lecturas que colocan al niño/a en el centro y al mundo
como derivado u objetivado. Su equívoco puede estar en desatender el aprendizaje que, a
partir de otras concepciones, podría incluso servir a los ideales de formación humanista que
se propone afirmar. De hecho, no es necesario que una teoría del aprendizaje coloque a la
niña y al niño en el centro frente al mundo como un objeto. Por ejemplo, no lo hace la
concepción del aprendizaje de G. Deleuze (1992), que da un lugar principal a los signos (del
mundo, de los objetos sensibles, del amor, del arte).
Creemos entonces que los argumentos de Biesta no justifican el abandono del
aprendizaje, sino que más bien refuerzan la necesidad de pensarlo desde otras lógicas que las
dominantes en los discursos neoliberales. El hecho de que un modo de entender el aprendizaje
esté al servicio de una política regresiva no es razón suficiente para otorgar centralidad al
enseñar en el proceso educativo. Parece más bien una invitación a repensar el aprendizaje
más allá de esos límites epistemológicos y políticos.
En ese sentido, por cierto, surgen cuestiones que van más allá del aprendizaje, como
las cuestiones de contenido, propósito y relaciones en el aprendizaje planteadas por Biesta.
Con todo, no estamos seguros del modo en que el mismo Biesta las presenta. Por ejemplo,
denominar los sentidos del aprender en términos de propósitos o razones parece también
justamente un modo intelectualista de lenguaje educativo del que Biesta quiere alejarse. Por
otro lado, pensar la relación entre quien aprende y quien enseña en términos de “aprender
de” (o “ser enseñado por”) tampoco parece una alternativa muy interesante. En ese sentido,
podemos, tal vez, recordar al Paulo Freire de la todavía vigente Pedagogía del Oprimido,
bien conocida por Biesta: “nadie educa a nadie; nadie se educa a sí mismo, los seres humanos
se educan entre sí, mediatizados por el mundo” (Freire, 1974, p. 39). En una primera lectura,
parece una frase a medida de Biesta: el mundo está en el centro; pero no lo es tanto porque
no afirma un sujeto-docente que enseña a otro sujeto-alumno sino docentes y alumnas/os que
aprenden y enseñan mutuamente, “mediados por el mundo”.
Contra muchas lecturas de Paulo Freire, vale aclarar que el papel del maestro y la
maestra sigue siendo principal (“nadie se educa a sí mismo”). Con todo, si desde la gramática,
enseñar es un verbo transitivo relativo, que pide un objeto directo y otro indirecto (“enseñar
algo a alguien”), desde la perspectiva democrática y radical de Paulo Freire, es diferente:
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enseñar no existe sin aprender. Enseñar no es transmitirle conocimientos a la alumna o

alumno sino “crear las posibilidades para su producción o su construcción” (Freire, 1996, p.
24). A la vez, “quien enseña aprende al enseñar y quien aprende enseña al aprender” (ibidem,
p. 25). Esto es, enseñar se constituye como tal al disponer no sólo que los otros puedan
aprender, sino también que la propia docente se sitúe en la posición de aprender. Es también
constitutivo del hacer docente no relacionarse con quienes aprenden como quienes no saben
sino como aquellas y aquellos con quienes, enseñando, al enseñarles, es posible y preciso
aprender. Según Freire, aprender precede a enseñar, no sólo porque históricamente fue
aprendido socialmente que era posible enseñar sino porque un aprendizaje que permite a
quien aprende recrear o rehacer lo enseñado da legitimidad y sentido, pedagógico y político,
al enseñar (ibidem, p. 26).
Quizá con Paulo Freire hayamos ido un poco lejos de Biesta, pero vale ese camino para
mostrar que la crítica a la aprendización contemporánea no significa necesariamente el
abandono del aprender.
Para terminar, tal vez valga la pena que lectoras y lectores piensen en una afirmación
realizada por Biesta: sostiene que tal vez no tuvo suerte en las experiencias que vivió de FpN
y que no encontró en ellas una conexión con la experiencia vital de los estudiantes; apenas
con sus ideas y pensamientos. Invito a los lectores de este libro a poner esta afirmación a
prueba. Tal vez Biesta tenga razón, tal vez no. En primer lugar, sería bueno ponerlo a prueba
mirando hacia nuestras prácticas, claro: en qué medida los que trabajamos en filosofía con
niñas y niños abrimos la posibilidad de un diálogo existencial con el mundo, no sólo para
niñas y niños sino también para nosotros mismos. En otro sentido, no estaría de más leer este
libro buscando, entre tantas otras cosas posibles, si los textos que lo componen, en particular
los que relatan o dan cuenta de experiencias concretas de FpN, muestran una cosa u otra, si
lo que está en juego en esas experiencias narradas de filosofía, es la vida de los participantes
o sólo sus ideas y pensamientos. Sería, tal vez, una forma de recrear y potenciar un diálogo
entre nuestra propia existencia como educadores y el mundo de la vida, tan necesario, a un
movimiento filosófico y educativo como el que estamos afirmando.
REFERENCIAS
Biesta, G. (2006) Beyond learning: Democratic education for a human future. Boulder, Co:
— (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Boulder,
Co: Paradigm Publishers, 2010.
— (2017a). Touching the soul? Exploring an alternative outlook for philosophical work with
children and young people. childhood & philosophy, v. 13, n. 28, set.-dez.2017, p. 415-
452.
— (2017b) P4C after Auschwitz: On immanence and transcendence in Education. childhood
& philosophy, v. 13, n. 28, set.-dez.2017, p. 617-628.
Deleuze, G. (1992). Proust y los signos. Barcelona: Anagrama.
DOSSIER (2017) “Gert Biesta and Philosophy for children”. childhood & philosophy, v. 13,
n. 28, set.-dez.2017, p. 415-628.
Freire, P. (1974). Pedagogia do oprimido. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
— (1996). Pedagogia da autonomia. São Paulo: Paz e Terra.
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3. DIFERENTES TEMAS / DIFFERENT TOPICS

Teniendo en cuenta que la filosofía puede hacer frente a cualquier aspecto de la
vida de los seres humanos, han surgido una serie de propuestas concretas
centradas en varias áreas temáticas. Algunas de ellas han alcanzado una cierta
relevancia: el cosmopolitismo y el multiculturalismo, el feminismo, la ecología,
las matemáticas y la ciencia, la democracia, la educación emocional...
Keeping in mind that philosophy can reflect on any aspect of human life, foci on
specific subject areas have emerged. Some of them have become quite important
cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism, feminism, ecology, mathematics and
science, democracy, emotional education, etc.
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Filosofía con niños y Literatura: una alianza potente para la

reflexión
Andrea Beatriz Pac

Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral
Unidad Académica Río Gallegos
apac@uarg.unpa.edu.ar
CV
Andrea Beatriz Pac es Licenciada en Filosofía por la Universidad de Buenos Aires. En el año
1996 obtuvo el título de Master in Education con concentración en Filosofía para Niños por
Montclair State University (EEUU). Y es Doctora en Filosofía por la Universidad Nacional
de Córdoba (Argentina) con la tesis “El ingenium en la filosofía de Spinoza: una perspectiva
realista para pensar la diversidad en la sociedad política”. Actualmente, se desempeña como
docente investigadora en la Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral, Unidad
Académica Río Gallegos. Dirige un Proyecto de Investigación sobre “Filosofía y Literatura
en los primeros años de la Escuela Primaria y el Nivel Inicial: la investigación, la práctica y
la formación docente”. En este marco, lleva adelante tareas de investigación académica,
formación de docentes e investigadores, y talleres con niños de 4 y 5 años.
RESUMEN
El presente trabajo se propone participar de una discusión que surge en el terreno de
encuentro de tres temas de reflexión familiares para los docentes e investigadores de la
práctica de filosofía con niños. El primero de ellos es la naturaleza del currículo; el segundo
es la metodología; el último, la literatura infantil. Se propone examinar las consecuencias de
la solidaridad entre currículo y metodología y los riesgos que ella implica. También explora
las posibilidades más allá de los supuestos en los que se recuesta la necesidad de un currículo
y la presentación de la práctica filosófica como metodología. En este sentido, argumenta la
potencia de la alianza entre la literatura infantil y la práctica de la filosofía.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Currículo, Metodología, Práctica, Literatura infantil.
ABSTRACT
This paper takes part in a discussion that emerges at the meeting point of three subjects of
reflection familiar to teachers and researchers in Philosophy with Children. The first is the
nature of the Curriculum; the second is the Methodology; the third is Children’s Literature.
The aim is to examine the consequences of the solidarity between the Curriculum and
Methodology and the risks it implies. It also explores the possibilities beyond the
assumptions on which the need of a Curriculum and the methodological perspective rely. In
this sense, it argues the potency of the alliance between Children Literature and the practice
of philosophy.
KEYWORDS
Curriculum, Methodology, Practice, Children's literature.
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215
La pregunta por el currículo

“¿Necesitamos un currículo? (…) Si no, ¿qué estamos ofreciendo a docentes y
estudiantes?” Estas preguntas no son nuevas para la comunidad internacional de Filosofía
para Niños (FpN)1; pero aún resultan convocantes. El motivo es que implican una serie de
problemas que van desde la preocupación didáctica y de contenido filosófico, hasta la
legitimación de quienes trabajan con niños o forman a docentes y la eventual relación de los
grupos con la industria editorial. Este amplio abanico abarca cuestiones diversas entre el
saber y el poder en cuyo marco este trabajo propone concentrarse en una serie preguntas
encadenadas entre sí: ¿por qué necesitaríamos un currículo?; ¿suponemos, tal vez, que si no
lo tenemos, no estamos ofreciendo una práctica seria a nuestros estudiantes?; ¿qué es hacer
filosofía con niños: recorrer un currículo, llevar a cabo una práctica?; ¿son acaso estos
modelos excluyentes entre sí?
Estas preguntas, a su vez, son inescindibles de las discusiones alrededor del método.
En efecto, pareciera que la necesidad del currículo llevara consigo el carácter de ‘método’ o
de ‘programa’ asociado a la práctica de la filosofía con niños. Esta asociación se refuerza
principalmente en dos aspectos de las investigaciones en el área: por un lado, en las garantías
que ofrecería para desarrollar habilidades de pensamiento, para reforzar la autonomía de los
sujetos, para promover actitudes éticas y democráticas; por el otro, en los instrumentos de
medición que, desde el viejo ‘Test de New Jersey’ hasta el presente intentan demostrar que
los niños que hacen filosofía manifiestan progresos en sus capacidades lingüísticas, lógicas,
reflexivas. ¿De qué otra manera sería posible ofrecer una mínima certeza del desarrollo de
estas capacidades, si no fuera mediante la aplicación de un método? Sin embargo, también
cabría preguntarse si realmente necesitamos ofrecer estas certezas y, por extensión, si
realmente necesitamos un método y si es lo mismo aplicar un método que desarrollar una
práctica.
Por último, tratándose de una práctica cuya denominación implica ya a la infancia, la
pregunta sobre qué tenemos para ofrecer a docentes y estudiantes encuentra una respuesta
casi natural en la literatura dirigida a niños pequeños y prepúberes2. Esto no implica
considerar que la perspectiva, la verdad y la reflexión filosóficas sean lo mismo que la
perspectiva, la verdad y la reflexión literarias. No obstante, es posible que algunas piezas de
literatura infantil promuevan el mismo tipo de interrogación que proponen las novelas y
relatos filosóficos, y que algunos textos literarios tengan la misma potencia que los ejercicios
o los planes de discusión de los manuales, entendiendo por novelas filosóficas y manuales
los producidos por Lipman y todos los que siguen su modelo, es decir, se proponen de manera
explícita modelar y estimular la problematización filosófica-. En el marco del Proyecto de
Investigación “Filosofía y Literatura en los primeros años de la Escuela Primaria y el Nivel
Inicial: la investigación, la práctica y la formación docente”, en desarrollo en la Universidad
Nacional de la Patagonia Austral (Argentina), la exploración de la literatura infantil condujo
al encuentro con autores que se caracterizan tanto por reunir calidad literaria y potencia
reflexiva. Esta indagación en la literatura infantil es un aspecto más de la reflexión sobre las
preguntas arriba planteadas, y que desarrollamos a continuación.
1
Cabe aclarar que el mundo de FpN abarca también a quienes han propuesto otras denominaciones, algunas
de las cuales son, a mi juicio, más adecuadas. No obstante, según el argumento lo exija, se utilizará este
nombre cuando se haga referencia a la propuesta de Lipman en particular y se preferirán otras
denominaciones cuando se trate de una perspectiva que tome alguna distancia de ella.
2
El rango de edades que las reflexiones de este trabajo tiene como horizonte es, en efecto, entre 4 y 10 años.
216
¿Es necesario un currículo?

A efectos de evitar malentendidos, por ‘un currículo’ se entenderá aquí las tradicionales
novelas filosóficas de Lipman y los manuales que las acompañan, así como otros muchos
textos escritos en esa misma línea3. Como todos sabemos, aquéllas fueron inicialmente
escritas por Matthew Lipman con aportes de Ann Sharp hace ya más de cuarenta años. Éstos
han sido los materiales con los que muchos de nosotros nos hemos formado en la función de
docentes/coordinadores de comunidades de investigación/diálogo filosófico, y siguen siendo
una herramienta valiosa en la formación de nuevos docentes/coordinadores, aun a pesar de
los años que han pasado.
Por otra parte, en su momento, argumentar la pertinencia de las novelas filosóficas fue
casi tan necesario como justificar llevar la práctica de la filosofía a las escuelas —sobre todo,
a la escuela primaria—. Dicho en otras palabras, el respaldo a las novelas coincidió, en su
momento, con la defensa de la posibilidad de que los niños practiquen la reflexión filosófica4.
En este sentido, el fundamento de los materiales filosóficos es principalmente didáctico: si
es posible hacer filosofía con los niños, es necesario contar con ellos en tanto que guía para
el trabajo de los docentes y las actividades filosóficas de los estudiantes en el aula (o en
escenarios distintos del de la escuela). En efecto, ante la propuesta de una actividad que
resulta novedosa para algunos directivos y docentes, contar con un currículo aporta respaldo
y ‘seriedad’.
Es claro que no se trata sólo de un respaldo ‘formal’: Lipman teoriza sobre los criterios
que guían la redacción de las novelas y que hacen las veces de parámetro para evaluar sus
virtudes (y de otros materiales). Éstos son la aceptabilidad literaria, la aceptabilidad
psicológica y la aceptabilidad intelectual (1991: 216-217).
Por otra parte, al menos en mi experiencia, han sido herramientas valiosas para mi
formación en el área y siguen siéndolo de algún modo en mi actividad con docentes. En
efecto, las novelas y manuales del currículo de FpN contienen las problematizaciones
filosóficas de maneras que sorprenden a quienes las leen por primera vez y, en lo personal,
siguen causándome la misma sorpresa y el mismo placer que provocó mi primer contacto
con ellas. No importa cuántas veces las haya leído ya, no puedo dejar de sonreírme cada vez
que reconozco a Berkeley cuando Kio se asombra con ingenuidad con su “¡hay cosas en el
mundo que van a desaparecer si no las mirás!” (Lipman, 2000a: 31); o cuando Pixi reflexiona
“O mi cuerpo y yo somos lo mismo o no los somos. Si mi cuerpo y yo somos lo mismo,
entonces mi cuerpo no puede pertenecerme. Y si mi cuerpo y yo somos diferentes, entonces
¿quién soy yo?” (Lipman, 2000b: 8); o cuando Harry (Ari, en la adaptación argentina) se
entusiasma con su descubrimiento de que “las oraciones no se pueden dar vuelta” (Lipman,
2000c: 6).
No es, pues, el valor de las novelas de Lipman (o de otras inspiradas en su estilo, en
sus objetivos o en sus criterios) lo que está en juego cuando reflexionamos sobre si es
necesario un currículo. Es, en cambio, la posibilidad de ampliar y enriquecer la práctica de
3
Sería imposible enumerarlos a todos aquí, pero aun sabiendo que cometeremos importantes omisiones
podemos mencionar las novelas del personaje Juanita de Angélica Sátiro, las Thinking Stories de Phil Cam, la
serie de Oscar Brenifier, las historias de Sergio Sardi o de Gustavo Santiago e incluso las fichas y propuestas
web de Wonder Ponder.
4
A decir verdad, aun en la actualidad existen quienes dudan sobre la capacidad de los niños para la práctica
de la reflexión filosófica, por caso, Fox (2001) y la respuesta de Murray, 2001.
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la filosofía con niños por un lado, y la advertencia de que el material con el que trabajamos
no se convierta en recorrer un camino trillado.
En efecto, en mi experiencia he encontrado que para los pequeños integrantes de la
comunidad de diálogo filosófico la lectura de las novelas parecía ser menos grata que para
mí. Ya sea porque seguramente es necesario un nuevo esfuerzo de actualización y adecuación
de las novelas a los tiempos presentes, ya sea porque la lectura en episodios o capítulos es
difícil de sostener a lo largo de todo un año de trabajo, en algún momento de mis talleres en
escuelas me vi confrontada por un “¿Otra vez Pixi?”. Estas situaciones obligan a reflexionar
sobre la triple aceptabilidad que rige la escritura de las novelas y remite a un rasgo que ha
sido observado más de una vez, a saber, su “artificialidad”. Se supone que en este tipo de
materiales los personajes “modelan” la reflexión y la argumentación filosóficas, y que esto
es un valor en ellos. Más aún, algunos subrayan en negrita palabras o expresiones que apuntan
a los conceptos que proponen construir o las formas de pensamiento que buscan estimular.
Pero, ¿realmente funcionan como modelos? ¿No será que el modelo que se construye es
demasiado artificial, demasiado alejado de la experiencia que, paradójicamente, pretende
estimular?
Kohan y Waksman expresan estas dudas en forma de crítica dirigida contra la
concepción de la narrativa en el marco del “programa” de la Filosofía para Niños: “la
narrativa es vehículo, es medio para fines externos a ella (…). …la concepción del texto
literario y la lectura (…) están teñidas de una ‘utilidad’: las novelas filosóficas propuestas
‘sirven’ para suscitar ciertos problemas que, a su vez, servirán para conformar ciertos hábitos.
Literatura ancilla de una filosofía “pedagogizada” (2000: 83). Desde luego, ni la
subordinación de la literatura a la filosofía, ni la subordinación de ambas a la
“pedagogización” son problemas exclusivos del currículo de FpN (cualquiera sea el currículo
del que estemos hablando). Tampoco significa todo esto que los materiales existentes no
puedan ser ‘exitosos’ en el sentido de contribuir efectivamente a la promoción de la reflexión
filosófica. No obstante, esta advertencia constituye una alerta que llama la atención sobre al
menos dos aspectos que vale la pena examinar: el primero es el énfasis en el carácter de
método que acompaña a la idea del currículo; el segundo es pensar la filosofía y literatura, y
la relación entre ellas, de manera que se sustraigan a la perspectiva de la utilidad.
Del método a la práctica, de la práctica a la experiencia
Las virtudes del currículo de FpN son con frecuencia presentadas y evaluadas como los
beneficios que ofrece una metodología. La dinámica de la comunidad de investigación
filosófica junto con las novelas y los manuales que las acompañan son constituyentes de lo
que muchos se han visto tentados en llamar un ‘método de filosofía’. Las novelas ‘modelan’
la comunidad de investigación y los manuales ofrecen estrategias para desarrollar con
nuestros estudiantes una indagación filosófica compartida según dicho modelo. El carácter
de ‘método’ o de ‘programa’ asociado al currículo se refuerza en dos aspectos
principalmente: por un lado, en las garantías que ofrecería para desarrollar habilidades de
pensamiento, para reforzar la autonomía de los sujetos, para promover actitudes éticas y
democráticas; por el otro, en los instrumentos de medición que, desde el viejo ‘Test de New
Jersey’ hasta relatos de experiencias del presente intentan demostrar que los niños que hacen
filosofía según estos lineamientos manifiestan progresos en una u otra de esas dimensiones.
Si el énfasis se pone en las habilidades cognitivas, se subrayará la medición de las
capacidades lingüísticas, lógicas y reflexivas; si el interés se orienta al aspecto psicológico o
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social, se resaltarán las capacidades empáticas y emocionales, y lo que en general se

denomina ‘democráticas’.
Es comprensible que los textos teóricos de Lipman y de Sharp presentaran certezas en
este sentido: una propuesta nueva, en un medio (tanto filosófico como educativo) que
tendería más bien a mirarla con desconfianza antes que aceptarla con entusiasmo, necesita
presentarse con garantías. Sin embargo, en otros contextos, no resulta satisfactorio auto-
comprenderse como portadoras/aplicadores de un ‘método’. Más aún, cuando el método
ocupa el primer plano en la presentación de FpN, se convierte en una mirada vigilante que
demarca prácticas ‘auténticas’ de prácticas apócrifas.
Es posible que, quienes promueven la comunidad de investigación como método no
tengan estas intenciones. Pero en la comprensión de la práctica educativa en general que se
presenta como método subyacen demasiadas certezas. La primera de ellas es la de cómo
deberían llegar a ser los más pequeños y, ante todo, cómo deberían ser las personas en
general; la segunda es la confianza en disponer de ‘instrumentos’ adecuados para alcanzar
esos fines.
Ambas pretensiones implican una mirada técnica y teleológica que no resulta
satisfactoria. Unamuno ha satirizado estas certezas en Amor y pedagogía (1978). Es verdad,
supone, además, una concepción ultrapositivista tanto de la ciencia como de la pedagogía a
la que seguramente nadie que se dedique a la FpN adheriría. A diferencia de Avito Carrascal
(el padre-pedagogo de Unamuno), nnosotros escuchamos las preguntas de los niños,
debatimos el problema ético de hacer experimentos con animales (entre otros problemas
éticos), no hacemos de la ciencia una religión. Pero lo inquietante de la confrontación con el
espejo que, aunque exagerado, propone la novela no es lo que nos diferencia de este personaje
sino lo que nos identifica con él. Él quería educar a su hijo “para genio”; en FpN se argumenta
que disponemos de un método para educar a los alumnos ‘para pensantes’, ‘para críticos’,
‘para buenos ciudadanos’.
El problema al que apunta la crítica de estas certezas excede incluso a las polémicas
como las que se dan alrededor del ‘desarrollismo’ en la concepción de la infancia, o por
ejemplo las que se reflejan en una serie de artículos publicados en childhood & philosophy a
partir de la conferencia de Gert Biesta en el Congreso de 2017 en Madrid alrededor de su
idea de grownupness5. No se trata de la discusión alrededor de la manera de concebir la
infancia a diferencia de la adultez, sino de cuestionar la actitud de suponer en general de
cómo debe ser un ciudadano democrático, o cómo debe ser una persona crítica que viene
acompañado, en general, por otro supuesto: el de que uno mismo lo es. Desde luego,
preguntarse acerca del mundo en el que queremos vivir, acerca de cuál es la mejor forma de
vivir juntos es absolutamente legítimo y necesario. Pero no es lo mismo que suponer un deber
ser, ni es lo mismo que ‘educar para’. Mientras que tener presente esa pregunta como un
problema constante en nuestra tarea de educadores, es hacer de la educación una práctica con
fundamentos filosóficos, lo otro es adoptar una actitud teleológico-técnica de la educación
que da por supuesto el ‘para qué’ y, por tanto, no necesita reflexionar sobre él. La certeza del
método es una auto-comprensión de FpN que puede convertirse fácilmente en cómplice de
una irreflexiva ‘educación para’6.
5
Cf. childhood & philosophy Vol 13, n° 28 (2017).
6
Ha sido muy interesante en este sentido, la presentación de Andy West (“Can doing philosophy with children
prevent another Trump?”) en el marco del Congreso de ICPIC de 2017.
219
Por último, las certezas que subyacen a la idea del método ignoran la distancia entre la
evaluación y la medición. Es una distancia pequeña y sutil, pero relevante. El método
conduce de manera casi inadvertida a la medición. La medición, desde luego, aun cuando sea
cualitativa, adopta el criterio de la eficacia y enfatiza los ‘resultados’. En este sentido, desde
luego, una medición debe ser exitosa (de hecho, es difícil encontrar en la bibliografía relatos
de experiencias fracasadas de FpN). Pero esa exigencia de mostrarse exitoso es, en el fondo,
una reafirmación en la certeza y un alejamiento de la reflexión.
Se puede argumentar que lo que proponen los currículos de FpN es un modelo y no un
método. Más aún, si tomamos publicaciones paradigmáticas como childhood & philosophy,
veremos que en ella conviven perspectivas que enfatizan el método con perspectivas que
enfatizan la experiencia (remitiendo a Agamben o Benjamin), conviven estudios de casos de
corte ‘científico’ y de medición de resultados con reflexiones que subrayan lo raro del
acontecimiento de la filosofía (remitiendo, por ejemplo, a Deleuze). En esta línea y a
diferencia del método, el modelo no podría ser ese ideal al que se hace referencia más arriba,
so riesgo de volver a caer en la teleología. El modelo del pensamiento filosófico, el modelo
de la Comunidad de Investigación, no serían el ideal de lo que debería suceder en una clase,
ni el ideal de cómo debería pensar una persona de buen juicio. En cambio, compartirían el
rasgo de la fragilidad que Biesta (2017) atribuye a toda educación. No supondría la imitación
sino la participación (ibidem). Sería análogo a aprender un juego viendo cómo juegan otros:
puede haber algunas reglas explícitas a respetar; pero el modo en que cada uno jugará incluirá
un aprendizaje de gestos implícitos y de gestos propios.
En este sentido, comparto la idea de ‘invitación’ de Caputo (2014). Según estas
consideraciones, la invitación “supone las ganas de compartir algo con los invitados, de estar
juntos”; supone que “puede ser aceptada a desgano, o eludida o, también, rechazada”; implica
preguntarse qué significa ser un buen anfitrión y, también, preguntarse qué es pensar y qué
es leer, agregamos nosotras cuando invitamos a hacerlo.
El modelo, entonces, no sería normativo sino abierto e incierto. No sería un método,
sino una práctica. Y la práctica escapa por completo a la exigencia de método y su criterio
de eficacia. Es posible tener un método para discutir pero no para la experiencia de la
discusión; podemos tener un criterio para saber qué tipo de discusión se lleva a cabo pero no
para decidir si la experiencia ha sucedido. Esto se debe a que la experiencia se nos ofrece
como un fin en sí misma, la experiencia no es ‘para’ sino que es ‘en sí misma’. Es posible
que nos transforme pero eso no implica que se trate de un instrumento para la transformación.
En otras palabras, la experiencia se vive ‘desde adentro’ y tiene su valor intrínseco, es
sentido, independientemente de lo que suceda después de ella. La ciencia hace demasiado
ruido y la experiencia y el sentido hablan muy bajito, se pierden en la parafernalia del método.
Como el arte. Precisamente, Heidegger concluye que la “región” propia de la meditación
sobre la esencia de la técnica es el arte, el “hacer salir lo oculto” (1994: 36).
Literatura infantil y reflexión filosófica
El tercer tema de reflexión que se encuentra con los dos anteriores en esta discusión es
la posibilidad de una alianza entre Filosofía y Literatura, en particular, la Literatura Infantil. Si
se busca material filosófico para trabajar con niños más allá del currículo y se reflexiona sobre
la práctica de la comunidad de investigación más allá del método, es casi una obviedad dirigir
la mirada hacia la literatura infantil. Esto no implica considerar que la filosofía (i.e. la
perspectiva, la verdad y la reflexión filosóficas) sean lo mismo que la literatura (i.e. la
perspectiva, la verdad y la reflexión literarias). Tampoco implica poner a la literatura al servicio
220
de la filosofía. En efecto, la conexión entre ambas no es una gran novedad si se tiene en cuenta
que, en la historia de la filosofía, sólo recientemente en el siglo XX se ha terminado por excluir
rasgos ‘literarios’ para escribir filosofía. Basta leer las utopías del Renacimiento, las novelas
filosóficas de Voltaire o de Sartre, o la manera en que Borges incluye sus filosofías favoritas
en sus cuentos para que la fascinación mutua resulte evidente7. Por el contrario, el
desplazamiento de la perspectiva de que sea imprescindible un currículo estructurado así como
de entender la práctica del diálogo filosófico como metodología apunta, precisamente, a salir
del esquema de la utilidad que se criticó más arriba. En este sentido, aun cuando no hayan sido
producidas ad hoc para hacer filosofía, es posible que algunas piezas de literatura puedan
producir el mismo tipo de interrogación que proponen las novelas filosóficas y que algunos
textos literarios tengan la misma potencia que los ejercicios o los planes de discusión de los
manuales.
En el marco de FpN, existen diversas posiciones sobre la relación entre filosofía y
literatura. Lipman mismo enfatiza la relevancia del valor literario de sus novelas (1991), si
bien tal vez no sea ése el que más deba ser atendido en ellas. Propone que “el enlace corriente
entre la filosofía y la creación literaria es que ambas son búsquedas de sentido. Tanto el
filósofo como el escritor están fascinados con el lenguaje y preocupados por su uso preciso.
Ambos pueden ocuparse de las mismas cuestiones. (Por ejemplo, ¿qué posibilidades existen
en un universo imaginario contrafáctico que no existen en el mundo tal como es?)” (Lipman,
2000: 12). Y, cuando defiende la literatura por sí misma, argumenta que “está llena de cosas
maravillosas como valores y sentidos e ideales, y nos provoca reacciones maravillosas, como
sentimientos y emociones y todas esas buenas cosas” (1991: 214).
Sin embargo, insiste en que, para estimular el pensamiento filosófico se necesita un
modelo explícito del proceso de discusión filosófica:
El texto que da lugar al proceso de pensamiento debe ser él mismo un modelo del proceso. (…) Si
queremos que los niños o los estudiantes de cualquier edad constituyan una comunidad de
investigación, seguramente será de ayuda mostrarles una comunidad de investigación y permitirles
examinar cómo funciona. Llamaré a este modelo la comunidad de investigación ficcional. (Lipman,
1991: 216)
En defensa de los rasgos del currículo lipmaniano, de la Garza (2000) mantiene la
relevancia de lo literario en el margen de las novelas y cuentos filosóficos. Volker (2000),
por su parte, va más allá y alerta sobre el peligro que entraña tanto para la filosofía como
para la literatura intentar confundir sus ‘esencias’, racional para la primera, creativa para la
segunda. En el fondo, esta separación tajante entre filosofía y literatura, entre logos y mythos,
es la que se mantiene al interior de las novelas filosóficas en las cuales la narración es sólo
una excusa, un canal amigable de transmisión de un mensaje que, una vez entregado, pierde
toda conexión con su mensajero y, por ende, éste pierde todo sentido.
No es, desde luego, la pretensión aquí argumentar que literatura y filosofía puedan ser
reducidas la una a la otra, o que sea lo mismo proponer en el aula una experiencia literaria
que una experiencia filosófica. Sin embargo, me adhiero a la postura de Kohan y Waksman,
quienes observan que ‘la relación entre la seriedad y currículo estructurado no es unívoca: puede
haber seriedad y puede haber falta de seriedad dentro y fuera del currículo de filosofía para niños
o de cualquier otro currículo estructurado. La seriedad de la práctica está dada por cómo ésta se
lleve adelante y no por los materiales que utilice, lo que desde ya no omite la necesidad de elegir
cuidadosamente el material empleado’. (2000: 92).
7
Lipman apela a los filósofos-poetas presocráticos como ejemplo (2000: 14).
221
Dicho en otras palabras, la seriedad de lo que se ofrece a docentes y niños no descansa

necesariamente en la estructura de un currículo ni en las certezas del método que en él se
sustenta. Tampoco se busca en el texto literario un mero ‘disparador’ que, nuevamente,
subordinaría a algún otro objetivo pedagógico como, en este caso, provocar un diálogo
filosófico.
Más recientemente, Haynes y Murris (2012) entienden los libros álbum como textos
filosóficos. Los motivos por los que defienden la pertinencia de la literatura infantil como
mediadora para la filosofía son múltiples. Entre ellos, argumentan que “el contexto narrativo
y la implicación emocional son rasgos de los encuentros filosóficos significativos” (2012:
68, nuestra traducción). Y enfatizan la relevancia de la estructura narrativa para dar
inteligibilidad a la vida como proceso en el tiempo (2012: 70), tanto como para contextualizar
y dar sentido a nuestras experiencias (2012: 72ss). En el marco del Proyecto de Investigación
“Filosofía y Literatura en los primeros años de la escuela primaria y el nivel inicial: la
investigación, la práctica y la formación docente”, compartimos el enfoque de Kohan-
Waksman y Haynes-Murris. Buscamos literatura infantil que haga un uso poético del
lenguaje, textos que propongan una subversión del sentido común. En este sentido, tanto la
identificación con las situaciones narradas que media la experiencia subjetiva y que hace a la
“aceptabilidad psicológica” que propone Lipman, como el extrañamiento son aspectos de la
literatura que potencian la reflexión filosófica.
Por ese motivo, se trata de ofrecer textos que desnaturalizan algún aspecto de la
realidad, pero no porque ‘apelen a la fantasía’ (cf. Gadamer, 2001: 199) sino porque
suspenden el sentido habitual que las cosas y las ideas tienen para nosotros ese sentido que
damos por supuesto y nos parece obvio a fuerza de familiaridad, y provocan así una
extrañeza que, muchas veces de manera inadvertida, se convierte en filosofar (Anexo 18).
Esta literatura, pues, es una invitación a la filosofía. Al igual que ella, señala (y a veces
también explora) lo no dado en lo dado. ‘Lo que, de hecho, la poesía como lenguaje tiene en
común con la filosofía a diferencia de la ciencia, es que el filósofo cuando dice algo, no
remite hacia otra cosa que exista en alguna parte, como la garantía que el billete tiene en el
banco. Cuando el pensar insta a formularlo todo, es del todo en sí mismo, de tal modo que,
por así decirlo, se hace palabra, se verbaliza a sí mismo’, observa Gadamer (2001: 201).
En efecto, a pesar de no tratarse del mismo lenguaje, ni del mismo movimiento del
pensamiento, existen textos de literatura infantil que, a su manera, son instancias de la
verbalización de sí mismo del pensar.
Asimismo, buscamos literatura infantil que no necesariamente tenga finales felices y
que, desde luego, no tengan finales ‘cerrados’ ni intenciones edificantes; más aún, se
seleccionan relatos que, de alguna manera desafían convenciones sociales (Anexos 2 y 3).
La moralización es un rasgo que Haynes y Murris objetan en el lenguaje de la propuesta de
Wartenberg (2012: 61)9 y que Turin objeta también en su proyecto (2014). En este sentido,
buscamos sustraernos de los esquemas de ‘educación para’ propios de algunas colecciones
ofrecen biografías ‘ejemplares’10, o de las propuestas de usar la literatura infantil para ‘educar
en valores’. Tanto la literatura como la filosofía necesitan ser ‘liberadas’ de esta función que
8
Dado que lamentablemente no es posible aquí desarrollar un análisis detallado de los relatos que
seleccionamos, ofrecemos en Anexos breves fragmentos a modo de ejemplos.
9
Comparto, en lo personal, la observación de un tono ‘paternalista’ en su escritura.
10
En la Argentina, tal es el caso de las colecciones de los “Antipríncipes” y las “Antiprincesas” de la editorial
Sudestada.
222
le atribuyen las perspectivas pedagógicas más extendidas en las escuelas. No se trata de

enseñar qué es lo bueno y qué es lo malo, no se trata explicar qué son el amor, la amistad o
la democracia; se trata de pensar entre todos qué significan como parte de la pregunta por el
mundo en que deseamos vivir, como se dijo más arriba.
Buscamos, por último, libros que propongan usos novedosos del lenguaje y de la
imagen (Anexo 4) y la pongan en diálogo con el texto de modo que no se trate ni simplemente
de un texto lineal con hermosas ilustraciones, ni de un texto que propone rupturas
acompañado por ilustraciones estereotipadas (aunque esto último sea claramente preferible a
lo primero).
Así pues, cuando la literatura, reúne estos rasgos, la potencia reflexiva no está
solamente ‘agregada’ a su calidad literaria, o viceversa; ambas son solidarias y se enriquecen
mutuamente. Si hemos de atender a Gadamer cuando sugiere que “acaso la vecindad interior
entre filosofía y poesía estribe precisamente en que se topan en dos movimientos
extremadamente contrarios: la lengua de la filosofía se rebasa constantemente a sí misma; la
lengua del poema (de todo poema real) es única e imposible de rebasar” (2001: 200), entonces
estos textos contienen la tensión de estos movimientos contrarios. Esto es lo que intentamos
ofrecer a docentes y niños cuando proponemos una práctica filosófica alternativa al currículo.
Reflexiones finales
En la comunidad internacional de FpN, cualquiera sea la línea que se prefiera, existen
preguntas que no por ser de larga data11, se mantienen vigentes. Algunas de ellas son las
controversias alrededor del currículo y de la metodología sobre las que se ha reflexionado
aquí. La cantidad y variedad de propuestas similares al currículo de Lipman (ya sean más o
menos completos o estructurados) es claramente un signo del incuestionable valor de FpN.
Y también lo son las propuestas de trabajo que, aunque no se alinean con un currículo
determinado, tampoco renuncian a la dinámica del diálogo filosófico en comunidad de
investigación.
El currículo es una herramienta valiosa tanto para la formación de docentes como para
la apología de FpN allí donde aún se cuestiona la posibilidad de que los niños puedan acceder
a la reflexión filosófica. Pero no por ello debe ser excluyente con respecto a otras formas de
abordar el trabajo en el aula. Por otra parte, su solidaridad con la perspectiva de FpN como
metodología supone certezas y promueve consecuencias dudosamente deseables. Ni la
autocomprensión en términos de eficiencia, ni la garantía de una apariencia ‘científica’ son
ideales a los que, en lo personal, aspiro como docente e investigadora en esta área.
El trabajo con la literatura infantil, por su parte, se acerca mejor al sentido de la
comunidad de diálogo filosófico como práctica y como experiencia. Si bien se guía por
criterios claros de selección de materiales, no conduce a la pretensión de exclusividad. Y, en
nuestro abordaje, tampoco establece una solidaridad intrínseca con un carácter metodológico
sino que asume su fragilidad. Porque, en síntesis, lo que hacemos con la literatura es invitar
a compartir y disfrutar de la belleza y de la reflexión; y lo que nos dejamos hacer con la
literatura es experiencia de amas. Cuando nos sentimos invitadas a la experiencia por la
literatura y compartimos la invitación con los demás, nos liberamos a nosotras y liberamos,
11
Si se me permite la referencia autobiográfica, se trata de cuestiones que ya se discutían en el tiempo de mis
primeros contactos con FpN a principios de los años noventa.
223
también, a la filosofía y la literatura de su utilidad. Literatura y filosofía juntas ofrecen, así,

un ‘ábrete sésamo’, esto es, son la apertura, el camino y el recorrido, la experiencia de la
reflexión.
REFERENCIAS
Biesta, G. (2017). El bello riesgo de educar. España: Ediciones SM.
Caputo, C. (2014). “Algunas consideraciones acerca de la filosofía como invitación a pensar”.
En Kohan, W. (comp.) Teoría y práctica en filosofía con niños y jóvenes. Experimentar el
pensar, pensar la experiencia. Buenos Aires: Novedades Educativas (33-38).
De la Garza, M.T. (2000). “Filosofía y literatura: una relación estrecha”. En Kohan y
Waksman (Comps.) Filosofía para Niños. Discusiones y propuestas. Buenos Aires:
Novedades Educativas.
Fox, R. (2001). “Can children be philosophical?” En Teaching Thinking, Summer 2001.
Gadamer, H.G. (2001). Filosofía y Literatura. En Estética y Hermenéutica. Madrid: Tecnos.
Haynes, J., Murris, K. (2012) Picturebooks, Pedagogy and Philosophy. New York:
Routledtge.
Heidegger, M. (1994). “La pregunta por la técnica”. En Martin Heidegger. Conferencias y
artículos. Barcelona: Ediciones del Serbal.
Kohan, W., Waksman, V. (2000). Filosofía con niños. Aportes para el trabajo en clase.
Buenos Aires: Novedades Educativas.
Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in Education. Melbourne: Cambridge University Press.
Lipman, M. (2000). Escribir: cómo y por qué. Libro de apoyo para el docente para
acompañar a Suki. Buenos Aires: Manantial.
Lipman, M. (2000a). Pixi. Buenos Aires: Novedades Educativas.
Lipman, M. (2000b). Kío y Agus. Buenos Aires: Novedades Educativas.
Lipman, M. (2000c). El descubrimiento de Aristóteles. Buenos Aires: Novedades Educativas.
Murray, K. (2001). “Are children natural philosophers?” en Teaching Thinking, Autumn
2001 (46-49).
Murris, K. (2000). “Can Children Do Philosophy?” en Journal of Philosophy of Education,
Vol. 34, Issue 2 (261-279).
Turin, J. (2014) Los grandes libros para los más pequeños. Buenos Aires: FCE.
Unamuno, M. (1978) Amor y pedagogía. Tres novelas ejemplares y un prólogo. Madrid:
Editorial Magisterio Español.
Volker, P. (2000). “Filosofía y literatura o las relaciones peligrosas”. En Kohan y Waksman
(Comps.) Filosofía para Niños. Discusiones y propuestas. Buenos Aires: Novedades
Educativas.
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Anexo 1
En Vida de perros (de la escritora argentina Isol), el protagonista presenta a su perro Clovis,
su gran amigo. Y luego comenta:
De vez en cuando debo preguntarle a mi mamá:
— Madre, ¿cómo sabes que NO soy un perro?
Y mami me contesta así:
— Hijo, si fueras un perro te gustaría embarrarte en los charcos y correr ladrando a los autos.
— ¿Y qué más?
— Si fueras un perro harías pis en los árboles, y los chicos de la escuela se subirían a tu lomo.
— ¿Y qué más?
— Bueno…, sacarías tu lengua muy afuera y sería grande y húmeda, y también aullarías por
la noche sin dejarnos dormir. ¿Ves por qué sé que no eres un perrito?
A continuación, el personaje sale a jugar con su perro y hace con él todo lo que la mamá
supone que el niño no haría. Cuando llega a su casa, feliz y sucio, su mamá lo deja en el
jardín, con su perro.
Anexo 2
El personaje de Petit, el monstruo (Isol) es al mismo tiempo bueno y malo:
Petit puede ser buenísimo con el abuelo Paco…
y puede malísimo con las palomas.
…
Su mamá le pregunta: ¿cómo puede ser que un chico tan bueno a veces haga cosas tan malas?
Petit no sabe qué contestar.
…
— ¿Seré alguna clase de monstruo inclasificable? —se pregunta Petit.
Así, Petit invita a reflexionar evitando el mensaje de ‘hay que portarse bien’.
Anexo 3
El personaje de don Sapo, de los relatos de Gustavo Roldán, juega con la verdad y la mentira
de manera constante e invita, así a reflexionar sobre ellas.
— Piojito, sos tan mentiroso como el sapo y nadie te va a creer. Es mejor que se vayan de
este monte ya mismo. Y que no vuelvan nunca más.
…
— Doña lechuza —dijo la pulga—, estas acusaciones son muy graves y tenemos que darles
una solución.
— Hay que decidir si el sapo es un mentiroso o un buen contador de cuentos —propuso el
yacaré. (El vuelo del sapo)
— Don sapo —dijo con un poco de timidez un monito—, usted sabe que nosotros le creemos
todo lo que nos cuenta, pero eso de que alguien se haga un agujero en la oreja y se cuelgue
piedritas de colores… No, don sapo, eso no puede ser cierto.
…
— ¡Añamambuí! ¡Qué lindo miente don sapo! (Una cara muy fea)
225
Anexo 4
En El problema de Carmela, Graciela Montes hace que las metáforas de los dichos populares
se vuelvan hechos.
En noviembre don Aníbal les dijo a todos que se le casaba la menor, Lucianita.
— Usted queda invitada, Carmela le dijo don Aníbal el jueves cinco a la mañana. Y los
gatos también. Son muy educaditos.
Carmela fue corriendo a comprarles un perchero a los novios y le dijo de paso a la Gorda:
— Don Aníbal nos invita a todos al casamiento. Va a tirar la casa por la ventana.
Dicho y hecho, porque el día del casamiento don Aníbal se levantó bien temprano, abrió la
ventana del comedor y empezó a tirar la casa.
Con las cacerolas, la ropa, el jabón, los libros, el ventilador y los cuadritos no tuvo
inconvenientes, pero a las siete el diariero se lo encontró tratando de sacar una cama de abuela
con abuela y un ropero de tres cuerpos con espejo ovalado y angelitos en las patas.
No hubo forma de pararlo y la mujer y la hija no tuvieron más remedio que volver a entrar
por la puerta lo que él había tirado por la ventana.
226
Staying Doubtful: How can Philosophical Inquiry in Science at

Secondary School Promote Interdisciplinary Reflection and
Epistemological Awareness?
Cristina Rossi and Stefano Manildo

Istituto Superiore di Stato “Don Lorenzo Milani” - via Belvedere s.n. - 24058 Romano di
Lombardia (Bergamo) - Italy
CdRF - Comunità di Ricerca Filosofica - Associazione di Promozione Sociale - Via Milano
23 - Chiari (BS) – Italy
info@cristinarossi.eu
stefano.manildo@gmail.com
CV
Cristina Rossi holds a PhD in Pedagogy, specializing in the promotion of socio-cultural
diversity in education policies in Europe and in education practices in Italy. She teaches
Philosophy and History in a secondary school in Italy, and has been working as a P4C teacher
and facilitator over the last five years. Specifically, she specializes in the interconnections
between pedagogy, epistemology and science in education for thinking in secondary school.
She is a co-founder of the CdRF - Comunità di Ricerca Filosofica, an association actively
promoting P4C in northern Italy.
Stefano Manildo holds a degree in Theoretical Physics. Through his work on complex
systems, he has focused his attention on an interdisciplinary approach to both research and
teaching. He teaches Maths and Physics in a secondary school in Italy. He has been training
in P4C and experimenting with Community of Philosophical Inquiry in his teaching of
Modern Physics over the last two years.
ABSTRACT
In this paper we shall focus on a two-year teaching program of a Community of Philosophical
Inquiry of secondary school students discussing science. Our purpose has been to bring
together an education for thinking and a reflection on science as an inquiring activity, in order
to improve thinking skills and epistemological awareness in the disciplines we teach. The
connection between scientific and philosophical thought we experienced during our activities
has been at the centre of Dewey’s work: thinking about science philosophically means
activating and employing the features of a reflective mind that is both philosophical and
scientific. Looking for this synergy between science and philosophy requires thinking across
the curriculum, with a view to filling the gap between Science and Humanities, introducing
an interdisciplinary approach founded on the process of thinking.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy of Science, Physics, Maths, Community of Inquiry, secondary school,
education for thinking, fallibilism, suspended judgment, doubtfulness, interdisciplinary
thinking.
227
RESUMEN
En este artículo nos centraremos en un programa de enseñanza de dos años de duración de
una comunidad de investigación filosófica de estudiantes de educación secundaria que
estudian ciencia. Nuestro propósito ha sido reunir la educación para pensar y la reflexión
sobre la ciencia como una actividad de investigación, con el fin de mejorar las habilidades
de pensamiento y la conciencia epistemológica de las disciplinas que enseñamos. La
conexión entre el pensamiento científico y filosófico que experimentamos durante nuestras
actividades ha sido el centro de la investigación de Dewey: pensar filosóficamente sobre la
ciencia significa activar y utilizar las características de una mente reflexiva que es a la vez
filosófica y científica. Buscar esta sinergia entre la ciencia y la filosofía significa que es
necesario pensar el currículum, con el objetivo de rellenar la brecha entre la ciencia y las
humanidades, introduciendo un enfoque de trabajo interdisciplinario basado en el proceso
de pensar.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía de la ciencia, física, matemáticas, comunidad de investigación, educación
secundaria, educación del pensamiento, falibilismo, juicio suspendido, duda, pensamiento
interdisciplinar.
Science is born when certainties, myths

and old values are questioned and discussed,
and one looks at the world with new eyes,
like a child which is still open to everything.
(Carlo Rovelli, Che cos’è il tempo?Che cos’è lo spazio,
Rome 2004)1
INTRODUCTION
This paper focuses on a program of teaching Philosophy of Science through a
Community of Inquiry in a secondary school in Italy. It discusses the reasons for introducing
such a program in the school curriculum, its method, contents, purposes and evaluation, as
well as the sense of the scientific endeavor emerging from the work and dialogue among
teachers and students.
In our everyday experience we can see the omnipresence of technology and science as
one of the drivers of modern lifestyle. This is rarely accompanied by an adequate scientific
literacy, even in well educated people. For instance, we live in a world that has been
completely transformed by the findings of relativity and quantum mechanics, but the vision
of the world brought about by these theories is not yet familiar, even among science students
(Rovelli, 2014a). Today, in our culture we can see a sort of polarization between supporters
and detractors of science (Massarenti, 1998): on the one side, an unquestioned faith in science
as the only way to describe the world as it is, and on the other side, irrationalism as a reaction
to a ‘bad rationalism’ (Husserl, 1959). These two attitudes are the result of a non-critical
approach to science that can become fixed early in life thanks to exposure to science teaching
in schools (Sprod, 2011). In particular, science is associated to certainty as a feature that both
students and teachers find attractive, while the tentative and provisional nature of philosophy
1
Translated from the Italian by the authors.
228
is seen as disconcerting (Calvert, Förster, Hausberg, Meerwaldt, Nevers, Paaman & Sprod,
2017: 197). This dangerous and unjustified separation between Science and Humanities still
shapes education and academic curricula (Nussbaum, 2010). For these reasons we think it
necessary to deepen the reflection on scientific thought starting from student’s knowledge,
experience, conceptions and misconceptions, as an attempt to answer to the broader question
‘what is science?’. In our view, science is first of all a way of thinking, ‘an intellectual activity
that aims for a better comprehension of the world, developing a conceptual structure for
thinking about it, effective and consistent with what we know and we learn about it’ (Rovelli,
2014b: 113)2.
The teaching of Philosophy in the Italian Secondary School Curriculum
The teaching of Philosophy in Italian schools is part of the curriculum for 11th, 12th
and 13th graders in the last three years of the Lyceum3. With regard to the method of this
teaching, many approaches have been taken over the last century, but it has been observed
that ‘during this long history students who have thought by themselves have done it mostly
without their teachers knowing’ (Cosentino, 2008: 71)4. Among those methods, the
‘historical’ approach introduced with the 1923 School Reform by philosopher Giovanni
Gentile, then Minister for Education, still strongly influences the way that Philosophy is
taught, as it is deeply rooted in our philosophical tradition and it is founded on ‘the identity
of philosophy, history and history of philosophy’ (Bencivenga, 2017: 79). For this reason
students are expected to learn thoughts, theories and concepts of the most important
philosophers and philosophical schools from ancient Greeks to contemporary times, mostly
following a textbook that is organized chronologically. Teachers can also introduce a choice
of excerpts from philosophical works to be analyzed, and sometimes activities and exercises,
with the aim of developing philosophical understanding and learning philosophical jargon.
Philosophy is thus considered mainly as a discipline, as a product, and not as a specific
thinking activity, which we can call ‘philosophizing’. For this reason, during philosophy
lessons students hardly ever have the chance to engage in a dialogue based on their own
thoughts about a text, a topic or an idea, and to express their point of view about it.
‘Philosophizing is not simply any kind of thinking that expresses itself in any human
operation or activity, but it is an act that finds itself into thinking, insofar as the act of thinking
turns to itself, acquiring and developing a form of self-awareness’ (Manara, 2004: 44). If we
assume that philosophizing involves higher order thinking skills, we can ask whether they
can be achieved merely by reading and understanding philosophical works written by others
and a narrative about how the philosophical activity has developed in Western tradition.
According to social constructivism, learning and thinking can be both considered
processes of construction of knowledge in a socially situated context, where an interaction
between a ground of knowledge, thinking skills and metacognition leads to a meaningful
representation of the world5. Thus, the transmission of a background of knowledges seems
clearly inadequate for an effective education for thinking, but, as Santi underlines, ‘the
2
3
In the formal education system in Italy the Lyceum is the secondary school preparing to university, while
technical and professional schools deliver a diploma allowing students to access to specific professions and
jobs at the end of the secondary studies.
4
For an overview of the didactic of Philosophy in Italy see also Manara (2004), pp. 89-124.
5
For an overview on the recent psychological research in the perspective of education to thinking see Santi
(2006), pp. 5-54.
229
importance accorded to the ground of knowledge has been translated into the direct teaching
of disciplinary contents and into a communicative context which favors the model of the
taught class’ (Santi, 2006: 304). We would like to remark that this lack of attention to the
process of thinking in its complexity is not limited to Philosophy, but characterizes many
others school subjects in our tradition. For instance, Physics teaching is focused on a sort of
inductive path that holds students to fundamental laws starting from observation. In this way
students are led to accept science as a collection of true propositions and quantitative efficient
equations, losing the capacity to appreciate it as a human activity strictly connected to
curiosity, creativity, attitude to criticism and doubt (Popper, 1968: 305).
The program’s design
One of the approaches to education for thinking is Philosophy for Children (P4C), whose
aim is primarily to transform the class into a Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CPI). In this
program, founded in the nineteen seventies by M. Lipman and A. Sharp, philosophy as a
particular reasoning activity is seen as the medium for improving those thinking skills which are
necessary for the proper functioning of a democratic society, from a very early age throughout
the entire school years. Although other methods of education for thinking can be used or
conceived, different studies have shown the benefits of philosophical inquiry drawn from the
Philosophy for Children movement in primary and secondary science education (Kennedy, 2012;
Sprod, 1997, 2011). In particular, the benefits of addressing science topics in a CPI are the
promotion of content diversity, which helps students not only to deepen their grasp of
philosophical, scientific and mathematical concepts, but also to better grasp the nature of science
and mathematics (Calvert, Förster, Hausberg, Meerwaldt, Nevers, Paarman & Sprod, 2017: 191).
Moving from these premises, we have decided to experiment with P4C-CPI with a group of 9th
and 10th grade students, the first two years of the Lyceum, before the start of the curricular
teaching of Philosophy. The students involved had never followed a P4C program, or indeed any
kind of Philosophy teaching. The program has been carried out as a curricular activity during the
school years of 2015/16 and 2016/17 within the children’s regular school timetable6. It involved
about 50 students from two classes of the Applied Sciences Lyceum, and reached a total of 28
hours of practice for every group of about 10-15 students.
We decided to focus our thinking community on Philosophy of Science, because it
allowed us to explore the interconnections between the disciplines we teach: Stefano Manildo
teaches Maths and Physics and Cristina Rossi teaches Philosophy. Also, we thought that
during the course of their studies, our students would deal with some fundamental concepts,
theories and aspects of the scientific endeavor (such as, for instance, induction, convention,
time, verification, falsification, etc.) and we wanted to begin to discuss them, stimulating
students’ curiosity. It was not our aim to introduce students to a specific knowledge about
scientific concepts or theories, or to propose to them a particular idea of the scientific method.
For this reason, our main pedagogical purpose has been to educate and train students to pay
attention to the logical organization of the thinking process through active dialogue, a tool
that can be seen as transdisciplinary. In Lipman’s words, the program would like to provide
students with the basic tools to ‘think in the disciplines’ (Lipman 2003: 34): the logic that
underlies the different disciplines, the organization of reasoning is, from this point of view,
more important than the disciplinary concepts that are always subject to change or revision.
6 Following the results of the recent research carried out by Education Endowment Foundation with Durham
University (Gorard Siddiqui See 2015), better results can be obtained if the practice of P4C becomes curricular.
230
On the other hand the conception of reason we referred to is not limited to the formal
logic which is based on the idea of one truth, but to a reason that is ‘social thinking, like
an informal process of reasoning oriented by a consensual criterion of truth’ (Santi 2006:
63). Moreover, we thought that scientific thinking involves skills and attitudes that go
beyond argumentation, like inquiry skills, metacognition or critical dispositions, as seen
in table 1.
A. Reflecting on science and on its meanings B. Improving thinking skills

in Community of Inquiry
1. Listening to others 1. Reasoning skills (drawing

2. Participating in dialogue inferences, giving examples and
3. Developing a positive attitude towards counter-examples, recognizing
open exchange of ideas contradictions, fallacies …)
4. Raising questions about scientific matters 2. Inquiry skills (hypothesizing,
5. Discovering and discussing scientific finding suggestions, trying
meanings and epistemological perspectives explanations, looking for
alternatives …)
3. Concept formation skills (defining,
making connections …)
4. Critical dispositions (wondering,
asking for reasons, questioning …)
5. Metacognitive skills (reflecting on
one’s own and others’ thinking
process)
Table 1: General and specific objectives of the project7.
During the program we followed the ‘standard’ P4C practice: every session began
with a text-pretext read in circle by the members of the community, followed by the
collection of questions (agenda), the dialogue on one question democratically chosen by
the group and the final self-assessment. We decided to experiment with various types of
text-pretext: P4C designed texts, philosophical fables, excerpts from philosophical and
scientific essays from authors such as Duhem, Popper, Russell, Searle, Feynman or Kant,
sometimes slightly revised in language. We also proposed excerpts from scientific
dissemination works, and in particular reflections regarding the process of the inquiry from
a scientist’s point of view.
As regards the assessment, two kinds of evaluation can be proposed during a P4C
program: self-assessment conducted by the community itself, i.e. the group of students
working in the program, and external assessment conducted by teachers and by others who
are not part of the community. As for the first type of assessment, it takes the form of a self-
assessment made at the end of each session of dialogue. Students generally followed five
indicators to evaluate their practice: interest in the topic, listening to others, participation in
7
This list of thinking skills is taken from Lipman’s program and in particular from the introduction of the
teacher’s manual for the novel Elfie: Lipman Gazard (1989).
231
the dialogue, quality of the inquiry, socio-emotional-relational plane (how one felt during the
experience). This kind of assessment plays a fundamental part in the P4C practice: a good
inquiry involves taking the time to conduct meta-level inquiry, to pay attention to the quality
of the inquiry as a meta-reflection on the process of thinking. The general objective of our
program was to foster awareness about the process of thinking, and we strengthened this
reflection by asking the students to also evaluate the program at the end of each year with a
survey8. In particular, students were asked which skills (social, cognitive) or attitudes they
thought to have acquired during the program (see table 2).
Part of this self-assessment is also the formative assessment done by teachers during a
P4C program, in order to adjust it to the needs of the community. To best conduct this part
of the evaluation, we have worked in a pair as facilitator and observer, discussing after every
session what was emerging in the field, and we have also analyzed agendas, transcripts and
teachers’ notes from three different points of view:
 the philosophical content of the discussions;
 the argumentative structure;
 the facilitator’s moves.
We have focused on an evaluation in P4C (Cosentino 2012: 291), as it is more in line
with the purposes of our program, whereas an external evaluation, or a summative evaluation
measuring or testing the skills reached by the students, was beyond the practical possibility
of this program’s progress in our school context. However, we would like to point out that,
even when an external assessment can be provided, careful attention must be paid to the fact
that, in CPI, thinking skills cannot be seen as isolated objectives to reach outside of the
context of the social interaction in which they are activated. For this reason discussion on the
evaluation method that best fits into the particular nature of the social practice of a CPI is
still open (Santi & Oliverio, 2012).
To dialogue and exchange ideas 27
To reflect on my own thinking 19
To listen to others 16
To give reasons 14
To cast doubts on what I believe 12
To respect the opinion of others 11
To look at alternatives 9
New meanings I was not acquainted with 4
To raise questions 1
8 Adapted from P4C Students Survey (Gregory et al., 2008, p. 79).
232
Table 2: Answers to the question ‘What have you learned in

Philosophy time?’ Results from 42 questionnaires (113 total
answers) submitted after the second year of the project (2016/17).
An example from a dialogue between students

Here we would like to show one example, taken from a discussion by a group of 9 th
graders during the first year of the project. They started from a text by Rovelli (2015) and
from the question: ʽWhy does mankind always seek for truth?ʼ
Simone: What is false for you can be true He claims a position about truth
for other people.
Ayoub: Like religion? He proposes an example
Simone: Yes, if we talk about religion, He explains a possible exception, clarifying
but not if we talk about Physics or Maths his position about truth
or that sort of thing…
Paolo: But you’re not right, because 1+1, He gives another example, rebutting the
following the decimal system is 2, but if exception just introduced
we follow the binary system, it’s 10. (…)
Facilitator: What would you like to say She supports asking for clarification
with this example, Paolo?
Paolo: That … everything is relative. He reconfirms the first position about truth
without the exception introduced by Simone
Facilitator: You give an example about She supports asking for another example
Maths, Paolo. Can anybody give another
example?
Paloma: Somebody trusts in God, while She gives an example from religion
others do not.
Gloria: It depends on the points of view. She gives a reason for the conception of truth
the community is discussing
Ayoub: It depends always on the single He rephrases the reason given before,
person. specifying it
Paolo: And on what we already know, on He introduces a second reason
assumptions.
Facilitator: Could you explain, Paolo, She supports asking a clarification and a
what do you mean by assumptions? definition
Paolo: Well, if one has always calculated He clarifies with an example
in base 10, and he’s firmly persuaded that
1+1=2, then clearly if I say 1+1=10, he
treats me like a fool, because it makes no
sense.
233
Ayoub: Then you have to specify the He infers a consequence from the example
field …
Paolo: But if you don’t specify it, we He introduces the word ʽconventionʼ to
have the convention to calculate in base define a third reason for this conception of
10 … truth
Ayoub: You have to say what the He gives an example about how a convention
majority think, otherwise you must works
specify … if you follow the decimal
system you’re not forced to specify it; if
you follow binary you have to.
In order to answer the question Simone introduces a relativistic conception of truth, but
it is inclined to accept it only for some fields of human knowledge: religion but not Maths or
Physics. Even if not evident, his conception lies in the idea of universality of scientific
knowledge. Paolo rejects Simone’s exception, including also science among knowledges
which are relative. The dialogue continues with different attempts to find the reasons for this
relativity of truth. If Gloria and Ayoub, following Paloma’s example, introduce a subjectivist
idea of truth, Paolo comes back to his example, specifying that everyone starts knowing from
their assumptions. These assumptions can be called conventions when they are common to
other people. At this point students started to discuss how a convention can work. Then,
discussing the meaning of truth, they have found at least three reasons for a relativistic idea of
truth (personal point of view, previous knowledge or assumptions, conventions) and they have
seen that assumptions and conventions seem to have a role in the building of scientific truth.
This discussion is particularly illustrative of the kind of reflection we wanted to
stimulate in our students. The crisis of the foundations of science of the 20th century has also
involved the conception of truth and in our opinion it is important for our students to begin
to discuss it. It is important to recognize that science, rather than being an absolute truth in a
relative world, has made a substantial contribution in changing the paradigm of truth.
Following Dewey, abandoning a metaphysical conception of reality or nature or morality
does not mean to weaken the power of reason, but lead to a conception of it as a ‘relative
universality, i.e. relational’ (Dewey, 1948: 9).
Accepting doubtfulness as a way of thinking in Science and Philosophy
When we were discussing the project, thinking about Physics and Philosophy, we
observed a convergence between science and philosophy as ways of thinking, which is of
course rooted in the origin of Western thought and in P4C as the method we planned to use.
In ‘Thinking in Education’, Lipman raises the question of whether science and
philosophy must be considered as independent intellectual adventures, and which kind of
method, philosophical or scientific, should be followed in the classroom to educate for
thinking.
If the expression ‘community of inquiry’ was coined by Charles Sanders Pierce to
describe a scientific community, it was John Dewey who developed it into the idea of
research moved by a puzzling experience that we need to investigate in order to find new
meanings. Such an investigation, in whatever field, follows the model of scientific thinking.
Learning to think, for Dewey, means ‘adopting that attitude of mind, that habit of
thought that we call scientific’ (Dewey, 1910, preface). The specific type of thinking Dewey
234
refers to is called ‘reflective thought’ and Lipman reconnected to this idea what he called a
‘reflective paradigm’ in education (Lipman, 2003).
This kind of thought is ‘the active, persistent, and careful consideration of any belief
or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the grounds that support it’ (Dewey, 1910: 6).
The act of inquiry and the act of thinking follow similar steps, which always begin with a
sense of puzzlement, doubtfulness or wonder that elicit an act of search or investigation.
A disciplined mind, i.e. a mind trained in reflective thinking, differs from a scientific
mind not in quality, but in degree. Science has developed specific tools to control the process
of thinking, but it is not different from any other act of inquiring and reflective thinking.
Quoting from Dewey: ‘the substitution of scientific for superstitious habits of inference
has not been brought about by any improvement in the acuteness of the senses or in the
natural workings in the function of suggestion. It is the result of regulation of the conditions
under which observation and inference take place’ (Dewey, 1910: 21).
One of the most important points in the process of inquiring is the ability to prevent
acceptance of the first suggestion that arises from a problematic situation. In Dewey’s words:
‘The essence of critical thinking is suspended judgement’ (Dewey, 1910: 74). Inquiring
means accepting ideas as hypothesis, as doubtful possibilities, looking for new meanings in
a situation that has disclosed the unexpected, the uncertain, the ambiguous or even the
imponderable. It implies looking into the present seeking for signs, indications or tokens of
something that we cannot see immediately and that we could not be able to see outside of the
process of the inquiry. To paraphrase Dewey here, inquiry means a jump, a leap to something
unknown, with no certainty about the landing. It means, most of all, questioning our
certainties and accepting doubtfulness, even if they can sometimes be painful.
From an epistemological point of view this means embracing fallibilism, that is the
idea that science is not a set of propositions proved once and for all, because ‘the key for
scientific thought is not holding on to certainty, to a given representation of the world, but to
be ready to change it, whenever every time it is necessary’ (Rovelli, 2014b: 115)9. The
richness of the discussion in Philosophy of Science during the 20th Century has also been a
thoughtful reaction to a shock: the unexpected fall of classical mechanics brought about by
Einstein’s theory of relativity (Gillies & Giorello, 1993).
This sensitivity to not being satisfied with things as they appear, looking behind them
in search for new meanings, is not only a trait of science, but also of philosophy and of
reflective thinking in general. Following this idea, we have interpreted some of the results
of the self-assessment students did at the end of the project (see table 2). We can see that
students have become familiar with CPI, in particular with some basic attitudes like
respecting others, exchanging ideas and careful listening. As regards the specific thinking
skills, many students have started to doubt as an attitude to tackling problems. Acquiring
this attitude of staying doubtful is not immediate and requires a long time to take hold. It
has to struggle against social pressure for immediate problem-solving and rapid decision-
making, against performance-driven education systems and pedagogical approaches still
based on the transmission of information instead of the shared construction of meanings.
On the other hand, the heuristic value of questioning as the ability to identify different
aspects of a problem is still a difficult task to accomplish and probably requires more time
to be developed.
9
235
Conclusions
In conclusion, we can say that in a shared philosophical inquiry with our students
we have experienced the possible and desirable characters and attitudes of a
community of thinkers that we also ascribe to scientific inquiry. The examples taken
from discussions and evaluation are only a few of the interconnections between
science and philosophy that, in our view, could be explored in a project of CPI in
Science.
For instance, through dialogue we can reveal the idea that science originates from
a sense of difficulty or frustration for something that doesn’t fit in our conceptual
framework. The intellectual adventures of great scientists and philosophers such as
Anaximander, Hypatia, Copernicus and Einstein 10 are only some of the examples of the
critical thinking that students experience in a Community of Inquiry. In this way they can
learn to question the tendency to think about and accept an idea without deeply
understanding, following ‘the tyranny of sense stimuli and habits’ (Dewey, 1910: 155).
This awareness is also a seed for autonomous moral judgment, learning, in Lipman’s
words, to be more ‘reasonable’.
As we have already said, the peculiarity of philosophical inquiry in education for
thinking has been recognized in the nature of philosophical thought as thinking which has
turned round on itself (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980): philosophy is a discipline that,
independently from other intellectual pursuit, can think about thinking, as a
metacognitive reflection on the act of thinking. For this reason philosophy must be at the
center of educational redesign. A philosophy-based education for thinking makes it
possible to think across disciplines, and we can say that, during the process of Community
of Philosophical Inquiry, we have had the possibility to unfold the synergy between our
disciplines  Physics and Philosophy in a deeper, not extrinsic way, and through a
living experience. Thinking across the curriculum and the disciplines cannot really be
done by just connecting from outside topics that overlap disciplinary borders, but instead
it makes it necessary to think together, among students, among students and teachers, and
among teachers too.
On the other hand, doing CPI in the classroom of course entails a dialogical relation
between philosophy as a practice and the philosophical and scientific tradition and
knowledge. Following Dewey again, progress in thinking follows a rhythm of what we
already know, and what we don’t know, what we believe, and what others suggest, what
we experience, and the meaning we assign to things and events. Knowledge must be seen
not as a bulk of information to transmit, but as an instrument to expand the extent of our
possibilities in thinking, looking at different alternatives.
To summarize, from our experience, the sense of philosophical inquiry in science
lies in the possibility of connecting different layers of human experience and knowledge,
while discovering those features of thinking which play a fundamental role in both
philosophical and scientific endeavor.
10
Considering science as a way of thinking can allow the inclusion in history of science experiences which are
worthy of consideration, albeit prior to the so-called Scientific Revolution, such as for example pre-socratic
thought, ancient atomism or hellenistic science (Russo, 1996).
236
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Napoli: Liguori.
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Sprod, T. (2011). Discussions in science. Victoria: ACER Press.
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Can a Rabbit be a Scientist?

Pilot Study on the Introduction of Philosophical Dialogues in Flemish
Science Classes
Jelle De Schrijver
John De Poorter
Eef Cornelissen
Richard Anthone
Odisee University College, Brussels, Belgium
Artevelde University College, Ghent, Belgium
Karel de Grote University College, Antwerp, Belgium
jelle.deschrijver@odisee.be
CV
Jelle De Schrijver is a biologist with a PhD in philosophy. He works as science education
researcher and as a teacher trainer at Odisee University College in Brussels, Belgium. His
main areas of research are reflective science education and dialogic teaching. He works on
different projects aimed at integrating philosophical dialogue in the science class.
John De Poorter is a physicist with a PhD in nuclear physics. He works as a teacher trainer
and education researcher at Artevelde University College in Ghent, Belgium.
Eef Cornelissen has a master’s degree in philosophy and trains teachers in P4C skills at
Odisee University College Brussels. She works as a senior Socratic facilitator in educational
and social contexts and leads projects and does research on the implementation of the
Socratic principles in education.
Richard Anthone is a philosopher who teaches philosophy to social work students at Karel
de Grote University College in Antwerp, Belgium.
ABSTRACT
To improve pupils’ motivation for and attitude towards sciences as well as their inquiry skills,
we introduced P4C in Flemish science classes using a design-based research paradigm. 12 to
14 year-olds participated in several P4C sessions, focusing on the nature of science and
scientific concepts. Based on both qualitative and quantitative research data, landmarks on
the conditions of a successful introduction of P4C in the science class were pinned. The
quantitative data show an increase in pupils’ abilities to cope with uncertainty. The
qualitative data suggest that participants show an increase in the ability to ask creative
questions and problematize scientific concepts. P4C sessions with a mix of both thinking and
scientific experiments appeared most successful. We observed that the use of philosophical
dialogues may positively influence the inquiry skills of pupils as long as there is a good
classroom atmosphere.
KEYWORDS
Philosophical dialogue, science education, nature of science.
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RESUMEN
Para mejorar la motivación y la actitud del alumnado hacia las ciencias, así como sus
habilidades de indagación, introdujimos FpN en las clases de ciencias de Flandes utilizando
un paradigma de investigación basado en el diseño. Niños de doce a catorce años participaron
en varias sesiones de FpN, centrándose en la naturaleza de la ciencia y los conceptos
científicos. Basándose en datos de investigación, tanto cualitativos como cuantitativos, se
fijaron puntos de referencia sobre las condiciones de una introducción exitosa de FpN en la
clase de ciencias. Los datos cuantitativos muestran un aumento en las habilidades de los
estudiantes para hacer frente a la incertidumbre. Los datos cualitativos sugieren que los
participantes muestran un aumento en la capacidad de hacer preguntas creativas y
problematizar conceptos científicos. Las sesiones de FpN con una mezcla de experimentos
científicos y de pensamiento parecieron tener más éxito. Observamos que el uso de diálogos
filosóficos puede influir positivamente en las habilidades de indagación siempre que haya un
buen ambiente de clase.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Diálogo filosófico, didáctica de la ciencia, naturaleza de la ciencia.
INTRODUCTION
Worldwide, the methodology of Philosophy for Children (P4C) is being introduced
into the classroom. Although the Flemish educational system is following this trend, so far,
initiatives to incorporate P4C in the Science curriculum remain few and far between.
However, the successful introduction of P4C as part of an effort to stimulate pupils’ interest
for and decrease their fear of mathematics (Lafortune, 2002), as well as projects abroad
introducing P4C or a Socratic approach in science education (Wenning, 2006, 2008), hint at
a fertile marriage. In particular, P4C may help confront certain key challenges currently faced
by Flemish science education. First, there is evidence that P4C stimulates inquiry skills and
critical thinking (Crawford, 2005). As critical thinking and logical reasoning are definitely
crucial for scientific thinking, P4C may prove to be helpful. Second, the Flemish Science
curriculum is shifting from a knowledge-centered approach to an inquiry-based learning
approach, leading teachers to complain that they lack the didactic tools to teach these inquiry
skills. It appears to be hard to get pupils to phrase creative questions and transform these into
good research questions, as well as to stimulate their inquiry skills. Since questioning and
giving arguments is central to any P4C approach, the methodology is a promising candidate
to assist inquiry-based teaching. Third, Flemish (higher) education is confronted with a
decreasing interest for science and science careers (Timms, 2011). The fact that P4C can
stimulate the motivation and curiosity of youngsters suggests it may be helpful to integrate
both approaches (Gregory, 2009; Wenning, 2006).
Thus, in order to study the conditions required for a successful introduction of P4C in
the Flemish science class, we developed a prototype and studied the impact of this prototype
with regard to inquiry skills, motivation and attitude towards science, and scientific reflection
skills.
Methodology
Because the study of isolated variables in laboratory settings delivers limited
information about a realistic environment and because of the complex nature of an
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educational context a design-based research paradigm is used to study the impact of P4C in
a real science class (Barab & Squire, 2004; Van den Akker, 1999). The design-based research
cycle consists of developing a prototype. A first prototype was evaluated by experts with a
background in either P4C or science education. An ameliorated prototype was then tried out
in 5 groups of pupils at 4 different schools.
Test protocol
A professional P4C facilitator implemented the prototype during the science class of 5
groups of 12- to 14-year-olds (64 pupils in total). Each class had 5 P4C sessions of 50 minutes
each, all of which were video recorded. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used
to study the impact of the philosophical intervention on the reflection and inquiry skills as
well as pupils’ motivation for science.
Quantitative methods
To measure the pupils’ scientific inquiry and reflection skills we particularly focus on
the ability to cope with uncertain or ambiguous claims. After all, science is a way to help us
search for coherence in an uncertain world of observations, yet every scientific finding in
itself is liable to be questioned in itself. As doing philosophy entails questioning concepts
and their reference frames, it goes hand in hand with assessing the (un)certainty of claims (in
this regard Rondhuis considered dealing with uncertainties as one of the constitutive aspects
of philosophical quality (Rondhuis, 2005)). We also assessed pupils’ motivation for science
and their appraisal of the role science plays in everyday life.
These criteria were combined in a pre- and post-questionnaire. The pre-test was
performed some days before the first intervention under the supervision of the teacher. The
post-test was completed only days after the final session. The questions were based on
selections of existing questionnaires about motivation and attitudes towards science (Siegel,
2003; Rebello, 2011) and the nature of science (Liang, 2009).
The pre- and post-questionnaire consisted of:
 Sex, class.
 Statements to be validated on a 5-point Likert scale (strongly agree to strongly
disagree). These statements are used to calculate two background variables.
Inquiry skills
 3 statements about their attitude towards opposing claims and not knowing the
correct answers to questions.
 1 statement about science dealing with theories that can change over time.
 1 statement about questioning the answers of the teacher.
Motivation and attitude towards science
 3 statements about the relevance of science for their personal life.
 1 statement about their future ambition in the fields of science and technology.
 1 statement about their appreciation of the science classes.
In the post-test, extra questions were added scaling their interest in the themes of the
prototype, the relevance of the themes for their future life, the global quality of the
interventions, all of them in relation to a normal science class. Also, respondents were asked
to describe their most positive and most negative experience.
All quantitative data were imported into spss. As only 59 of the 64 returned a completed
post-questionnaire, data of 5 pupils were omitted from the data set. The Likert data sets were
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rescaled to a 0-4 scale. The data of every category were calculated by averaging the results of all
the corresponding statements (negative questions were rescaled as 4 – value). The mean values
and standard deviation of all categories were compared for both pre- and post-test. The statistical
significance of the differences between both data sets was measured using a double-sided paired
t test. Considering the small number of respondents, a significance level (alpha) of 0.1 was used.
Qualitative methods
In addition to the quantitative data, qualitative data were gathered. The observation of
12 P4C sessions (and of the meta sessions afterwards) by trained experts and 22 video
recordings of the sessions allowed for an in-depth analysis of the interventions and the
broader context of the P4C sessions. These written observation reports were validated by the
multiple experts.
Results
Prototype
We perceive roughly three different domains that can be addressed philosophically in the
science class: ethics of science (Can a molecule be bad?), nature of science (What is the
difference between science and magic?) and scientific concepts (Is an apple alive?’) (De
Schrijver et al, 2013). As we had limited time in the schools we chose to continue the work of
Lederman (Lederman & Abd-El-Khalick, 2002) who focuses on the nature of science, a
domain that is definitely lacking in the Flemish science curriculum, finding further inspiration
in the work of Dunlop (2012) and Sprod (2011) integrating science education and the P4C
method. Five different sessions were tried out in each group. Each of these lasted roughly 50
minutes and was typically structured with a stimulus introducing a philosophical theme aimed
at provoking wonder and thought, a discussion exploring a central question that was related to
this topic and a meta-session wherein the link with regular science education was explored and
pupils’ feedback was gathered. In some of the sessions, extra activities allowed the pupils to
step out of the group discussion and to explore the discussed themes, either in small groups or
individually. As every class responds differently, the content and questions worked out are to
be seen as inspirations for the facilitator during the conversation. These different themes
emerge in the flow of conversation; thus, they are not regarded as fixed items.
1) The first session focused on scientists and scientific methodology, crystallizing around
questions such as ‘What is the essential characteristic of a scientist?; Can a blind person
be a scientist?; Can you do science accidentally?; Can a rabbit be a scientist?…ʼ Pupils
were asked to explicate which characteristics you need to be a scientist.
2) A second session started with a visual perception exercise: a face was hidden among tree
leaves. Pupils were challenged to ponder upon the role of the subjectivity of perception
and the role of careful observation, allowing pupils to confront the central role of
perception in science. Key questions were ‘Do you see more when you look a second
time?; What determines whether you can see something?; Can we see everything?…ʼ
3) A third session focused on hypothetical reasoning. A simple electric switch was placed in
the middle of the classroom and pupils were asked to formulate claims regarding the
syntactic structure ʽif I push the button, then …ʼ. Thus, the youngsters were asked to
formulate hypotheses and in the following discussion they were asked to focus on the
plausibility and certainty of these hypotheses. This allowed them to focus on the role of
hypotheses in scientific research. Key questions were ‘What are quality criteria of
hypotheses?; What is a hypothesis?; Can something happen if you don’t see it? …ʼ
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4) In a fourth session we investigated a particular scientific concept: life. Children were asked
to argue whether an apple was dead or alive. Questions such as ‘What is the most essential
characteristic of being alive?; Can something be dead and alive at the same time?’ started
the dialogue.
5) In a final session the focus lay on research questions. First, pupils had to trace the question
that lay behind the behavior of scientists in Jonathan Swift’s book of Gulliver’s travels
aiming to extract sunlight from cucumbers. Afterwards, children were asked to outline
their own research question. Questions that sparked discussion were ‘When do people ask
questions?; What is the grammatical structure of a question?; How can you examine
questions?; Do bad questions exist?’.
After each session students could reflect upon their discussion and share their thinking
experiences in a meta-session. During both the actual and the meta-sessions, the role of the
P4C facilitator was to provoke active thinking in the pupils, eliciting argumentative
interaction while uncovering underlying suppositions of claims. This approach was inspired
by the work of Matthew Lipman (1988). In this regard, a key technique was to expose
conflicts with regard to content amongst pupils. For instance, when one pupil claims the apple
is alive because it can still reproduce because of its seeds, the other claims the apple is dead
because a man can be dead and still have frozen fertile sperm and therefore reproduce
himself. Asking the other group members to choose between either of both opinions lead to
active thinking and rethinking of the claims forwarded and very often to the introduction of
a new claim, such as ‘to live you also need food and minerals and the apple is alive as long
as it has sugar in its cells’. Once again, this new claim is placed under scrutiny. Thus, the
P4C facilitator’s role is to ask clarifying questions, harvest hypotheses, ask for reasons,
examples and distinctions (Anthone & Mortier, 1997). This way the conversation takes place
in a vibrant alternation between individual scrutiny with questions such as ‘why do you think
so, what is your reason?’ and collective examination exploring with ‘Does everybody agree
that…?, what have we been thinking aboutʼ?, are these two persons contradicting each
other?’ Furthermore, the facilitator’s role is to focus the attention of pupils and to handle
class management and thus provide a pleasant climate for the philosophical conversation.
The Socratic stance of the P4C facilitator implies that this person refrains from judgment and
therefore does not allow his or her personal opinion to shine through.
Quantitative results
The results of the questionnaires are summarized in Table 1. The figures are on a 4-
point scale (2 is the neutral position). Most pupils had a positive appreciation of science and
find it relevant for their personal life, but only a smaller part of the pupils plan to have a
future in the field of science and technology.
For all categories changes between 4 and 12 percent of the mean values are
detected when comparing pre- and post-test. Only the categories ‘Positive attitude
towards questioning’ and ‘Theories can change over time’ improve statistically
significant.
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Category Pre-test Post-test P value T test

(M ± SD) (M ± SD)
Motivation & Relevance for
2.6 ± 0.6 2.7 ± 0.6 0.16
attitude personal life
towards science Future in science
1.7 ± 1.2 1.8 ± 1.2 0.26
and technology
Appreciation of
the science 2.7 ± 1.2 2.6 ± 1.2 0.7
classes
Inquiry skills Positive attitude
towards 2.5 ± 0.7 2.7 ± 0.8 0.09*
questioning
Theories can
1.6 ± 1.0 1.8 ± 1.0 0.06*
change over time
Questioning the
answers of 1.7 ± 1.0 1.8 ± 1.0 0.16
teacher
Table 1. Comparison of mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) of the pre-test and post-test results for all pupils (59). The
figures are on a 4-point scale (2 is the neutral position). If the p value of the paired T test is lower than 0.1, then the
differences are statistically significant (marked with *).
The evaluation of the pupils can be seen in Table 2. The scale is between -2 and 2, 0 meaning
similar to a regular science class. The global quality of the sessions was experienced as a
normal science class. Both the interests in the themes and the relevance of the themes for
their future life were lower than regular science classes.
Evaluation M ± SD p value T test

Interest in the themes of the
-0.3 ± 1.1 0.09*
prototype
The relevance of the themes for their
-0.5 ± 1.0 0.0*
future life
The global quality of the interventions 0.1 ± 1.2 0.5
Table 2 Pupils evaluation of the prototype (mean (M) and standard deviation (SD) relative to a normal science class. The
scale goes from -2 to 2, 0 meaning no difference between the prototype and a normal science class. The T test was used to
identify significant differences relative to the neutral position (0). If the p value of the T test is lower than 0.1, then the
differences are statistically significant (marked with *).
We also studied some subgroups of the pupils. There were no significant differences
between the subgroup of girls (36) and boys (23). Both the P4C facilitator and external
observers noticed particular differences between the classes with regard to the philosophical
quality of the group conversation, class atmosphere and group dynamics. Therefore, we chose
to divide the 5 classes into two groups. Two classes were labeled with a high philosophical
quotient (pq) (23 pupils) the other three with a low pq (36 pupils) (Rondhuis, 2005). This
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division showed that ‘the increase in positive attitude towards questioning’ is mainly due to
the high pq-group. This group has a statistically significant difference of 0.4 (16%) between
pre- and post-test, while the group with a low quotient had no significant difference. The high
pq-group also evaluated the global quality of the interventions as better than the normal
science classes. The interests in the themes and the relevance were similar to the science
class. The weaker group (with respect to the philosophical quotient) is clearly the reason for
the negative evaluation results.
Qualitative results: thick description
Inquiry skills
Our prototype contained only five 50’ sessions, entailing there was not much time for
philosophical warm-up exercises. Still, most pupils needed some time to get used to the
method and generally gained enthusiasm and were more and more inquiring.
The 5 different groups in 4 schools where our prototype was introduced responded
differently to the intervention. The high pq-group was characterized by philosophical
outbursts such as ‘you know, I have a very strange question, sometimes I wonder, when I’m
in bed, whether everything I see is just imagination’, a response provoking arousal in the
class and wonder at this recognized solipsistic feeling. This was a chance for the P4C
facilitator to enter upon experimenting and the question as to how sure we can be that what
we see or detect is correct. A pupils’ similar philosophical claim in the low pq-class was
greeted less wholeheartedly, eliciting laughter and sometimes disdain. In low pq-groups
pupils were more reluctant to participate. In response to the question ‘Are you a scientist?’
both in the low and high pq-classes an answer such as ‘No, scientists are not allowed to make
mistakes therefore you must be an adult who went to university to be a scientist’ surfaced.
Yet, in the high pq-group this question was immediately scrutinized and called into doubt by
the others, whereas in low pq-groups most pupils remain indifferent. In low pq-groups pupils
seemed afraid to answer why-questions asking for an argument to buttress a claim.
Discussions about concrete scientific concepts (Is an apple alive?) provoked higher
motivation and commitment than more abstract sessions about the nature of science exploring
for instance the role of hypotheses in science. Discussion about concrete scientific concepts
showed more involvement of the pupils, both in the number of interactions and the quality
of the dialogue. For instance, when tackling the question of perception of a face in leaves,
the aim is to discuss topics such as invention and discovery and how these things happen in
science, yet especially in low pq classes it remained difficult to use the metaphor to inspire
scientific understanding and exploration.
Inquiry skills
In the high pq-groups, there was a much more active retrieval of science knowledge.
For instance, to make a point about the life of an apple, pupils referred to biology concepts
of reproduction and plant physiology. ‘I think it is not alive, the apple contains seeds and the
seeds can reproduce, but I can imagine that a man has died whereas his sperm is still alive,
for instance when this sperm is frozen for in vitro fertilization.’ The scope of scientific
concepts used in the discussion is broader.
A discussion about whether it is possible to retrieve the sunlight energy from
cucumbers elicited several stepping stones and research questions relevant for scientific
discussions in the science class. For instance, when one pupil claimed light does not contain
energy, a discussion evolved on how it could be tested that light contains energy and what
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the difference might be between energy and food. Similarly, questions such as ‘What remains
when I burn a cucumber?’ or ‘From what age are men able to conceive children?’ are stepping
stones to investigate either experimentally or by studying literature.
Evaluation of the prototype
Teachers strikingly report that pupils who participate in the philosophical
conversations are not necessarily those who are active in the ordinary science classes. A
teacher said: ‘I was pleasantly surprised that C. was actively involved in the conversation and
was even making relevant claims, in normal science classes the boy seems not able to
understand what is meant, probably he will not pass the exams for this course’. Despite the
boy’s inability to flourish in an ordinary science class, he was one of the only ones casting
doubt on dogmatic claims of his classmates, buttressing his endeavor by a broad variety of
scientific concepts. Also, (most often) girls remarked that it is nice for once to use fantasy
and conversation to study scientific topics, as it is nice ‘to talk in words about what we usually
describe as formulas and symbols’. Generally, girls are less motivated to study science
(Timms, 2011). These observations therefore suggest that the P4C methodology may appeal
to a different pupil population than is generally addressed. This is a claim that is further
substantiated by the finding that even in low pq-groups different pupils who received special
attention at school with regard to class behavior were sometimes the most involved
participants. Though we cannot rule out that these youngsters were outdoing or bullying
classmates by seizing the conversation for themselves, their relentless effort to think and
rephrase each other’s thoughts can be considered a fruitful result.
Not every pupil was as enthusiastic. Some pupils expressed an explicit hunger for
experimenting. Even though more often than not useful research questions sparked from the
P4C conversation (e.g. ‘How can I study under a microscope whether an apple is alive?’),
our prototype did not provide for these questions to be explored either experimentally or by
searching the internet or looking into books.
The pupils’ response in the meta-sessions uncovered that at first the philosophical
conversation in the circle was considered easy and idle. After a while, pupils reported both
verbally and on their post-test that the task was actually really difficult, e.g.: ‘Every question
elicited another and in the end I didn’t know any more what to think’ or ‘It was hard to think
and keep my concentration’. Indeed, frowns, uttering speech and avoiding questions by
laughing were generally observed throughout several sessions (most prominently in low pq
classes). The P4C facilitator managed to pull most pupils back into the conversation by
rephrasing and summarizing claims or giving side-activities, nevertheless some pupils
dropped out, reporting that ‘Sometimes it was really too much, I hadn’t finished thinking
about one question and then another started, this made me stop’. One of the key recurring
elements in the evaluation of the intervention is the frustration that was elicited by the
questions without definite answers. A striking citation is: ‘I didn’t know what to think
anymore, I got frustrated and started to have a headache, then I took some medicine, but
actually… I liked it very much’. Others, rather, reported enthusiasm and saw this uncertainty
arising throughout the discussion as an exciting endeavor: ‘I want to keep searching because
I’m a curious person’. Not all pupils stated the uncertainty elicited by contesting ideas as a
reason to appreciate the P4C aspect less, yet for many (roughly two thirds), this was really a
reason to be reluctant towards embracing the undertaking, as shown in one pupil’s claim: ‘we
receive no definite answers, there is no real conclusion and I only hear extra questions, I only
get nervous’.
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On the whole, pupils reported a broad variety of elements that made them appreciate
the philosophical interventions. ‘I like to know what others think, and I like it when we
discuss a theme and find an answer, together’. Others especially appreciated the
argumentative structure of the conversations ‘I like to say what I think and explain why I
think so and to discover that other people see something differently, also I think it is pleasant
to listen to the funny things other people say’.
Discussion
The quantitative study was performed to reflect on the quality of the prototype and has
in essence only an indicative value with respect to P4C. The small test group (5 classes, 64
pupils), the limitations of the prototype and the small time scope of the intervention are all
elements advising against a broad generalization of the results of this pilot study to the P4C
technique in general. The qualitative results aim to improve the prototype and the extraction
of tested guidelines to introduce P4C in science classrooms. We will first discuss the
quantitative and qualitative results and connect them to the prototype and to more general
guidelines. Then, we will outline some general conclusions of our study.
Pilot study results
It is not surprising in a sense that the intervention had no significant effect on the pupils’
attitude towards science. Attitudes towards science are difficult to change during short
interventions, in our case, five lessons. Even with longer interventions of several months,
positive progress remains small (improvements in the order of 10%) on a quantitative scale
(Siegel, 2003). However, more promising results are seen concerning the pupils’ ability to
cope with uncertainty. Our prototype focused on the craft of questioning, and this had a net
positive effect on the pupils’ attitude towards questioning the world. Questioning the answers
of the teacher is still a bridge too far. We noticed that the majority of the pupils are very
demanding for the ‘correct’ answers, which are the answers they must know for their
examinations. Inducing significant changes in this parameter will be hard to realize within
the context of an educational system that is focused on evaluation. The increase in the
category ‘Theories can change over time’ is positive but below our expectations. The
construction of hypotheses and how we can be sure of them was a major topic in the
prototype. The post parameter results remain under the reference value of 2, which can be
interpreted to imply that the majority of the pupils still hold the traditional view that scientific
knowledge is static. We can only explain this by the fact that the ideas of the prototype are
not transferred to the context of real science. This is a clear indication that we still have to
improve the quality of the meta-sessions of the prototype and reflect more on the implication
for science of the interventions.
The pupils evaluated the intervention slightly negatively with respect to normal science
lessons. This fact is certainly related to the prototype principle that no ‘correct’ answers were
given during the intervention. A lot of pupils had problems with that. More than 35 % of the
pupils stated this in their final comments. Our intervention was for this subgroup of pupils a
source of frustration. Considering the positive effect on their ability to cope with uncertainty,
this could be a price we have to pay to start learning. It cannot be ruled out that rather than
wonder, frustration is crucial to the philosophical process (Anthone & Mortier, 1997), after
all, only frustration may provide the motivation to look further. As pupils reported to be better
and better in accepting uncertainty in sciences, frustration may go hand in hand with this.
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Only further research may show and question to what degree frustration is central to the P4C
method and to what degree frustration in the science class is really fruitful.
However, observations during the sessions showed that this sense of frustration could
have a negative impact on the class dynamics, especially if one of the popular boys or girls
gets frustrated. This direct effect should certainly be avoided. A very straightforward way is
to stop the analytical/questioning teaching method and change to more traditional science
related teaching methods as hands-on experiments and observations. We remain confident
that this frustration may have positive effects in the long term. The only condition is that the
frustrated pupils must experience (more than once) that a lot of answers can be correct, as
long as they can be motivated in a clear way.
The division of the pupils in two subgroups, one with a high and one with a low
philosophical quotient, puts the results in a clear perspective. The positive results (increase
in coping with uncertainty) are even stronger in the group with a high philosophical quotient;
the negative results (negative appreciation of the intervention in comparison with ordinary
science classes) are related to the group with a lower philosophical quotient. The input of the
most popular pupils had a significant effect on the philosophical quality of the sessions. If
these pupils kept the discussions on a concrete level, it was very difficult for other pupils to
bring the discussion to a more philosophical level.
A key question arising from our P4C intervention is why one group of pupils is much more
cooperative and attains a higher level of conversation measured on pq. Three (possibly)
complementary hypotheses are developed. (1) Possibly, high pq classes have pupils with a larger
scientific affinity and broader scientific knowledge background allowing them to develop more
easily wide-ranging hypotheses on how science works or on scientific conceptions. Pupils who
have experience with inquiry-based learning may be more open to a method such as P4C, where
an inquiring attitude is essential. (2) Class dynamics proved to be a central condition for a good
philosophical conversation. Teachers pointed out having problems with bullying or difficulties
in coping with class management in low-pq groups. Dominant pupil’s disinterest can have a large
impact on group conversations. A good class atmosphere seems a necessary precondition for
philosophical conversations. (3) It is apparent that the number of non-native speakers is higher
in low pq classes. Language may play a key role in participating in philosophical conversations,
not surprisingly as this method requires both analytic and linguistic capabilities. This may be
further emphasized by the high involvement and appreciation of girls of the p4science
intervention. This latter hypothesis suggests, in accordance with conclusions of Trickey and
Toppings (2004), that P4C can be helpful in promoting talking and listening skills through
dialogic processes to raise educational standards.
Guidelines for the p4science prototype
The analysis of two subgroups confirmed our intuition that the philosophical level of our
prototype was too high for a general public of 12- to 14 year-old pupils. The prototype had a
stimulating effect in the group with a high philosophical quotient but a frustrating effect on the
other group. It will be necessary to add differentiation tools into the prototype. The introduction
of scientific experiments certainly helped the pupils that were not comfortable with the P4C
methodology. In the mean group, the philosophical interventions should be more balanced with
practical work (e.g. hands-on experiments) and shorter in duration. In our prototype, some
discussions took more than 20 minutes. This certainly does not seem to work with inexperienced
pupils. In general, we had better results with the more concrete subjects (such as ‘Does an apple
live or not?’) than with meta subjects related to the ‘nature of science’.
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We summarize below some of the general guidelines extracted from the pilot study.
They relate to the introduction of P4C in science classes of 12 to 14 year-old youngsters.
 Analytical/philosophical interventions should be time limited (especially for
untrained pupils) and alternated with more practical science teaching methods
focusing on experimenting.
 Philosophical inquiry about scientific concepts is more stimulating than
philosophical inquiry into the nature of science. Elements related to nature of
science should be addressed during a limited amount of time and immediate transfer
to the practical work should be made.
 The P4C method has long-term goals (motivation) and should be integrated into the
science curriculum on a long-term basis. Also, the evaluation should be performed
on a longer time scale.
 Meta-sessions should be handled with great care so that the transfer between
philosophical and scientific concepts can be made by a majority of the pupils.
 Stepwise build-up of P4C techniques seems recommended, philosophical warm-up,
expanding, to ensure a good classroom climate for the philosophical conversations;
 Pupils need a classroom climate where they feel free and safe to participate in the
discussion.
Though it may be fruitful for children, certain practical obstacles may hinder the
easy introduction of P4C in Flemish science classes. To acquire proficiency in the
technique of P4C is a labor-intensive process for teachers. Moreover, the Socratic stance
may be perceived as difficult to reconcile with a classic view of the science teacher as the
owner of knowledge handing it down to its disciples. Though this view is in clear contrast
with the idea of a teacher as a coach of the pupils’ learning and inquiry process, it is a
view that still lingers among Flemish science teachers. In order to integrate P4C and
science education a first step might be to alert teachers to philosophical topics that may
arise and teach the teachers simple strategies to develop small philosophical time islands
during classic class to explore these. Thus, a child’s question such as ‘Where does space
end?’ may be a chance for the teacher to train his pupils’ thinking skills. Furthermore,
the technique may be used in key steps in the inquiry-process taking place in a science
class where research questions need to be gathered, concepts have to be explored or
results of experiments need to be discussed.
Philosophical dialogue in the science class. A fruitful enterprise?
To improve pupils’ motivation for and attitude towards sciences as well as their inquiry
skills, we introduced P4C in Flemish science classes. No significant effect on the pupils’
attitude towards science was observed. Our prototype elicited a net positive effect on the
pupils’ attitude towards questioning the world. The qualitative data suggest that participants
showed an increase in the ability to ask creative questions or problematize scientific concepts.
P4C sessions focusing on concrete scientific concepts and mixing both ‘think’ and ‘do’
activities turned out to be most successful.
The finding that there are different groups with regard to the quality of the
philosophical conversation and the enthusiasm of the pupils towards the philosophical
intervention is significant. This selective impact of our prototype might suggest that P4C is
a successful tool for differentiating among different groups of pupils. Alert pupils with good
language skills and possibly girls may benefit from the challenge of this method. Thus, P4C
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may be a didactic tool to differentiate among pupils with different learning styles. Overall,
this pilot study helps us conclude that the prototype we developed to use P4C to focus on
pupils’ science ability may positively influence the inquiry skills of children as long as there
is a good classroom atmosphere.
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End-in-Itself or Means to an End? Exploring the Tensions Between

Philosophising and Schooling
Laura Kerslake
Faculty of Education
University of Cambridge
lsk30@cam.ac.uk
CV
Laura Kerslake is conducting research into Philosophy with Children at the University of
Cambridge. Her work looks at how philosophy with young children is augmented by the
introduction of a pictorial-based talking framework to help to create a dialogic space in the
classroom. She is the creator of the Philosophize project and also lectures on in Philosophy
for Children on the philosophy course at the University of Exeter. She has held positions as
a classroom teacher and as a research assistant at the University of Exeter. She has presented
at a number of international conferences, and has published a number of journal articles on
philosophy for children, thinking and dialogue. Her most recent publication is the
forthcoming book The Theory of Teaching Thinking: International Perspectives for which
she is lead editor, published by Routledge in April 2018. She is completing her PhD under
the supervision of Rupert Wegerif.
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the possibilities for children’s philosophising in the UK primary
curriculum, given the current focus of the UK education system on assessment and the
pressures on teachers to achieve this. Under such conditions, Philosophy for Children (P4C)
practice risks being subsumed into the education system as another means by which children
can achieve ‘better results’ but at the same time, Philosophy for Children offers an alternative
to such a system. The focus on the child as a co-constructor of meaning dialogically positions
the child as an intrinsically valuable member of a community of inquiry. This paper argues
that this also has an impact on the teacher, and that P4C is therefore also a transformative
experience for the teacher. It therefore examines the ways in which community of inquiry
can allow for teaching and learning pedagogy which goes beyond the pervasive discourse of
results in the education system to one in which not only learning outcomes but also learning
processes are valuable components of education.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy for Children, Western schooling, Community of Philosophical Inquiry.
RESUMEN
Este artículo examina las posibilidades de que los niños filosofen en el currículo de la
enseñanza primaria del Reino Unido, dado el enfoque actual del sistema educativo británico
centrado en la evaluación y las presiones ejercidas sobre los profesores para conseguirlo. En
tales condiciones, Filosofía para Niños FpN corre el riesgo de ser subsumida en el sistema
educativo como otro medio por el cual los niños pueden lograr “mejores resultados”, pero al
mismo tiempo, FpN ofrece una alternativa a tal sistema. El enfoque que sitúa al niño como
co-constructor de significado posiciona dialógicamente al niño como un miembro
intrínsecamente valioso de una comunidad de investigación. Este artículo argumenta que esto
también tiene un impacto en el profesorado, y que FpN es por lo tanto una experiencia
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transformadora para los maestros. Por lo tanto, examina las formas en que la comunidad de
investigación puede permitir una pedagogía de enseñanza y aprendizaje que va más allá del
discurso generalizado de los resultados en el sistema educativo, hasta llegar a una pedagogía
en la que no sólo los resultados del aprendizaje sino también los procesos de aprendizaje son
componentes valiosos de la educación.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía para Niños, escolarización occidental, Comunidad de Investigación filosófica.
INTRODUCTION
In her book Philosophy in Turbulent Times, Roudinesco writes of the recent expansion
of the ʽdrive to philosophizeʼ (2005, p. x), even as the place of philosophy on the curricula
of state educational institutions is threatened. Indeed, research for this paper revealed a
wealth of philosophising in the UK outside of formal education structures – from philosophy
knitting groups, and philosophy in rugby teams to the community practice of Graeme Tiffany
and the widespread ‘Philosophy in Pubs’ network. Roudinesco’s book attributes this drive to
the eponymous times in which the complexities of modern life result not only in uncertainty
but also in a lack of trust in traditional established power structures, which stimulates a desire
to learn to think for oneself.
Yet if philosophy is so pertinent to our times, it is notable that there is no philosophy
on the curriculum in the UK for much of the formal schooling period. This paper will
explore possible reasons for this within the context of the UK Primary system. It also
explores the conditions under which philosophy practice is optimal in an education
system, and goes further to ask if there are conditions under which we would not want
philosophy to be part of a curriculum. I locate that discussion within the differences
between the aims of philosophy and the aims of schooling. These tensions have been
expressed in the P4C community; Kennedy (2006) has described schools as site of
oppression because of an desire to ‘tame’ children, and similarly Vansieleghem and
Kennedy (2012) write that ʽthe instrumentalist structure and discourse of 21 st century
Western traditional schooling is understood to be particularly antithetical to the goals and
purposes of philosophy for childrenʼ (p.8).
By contrast, P4C is understood to provide children with opportunities to ʽexplore and
articulate what they have not said or even thought beforeʼ (Vansieleghem and Kennedy,
2012, p.6) This is not merely in the service of an academic end, but rather a holistic approach
which extends to how children live their lives (D’Olimpio and Teschers, 2016) and their
development as democratic citizens (Echeverria and Hannam, 2016). It is my position,
however, that despite the tensions in aims and outcomes, philosophy does have a place on
the UK curriculum from primary level, and I present suggestions for the ways in which
current practice can be expanded to incorporate philosophical dialogue.
Imagining a place for philosophy on the curriculum is an important task because
this prompts the question of why we would want to introduce children to philosophical
ways of thinking at all, raising questions about the aims and outcomes of education in
general. Reviewing the rationale for a philosophy curriculum is a philosophical issue in
itself, if we take the view that philosophy has a special status as a subject, having the
power to critique all other subjects and itself. The issue arises when the need is felt to
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justify philosophy: asking what philosophy is for is a more problematic question because
it implies that philosophising aims at developing children into something, which is in
itself a pedagogical assumption (Weber 2012).
The aim of this paper is to examine the pedagogic approaches of a philosophy with
children curriculum, which I explore as a combination of oracy skills, cognitive skills,
creativity, dialogic space and collaborative development, espoused in the Community of
Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI). There are aspects of this practice already taking place in the
mainstream curriculum and I draw these out and connect them to central ideas within the
practice of philosophy with children. Following this, the paper concludes that philosophising
is integral to good educative practice because it is a transformative practice not only for
children but also for their teachers.
Locating Philosophy with Children in the school context
The UK education system has come under considerable criticism for what is seen as an
excessive focus on testing and over-reliance on data as an indication of good teaching (Ball,
2003). Ball goes on to argue that the role of the teacher has become a performative one, in
which teachers are held accountable and judged on the performance of their classes in testing.
Furthermore, he argues as a result, both teacher professional knowledge and instincts have
become untrustworthy in public discourse. Teachers’ professional lives have therefore
become subsumed by education policy.
Weber (2012) argues that the tendency of schools, driven by public policy, to focus on
development and measurement of a defined set of skills sits in opposition to the central tenets
of Philosophy for Children programmes. Whereas P4C is inquiry-based and places emphasis
on the co-construction of dialogue, Weber claims that focusing only on developing children’s
academic skills projects a ʽone-sided image of the humanʼ (p. 68).
Yet while P4C has its own pedagogies, aims and goals, it is also located within the
framework of the education system and pedagogy. What arises is a complex interplay of
issues such as childhood, the role of the teacher and models of education which give rise to
two questions that will be further explored in this chapter: can children do philosophy? Can
children do philosophy in schools?
Models of education and conceptions of childhood
According to Daniel and Auriac (2011), a millennia-long tradition of excluding
children from philosophising started with Plato, as knowledge (episteme) was connected to
adulthood. Children were positioned as the recipients of knowledge from adults, and the
structure of the education system reflected this belief. However, there has been much critical
theory of education over the past fifty years, of which Freire (1993) is a well-known
proponent. He critiqued the aims of traditional education for children to acquire and ‘bank’
as many pieces of received information as possible by the end of their schooling. It is also
referred to as the ‘transmission’ model of education in which knowledge is transmitted from
teacher to learner, positioning learners as passive receivers not only of knowledge but also
as subject to traditional power structures and cultural biases.
Matthews, however, refers to the traditional model of education as the ʽdeficit
conception of childhoodʼ (Matthews, 2008a, p.27), where children are considered to be
undeveloped, and that it is these preconceptions that have resulted in the belief that children
were not capable of the complexities of thought needed for philosophical reflection (Daniel
and Auriac, 2011; Kohan, 2012). Some current of P4C thinkers have come to call this the
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ʽepistemic injusticeʼ of age (Murris, 2015, p. 59), and that children’s thought is only
considered to be ‘deficient’ when viewed through the lens not only of adulthood but through
a particular ideal of what we should be as human beings.
The call to acknowledge the knowledge contributions of children in their own right has
aligned the recent P4C commentators with aspects of postmodernist theory: a theme of
postmodern critiques of pedagogy is that traditions of pedagogy developed since the
Enlightenment are seen to have a ‘dark side’ with a ‘discipline of enforced clarity of reason
on children’. (Martens, 2013, p. 161). This has resulted in a normative education system
which, it is claimed, has permeated modern, Western education culture to such an extent that
it is difficult to deconstruct and critique those values (Fritzman and Thornburg, 2016).
In such a system, there is thus only one way for the child to succeed, closing off the
possibilities of ‘becoming’ for the child. Deleuze uses the term ‘becoming-child’ (cited in
Kohan, 2012, p. 172) to denote the flux of childhood as a space for transformation that is not
fixable and should not be predicted (for example in the expectations of summative testing).
Children as philosophers
For Matthews (1980b) children are natural philosophers, their relative lack of
socialisation is not detrimental to their participation in philosophical dialogue, but to the
contrary it allows them to ask more interesting questions than adults do. Matthews proposed
reimagining the child as a rational being in its own right, and proposed that when adults
philosophise with children they should do so from an appreciation from the child’s own sense
of wonder as newcomers in the world. Similarly, Weber (2012) has referred to the philosophy
of Schiller to focus on the role of emotion and affective thinking as a mode of reason in its
own right and not subject to regard as an adversary of critical reasoning.
Hand (2008) raises a good point about the claim that children are natural philosophers,
commenting that if this is the case then there would be no need for any P4C programmes in
schools. As Martens (2009) also writes ‘spontaneous flashes of insight or iterations of
wisdom picked up’ are not enough to fulfil the requirement of being a philosopher, and
neither is a ‘general child’s curiosity’ (p. 101).
It is acknowledged that children do ask lots of questions, but what Hand and
Martens are indicating is that this in itself is not enough to indicate philosophical
thinking. Even if children ask a question which could be considered philosophical, if it is
answered definitively by an adult with no opportunity for concept-testing, further
questioning and so on then the exchange cannot really be said to be a philosophical one.
Unfortunately, as Cazden (2001) wrote, the primary mode of engagement in schools is
the Initiation-Response-Feedback (IRF) model, where the teacher asks a question, the
child answers it, and the teacher provides feedback. Cazden noted that the majority of
exchanges of this nature were very short: in a significant proportion the child uttered
three words or fewer in such an exchange.
Clearly this type of exchange is not suitable for developing children’s philosophical
thinking, nor for encouraging children to think and talk together. This is why the role of
the adult in the community of philosophical inquiry is such an important one, and why
P4C programmes in schools actually are necessary. The following section goes on to
examine the nature of education and schooling, including the role of the child and the
teacher within the education system, and the challenges of, and possibilities for, P4C
programmes.
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Children as philosophers in schools

This is a fundamental issue in Philosophy with Children because, as has been indicated
previously, in the traditional educational structure children are situated as ‘deficient
creatures’ (Weber, 2012 p.66), who must achieve a predetermined set of outcomes.
Positioning a child as an inferior being —what Haynes and Murris (2013) refer to in Fricker’s
term as ‘epistemic prejudice’ (p. 1084)— negates the voice of the child a priori and is
therefore inconsistent with the dialogic approach of true philosophical discussion. Clearly, if
philosophy with children is being conducted under conditions in which no true philosophical
discussion can take place, then for this reason the presence of philosophy on a curriculum
would be problematic and questionable. Murris has seen issues of power here, arguing that
putting philosophy with children on the curriculum simply leads to a reproduction of the
assumptions of the dominant hegemony: ‘[t]he P4C curriculum might make students more
reasonable, critical and reflective, but of what precisely?’ (Murris, 2016, p.48).
It is worth noting that in the UK the philosophy with children initiative that has
attracted the highest level of media attention is a study by the Educational Endowment Fund
and SAPERE (EEF 2015), which recorded gains in English and Maths attainment in
standardised testing at the end of primary schooling following a philosophy intervention. In
the case of this study philosophy was clearly employed in the service of standardized testing,
what Biesta (2011) refers to as the ‘instrumentalisation’ of philosophy for children. In a
system which is dominated by the results of testing, it is therefore important to consider the
motivation behind P4C practice and research.
Therefore P4C can be constrained both by the authoritative role of the teacher and also
the norms by which the teacher practices. In her work on philosophy with picture books,
Murris (2016) cautions that this method (although one she promotes) is also just as likely as
any other to be appropriated by adult teachers as a way of imposing their own world-view
onto the child. PwC should not be instrumental – inducting children into an adult-led for the
sake of their development toward preconceived ends – but instead should focus on the child’s
becoming, opening up a space in which children can be ‘present in the present’
(Vansieleghem, 2012, 153).
However, philosophy for children promotes critical reflection and provides
opportunities for the child to think and discuss and indeed to question the very framework in
which the child operates. In a P4C session conducted by the author, when primary-aged
children of eight- and nine-years-old were asked the warm-up question ‘Is it better to be rich
or clever?’, after a certain amount of polarised debate, one boy remarked that is was a stupid
question because it was silly to have to be one of those things or another, and it didn’t even
consider other qualities like kindness. By encouraging this kind of concept-questioning,
through P4C the child ceases to become an object upon which the education system is acted,
and instead becomes a subject of a living system in which he constitutes a critical voice. This
is clearly an example of how P4C can be a transformative pedagogy for children.
Philosophy for Children: connecting dialogue and thinking
It is important to note that, while P4C employed solely as a mechanism by which to
obtain better results is not desirable, it is also the case that there are several desirable results
to be obtained through P4C practice. In the first case, a teacher could really not care about
the contributions of the children, but holds P4C sessions because she thinks that class will do
better on their testing. Therefore, the teacher still takes the authoritarian role, and the child is
an object of the system. However, if a teacher facilitates philosophy for children sessions
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because she feels that it will allow the children to explore and expand their thinking and
worlds, but at the same time there are other benefits, then this seems to be a more authentic
way to include P4C in schools.
This section now goes on to examine some of the research which has indicated the
benefits of P4C. There is a substantial body of research which shows that P4C has a positive
effect on children’s critical and higher-order thinking skills (García Moriyón, Rebollo and
Colom, 2008, Martens, 2009, Daniel and Auriac, 2011), and it seems clear that there is a
strong case for identifying the development of critical thinking skills with philosophy
(Kerslake and Rimmington, 2017). Daniel and Auriac also approach this connection between
P4C and critical thinking in philosophical terms, asserting that critical thinking is a praxis
which develops the child both inter- and intra-subjectively. As the child engages in
‘methodical doubt’ (p. 421) with other children and adults he tackles both his own inherent
assumptions and those of others, which offers opportunities to reframe both.
The SAPERE study referred to above also highlights another point which reinforces
the case for philosophy on the curriculum: the gains made were especially significant for
disadvantaged children, despite no extra input in the target subjects. The question, then, is
how can disadvantaged children make gains in English and maths, when they take philosophy
sessions? Philosophy for Children is customarily carried out as a Community of
Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI) practice, which involves all children participating in an inquiry:
testing and trying concepts, listening to each other’s points of view and sharing their own
views. The CoPI is further explored in the following section, but I now turn to the broader
picture of children’s classroom dialogue.
There is a good deal of research which shows that a number of children from
disadvantaged backgrounds begin their formal schooling with poor communication skills
(Hart and Risley, 1995, National Literacy Trust, 2014). There is also considerable research
and theorising on the ways in which language is a shared system of meaning, connecting
thought and language. For example, Harré and Gillett highlight the value of dialogue to
cognition because ‘the workings of each other’s minds are available to us in what we jointly
create conversationally’ (Harré & Gillettt, 1994, p.27). Similarly, Wegerif’s (2016) ideas of
the ‘we think’ as distributed cognition make substantial arguments for the value of dialogue.
It is an assumption to claim that these generalised links between dialogue and cognition
result in subject-specific gains and it is clear that further studies are needed to understand
exactly how it is that philosophy sessions can help children to make gains on subject-specific
standardized testing, as well as to ascertain if the results could be replicated. However, it does
not seem unreasonable to make a claim that if children with limited communicative
experience take part in a dialogic pedagogy, which also enhances cognition, then their
cognition could also be augmented and applied to other curriculum subjects.
However, despite this focus on talk, there is very little guidance in the new UK primary
National Curriculum for developing talking skills, with the Spoken Language section of the
curriculum comprising only one page for the entire of the primary curriculum. In addition,
there are no specific directions on best practice (Department of Education, 2013, p.7-8). This
indicates that there is a need for more guidance for teachers on how best to implement spoken
language practice. Good talking skills often come under the name of oracy, which was coined
as a counterpart to literacy and numeracy and which Mercer defines as ‘teaching people to
use language effectively in whatever situation they’re in’ (Mercer, 2016). The
Oracy@Cambridge group in the UK provide a framework for teaching oracy skills which
sets out a number of points on which children should be competent if they are to be successful
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orators. Philosophy for Children provides a practice which is talk-focussed, and so, as
Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan write, although ‘the common assumption is that reflection
generates dialogue […], in fact, it is dialogue that generates reflection’ (1980, p.22).
Lipman et al also suggest that conceiving of thinking as something ‘private and
internal’ (ibid, p.22) is detrimental to pedagogy because the perception is that it is difficult
for teachers to make children’s thinking apparent, to differentiate good from poor thinking,
and to improve thinking. The CoPI then provides an opportunity for teachers to be able to
facilitate oracy practice with their classes, as well as to ‘see’ thinking because it is carried
out between the members of the inquiry community.
However, it is also clear that Philosophy for Children should not be carried out merely
as a mechanism to improve cognition, or then it would be just an instrument that could be
disposed of once the problem was fixed. This would make it another ‘tool’ to solve a
particular problem in education. Again teachers and learners may not, therefore, have a real
commitment to the CoPI and to Philosophy for Children, but rather to getting better results
or to ‘look good’ for school inspection bodies. By contrast, dialogic inquiry involves being
genuinely committed to listen to each other and take part in the inquiry process (Echeverria
and Hamman, 2016).
Michaels, O’Connor and Resnick reinforce this, cautioning that that there is an
ontological obligation to hear all of the voices in a dialogue, otherwise there can be no
effective discursive practice. They use the example of a boy who is, in technical terms, highly
competent at discursive practice: ‘questioning premises, making claims, bringing counter-
examples’ (Michaels, O'Connor & Resnick, 2008, p.294). However, what is also clear from
the boy’s speech is that the contributions made by the group don’t matter. The authors go on
to state that this is ‘pervasive’ ibidem in the examples at which they have looked.
This is certainly a concern within Philosophy for Children practice, and yet despite the
tendency of schools to focus on outcomes, there is also a significant practice taking place which
in various ways does seem to be aimed at helping children to develop the dispositions required
for true engagement with each other, rather than as a set of outcomes. There are a number of
features of current educational practice which are highly coherent with philosophy with children.
For example, Clarke’s (2014) work provides classroom-based strategies for developing a ‘growth
mindset’ in children, the key feature of which is a shift of focus from competition as to who can
be the best in the class, to the making and sharing of mistakes in order to develop learning. In
addition, children are encouraged to consider how they will approach barriers to their learning,
with ‘brain, board, buddy, boss’ (Clarke, 2014, p.27) being a popular alliterative reminder for
children to reflect on their own knowledge, to use materials in the classroom, to discuss problems
with their peers, and finally to ask the teacher. This creates a dialogic space which diminishes
teacher-learner divisions and hierarchies. This approach has become a mainstay of maths
teaching in UK primary schools, for teachers and teachers-in-training (Askew, 2012; Boaler,
1999). Children are encouraged to work collaboratively to solve maths puzzles, where the right
answer is less important than the processes of working through problems and children co-
construct shared systems of meaning through talk.
Philosophy for Children as a transformative practice for teachers
This section looks at:
1) Key Philosophy for Children pedagogy
2) The ways in which this differs from ‘transmission’ pedagogy
3) The role of the teacher in Philosophy for Children sessions
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We have already seen that a key pedagogy in Philosophy for Children practice is the
Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), described by Haynes and Murris as its
‘signature practice’ (Gregory, Haynes & Murris, 2017, p.1). The activities associated with
the CoPI are also ones that Phillipson and Wegerif associate with dialogic education:
‘learning how to ask better questions, how to listen better, hearing not only the words but
also the implicit meanings, how to be open to new possibilities and new perspectives’
(Phillipson & Wegerif, 2017, pp.1-2).
The CoPI as an education practice originated with Lipman, who set out five stages of
the process (Lipman, pp.101-103):
1) The offering of the text [reading a philosophical story together]
2) The construction of the agenda [children raise questions prompted by the text]
3) Solidifying the community [children discuss the questions as a dialogue guided by
an adult facilitator]
4) Using exercises and discussion plans [facilitator introduces further activities to
deepen the inquiry]
5) Encouraging further responses [e.g. self-assessment of philosophy practice or
artwork]
The above set of criteria is by no means the only way by which to conduct P4C or to
hold a community of inquiry, but, as Lipman’s original contribution they serve well to
illustrate the principles of the CoPI.
Philosophy for Children is therefore seen by many as a way of overcoming tendencies to
perceive the teacher as dominant, reducing teacher talk (Topping and Trickey, 2014) and
allowing children to interpret the world on their own terms rather than being considered as
deficient not-yet ideal adults, in contrast to the view of traditional education that children
are ‘deficient’. Finally, in the twentieth century, Dewey (1933) conceived of logic not in
terms of formal logic but in terms of people’s capacity to reason and therefore as a social
instrument which can help to solve social problems. This connects back to pre-Platonic
Socratic traditions where the emphasis was on philosophising and reflexivity (Daniel and
Auriac, 2011).
This was the basis on which Lipman (e.g. 1998) conceived of Philosophy for Children,
as a pedagogy for encouraging young people to think carefully and critically about the events
in the world around them. Philosophy for Children as a way for the voices of young people
to be heard has been a hallmark of the practice since that time. Therefore significant claims
are made for the possibilities of philosophical inquiry sessions in reducing power imbalances
between children as learners and their adult teachers: philosophy is ‘a means of increasing
the potential power of children (who are defined as essentially vulnerable) in order to
neutralise unequal power relations by strengthening processes of communication and
cooperation’ (Vansieleghem and Kennedy, 2016, p.7).
For Lipman, the CoPI is a pedagogical strategy for remedying what he calls the
‘stupendous category mistake’ (Lipman, 2003, p.20) that Dewey had observed about
educational practice: the end-point of inquiry is confused with the process of inquiry. In
contrast, what Lipman (1998) refers to as the ‘reflective paradigm of critical practice’
(Lipman, 1998, p.18), takes problematic material for its starting point as the material of
inquiry. In the case of philosophy, this might be conceptual difficulties or contradictions;
Lipman wrote a series of philosophical novels which deal with many of philosophy’s
traditional domains: ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics and so on, through the subject matter of
animal rights, personal identity, divorce, racism and justice, etc. He claimed that it is through
259
engagement with these problematic issues that children, led by the examples of the children
in the texts, come to feel the ‘twinge of doubt or puzzlement’ (Lipman, 2003, p.21) which is
the starting point for any meaningful inquiry.
Of course, those moments of doubt and puzzlement are personal to the child – such an
approach would not work as an inquiry if it were the teacher who decided which moments in
the text were confusing or puzzling. This would be the transmission model of teaching in
another guise rather than a reflective pedagogy. Therefore a key aspect of the CoPI process
is that the children decide which questions they want to raise about a text. Following the
sharing of the text, children share any questions they have which are typically written down
by the facilitator. For Lipman, this is a ‘pivotal moment’ in the inquiry. If the facilitator
chooses the question to be discussed from the children’s output, this will constitute a return
to the ‘old authoritarianism’ (ibid., p.98).
Not only is it the children who must choose the questions, but there must be a clear
democratic process in making the choice: Lipman suggests asking someone who has not
submitted a question or by voting for the question most people would like to answer.
Following this, the discussion proceeds to take place with children articulating their
viewpoints, challenging or supporting others’ ideas and giving reasons: in other words,
becoming competent participants in a community of ‘cooperative reasoning’ (ibid, p. 102).
The commitment to the democratic process is maintained throughout with the introduction
of talk rules at the beginning of the session to reinforce a shared commitment to turn-taking
and listening to others.
Whereas the CoPI is a practice in which ‘the plurality of the group is taken seriously’
(Echeverria and Hannam, 2016, p.8), a pre-existing set of norms of what is worthwhile in
education would anticipate children’s development being in line with those norms and
tolerate little deviation. Therefore there is a considerable emphasis of the role of the teacher,
who must recognise that the group exists as a plurality, and take the role of a facilitator who
does not seek to dominate. If teachers have not considered themselves in this role before,
then this could prove to be a challenge to successful CoPI practice.
However, as a growing number of studies attest and theories postulate (Roche, 2011;
Scholl, 2014; Millett & Tapper, 2012), it is possible to reconfigure teacher attitudes to
pedagogy through the CoPI. As Scholl writes, ‘crucial’ to this is that teachers ‘genuinely
view themselves as learners’ (Scholl, 2014, p.40). While this is an example of Murris’
posthuman boundary-blurring, it is also an echo of Lipman’s earlier view that teachers must
open themselves to reflection. According to Scholl, CoPI practice therefore also affects the
theoretical framework of social constructivism. She offers the following diagram to illustrate
her point (idem, 100):
260
Teacher
ZPD
Third
space
Student
The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is no longer a one-way development of

student towards teacher, but the boundary on the teacher’s side is conceived of as porous too.
And of course, there is not only one student in a CoPI but many, and many circles with porous
boundaries, and a third space in the middle of them all (as a further diagram of Scholl’s attests
(bid., 101). This connects to Murris’ (2016) view of the framework for P4C in which
philosophy practice, understood as ‘meta-thinking’ can only take place in the space in
between child, educator and philosophical stimulus (Murris, 2016, p. 63).
Scholl’s comment on teachers’ willingness to view themselves as learners raises a
question about CoPI pedagogy: what if a teacher doesn’t particularly want to do it? She
may have to implement the CoPI as part of school policy without having any personal
investment in it, for example. Both Lipman’s focus on the dispositions required for the
CoPI (reflexive, democratic), and Murris’ insistence that adults need to position children
epistemologically so that they can ‘hear’ them cast doubt on whether or not this is possible.
The role of the teacher is a key point, then: it will be difficult for children to engage in
dialogue if they are not given opportunities to do so; yet for teachers who do not engage in
dialogic practice, presenting the need to do so can be challenging without also being
didactic in the presentation of that need. As Freire (1993) writes, such an imposition when
a need for it is not felt or known is counter to community of inquiry practices and will only
serve to reinforce teacher/learner divisions and hierarchies.
Yet, if CoPI practice is as transformative as has been suggested, then the hope is that
the very fact of carrying it out is likely to have an effect on teachers’ practice. As Lipman
writes: ‘participants come to think as the process thinks’ (Lipman, 2003, p.21). Scholl’s
(2014) empirical study found that interviews with teachers after they had facilitated CoPI
sessions indicated they had developed dispositions in-line with those of CoPI pedagogy –
what Scholl refers to as a ‘critical juncture in pedagogical change’ (Scholl, 2014, p.89).
Therefore, while on this reading the CoPI is social-constructivist pedagogy, it is not limited
to the learner only, or rather, it can make all participants into learners.
The following example of a children’s philosophical discussion illustrates how
philosophy can itself be a way of transforming teacher attitudes. In March 2017 I invited
sixty children from five local schools who had been having philosophy sessions in schools
facilitated by undergraduate philosophy students at the University of Exeter to come to the
261
university for the day and have philosophical discussions, following which they would
present their ideas to the children from the other schools.
In one group, the children (aged 9-10) were asked the question ‘Should we treat
everyone the same?’ The teacher who was accompanying the children said to me as the
children were having their discussion ‘I really wanted to talk to them about China and Russia,
but I realised that they wouldn’t have that knowledge and I didn’t want to interrupt their
thinking by giving them historical examples that they know nothing about, they needed to
think about it with their own understanding’. What is interesting about that example is that
the teacher realised that she had concrete knowledge about the world that could have no
bearing on the children’s discussion because they were discussing it from their perspective
and experience. In this case, an adult’s lived experience of twentieth century communist
politics would be intrusive on the children’s experience of discussing that question.
This was also a transformative experience for the teacher as she ontologically valued
the contributions of the children. She did not attempt to make her narrative their narrative,
but allowed their discussion to raise questions about the role of her own lived understanding
in the children’s discussion. She saw that the children’s discussion had a different value of
its own as a discussion composed of the knowledge contributions of children. This example
indicates a disruption of teacher-learner hierarchies and also of the traditional IRF teacher-
learner interactions where the learner relies on teacher approval of what they have said.
Conclusion
This paper has explored the ways in which Philosophy for Children is a practice which
can draw together aspects of collaboration, dialogue and cognition. It does this by valuing
the process of inquiry, which tests concepts, makes thinking visible, and encourages the
dispositions required for this. It has also identified some tensions between philosophising and
schooling, the key points of which are as follows:
1) There may be specific outcomes (such as gains in testing) that are the focus or
schooling, whereas the focus of inquiry is open-ended.
2) Some models of schooling focus on ‘transmission’ of knowledge, whereas
philosophising is concerned with inquiry that is generated by learners.
3) Schooling has traditionally positioned children as beings who are deficient because
they do not yet have adult skills and knowledge, whereas philosophising values the
contribution of children as children.
4) Teaching methods in schools may be instruments for particular outcomes, whereas
the CoPI goes beyond that, and requires that all of the people involved in the inquiry
have a commitment to perceiving the others as co-inquirers.
It is my view that the importance of philosophical practice in schools is demonstrated
in this forth criteria: in its demonstration of a commitment to perceiving others as beings who
can participate in dialogue in which every voice can be heard: a productive divergence of
views (Wegerif, 2016). There is no doubt that current Western education practice does not
always prioritise this, but also there is evidence that by taking part in Philosophy for Children,
both teachers and learners can develop the dispositions for education which does value
inquiry and plurality.
Therefore it is important to emphasise the ‘little revolution’ of finding a place for
Philosophy for Children in schools based on existing practice, continuing to find methods
and means by which to promote philosophising in schools. Because while the future may
bring a radical overhaul of the Western education system, for these children in classrooms at
262
this time, with little chance of that overhaul becoming effective in their educational lifetimes,
a place for philosophy on the curriculum – even as we recognise that it might not be as we
would want it in all respects – is surely better than nothing? In this respect, the answer to the
question posed in the title is that currently Philosophy for Children is both a means to an end
and an end-in-itself.
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Pensamiento multidimensional y práctica filosófica según

Matthew Lipman
Manuela Gómez Pérez

GrupIREF- Innovació i Recerca per a l’Ensenyament de la Filosofia
mgome243@xtec.cat
CV
Profesora de filosofía de educación secundaria. Formadora de Filosofía 3/18 y miembro del
GrupIREF desde el año 1990. Formadora de formadores en Philosophy for Children, -
l'IAPC, Montclair University, New Jersey, 1992-. Colaboradora de Matthew Lipman en la
edición de su libro Thinking in Education. Máster en Filsolofia 3/18 -Universidad de Girona,
2012.
Autora de diversos artículos sobre Filosofia 3/18 y metodología, así como del trabajo de
investigación: ‘Contribuciones del pensamiento crítico a la educación en valores’, llevado a
cabo durante una licencia de estudios del Departament d’Ensenyament de Catalunya.
Ha traducido y editado una selección de textos de Matthew Lipman con el título El lugar del
pensamiento en la educación, publicado en 2016 por la editorial Octaedro.
RESUMEN
Cómo mejorar la capacidad de pensar a través de la educación fue una pregunta constante
para Matthew Lipman. Según él, cuando la filosofía se reconstruye y se enseña
apropiadamente, se mejora la capacidad de pensar de manera crítica, creativa y cuidadosa.
Este pensamiento multidimensional, practicado a través del diálogo filosófico y la comunidad
de investigación, cultiva la razonabilidad y promueve la revisión continua del conocimiento
y de su aplicación.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Pensamiento multidimensional, razonabilidad, comunidad de investigación filosófica.
ABSTRACT
How to improve the capacity of thinking in education was a constant question for Matthew
Lipman and led him to philosophy in response. According to Matthew Lipman, in education,
when philosophy is taught appropriately, the capacity to think critically, creatively and
carefully improves. This multidimensional thinking, practiced in philosophical dialogue and
inquiry, cultivates reasonability and promotes the continuous revision of knowledge and its
application.
KEYWORDS
Multidimensional thinking, reasonableness, community of philosophical inquiry.
266
1. ¿Puede ser real una cosa si no se puede ver o tocar?

2. ¿Qué relación hay entre la palabra ‘montaña’ y una montaña?
3. ¿Hay trabajos más dignos que otros?
4. ¿Cómo distinguimos una decisión razonable de una que no lo es?
5. ¿Tiene límites la libertad personal?
6. ¿Qué relación hay entre espacio y tiempo?
7. ¿Cómo podemos estar seguros de la verdad de una afirmación?
8. ¿Cómo sabe un diente cuando se tiene que caer?
9. ¿Puedo decir que soy de mi cuerpo como digo que mi cuerpo es mío?
10. ¿Cómo puede ser que una parte de mi sea de otra persona?1
¿Podríamos imaginar algunas situaciones en las que fuese importante plantear cada una
de estas preguntas? Pensemos, por ejemplo, en la importancia que tendría la primera pregunta
para unos niños y unas niñas de 9 años que discutieran si las relaciones de familia son o no
reales. O bien, pensemos en la importancia de la misma pregunta para alguien dedicado a la
física que tiene que definir el espacio o el tiempo.
¿Se trata de preguntas creativas? ¿Se trata de preguntas que aportan una visión
crítica?
¿Nos hacen examinar el significado del lenguaje? ¿Son preguntas que valoran nuestra
comprensión de la realidad?
Las preguntas con las que hemos iniciado este artículo son ejemplos de preguntas
filosóficas. No tanto por la forma verbal que tienen, sino por la función que pueden tener en
determinadas circunstancias. Son preguntas que dan por supuestas ciertas ideas subyacentes,
como: el espacio y el tiempo tienen relación; para considerar que algo es real, deben
cumplirse unas condiciones; hay decisiones razonables y decisiones que no lo son… Si no
nos planteásemos ese tipo de preguntas, las ideas que dan por supuesto podrían pasar
desapercibidas y, sin embargo, son suposiciones de gran importancia.
Este tipo de preguntas nos permite ampliar nuestro conocimiento. Son preguntas
generales y comprehensivas. No preguntan por casos particulares, sino por lo que tienen en
común una diversidad de casos. La pregunta 5, por ejemplo, no plantea si tiene límites la
libertad de esta o aquella persona, sino la de todas las personas. De la respuesta a esta
pregunta se puede seguir la justificación de un determinado poder político y de unas
determinadas leyes. Por ejemplo, la prohibición del aborto o de la pena de muerte.
Otra característica de estas preguntas es que no tienen una respuesta única ni última.
Su respuesta puede variar de un marco de referencia a otro, de una generación a otra o a la
luz de nuevos descubrimientos o circunstancias. Por ejemplo, no se entiende de la misma
manera la relación entre espacio y tiempo en la física newtoniana que en la física cuántica.
Aun no teniendo una respuesta única, son preguntas en las que se plantea el sentido y
la validez de diversas formas de conocimiento (artístico, ético, científico, social…) y de
1
Muchas de estas preguntas se encuentran en los manuales y las novelas filosóficas del currículum Philosophy
for Children del IAPC. En concreto, las dos primeras y las tres últimas aparecen en los capítulos I, II, IV y V de
la novela filosófica Pixie, escrita por M. Lipman y Theresa L. Smith, para niños y niñas de 9 años.
267
acción. Por ello, las cuestiones filosóficas, según Lipman, están en la base del resto de
disciplinas y deberían formar parte del núcleo mismo de la educación.
En la 2.ª edición de su libro Thinking in Education (Lipman, 2003), encontramos la
última revisión que Matthew Lipman llevó a cabo sobre el lugar que ocupa el pensamiento
en la educación. Para mejorar la capacidad de pensar, dice Lipman, es necesario el cultivo
de al menos tres dimensiones del pensamiento: la dimensión crítica, la creativa y la
cuidadosa. Y usa la expresión ‘pensamiento multidimensional’ para referirse al
pensamiento que las incluye.
Algunos autores proponen que para mejorar la capacidad de pensar se deben mejorar
las habilidades cognitivas ‘de alto nivel’. De este modo, las ordenan de menor a mayor grado
de complejidad: de las habilidades consideradas básicas (manejar información, comprenderla
y aplicarla) a las habilidades consideradas de un nivel superior (sintetizar información y
conocimientos, analizarlos y evaluarlos). Estas propuestas tienen en cuenta, directa o
indirectamente, la taxonomía de Benjamin Bloom, publicada en 1956 y revisada en 2001.
Sin embargo, para Matthew Lipman, el cultivo del pensamiento multidimensional va
más allá del ejercicio de una serie de habilidades cognitivas ordenadas de menor a mayor
complejidad. También va más allá del llamado “pensamiento crítico’. Según Lipman, un
pensamiento “de alto nivel” debe incluir otras dimensiones, además de la crítica. Cualquier
ejemplo de buen pensamiento es a la vez crítico (critical), creativo (creative) y cuidadoso
(caring). Y puesto que estas tres dimensiones del pensamiento se pueden ejercitar y mejorar,
una educación que no tenga como objetivo su mejora sería una educación irresponsable. “Los
tres criterios que ahora proponemos como requisitos del pensamiento multidimensional son
o deberían ser totalmente igualitarios en el sentido de que si un pensamiento no satisface los
tres criterios no puede ser considerado un pensamiento excelente.” (Lipman, 2016, p.20).
Según Lipman, en educación, la filosofía es la disciplina mejor equipada para cultivar
estas dimensiones, ya que implica una investigación reflexiva y un ejercicio de pensamiento
crítico, creativo y cuidadoso a la vez.
Detengámonos en cada una de estas dimensiones del pensamiento. Según Lipman, lo
que se entiende por pensamiento crítico no es nuevo, pues los esfuerzos para mejorar la
calidad y cantidad de pensamiento y de conocimiento son tan antiguos como la historia de la
humanidad.
Lipman caracteriza el pensamiento crítico como un pensamiento aplicado. Es decir, no
es sólo proceso, sino que trata de desarrollar un producto. Implica decir, crear o hacer algo.
El resultado de un pensamiento crítico es el buen juicio. Un juicio puede ser una acción, una
decisión, una valoración… Por ejemplo, un aplauso, el veredicto de un juez, una ecuación
matemática o la decisión de un médico sobre cómo aplicar su conocimiento, serían ejemplos
de juicios. Los buenos profesionales hacen buenos juicios sobre su propia práctica, así como
sobre la materia de su práctica. Así, un buen médico no sólo hace buenos diagnósticos y
buenas prescripciones, sino que también hace buenos juicios sobre el campo de la medicina
y sobre su habilidad para practicarla.
Según Lipman, existe una estrecha relación entre criterios y juicios. La capacidad de
hacer buenos juicios es una habilidad que puede ser ejercitada, y las habilidades no pueden
ser definidas sin criterios. El pensamiento crítico, pues, se basa en criterios y puede ser
evaluado mediante criterios. Es un pensamiento que tiene en cuenta todos los elementos,
incluido él mismo. La autocorrección es, por tanto, otra de sus características. Es un
pensamiento consciente de su falibilidad. La característica de la autocorrección es de
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importancia vital en el campo educativo, ya que permite la autorregulación del aprendizaje y

tiene en cuenta la provisionalidad del conocimiento.
Otro aspecto que caracteriza el pensamiento crítico es la sensibilidad por el contexto.
Del mismo modo que el pensamiento crítico es sensible a uniformidades y regularidades,
también lo es a las características particulares que son específicas de una situación o contexto.
Por ejemplo, la norma general de una escuela que prescribe pagar una cuota anual para tener
derecho a ir de excursión puede ser revisada en el caso de alumnos cuyas familias no pueden
asumir el pago. Por ello, el pensamiento crítico es consciente de la necesidad de examinar las
situaciones individuales en sus propios términos y no forzarlas a entrar en reglas generales.
Esto quiere decir que es hostil a estereotipar y, por tanto, a los prejuicios derivados de los
estereotipos.
Veamos a continuación algunos rasgos del pensamiento creativo. La dimensión
creativa está conectada con la capacidad de asombro que nos puede llevar a investigar. Está
relacionada con nuestra capacidad de inventar y descubrir. La capacidad de pensar
creativamente potencia la problematicidad de la experiencia, haciéndonos avanzar en la
investigación y en la comprensión. Así, dice Lipman, la ciencia y el arte son ejemplos de
investigaciones que nos permiten hacer más inteligibles nuestra experiencia y el mundo.
La dimensión creativa del pensamiento es descrita por Lipman como la capacidad de
impulsar nuestro pensamiento más allá de la información dada. Esto es, se trata de un
pensamiento ampliativo. Representa más crecimiento y evolución que estabilidad y fijación.
La capacidad de pensar creativamente no solo expande nuestro pensamiento, sino también
nuestra capacidad de pensar expansivamente. En este sentido, ejemplos de pensamiento
ampliativo serían las analogías, metáforas y el razonamiento inductivo.
El pensamiento creativo también es caracterizado como un pensamiento desafiante. A
veces se considera que las personas que piensan de manera creativa desafían las reglas y los
criterios. A los arquitectos románicos —pone como ejemplo Lipman— les debía parecer que
los arquitectos góticos tenían un interés especial en romper las reglas. Los arquitectos del
gótico abandonaron algunos criterios tradicionales e introdujeron otros nuevos, con el
resultado de que cuando este estilo se consolidó, no debía ser más desafiante que el de sus
predecesores.
Veamos ahora algunas variedades de pensamiento cuidadoso. Un pensamiento
cuidadoso es apreciativo, dice Lipman. Apreciar es prestar atención a los aspectos que
cuentan, a los aspectos importantes. Cuidar es apreciar y valorar aquello que se aprecia. En
cualquier situación en la que apreciamos algo, valoramos lo que apreciamos por las
relaciones que aquello que valoramos mantiene con otras cosas. Por ejemplo, las cosas de la
naturaleza no son ni mejores ni peores que otras cosas. Un lago no es ni mejor ni peor que
un océano, o una colina que una montaña. Solo cuando las comparamos y contrastamos desde
perspectivas particulares, valoramos sus diferencias y semejanzas.
El pensamiento cuidadoso es un pensamiento afectivo. Esta manera de entender la
dimensión cuidadosa del pensamiento supone una relación entre razón y emoción. Algunas
emociones son formas de juicios y contienen aspectos cognitivos, dice Lipman, y en este
punto cita a Martha Nussbaum (2008): “La emoción es un tipo de pensamiento. Como
cualquier pensamiento, puede ser equivocada: incluso Aristóteles y Rousseau insisten en que
alguien puede tener una emoción inoportuna, como una excesiva preocupación por la
propiedad o la reputación (…) Si no hay emoción tampoco hay juicio completo” (Lipman,
2003, 101). A menudo, nuestras acciones siguen directamente a nuestras emociones. Si
alguien odia, se comporta de manera destructiva; si estima, se comporta de manera amigable,
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etc. Por tanto, según Lipman, si podemos atemperar las emociones antisociales, es probable
que podamos atemperar las conductas antisociales.
Otra variedad de pensamiento cuidadoso es el pensamiento activo que intenta conservar
lo que aprecia. Las personas que tratan de mantener su salud hacen cosas para cuidarse. Otras
preservan valores abstractos, como los lógicos que tratan de preservar la verdad de las
premisas de un argumento en su conclusión, o como los traductores, que tratan de preservar
el sentido de una afirmación de una lengua en otra.
El pensamiento cuidadoso también tiene un aspecto normativo, que distingue entre lo
que es y lo que debe ser. Según Lipman, este aspecto intensifica el componente reflexivo
tanto de la acción como del cuidado. Cuando se tiene cuidado de algo o de alguien siempre
se tienen en cuenta las posibilidades ideales de la conducta cuidadosa, de modo que la
reflexión sobre lo que es ideal se convierte en parte de la atención que ponemos en lo que
está pasando. El elemento normativo del pensamiento cuidadoso también le añade al cuidado
un estatus cognitivo.
Ningún pensamiento es puramente crítico o puramente creativo o puramente
cuidadoso. Según Lipman, no hay duda de que para mejorar la capacidad de pensar, las
dimensiones creativa y cuidadosa complementan a la crítica. ¿Cómo podemos tratar de
manera significativa temas que implican, por ejemplo, niños, embriones, animales, o medio
ambiente si estos temas no son importantes para nosotros? ¿O qué clase de arquitecto sería
aquel a quien no le importaran las casas que diseña ni las personas que las habitarán?
Retomemos ahora la relación entre la filosofía y el pensamiento multidimensional. En
primer lugar, la filosofía, entendida como actividad intelectual que reflexiona sobre los
fundamentos y límites del conocimiento y de la acción, es ella misma una actividad crítica.
En este sentido, para Lipman, la historia del pensamiento crítico coincide con la historia de
la filosofía. Pensadores críticos han sido Kant, Sócrates, Platón, Aristóteles, Descartes,
Montaigne, Hume... y muchos otros no considerados estrictamente filósofos, como Galileo
Galilei o Erasmo de Rotterdam.
La filosofía nos lleva de la observación de experiencias cotidianas a un análisis crítico
de la realidad, de nuestro conocimiento, de nuestros valores y del lenguaje mismo.
Recordemos algunas preguntas con las que hemos iniciado este artículo. ¿Puede una
cosa ser real si no se puede ver o tocar? ¿Tiene límites la libertad personal? ¿Todo lo que
existe tiene una causa? ¿Cómo una parte de mi puede pertenecer a otra persona? Muchas de
estas preguntas pudieron ser planteadas en su origen porque alguien realizó un examen crítico
de sus conocimientos y creencias ordinarias. La indagación de buenas razones para
fundamentar nuestras creencias y de buenas razones para nuestras razones, puede llevar a
confrontarnos con las cuestiones de la filosofía. ¿Cuáles son esas cuestiones?
Seguiremos en este punto a Charles y Elisabeth Beardsley, en su libro Invitation to
Philosophical Thinking (Beardsley, 1965), que ejerció una gran influencia en Matthew
Lipman. Una manera de clasificar las cuestiones filosóficas, dicen los autores, es por las áreas
tradicionales de la filosofía.
De este modo, un grupo de términos en torno a los que giran las cuestiones filosóficas
son aquellos que se refieren a la “realidad”, entendida como totalidad o como una parte.
Algunos de estos términos son: ‘espacio’, ‘tiempo’, ‘ser’, ‘cosa’, ‘causa’, ‘dios,’ ‘naturaleza’,
‘existencia’. Ejemplos de preguntas que hacemos por medio de esos términos son: ¿Qué
relación hay entre espacio y tiempo? ¿Todo lo que existe, tiene una causa? ¿Cuál es la
naturaleza de la realidad? Estas cuestiones son consideradas metafísicas.
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Otro grupo de términos sobre los que gira la investigación filosófica son los que se
refieren a cosas o acciones que valoramos. Algunos de estos términos son: ‘bueno’, ‘valioso’,
‘importante’, ‘justo’, ‘bello’, ‘incorrecto’, ‘apropiado’… Preguntas filosóficas que nos
hacemos respecto a esta área de conocimiento son: ¿Qué hace que una acción sea incorrecta?
¿Qué hace justa a una sociedad? ¿Hay trabajos más dignos que otros? ¿Tiene límites la
libertad personal? ¿Es lo mismo mirar que contemplar una obra de arte? Estas cuestiones son
consideradas éticas y estéticas.
Otro grupo de términos usados en la investigación filosófica se refieren no tanto a la
realidad o a lo que es valioso, sino a nuestro conocimiento de la realidad o los valores. Entre
ellos, encontramos los términos: ‘verdad’, ‘certeza’, ‘razón’, ‘intuición’, ‘probabilidad’,
‘opinión’, ‘conjetura’, ‘lógico’, ‘consistente’ ‘conciencia”. Las preguntas relacionadas con
esos términos son: ¿Cómo conocemos? ¿Cómo podemos estar seguros de la verdad de una
afirmación? ¿Qué hace que una proposición se siga de manera lógica de otra? ¿Una creencia
religiosa se basa en la fe? ¿Cuál es el límite de nuestro conocimiento? Son preguntas
filosóficas propias de las cuestiones epistemológicas, lógicas y de teoría del conocimiento.
La filosofía no escapa a su propio examen y encontramos cuestiones sobre el lenguaje
mismo. ¿Cada palabra con significado, se refiere a algo que existe en la realidad? ¿Qué
diferencia hay entre el lenguaje poético y el lenguaje de la ciencia? Se plantean preguntas
sobre el lenguaje con el que nos referimos al mundo, conducimos nuestras investigaciones o
formulamos nuestras conclusiones sobre él.
La investigación filosófica tiene también un fuerte componente creativo. Se ha dicho
que la filosofía comienza con la admiración, con el asombro. Nuestra capacidad de asombro
está conectada, a nuestro entender, con la capacidad de pensar creativamente. Podemos decir
que el asombro se da cada vez que lo que percibimos no responde a lo esperábamos, o cuando
descubrimos “de nuevo” nuestras percepciones y nos sentimos perplejos: ¿Puedo decir que
soy de mi cuerpo como digo que mi cuerpo es mío?; ¿Cómo puede ser que una parte de mi
pueda ser de otra persona? ¿Cómo sabe un diente cuando se tiene que caer? (Lipman, 1981)
Todas estas cuestiones son tratadas en las novelas filosóficas y en los manuales del
profesorado del currículo Philophy for Children (curriculum IAPC). Para Lipman, la filosofía
implica una dimensión valorativa y ética; una dimensión creativa, interrogadora, ampliativa
e investigadora; y una actitud autocrítica y autorreguladora que está siempre abierta a la
revisión. La práctica de la filosofía es entendida como investigación continua.
La filosofía trata de clarificar e iluminar cuestiones, no de pedir respuestas. Hace que
cuestionemos aquellos temas que tendemos a considerar como garantizados, insistiendo en
que prestemos atención a los aspectos que hasta ahora hemos encontrado adecuados o a
aquellos que habían pasado desapercibidos.
Según Lipman, sin algún tipo de currículo que sirva de guía para el profesorado, las
oportunidades de hacer filosofía en el aula se reducen considerablemente.
En este sentido, las novelas filosóficas y los manuales, con ejercicios y planes de
discusión, pueden ser modelos prácticos, claros y específicos de hacer filosofía. Por ello,
animamos al profesorado que quiera llevar la filosofía al aula, a que trabaje con los manuales
del profesorado y las novelas filosóficas de la propuesta educativa Philosophy for Children,
ya que son guías de aspectos importantes de la práctica filosófica que el profesorado debe
tener en cuenta.
El profesorado puede usar los ejercicios y planes de discusión en la dinámica del aula,
tanto para animar el diálogo, como para detenerlo en algún punto que requiera de una
aclaración conceptual o para desarrollar y reforzar algunas habilidades: inferir, usar
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relaciones lógicas, detectar inconsistencias y contradicciones, formular cuestiones, detectar

ambigüedades, dar razones, ejemplificar, formular relaciones causa-efecto y desarrollar
conceptos, entre otras.
Para acabar, presentamos algunas sugerencias del propio Matthew Lipman a la hora de
usar los ejercicios y planes de discusión de los manuales (Lipman, 1996).
 Intenta hacer todos los ejercicios importantes del episodio antes de proponerlos a los
estudiantes. De este modo serás más sensible al abanico de cuestiones conceptuales que
se pueden plantear en la discusión, así como a algunas dificultades prácticas que se puedan
dar.
 Los ejercicios, planes de discusión y las ideas que contienen los manuales no son “todo”
el currículo. Este se compone de las ideas de los estudiantes que la lectura les estimula, de
las ideas evocadas por la lectura que contienen los manuales y de cómo el profesorado
relaciona las dos partes. Los manuales están diseñados para ayudar al profesorado a
dibujar las ideas de los estudiantes desde ellos mismos y, de ese modo, ayudarles a
elaborarlas, articularlas, evaluarlas y apreciarlas.
 No es necesario hacer todos los ejercicios y planes de discusión. Cada profesor debe
seleccionar los que crea que dan más juego, los que considere más adecuados para sus
estudiantes y con los que se sienta más cómodo. Del mismo modo, no es necesario plantear
todas las cuestiones de un plan de discusión.
 Los ejercicios y planes de discusión no están restringidos a las clases de filosofía. Se
pueden usar en ciencias, lengua, arte y otras disciplinas. Para este uso puede ser de gran
utilidad consultar los índices temáticos y de ejercicios del comienzo de los manuales.
 Se puede animar a los estudiantes a ser innovadores, permitiéndoles crear sus propios
ejercicios, planes de discusión, actividades de dibujo o actuación.
 Muchos ejercicios y planes de discusión filosóficos no tienen una respuesta “correcta”.
Requieren deliberación y juicio, y adquirir destrezas en hacer juicios cuidadosos necesita
práctica, práctica y práctica.
REFERENCIAS
Beardsley, Monroe C. y Beardsley, Elisabeth L. (1965). Invitation to Philosophical Thinking.
New York, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.
Lipman M. and L. Smith, Theresa (1981): Pixie. New Jersey, Institute for the Advancement
of Philosophy for Children. Traducción en Catalán, Pimi (1989) Barcelona, Eumo; en
castellano, Pixie. (2013): Madrid, De la Torre, 2ª ed.
Lipman, Matthew (1996): “Philosophical Discussion Plans and Exercises”. Analytic
Teaching. Vol 16, n° 2.
Lipman, Matthew (2003): Thinking in Education, 2ª. New York, Cambridge University
Press.
Lipman, Matthew (2016): El lugar del pensamiento en la educación. Ed. Octaedro.
Barcelona.
Nussbaum, Martha (2008): Paisajes del pensamiento. La inteligencia de las emociones. Ed.
Paidós. Barcelona.
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Children, Intuitive Knowledge and Philosophy
Maria daVenza Tillmanns daVenza

Academy of Philosophy
davenza@sbcglobal.net
CV
Maria daVenza Tillmanns received her doctorate from the University of Illinois, in 1998.
The title of her dissertation was: Philosophical Counseling and Teaching: “Holding the
Tension” in a Dualistic World, which was published by ProQuest. From 1989 to 1993, she
had her own Philosophical Counseling Practice in the Netherlands. Together with Ran Lahav,
she co-edited ‘Essays on Philosophical Counseling’, published in 1995. She has had articles
published in various Dutch, British, and American journals. From 1996 to 1997, she was
President of the American Society for Philosophy, Counseling and Psychotherapy (ASPCP,
now NPCA, National Philosophical Counseling Association). She taught at University of
California, San Diego for nearly ten years in their Teacher Education Program, Human
Development Program and Department of Communication. Currently, she is seeking funding
for a project in partnership with the University of California, San Diego ‘doing’ philosophy
with children at El Toyon Elementary, an underserved school in National City, San Diego.
ABSTRACT
Martin Buber argues that we are born in relation. In I and Thou, Buber writes: “It is simply
not the case that the child first perceives an object, then, as it were, puts himself in relation
to it. But the effort to establish relation comes first… In the beginning is relation, the a priori
of relation, the inborn Thou. The inborn Thou is realized in the lived relations with that which
meets it.” This a priori relation, then, forms the basis for children’s intuitive knowledge of
the world they inhabit. Children certainly have a strong grasp of the world they live in; it’s
just not dependent on cognitive knowledge. Through doing philosophy with children,
children are encouraged to speak from their own place. Through the process of putting their
own thinking into question, children become aware of themselves as thinking beings. When
the connection to the inborn relationship is compromised, it allows us to do devastating things
to people, other life forms, and the environment and provide justifications for it. In ʽdoingʼ
philosophy with children we keep the connection with this place we call earth alive.
KEYWORDS
The inborn Thou, a priori relation, thinking beings, parrhesia, self-regulated thinking,
intuitive knowledge, cognitive knowledge, proprioception of thought, ‘disembodied’
persons, disassociated logic.
RESUMEN
Martin Buber argumenta que nacemos relacionados. En I and Thou, Buber escribe:
“Simplemente no es el caso que el niño primero perciba un objeto y, luego, por así decirlo,
se ponga en relación con él. Pero el esfuerzo por establecer una relación viene primero. Al
principio es relación, el a priori de la relación, el Tú innato. El Tú innato se realiza en las
relaciones vividas con aquello que se encuentra con él”. Esta relación a priori, entonces,
forma la base para el conocimiento intuitivo de los niños del mundo que habitan. Los niños
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ciertamente tienen una gran comprensión del mundo en el que viven; simplemente no
depende del conocimiento cognitivo. Al hacer filosofía con los niños, se anima a los niños
a hablar desde su propio lugar. A través del proceso de cuestionamiento de sus propios
pensamientos, los niños se vuelven conscientes de sí mismos como seres pensantes.
Cuando la conexión con la relación innata se ve comprometida, nos permite hacer cosas
devastadoras contra las personas, otras formas de vida y el medio ambiente y justificarlas.
Al “hacer” la filosofía con los niños, mantenemos la conexión con este lugar que llamamos
tierra viva.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Tú innato, relación a priori, seres pensantes, parresía, pensamiento autorregulado,
conocimiento intuitivo, conocimiento cognitivo.
‘Philosophy makes progress not by becoming more rigorous but by

becoming more imaginative.’ – Richard Rorty
‘I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination.
Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is
limited, whereas imagination encircles the world.’ – Albert Einstein
It is my contention that the form of young children’s knowledge of the world is based
on intuitive thinking. Let me begin with how I came to this idea in the first place.
I attended a moral education conference at Harvard University in 1983. There
Lawrence Kohlberg, who developed a theory of moral education based on Piaget’s ‘stage’
theory of cognitive development in children, and Matthew Lipman, the founder and Director
of the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children, posed the interesting
question of whether young children had the ability to enter into philosophical dialogue. The
general assumption was that children who have not yet progressed to Piaget’s cognitive stage
of abstract reasoning (that is, children younger than about nine or ten) would not be able to
do philosophy. Lipman’s work, however, seemed instead to show that children are natural
philosophers (see especially Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan, 1980, p.31-40). His work
demonstrates that in school after school, young children greatly enjoy sharing their thoughts
and ideas, listening to others, changing their minds and pondering the questions discussed.
Children are also interested in the purpose behind everything, not just the cause.
The disagreement between Kohlberg and Lipman over whether or not young children
are capable of having serious philosophical discussions led me to think that there may be two
different kinds of thinking in this regard. It occurred to me that whereas children may not yet
have achieved the highest stage of abstract reasoning which enables them to have what
academics would recognise as philosophical discussions, they may use a different form of
thinking that nevertheless allows them to entertain serious questions about reality, fairness,
justice, etc. These questions arise in them naturally, based on their curiosity about the world.
They may not be at the stage where they can give well-reasoned arguments for their thoughts
and ideas, but this does not imply that they do not have an intuitive understanding of ideas.
Doing philosophy with children gives them the opportunity to give voice to those ideas while
teaching them to clearly articulate their thoughts and give reasons for them.
I would argue that without first thoroughly appreciating children’s deep intuitive
understanding of the world in which they live, we have nothing to build their cognitive skills
on. That is to say, teachers need to develop children’s cognitive thinking skills based on the
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thinking and knowledge they already have, and we are too quick to underestimate the
knowledge. We have failed young children for decades here, because although we often find
their thoughts and ideas ‘amusing’, we rarely appreciate that they have a form of thinking we
somehow cannot grasp or understand anymore. However, those who teach philosophy to young
children do acknowledge their ability to dialogue about issues of fairness and justice, beauty
and morality. Children may not have the developed structures of abstract thought to apply to
such topics, but that doesn’t imply that they lack a fundamental grasp of what these issues
entail. In fact, it is my experience, that children often have a ‘purer’ sense of these concepts,
because their thinking has not yet been contaminated by societal biases and cultural norms.
Intuitive Knowledge & Cognitive Skills
Whence does children’s intuitive knowledge originate?
In I and Thou (Buber, 1923), existentialist philosopher and scholar Martin Buber wrote,
‘It is simply not the case that the child first perceives an object, then, as it were, puts himself
in relation to it. But the effort to establish relation comes first… In the beginning is relation –
as category of being, readiness, grasping form, mould for the soul; it is the a priori of relation,
the inborn Thou. The inborn Thou is realized in the lived relations with that which meets it’
(Buber, 1923, p.27). This a priori (that is, existing prior to learnt experience) relation to the
world forms the basis for the intuitive knowledge we have of the world. Intuitive thought then
emerges from one’s total engagement with the world, through one’s whole being.
Children aren’t the only ones who have a total engagement with the world. Artists, for
example, rely on the knowledge that originates from a total engagement and openness, to which
they give expression through their art. But for many people, intuitive knowledge is gradually
replaced by the structures of thinking we are taught. Logic then comes to replace immediate
experience, although experience is infinitely more complex than reason can behold. And where
reason fails us, many turn to religion.
We always have the capacity to retain some form of an intuitive understanding of the
world, yet too often it is replaced by the cognitive skills we develop in school. As a result, our
cognitive skills are often developed as it were in a vacuum, disassociated from our being. This
disassociation creates a dependency on others with authority, or on status, or on following
trends and fads. If we cannot self-regulate our thinking, we depend on others who will do it for
us. This dependency robs people of their ability to enter into interdependent relationships,
where their inborn relationship with the world and with themselves is intact. In his article ‘The
Impact of Philosophy for Children in a High School English Class’ (available at inter-
disciplinary.net) (Miller, 2005), Chad Miller says, ‘The continued irrelevance and disregard of
the students’ experiences, questions and ideas by schools, has too often left them with the
inability to think responsibly for themselves; the school has told them what to think and why
to think it.’ Philosophy for children on the contrary honors the inborn relationship children
have with the world around them. It helps them to cultivate their inner authority, be self-critical,
to self-regulate, and indeed truly be in charge of their own thinking and decisions.
Because young children have not yet developed the cognitive skills to express themselves,
they use imagination, and they rely on it to convey their understanding of the world. Imagination
is the language of intuitive knowledge, borne out of our unlearnt relationship with the world. If
we rob children of their intuitive knowledge and imagination in order to develop their cognitive
skills as rapidly as possible, we essentially rob them of this inborn relationship with the world.
Thus we try to re-establish their relationship with the world and with themselves through
developing their cognitive skills at the expense of that very relationship! We can train people to
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be very smart and knowledgeable, but at the expense of their inborn intelligence, which is rooted
in a natural relationship with the world. They thus become disconnected from the world, from
other people, and from themselves. And all the therapy in the world cannot make up for the
inborn relationship we had at the beginning of life and have now lost. The loss also leads to
dangerous consequences. Disassociated logic can allow us to do the most horrible things to the
environment, other life forms, and other people, and provide justifications for it. Integrity and
character may also become empty concepts, because, as Buber would say, we have replaced the
‘inborn Thou’ with the ‘It’. The I-It relationship is strictly instrumental in nature and serves the
individual’s needs at the expense of the relationship they have with the world (Buber, 1923, p.23).
As an example, David Brooks says in his article ‘The Power of Altruism’ (Brooks,
2016), ‘When you introduce a financial incentive you prompt people to see their situation
through an economic lens. Instead of following their natural bias toward reciprocity, service
and cooperation, you encourage people to do a selfish cost-benefit calculation. They begin to
ask, “What’s in it for me?”… the institutions that arouse the moral lens have withered away
while the institutions that manipulate incentives – the market and the state – have expanded.
Now economic, utilitarian thinking has become the normal way we do social analysis and see
the world’. And Chad Miller found that when he administered a survey on the first day of
class to examine his students’ reasoning skills, they answered that they ‘believed school was
boring, but necessary to go to college and “make a lot of money”’ (Miller, 2005, p.2).
Essentially, we have replaced a life rich in meaning for a meaningless life of riches. In the
name of progress, we end up working against our own interests, increasing distrust and
hostility. Buber describes the world as one in which there is a ‘constant swinging back and
forth’ of the I-It and I-Thou relationships. Yet if we are disconnected from our I-Thou
relationship and only the I–It relationship determines our interactions and relations with the
world and other people, no amount of ‘religion’ can make up for that loss.
Thinking Imaginatively
We need to foster and nourish the ‘inborn Thou’ by strengthening children’s relations
to the world around them and other people. The only way to restore the inborn Thou to our
society is to allow children to develop their intuitive knowledge by allowing them full reign
to their imaginations in the arts and sciences and in doing philosophy with them.
The ‘inborn Thou’ signifies our direct relationship with the world, relatively
unmediated through socially-conferred abstract structures of thought. If you will, it finds its
expression in a form of parrhesia; speaking freely or frankly. Diogenes the Cynic practiced
parrhesia when he asked Alexander the Great, conqueror of the known world, to move out of
the way because he was blocking the sun (Plutarch, Alexander, 1919, 14). Diogenes bluntly
informs Alexander the Great that he’s not the center of the universe. It is this ‘Diogenesian’
voice that we should appeal to when philosophising with children. Doing philosophy with
children provides just the context for speaking freely.
What expertise do philosophers have? Philosophers are experts in not knowing. In
practicing the art of philosophy, the art of not knowing, we engage each other to think together
to explore concepts we only vaguely understand. Thinking together not only binds us, but also
allows us to explore unknown and perhaps unknowable territory with joy, curiosity and
confidence. Through asking children what they already know through their intuitive
knowledge, and putting thinking itself into question, we can help them become aware of
themselves as thinking beings. In this way children develop what David Bohm calls the
‘proprioception of thought’ – an ability to ‘observe thoughtʼ which is the ‘self-perception of
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thoughtʼ (Bohm, 1996, pp.73-83). This is the ability to become self-critical in the sense of self-
aware through questioning what we already know. In ‘Childhood, Education and Philosophy:
Notes on Deterritorialisation’, Walter Kohan says, ‘We are not interested in this or that
information or knowledge, in any specific truth; we do not teach techniques in order that
students practice intellectual skills, learn how to answer this or that kind of question, or
recognise this or that type of fallacy. Rather, we are primarily interested in students and
teachers entering a zone of interrogation – in putting themselves, their lives, their passions and
beliefs into question through the experience of thinking together’ (Kohan, 2012, pp.178-179).
Once children experience themselves as thinking beings, we can then proceed with
teaching them the cognitive thinking skills they need, because only when cognitive knowledge
grows out of our intuitive knowledge, steeped in our natural relationship with the world, can
we become full human beings, not just talking heads disassociated from our own bodies and
relationship with the world. We are not disembodied creatures. It is through our concrete being
that we stand in relationship with the world. This relationship keeps us grounded and keeps
us human. Otherwise, we become inhuman to the environment, life, other people, and
ourselves; we become abusive beings; smart and knowledgeable maybe, but abusive as we
disconnect from the world. In ‘Childhood, Philosophy and Play’, Barbara Weber states that
‘Philosophy for Children is often reduced to teaching children ‘thinking skills” instead of
teaching other modes of being in the world, such as feeling and perceiving. And although
‘creative thinking” and ‘caring thinking” were subsequently introduced into the programme,
these are classified as ‘modes of thinking.”’ However, if we only teach thinking skills based
on the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ application of logical operations, the content of children’s
statements remains secondary or even irrelevant. Consequently, Philosophy for Children
would then implicitly reduce childhood to a deficiency (since children are not yet capable of
reasoning, although they are able to learn to reason) and also reduce humanity to a
‘disembodied head’ that is able to speak and apply reason, but is disconnected from any
emotional or sensuous aspects’ (Weber, 2012, p.69). In ‘The Other Half of the Child’, Kieran
Egan makes a similar point: ‘We tend to abstract knowledge from the context of its making
or discovery and put it into logical structures. One result of this is to dehumanize knowledge’
(Egan, 1993, p.305).
I believe we need to be aware of the need not to reduce philosophy for children to just
developing ‘thinking skills’ of whatever form, and to truly pay attention to the content of
children’s statements. We need to respect their relationship with the world, and not just
replace it with how we, as adults, commonly relate to the world. This means we should stay
true to the language of their intuitive knowledge, which is the language of play and
imagination.
Imagination and play is also the language of artists. Artists paint the way for us to stay
in touch with the complex world we are a part of and cannot fully comprehend cognitively.
Through art we tap into our intuitive selves. The arts educate us to better understand our
world when it surpasses our ability to know it cognitively. The arts educate; yet we have
largely reduced them to an often-banal form of entertainment.
Imagining Philosophically
I maintain that with age I have actually come to know less and less, but have come to
understand more and more. That is, I have developed a greater and broader conceptual
knowledge. Conceptual knowledge undergirds factual knowledge and serves to give insight
to it. Factual knowledge by itself can appear contradictory: is light composed of particles or
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2waves? Or is it composed of a wave-particle duality? Are humans moral or immoral? And

so on. To understand apparent contradictions, we often have to dive deeper and enter murkier
waters. And, I believe, every discipline eventually moves beyond the raw facts, to develop
insight and understanding. To move beyond the facts does not make them irrelevant. On the
contrary, we must ask, how do we ‘hold the tension’ of apparently contradictory facts, and
how can this lead us to a deeper conceptual understanding?
This is where philosophy comes in. Imagination is the language of intuitive thinking
and can be ‘educated’ in the same way that artists learn to express themselves in their art form
in ever more disciplined and nuanced ways. This is something philosophy for and with
children does. It honors our inborn Thou – our natural relationship to the world and to other
people. It honors the content of children’s statements; and honors the need to develop and
sharpen intuitive knowledge and develop that knowledge into well-thought-out cognitive
knowledge. Philosophy for children builds the conceptual groundwork for the cognitive
knowledge they learn in school, and develops a deeper and broader understanding of our
complex world. So, yes, for the purpose of our need to live up to our human potential, we need
to engage in doing philosophy, and for this purpose philosophy needs to become more
imaginative, as Richard Rorty suggests in the opening quote to this paper. Where better to
start than with highly imaginative young children? Children wrestle with ideas about how to
understand the world, which is where philosophy began as well. Miller addresses this point,
saying, ‘to allow the students to think for themselves resulted in the students doing philosophy.
The students’ thoughts and questions often pushed the community’s inquiries and discussions
to that of the ‘philosophical’. The students examined issues and paralleled arguments
professional philosophers have been writing about for over two thousand years.’ Moreover,
the students’ ‘interpretations were grounded in personal connections supported by reasons
indicating they were no longer passively subservient to authority, but willing to challenge
from their own personal point of view.’ (Miller, 2005, p.7).
Discovery leads to learning, not just to having answers. We do not want to just provide
children with packets of preprocessed knowledge which rumble down the educational
conveyor belt in the form of teacher-proof lesson plans, text books, teaching-to-the-test
exercises... How can we then be surprised when children decide computer games are more
interesting than life itself? We have essentially robbed them of the desire to ‘get dirty’ while
playing outside and discovering what this place is about – I mean, engaging with this world
and all its complexity, filled with wonder. We have created a world too boring for children,
and act surprised when they are bored. But the world isn’t boring, and in doing philosophy with
children we can keep the fascination alive. Whereas the university focuses on the history of
philosophy much in the same way that the university teaches art history, we should consider
creating a Philosophy Academy which teaches the art of thinking, similar to how an Art
Academy teaches art.
ʽWe are drifting toward catastrophe beyond conception. We shall
require a substantially new manner of thinking if mankind is to
surviveʼ. – Albert Einstein
REFERENCES
Bohm, D. (1996). On Dialogue. Lee Nichol (Ed.), New York: Routledge.
Brooks, D. (2016) “The Power of Altruism,” New York Times, Op-Ed, July 8, 2016.
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Buber, M. (1923). I and Thou. (translated by Ronald Gregory Smith), New York: Charles
Scriber & Sons.
Egan, K. (1993). “The Other Half of the Child” in Thinking Children and Education.
Matthew Lipman (Ed.). Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, p. 301-305.
Kohan, W. (2012). ‘Childhood, Education and Philosophy: Notes on Deterritorialisation’, in
Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy (Eds.), Philosophy for Children in Transition,
Problems and Prospects. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 170-189.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A.M. and Oscanyan, F.S. (1980). Philosophy in the Classroom, 2nd ed.,
Miller, C. (2005). ‘The Impact of Philosophy for Children in a high school English class’ in
Daniel Shepherd (ed.) Creative Engagements: Thinking with Children, Philosophical
Schooling. Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press.
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives. with an English Translation by. Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge,
MA. Harvard University Press. London. William Heinemann Ltd. 1919. 7.
Vansieleghem, N. and Kennedy, D. (eds). (2012). Philosophy for Children in Transition,
Problems and Prospects. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Weber, B. (2012). ‘Childhood, Philosophy and Play: Friedrich Schiller and the Interface
between Reason, Passion and Sensation.’ in Nancy Vansieleghem and David Kennedy
(Eds.), Philosophy for Children in Transition, Problems and Prospects. Chichester, UK:
Wiley-Blackwell. (pp. 66-81).
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Philosophy for/with Children, Religious Education and Education

for Spirituality.
Steps Toward a Review of the Literature
Maughn Rollins Gregory

Institutional affiliation:
Montclair State University
gregorym@montlair.edu
Stefano Oliverio
University of Naples Federico II
stefano.oliverio@unina.it
CV
Maughn Rollins Gregory is Professor of Educational Foundations at Montclair State
University in New Jersey (USA), where he succeeded Matthew Lipman as the director of the
Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children in 2001. He holds a JD and a PhD
in philosophy. He publishes and teaches in the areas of philosophy of education, Philosophy
for Children, pragmatism, gender, Socratic pedagogy and contemplative pedagogy. He is the
first Coordinator of Research for the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with
Children (ICPIC).
Stefano Oliverio is senior lecturer of Education in the Department of Political Sciences of
the University of Naples Federico II (Italy). He holds a degree in philosophy and a PhD in
Education. He publishes and teaches in the areas of philosophy of education, Philosophy for
Children, intercultural education, and educational theory. From 2013 to 2017 he was vice-
president of the International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC).
ABSTRACT
The authors describe the organization of a review of research literature on the relationship
between Philosophy for/with Children (P4/wC) and religious education/education for
spirituality (RE-EfS). They summarize a debate about whether the two are mutually
enhancing or incompatible. They explain delimiting the scope of the project and present a
grid of research questions used to analyze the literature. They summarize findings on how
P4/wC is relevant to five categories of aims of RE-EfS: hermeneutical, cultural, socio-
political, moral/spiritual, and epistemological. Many papers in the latter category promote
P4/wC as a method for children’s epistemic agency in constructing their religious beliefs.
Some respond to objections that children may reject traditional beliefs. Few address potential
confusion and angst of children asked to question and defend their religious views. The
authors conclude that the pragmatic thrust of P4/wC in resisting a dichotomy between
religious and scientific thinking is a value to post-secular society.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy for/with Children, religion, spirituality, hermeneutics, epistemology,
pragmatism.
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RESUMEN
Los autores describen la organización de una revisión de la bibliografía con las
investigaciones sobre la relación entre Filosofía para/con Niños y la Educación
Religiosa/Educación para la Espiritualidad (ER-EpE). Resumen la discusión acerca de si se
refuerzan mutuamente o son incompatibles. Explican cómo delimitar el alcance del proyecto
y presentan una matriz con las cuestiones usadas en la investigación para analizar la
bibliografía. Resumen los hallazgos sobre en qué sentido Fp/cN es relevante para cinco
categorías de fines de la ER/EpE: hermenéutica, cultural, sociopolítica, espiritual/moral y
epistemológica. Muchos trabajos de la última categoría promueven la Fp/cN como un método
para la actividad epistémica de los niños en la construcción de sus creencias religiosas.
Algunas responden a las objeciones de que los niños puedan rechazar las creencias
tradicionales. Pocas plantean la posible confusión y temor de los niños a quienes se les pide
que cuestionen y defiendan sus creencias religiosas. Los autores concluyen que el enfoque
pragmático de P4/wC para resistir una dicotomía entre el pensamiento religioso y científico
es un valor para la sociedad post-secular.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía para/con los niños, religión, espiritualidad, hermenéutica, epistemología,
pragmatismo.
INTRODUCTION
Setting the problem
In this chapter we present the first (and preliminary) steps of an ongoing project aimed
at a reconstruction of the debate on Philosophy for/with Children (henceforth P4/wC) and
both religious education and education for spirituality (henceforth RE-EfS) by conducting a
review of the existing literature. Before describing the methods we have adopted, sharing the
first analyses we have undertaken and illustrating some questions resulting from them, we
will briefly consider the nature of the debate that has prompted this inquiry into the
relationships between P4/wC and RE-EfS. Although our preliminary research has revealed
numerous, complex relationships between these fields, it has also confirmed the centrality
and the increasing intensity of a debate between those who see P4/wC as an important
approach to RE-EfS and those who see the former as inimical to the latter.
Many of those who see P4/wC as a beneficial approach to RE-EFS argue that there is
nothing surprising in this; that the development was inevitable and is merely further evidence
of the fecundity and flexibility of P4/wC across epistemic-experiential domains and areas of
the curriculum. From this perspective, our research is not significantly different from
exploring how P4/wC has been used in mathematics education (see, e.g., Groves, Doig &
Splitter, 2000; Lafortune et al., 2002; Kennedy, 2009; Kennedy & Kennedy, 2012), science
education (see, e.g., Sprod, 1997, 2014; Calvert et al., 2017), and so on.1 The majority of
1
To take just an example: in the volume edited by Lewis & Chandley (2012), the chapter on religious education
(by Patricia Hannam [2012b]) is placed between one on ʽP4C in Scienceʼ and another on ʽP4C in Personal,
Social and Health Education (PSHE) ʼ. The case of the UK is admittedly special, as RE is a compulsory part of
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those who disagree with this perspective come from one of two oppositional camps. One
camp objects to religion and spirituality being thought of as only one more portion of the
curriculum (even in contexts in which they explicitly are parts of it) and argue further that in
principle there is a kind of incompatibility between the inquiring thrust which is typical of
P4/wC and the goals of any religious education, which have to do with some kind of
edification. People in this camp emphasize the rationalistic and critical nature of
philosophical inquiry, and argue that there is something unique and precious about RE-EfS
that needs to be protected from philosophical dissection. The other camp opposed to the use
of P4/wC for RE-EfS sees the latter as ineradicably indoctrinatory and argues that the
deployment of P4/wC for religious education will inevitably result in the compromise and
deformation of critical philosophical inquiry. This position is exemplified in Paul Fairfield’s
curt dismissal of the legitimacy of religious education:
The grounds that Dewey provided for opposition to religious education are unmistakable and
several: religious instruction at an early age severely weakens the capacity for independent thought,
creates an often insurmountable prejudice that distorts future inquiry into theological, philosophical,
ethical, and related questions, creates deplorable intellectual habits of docility and deference to
authority, promotes dogmatism and parochialism rather than their opposites, and in general furthers
the cause of illiberal education. […] My Deweyan argument is that teaching religion in any manner
to the intellectually immature is mis-educative and that what passes for spiritual training in
countless institutions of learning today can be nothing other than indoctrination and a distortion of
education’s true purpose. (Fairfield, 2009, pp. 183-184)
Fairfield’s position seems to exclude the possibility of religious education
characterized by the kind of ‘openness and inquisitiveness, […] hospitality to new ideas and
a flexibilityʼ (ibid., p. 193) that are pivotal for any educational undertaking. Thus, for
different reasons, both of these camps describe an either-or situation: either religious
education or education for and through inquiry. From this perspective, the very endeavor to
dovetail philosophical inquiry with children and RE-EfS results in a kind of educational and
even theoretical hircocervus, a mythical creature composed of an unnatural and hideous
combination of parts of other animals.2
However, the earliest proponents of P4/wC did not share these misgivings. In fact,
P4/wC has been ‘haunted’ by the question of religion from its very inception. As early as
1977, in the first edition of Philosophy in the Classroom, Matthew Lipman, Ann Margaret
Sharp and Frederick S. Oscanyan distinguished between religious and philosophical
questions, but noted that ‘[p]hilosophical discussions need not just take up where science and
religion leave off [… but] can frequently become involved in questions of science and
questions of religion’ (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1977, p. 88). Partly in response to the
reaction against P4/wC by certain groups of conservative American Christians, Lipman
(1984a) defended the constructive role that philosophy can have in religious discussions, not
only by clarifying meanings, uncovering underlying assumptions, and analyzing concepts,
etc., but also by inventing new ideas and new connections among ideas.
While supporting this use of P4/wC as a ‘thinking skills’ approach to RE-EfS, Sharp
(1983) took a more radical step, toward a reclamation of spirituality as an important but
the curriculum there (see Jenkins, 1986; Thwaites, 2005; Jackson, 2007; Prescott, 2015; Lancaster-Thomas,
2017).
2
The term was used in 1944 by Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce to describe the forced union of socialism
and liberalism (a hircocervus that confounds politicians and political philosophers to this day).
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neglected component of the kind of humanistic education to which P4/wC aspires. Sharp
invited us to consider the affinities between the vocabulary of philosophical inquiry and that
of spirituality and the religious dimension of experience. Significantly, the idea that the
religious or the spiritual, like the aesthetic, refer not to esoteric knowledge or experience but
to qualities that may be discerned and intensified in ordinary experience also came from
Dewey (2006 [1934]; see also Reed, 1992). Sharp’s line of argumentation reclaiming
spirituality as an aim of education culminated in a valorization of education through
philosophical inquiry:
Education ought to seek to produce moral, intelligent, sincere, autonomous agents who can form
sound and reasonable judgments. […] If we assume that education has these two roles, socialization
and autonomy, then it follows that it also has a spiritual dimension. The relationship between
autonomy and spirituality is one that has been explored by many Western and Eastern philosophers:
St. Augustine, Spinoza, Martin Buber, Gandhi, Gabriel Marcel, Maritain, Pascal, and St. Thomas
Aquinas, to mention only a few. One of the greatest dangers today is that education has relinquished
its aim of autonomy and has resigned itself to be no more than a socializing instrument’ (Sharp,
1983, pp. 351-52, emphasis added).
We have indicated these two signposts to show not only that the question of RE-EfS
was addressed very early in the field of P4/wC, but also that in the first decade of its existence
at least two different positions were already articulated. On the one hand, this should come
as no surprise insofar as religion can be considered ‘the repressed dimension of philosophy’
(Heinrich, 1981) and the controversial issue of the circuit between philosophy, education of
youth and religious piety presides over the entire course of Western culture since at least the
trial of Socrates. Thus, the early engagement of P4/wC scholarship with religious education
may be construed as the reemergence of something that has been constitutive of the bond
between philosophy and education.
Against this backdrop, rather than adding our own perspective to the theoretical and
pedagogical debate over how and to what extent P4/wC and RE-EfS can be combined, we
have decided to attempt a review of the published literature on this debate, in order to map
out the territory of the work that has been undertaken over the past nearly 50 years. This
choice responds essentially to a methodological reason, which implies also, however, a stance
in terms of research ethics: P4/wC has a rich scholarly tradition and, therefore, it would be
intellectually irresponsible not to explore it before attempting to contribute to this debate
ourselves. Moreover, we have found that our preliminary exploration of the history of this
topic has not only made us conversant with the main trends that have emerged in its treatment,
but also given us new insights into how P4/wC has been developed, interpreted and even
revised as a result of its engagement with RE-EfS. Thus, we anticipate that our literature
review on this very specific topic may contribute also to a broadening of our understanding
of P4/wC itself. Therefore, for the purposes of this literature review, we have intentionally
resisted any settlement of the question of the (harmonious or antagonistic) theoretical,
educational and practical relationship between P4/wC and RE-EfS.
Delimiting and Organizing the Field of Inquiry
We began our work with a necessarily vague notion of wanting to look at published
research relating P4/wC to both RE and EfS. One reason for this was practical: the research
literature includes papers that treat each of the latter two areas, as well as papers that do not
make clear distinctions between them. Another reason was that though religion and
spirituality can be sharply distinguished for certain purposes, they are nevertheless closely
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related to one another. A sense of this sibling relationship is conveyed in Dewey’s distinction
between religion ‘as a noun substantive’ and religious ‘as adjectival’ (Dewey, 2006[1934],
p. 8). The former always signifies a special body of beliefs and practices having some kind
of institutional organization, loose or tight. In contrast, the adjective “religious” denotes
nothing in the way of a specifiable entity, either institutional or as a system of beliefs. It does
not denote anything to which one can specifically point as one can point to this and that
historic religion or existing church. For it does not denote anything that can exist by itself or
that can be organized into a particular and distinctive form of existence. It denotes attitudes
that may be taken toward every object and every proposed end or ideal. (Ibidem)
The religious attitude signifies something that is bound through imagination to a
general attitude. This comprehensive attitude, moreover, is much broader than anything
indicated by “moral” in its usual sense. The quality of attitude is displayed in art, science and
good citizenship. (Ibid., pp. 16-17).
The latitude and depth of Dewey’s notion of ‘the religious’ approaches and even
overlaps with the idea of ‘spirituality’. Indeed, the phrase ‘education for spirituality’ in the
literature we have examined points to a broad range of phenomena, including a) the opening
onto existential questions concerning the meaning of (human) existence or of one’s own life;
b) consideration of what is sometimes captured with the notion of ‘soul’ as a sort of core of
the personality that is not unrelated to the cognitive, cogitative and ethical dimensions of
human existence but somehow exceeds them through a relation to the Whole, however that
expression is understood; and/or c) a set of contemplative or ‘spiritual’ practices for self-
work conducive to a radical transformation of our relation with the world of experience and
of personality itself (see Hadot, 2001). However, it is not coincidental that these very types
of existential, metaphysical and contemplative dimensions of human life are also the stuff of
religious doctrine and practice, and this affinity between religion and spirituality justified a
form of ‘methodological opportunism’ resulting in our decision to include papers focused on
either RE or EfS in our initial literature review.
A second delimiting question that emerged in building the repertoire of sources for this
study was whether to include only papers that treated a (quasi) P4/wC approach in
relationship to RE-EfS, or to also include papers engaging with the relationship of RE-EfS
to other paradigms of philosophical inquiry or to philosophy itself. This question arose when
we began to distinguish different kinds of papers our initial search had uncovered. One kind
is typified by a paper by Claire Elise Katz (2004) discussing how Jewish religious education
can benefit from deploying philosophical inquiry construed in Levinasian terms. The case is
all the more interesting because Katz took her MA with Lipman and Sharp, and recognizes
an intellectual debt to them, while endorsing a Levinasian stance on the meaning and aim of
‘humanistic education’ (Katz, 2013). As we collected several papers concerning P4/wC and
RE in Jewish settings (e.g. Glaser & Gregory, 2017; Matthews, 2009; Matthews & Deichter,
1993), excluding Katz’s article from our analysis would have precluded the possibility of
contrasting P4/wC with other philosophical traditions mobilized within RE. We became
aware that a too-strict adherence to our initial purpose of reviewing only P4/wC scholarship
might be detrimental to our research agenda.
We discovered a very different kind of paper coming from a German-Scandinavian
context, addressing what is called Theologizing with Children (TwC). These papers required
us to determine whether TwC, as described in each instance, might be considered as a
peculiar inflection of the more general domain of children’s philosophical inquiry in
reference to religion, or as rooted in a completely different set of presuppositions. These
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papers, too, were obviously rich with insights gained from decades of focused theoretical and
practical work that promised to yield suggestions translatable into the P4/wC paradigm.
In the light of these considerations we formulated a tentative and generously broad
criterion to identify the corpus of papers to analyze: that papers had to present reflections on
philosophical inquiry with children – broadly understood (i.e.: not necessarily related to
P4/wC) – and RE-EfS. In addition, due to time constraints, we agreed to confine ourselves,
at this stage, to considering papers published in English. With these criteria in place, we
searched the indexes of journals historically dedicated to P4/wC, a bibliography assembled
by Maughn Gregory for a doctoral course on P4/wC and Religion, and databases of academic
journals available at our respective universities. We collected over 80 potential papers.
Our next step was to each read each of the 80 papers independently against our
criterion, and discuss together which of them to include in our study. This discussion resulted
in our agreeing to classify the papers into the following four groups (this was not always a
straightforward task, as in many cases the grouping of a paper depended on interpretation,
and a dialogue between us was necessary in order to reach a mutual decision):
 G1: papers immediately related to the research topic (philosophical inquiry with
children broadly understood and RE-EfS). This group was subdivided into two
sub-groups:
 G1.a: Theory-oriented papers (not presenting any actual experience in a classroom
or other educational setting);
 G1.b: Papers reporting actual experiences of philosophical practice in a classroom
or other educational setting (obviously theoretical reflections are often present also
in these papers);
 G2: Papers not directly addressing the topic but presenting either of two features:
– Authored by people with a strong P4/wC background;
– Providing concepts and ideas which enrich the theoretical platform for the
engagement with the research question (e.g. Cannon, 1996, 2012; Deitcher &
Glaser, 2004; Kennedy, 2000).
 G3: Papers not convergent with the topic, but that provide contrast cases that bring
our research question into sharper focus. This group included, for instance, papers
on Theologizing with Children that included no mention of philosophical inquiry
(e.g. Berryman, 2009).
 G4: Papers completely excluded as irrelevant to our analysis.
The result of this process was that we agreed on a corpus of 66 papers, all of which are
listed below in the bibliography of our sources.
In the process of reading the papers, each of us also began to schematize the
relationships among P4/wC and RE-EfS presented in them, and about mid-way through our
reading we agreed upon a preliminary grid of research questions that each of us would use to
analyze each paper:
1) Given that most of the publications talk about a role that some kind of philosophical
practice can play in RE-EfS, how many different aims of RE-EfS are described in
this work, and how is philosophical practice seen as relevant to each of those aims?
2) What other arguments are made in this work regarding other relationships between
philosophical practice and RE-EfS, or regarding any other relevant issues or
questions?
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3) If the work reports an experience of philosophical practice in RE-EfS:

a) What is the educational aim of the experience?
b) What kinds of texts were used?
c) Briefly describe the experience, in terms of teacher and student activity.
d) If some form of community of philosophical inquiry was used, how was it used
and were any modifications made to the traditional approach?
e) If the program was evaluated, what were the results?
4) Does the work report or suggest how a cultural context influenced the understanding
of the relationship between philosophical practice and RE-EfS?
Investigating P4/wC and the Aims of Religious Education
In this section we present some preliminary findings related to the first question on our
grid of analysis: ʽGiven that most of the publications we collected talk about a role that some
kind of philosophical practice can play in RE-EfS, how many different aims of RE-EfS are
described in these works, and how is philosophical practice seen as relevant to each of those
aims?ʼ Almost all of the papers relevant to this question came from G1, although some came
from G2. For the sake of clarity of analysis and exposition, we found it helpful to group the
aims we identified into five categories, which we present here with three provisos: a) many
of the papers addressed more than one kind of aim and in doing so indicated a rich cross-
fertilization among the categories we constructed; b) there is tension among some of the
particular aims grouped together within each category, so the categories should not be
understood as unified; rather, c) these categories should be understood as heuristic tools and
not as fixed types. Also, it should be noted that as with the grouping of the papers themselves,
the grouping of these educational aims was not always a straightforward task, but often
required dialogue between us in order to reach a mutual decision. The five categories of
educational aims for RE-EfS that we constructed were:
Hermeneutical Aims. A number of papers, including papers by each of the three
founders of P4/wC (Lipman, Sharp and Matthews), argue that an important set of aims of RE
has to do with becoming knowledgeable and skillful with religious texts. These aims include:
 The skillful reading of religious texts, including discerning similarities and
differences of meaning and context, noting apparent ambiguities and
inconsistencies, drawing inferences, recognizing and interpreting metaphors,
analogies, allegories and parables, and generating critical questions about the text.
 The development of rich and nuanced understandings of religious concepts,
including the variety of meanings particular terms have across multiple points of
reference within a religious text and the variety of interpretations given to those
terms in the intellectual tradition of a religious community. This aim also includes
distinguishing metaphysical, ethical, political, aesthetic and other kinds of meaning
conveyed in religious concepts. And it includes the possibility of generating fresh
interpretations and new meanings of religious concepts consistent with tradition.
 Working out the implications of the meaning of religious texts for contemporary
issues, whether philosophical (e.g., just war theory), practical (e.g., public policy on
the rights of LGBTQ people), or personal.
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 Some authors caution that religious texts require expertise to be properly understood
and interpreted, and argue for the aim that one’s understanding of religious texts
should be informed by historical, cultural and linguistic study.
Cultural Aims. A number of papers argue that RE-EfS should provide better
understanding of the cultural-historical background and context of religions, including
religious history, holidays, rituals, symbols, music, institutions, etc., and the ability to
reconstruct these meanings in light of novel political, scientific, and cultural developments.
These aims include:
 Understanding how religious traditions reflect particular cultural concepts and
values of the places of their origins.
 Understanding similarities and differences of cognate religious concepts (e.g.
‘sacrifice’ or ‘soul’) across multiple cultures within a particular religious tradition
and across different religious traditions.
 Understanding how religious concepts and values are expressed in music, rituals,
holidays and other aspects of personal and communal life, such that part of the
meaning of at least certain aspects of experience is religious meaning.
 Understanding the relationship between religion and the academic disciplines /
school subjects.
 Understanding that religious rituals, holidays and other practices change over time
in response to political, scientific, cultural and other kinds of changes, which may
or may not entail a change of the meaning of those practices.
 Creatively reconstructing the meaning of religious tradition in light of such changes
as a means of preserving traditional meanings into the future.
Socio-political Aims. The wealth of meanings that religions can offer and their
significance in the construction of personal and cultural identity can, at the same time, lead
to the development of confessionally gated communities. Therefore, a number of papers
argue that a certain kind of RE-EfS is pivotal within pluralistic, intercultural and multi-
confessional societies in order to preserve their pluralism and, indeed, to help it to flourish.
The particular aims in this category include:
 Understanding the sometimes deep epistemic, social and cultural differences among
religious, spiritual and atheistic traditions and communities.
 Developing empathy – beyond a shallow and relativistic tolerance – for individuals
and communities whose ir/religious beliefs and ways of life are incompatible with
one’s own.
 Critiquing religious beliefs and practices that are evaluated as not merely
unjustifiable but positively harmful.
 Negotiating cultural differences, particularly in contexts of public policy and public
space (including schools), in the manner and spirit of democratic citizenship.
Aims of Moral and Spiritual Growth. A number of papers argued for the value of RE-
EfS in promoting moral, emotional and/or spiritual development or growth. Such aims
include:
287
 Appropriating one’s own religious, spiritual or philosophical tradition, and/or other

traditions one has studied, as repertoires of existential meaning for constructing a
sense of the meaning of one’s life and/or the human condition.
 Appropriating those traditions as sources of guidance for ethical decision making
and for imagining and aspiring to the kind of (moral) person one wishes to become,
the kind of (moral) life one wishes to lead, and/or the kind of communities one
wishes to help construct.
 Cultivating a sense of reverence, awe and/or wonder, understood as a spiritual
experience (in either a theistic or non-theistic sense of that phrase).
 Creating new metaphors to substitute for the old metaphor of the Western,
monotheist God, which is no longer in keeping with the mindset and the sensibility
of contemporary human beings; practicing religion as a fundamental dimension of
being in the world not necessarily related to historical religious forms.
Epistemological Aims. A number of papers proposed aims for RE-EfS having to do
with affording children the opportunity to independently evaluate religious beliefs, values
and practices, and to work out and justify their own positions regarding them, especially in
regard to the religious tradition of their family. As an illustration of the richness of all of
these categories, we will discuss this category of aims in more detail below.
Zooming in on Epistemological Aims
Under the heading of ‘epistemology’ we have identified a vast array of aims for
RE-EfS related to recognizing and strengthening children’s epistemic agency regarding
religious beliefs, values and practices. These aims include:
 The ability to independently evaluate religious beliefs, values and practices in a non-
dogmatic way and to work out and justify their own positions regarding those views.
 To allow children to ask and explore their own theological, philosophical, and/or
existential questions (whether or not related to their own traditions). This aim explicitly
builds on an observation made in many of the papers we collected, that children’s thinking
is already replete with religious meaning (see Deitcher & Glaser, 2004; Büttner, 2009;
Gregory, 2008).
In the first contribution dedicated to the topic, Adrian Dupuis inaugurates a theme that
will remain constant throughout the reflection on P4/wC and Re-EfS, i.e., that inasmuch as
religion involves belief, it comes under the purview of philosophical epistemology:
The decision to accept or reject religious belief is philosophical; that is, each individual must answer
the question, Is faith (or revelation) a valid source of knowledge? Philosophy examines the
foundations of religious belief just as it examines the basis of scientific ‘belief’ […] Revelation
(faith) provides knowledge (truths) beyond the scope of the human mind. Nevertheless, it is the
human mind which ‘assents’ to the authenticity and validity of these extra-human sources. (Dupuis,
1979, pp. 62-63)
Jennifer Glaser and Maughn Gregory (2017), Joseph Jenkins (1986) and Natasya van
der Straten Waillet et al. (2015), agree that, to the extent that it is rational, the decision to
accept or reject any belief (including a religious belief), is inherently philosophical.
A number of authors offer arguments as to why children should be not merely permitted
but encouraged and supported in exercising the epistemic agency to choose and/or construct
their own religious beliefs. Dupuis (1979), Patricia Hannam (2012a), Henrik Vestergaard
288
Jørgensen (2009), and Helen Thwaites (2005) observe that critical thinking, objectivity and
non-indoctrination in the study of religion are legal obligations in secular government schools
in many countries. Dupuis points out, further, that this approach is in fact favored by many
religious schools and much contemporary philosophy of religious education. Gregory (2008),
Hannam (2012a), Martens (2009) and van der Straten Waillet et al. (2015), discuss a number
of ways in which supporting children’s epistemic agency in the study of religion is good for
them, e.g. that it answers their need to make sense of conflicting religious, moral and political
messages they encounter, that it brings more reasonableness and fairness to religious
discussions that children inevitably have together, that thoughtful, un-coerced inquiry is
necessary in order for children to hold their religious beliefs with authentic conviction, and
that epistemic agency is necessary for young people to develop a strong sense of personal
identity and community belonging. Drawing on similar reasons, Stephen Law (2008) argues
that parents do not have the right to send their child to a school where their religious beliefs
will not be subjected to critical scrutiny. In addition, Gareth Matthews (1990) and Ann Sharp
(1997) point out that teachers can learn from free and open philosophical discussions around
religious questions with their students.
A number of authors offer responses to both actual and hypothetical objections to
permitting children to question and therefore perhaps to reject traditional religious beliefs. Thus,
on the one hand, Gregory (2008) and Lipman et al. (1980) caution that the philosophy teacher
must avoid directly criticizing any particular religious view. ‘The teacher's role is … not to
change children's beliefs but to help them find better and more sufficient reasons for believing
those things they choose, upon reflection, to believe in. And further, it is to strengthen their
understanding of the issues involved in their holding to the beliefs they do hold’ (Lipman et al.,
1980, pp. 107-8). On the other hand, Law (2008), Martens (2009) and van der Straten Waillet et
al. (2015) counter the notion that encouraging children to think critically about religion entails
the promotion of religious and moral relativism, which constitutes another threat to religious
belief. And Gregory (2008) makes the empirical claim that the majority of children who engage
in philosophical inquiry do not change their basic value commitments.
Only two articles, by Parvaneh Ghazinejad and Claudia Ruitenberg (2014) and Peter Shea
(2018) take seriously the confusion and angst that may befall children who are invited to question,
publicly discuss and perhaps defend their religious views. Thus, Shea worries about the child
whose ‘experience is far enough removed from that of others that the child has no way of sharing
that experience briefly in a community of inquiry discussion [....] The situation is worse for a
child who believes that God told her something’ (Shea, 2018, pp. 169). Ghazinejad and
Ruitenberg address more dramatic concerns about children invited to question and evaluate
religious belief, value and practice in fundamentalist communities in which ‘conformity with
these norms and rules is also part of children’s safety, career prospects, and well-being’
(Ghazinejad & Ruitenberg, 2014, pp. 319). They argue that ‘in authoritarian contexts, respect for
children’s capacity for rational thought must be balanced with responsibility for their safety in
their community,’ and that ‘P4C should be used not only to teach analytic critical thinking and
foster a ‘critical spirit,’ but also to help students develop the practical wisdom to judge where,
when, and how best to use these skills and dispositions’ ibid., p. 317).
The articles that support the aims of RE-EfS to develop children’s epistemic agency
offer, in turn, explanations of how a number of different aspects of P4/wC or other varieties
of philosophical practice can support those aims. These include:
 First and foremost, philosophy teaches students how to, and that they ought to,
‘search for and provide reasons for assenting to religious doctrines’ (Dupuis, 1979,
289
p. 63; see also Lipman, 1984a). Philosophical reasoning includes the identification
of assumptions, which is an important aspect of the search for reasons. As Lipman
et al. explain, ‘religious discussions usually do not explore the assumptions on
which religious beliefs rest, while a philosophical discussion cannot rest content
unless it does explore its own assumptions’ (Lipman et al., 1980, p. 107).
 The evaluation of religious belief, value and practice depends on an informed
understanding of them, and philosophical analysis includes clarification of such
beliefs, values and practices, including the clarification of ‘issues involved in
[students’] holding to the beliefs they do hold’ (ibid., p. 108).
 The philosophical analysis of any belief involves the consideration of alternative
beliefs. As Lipman et al. suggested, ‘[t]here can be no serious objection to affording
the child a view of the range of alternatives from which human beings throughout
the world select their beliefs. After all, if it is not indoctrination to suggest to
children who profess to believe in many gods, or in none at all, that there are
conceivable alternatives to their views, why should it not also be possible to suggest
to those who believe in a solitary supernatural being that there are many numerical
alternatives?’ (ibid., p. 107).
 The application of logic to religious beliefs can, on the one hand, ‘point up
contradictions which arise in religious beliefs and even in religious practice,’ and,
on the other hand, ‘enable one to construct a coherent religious system (a theology)
which may convince the mind of the truth-seeker’ (Dupuis, 1979, pp. 62-3; see also
Jenkins, 1986, p. 26).
 Philosophy encourages young people to ‘raise and formulate significant and
puzzling questions about matters which are in the field of concern for religion and
faith’ (Hannam, 2012a, p. 219). The practice of P4/wC involves explicitly soliciting
young people’s questions. And teachers with philosophical training are more likely
to recognize the religious, existential and/or philosophical meaning in children’s
questions and to take these questions seriously by spending time on them, and
encouraging the children to discuss, analyze and enlarge on them (Jenkins, 1986).
 Finally, the practice of philosophical dialogue, or the community of philosophical
inquiry – a ‘disciplined discussion, where interpretations are put forth with reasoned
defenses’ (Lipman, 1984a), involves virtually all of the methods just outlined.
Through the practice of philosophical dialogue ‘children can be introduced to a
range of ideas and can build on these together. This helps them to struggle
collectively with complex concepts and possibly to create new ideas as a result’
(Prescott, 2015, p. 36; see also Hannam, 2012a). Roose notes that in the context of
RE, ‘for such a discussion to be successful, the teacher must be ready to switch
between several different roles, [including t]he expert … [t]he partner at eye-level
… [t]he presenter of different canonical views … [and t]he presenter of different
non-expert views: (Roose, 2009, pp. 75-6).
Un-concluding remarks
Having insisted on the preliminary and embryonic character of this paper, it would be
self-contradictory for us to presume to offer any definitive conclusions to the reader.
However, there is a philosophical-educational point that could be made in relation to the
context in which we have situated our literature review. In Section 1 we mentioned the two
290
oppositional camps that converge on the rejection of the very project of RE-EfS through
philosophical inquiry, seeing it as a kind of hircocervus. From the perspective of the longue
durée this convergence is not surprising and can, in fact, be construed simply as the
perpetuation of the much-too-modern discourse of reason, understood as the divorce of
religion from philosophy and/or science. That divorce sometimes leads proponents of
religion and religious education to assume stances of isolationism and even protectionism
from the critical bent of secular philosophy and science. Secularism has indeed been a
hallmark of the Enlightenment, but the secularization of school systems in the Western world
beginning in the 19th century ran along two divergent philosophical avenues. In the Hegelian
avenue, religion maintains a specific role in the initial stages of education because it is one
of the forms of the spirit, but is left behind once the student has attained the superior stages
of the development of the spirit and requires the study of philosophy in order to substitute
conceptual knowledge for the representational cognition of religion.3 In the positivist avenue,
religion is seen as a stage of human inquiry well overcome and replaced by science, and,
accordingly, no place is granted to it in the educational system, which aims instead at
cultivating the scientific attitude – in philosophy and history, no less than in mathematics and
science.
As mentioned above, from the very beginning, the pioneers of P4/wC deviated from
this oppositional stance and saw a number of affinities among religion, spirituality and
philosophical practice. We suggest that this is a manifestation of the deep pragmatist thrust
of P4/wC. We are aware, of course, that Gareth Matthews cannot be enrolled in the
pragmatist tradition stricto sensu, and that P4/wC has had so many evolutions and inflections
over decades and been deployed through so many different theoretical frameworks that many
theoreticians and practitioners in P4/wC would be uncomfortable being identified with
pragmatism. However, by the phrase ‘pragmatist thrust’ we refer to the kind of attitude
William James (2000[1907], p. 23) captured when he wrote that pragmatism is the ‘mediating
way of thinking’ between the tough-mindedness inspired by science and the tender-
mindedness which is unwilling to dismiss other forms of discourse just because they are alien
to science. Indeed, Lipman pointed in this direction when he wrote of the place of philosophy
in a ‘metaphysics of wonder’:
When wonder occurs, it is due to the fact that the road ahead is being divided into a steadily
widening path and a steadily narrowing path. The awesome widening path in time obliterates all
the details of its existence: one’s relationship to it moves in the direction of the mystical, while the
narrowing path moves in the direction of the scientific. It is out of the dynamic, explosive
3
Italy’s educational debate at the beginning of the 20th century (culminating in the great school reform in the
1920s) provides us an exemplary case of this Hegelian stance. Indeed, the Neo-Hegelian school (the main
exponent of which was the Minister of Education who authored and realized the reform) was radically
immanentist and aimed at emancipating the educational system from the ‘grip’ of Catholic culture. However,
these reformers operated in a context in which the Catholic Church still had tremendous cultural, social and
political influence. The Hegelian stance allowed them to preserve and even recognize a legitimate place for
RE at the primary school level by gainsaying, however, any role for RE in advanced levels of the school system.
According to a Hegelian view, religion, and more specifically, the Christianity, was able to introduce young
people into a spiritual dimension through ‘representation’ but it had to be replaced by philosophy when
students grew up (at the high school level). In the end, however, the Neo-Hegelians did not succeed and RE
has remained a part of the Italian curriculum at all levels. Of course, the Italian case is all the more interesting
given the influence of the Vatican over the country’s school policies and the fact that Italy may have been the
only country in which there was a compulsory teaching of philosophy for three years in grammar school.
291
relationship between these two movements, that thinking is generated. […] And so Aristotle is right
to see wonder as the ground of both religion and science, both of which are succeeded by thinking
– philosophical thinking in particular. (Lipman, 2005, pp. 3, 5)
The nearly five-decade long engagement of P4/wC with the question of RE-EfS could
be read as the instantiation, at the educational level, of the fruitfulness of such a pragmatist
attitude, hostile to any final either-or. Moreover, we suggest that this attitude is especially
valuable in our ‘post-secular society’, as Jürgen Habermas (2008) has called it; that is, a
world in which religions are not seen any longer as a remainder of past ages to be overcome,
but rather as legitimate speaking partners in the conversation of humankind. Valuable too, in
this world, is the discovery of ‘tools’ like the community of philosophical inquiry, that can
keep the avenues of communication open.
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Las metáforas por las que la infancia habla
Pablo Flores del Rosario

Instituto Superior de Ciencias de la Educación del Estado de México
pablofloresdelrosario@hotmail.com
CV
Doctor en Filosofía de la Ciencia por el IIF-UNAM. Profesor en el Instituto Superior de
Ciencias de la Educación del Estado de México. Expresidente de la Federación Mexicana de
Filosofía para Niños. Ha escrito libros en diversas editoriales y diversos artículos en
memorias de congresos y revistas especializadas. Profesor en la Pontificia Universidad
Católica de Ponce, Puerto Rico. Profesor visitante en la Universidad Experimental Simón
Rodríguez. Participante en el programa de movilidad académica en la Universidad Aegean,
Rhodes, Grecia. Conferencista en congresos nacionales e internacionales en filosofía y
educación. Organizador de congresos nacionales en FpN de México.
RESUMEN
En este trabajo hablo de una serie de producciones metafóricas, que es la forma de habla de
la infancia, realizadas por un grupo de niños que trabajaron con el tema de relaciones,
capítulos 5, y centralmente 6 de Pixie (Lipman, 1998).
En términos conceptuales, dos ideas articulan la exposición sobre la metáfora como modo de
habla de la infancia para apropiarse de su mundo: la idea de Ricoeur, sobre la metáfora como
predicación, como modo de decir otro mundo; y la idea de foco y marco de la metáfora, según
Black, porque en ese choque entre dos palabras se produce un tercer sentido.
En términos empíricos, acotamos las formas de trato de la infancia con lo que sucede en la
clase. Posiblemente ocurran en otros espacios de su vida que, sin dejar de ser importantes,
no desarrollaremos en este trabajo. En términos metodológicos se trata de un trabajo
hermenéutico porque trata de recuperar comprensivamente la voz de los niños.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Infancia, trato, habla, metáfora, ciencia.
ABSTRACT
In this work I talk about a series of metaphorical productions, which is the form of childhood
speech, carried out by a group of children who worked with the topic of relationships,
chapters 5, and centrally 6, of Pixie. In conceptual terms, two ideas articulate the presentation
about the metaphor as a way of children's speech in order to appropriate its world: Ricoeur's
idea, about the metaphor as preaching, as a way of saying another world; and the idea of
focus and frame of the metaphor, according to Black, because in that clash between two
words a third meaning is produced.From an empirical approach, they probably happen in
other areas of their lives that, while important, we will not develop in this paper. From a
methodological point of view, this is a hermeneutical study because it seeks to
comprehensively recover children's voices.
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KEYWORDS
Childhood, deal, speech, metaphor, science.
INTRODUCCIÓN, PROBLEMA, LÍMITES

La infancia establece múltiples relaciones con su mundo. En cada una de ellas su forma
de trato con lo a-la-mano revela el modo singular de su ser. Modo percibido siempre desde
otro lugar, que hace invisible las metáforas por las que la infancia habla, que se revelan en
las metáforas que construye.
Percibir la infancia siempre es posible si la convertimos en tema con conceptos
científicamente acotados, pero de este modo ya disponemos de cierta estructura conceptual,
tanto para hacerla tema como para explicarla. Esta estructura construye una concepción
científica que permite hablar de una infancia que no es ella misma, porque no la refleja al
disolverla en conceptos objetivadores, lo que evita tomar en serio sus metáforas.
Pero la infancia no es tema de ciencia alguna, es vida. Entonces el problema es
percibirla así: como vida y en el movimiento que la hace ser así. Esto es posible si atendemos
a las formas de trato con lo a-la-mano mediante las cuales la infancia se relaciona con su
mundo.
Entre lo que en el lenguaje llamamos lo literal, dedicado más bien a la descripción de
la realidad usando conceptos con significado estandarizado y plenamente aceptado por una
comunidad, existe la posibilidad de re-describir la realidad con conceptos que puedan
expandir su significado. Esta posibilidad estaría determinada por la metáfora. Este es el modo
como la infancia se relaciona con su mundo: lo re-configura, por eso nos resulta
extraordinario, fuera de lugar, ajeno a nuestra forma adulta de relación.
En este trabajo hablo de una serie de producciones metafóricas, que ocurrieron después
que un grupo de niños trabajaron con el tema de relaciones, capítulos 5 y centralmente 6 de
Pixie (Lipman, 1998). Al exponer, para pensar, estas metáforas producidas por los niños,
articulo la idea de que ellas son un medio por el cual la infancia habla. Me parece que esto
formaría parte de las exploraciones en filosofía del lenguaje del mismo Lipman (1988, 1998,
2016), como lo acota Splitter (1993).
En términos conceptuales, dos ideas articulan las exposiciones sobre la metáfora como
modo de habla de la infancia, para apropiarse de su mundo. En primer lugar, la idea de
Ricoeur (1995, 2001) sobre la metáfora como predicación, como modo de decir otro mundo,
de predicar acerca de otro mundo, cosa que hacen los niños en las metáforas presentadas. Y
lo hacen por su peculiar trato con las cosas a-la-mano en su entorno, solo en este gesto la
infancia se apropia de su mundo, y lo expresa en términos lingüísticos como metáforas. En
segundo lugar, también se pone en juego la idea de foco y marco de la metáfora (Black, 1966)
porque en ese choque entre dos palabras se produce un tercer sentido que, al predicarse, da
como resultado una nueva forma de ver la relación trazada por el marco. De este modo, dos
pensamientos en el marco y por la presión del foco, producen el tercer pensamiento,
articulado a los anteriores, pero sin ser ninguno de ellos: de esta forma son las líneas paralelas
que terminan por “hacerse curvas y juntarse”.
En términos empíricos, acotamos las formas de trato de la infancia con lo que sucede
en la clase. Posiblemente ocurran en otros espacios de su vida que, sin dejar de ser
importantes, no desarrollaremos en este trabajo. Una de las formas de trato con las cosas a-
la-mano, uno de sus modos de habla, con los que la infancia se relaciona con su mundo, es
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su uso de la metáfora. Ella le ofrece la posibilidad de ver el mundo de modo diferente. En

términos metodológicos se trata de un trabajo hermenéutico porque trata de recuperar
comprensivamente la voz de los niños, que surgió durante el trabajo sobre el capítulo 5 y 6
de Pixie (Lipman, 1998), en un grupo de sexto grado de educación primaria en México.
El trabajo presenta dos límites. El primero está relacionado con la ausencia de la
discusión sobre la desaparición de la metáfora en Heidegger (2003) y Derrida (1989), según
lo analiza Rovatti (1990, p. 43): Heidegger mata a la metáfora, al liquidar el valor de la
metáfora en filosofía; la metáfora sólo existe en los límites de la metafísica. Posición que
recupera Derrida en “La mitología blanca: la metáfora en el texto filosófico” (Derrida, 1989).
El segundo se marca por el camino a seguir, cuyas coordenadas fijamos de antemano en
forma de dos tesis: primero, que la metáfora genera nuevas formas de ver la realidad;
segundo, que el pensamiento infantil está vertebrado por la metáfora, como forma de habla
y de trato con las cosas a la mano y como un modo de formar un todo con la magia del mundo.
El trabajo se desarrolla en los siguientes apartados. En primer lugar, haremos una
somera revisión acerca de la metáfora, que nos permitirá construir una definición para ser
pensada en el resto del trabajo. En segundo lugar, discutiremos varias metáforas que
surgieron en la clase, discusión que permitirá volver a pensar la idea de la metáfora como
modo de habla de la infancia.
El camino poco transitado en la metáfora: adorno del lenguaje y persuasión
o recurso heurístico
La perspectiva dominante para conceptualizar la metáfora, es aquella que la define
como un ‘poema en miniatura’ (Beardsley, 1958, p. 134), o como más comúnmente se llama,
‘cambiar una palabra por otra’. Esta perspectiva es una prolongación de la definición que
Aristóteles da de la metáfora.
Aristóteles (1946), define la poética como reproducción por imitación, “mimesis”, y lo
que se reproduce por imitación es a los hombres en acción. De esta naturaleza son los primeros
poemas, la Ilíada y la Odisea, e incluso los más modernos, “Los amorosos” de Jaime Sabines
(2012), por ejemplo. Por esta razón, en el origen de la poesía se halla que es natural al hombre
el reproducir imitativamente y que es un placer la reproducción imitativa. Así, muchas cosas
naturales nos desagradan, pero nos resultan agradables cuando contemplamos sus
representaciones (Aristóteles, 1946, p. 5). Lo que el ser humano, y de modo placentero,
reproduce, son las acciones humanas. La forma en que reproducimos las acciones, es a través
de la trama o argumento, que es la reproducción imitativa de las acciones, donde “trama o
argumento es la peculiar disposición de las acciones” (Aristóteles, 1946, p. 9), que se explayan
siempre en un principio, un medio y un fin. Lo que supone una narrativa donde se “traza el
plan general y después se pasa a los episodios y desarrollos” (Aristóteles, 1946, p. 26).
Después de bosquejar lo anterior, Aristóteles pasa a desarrollar la dicción y el discurso.
Entra en el discurso, dice Aristóteles, todo lo que debe expresarse con la palabra, así:
demostrar, conmover las pasiones, despertar temor e ira, etc. Aquí Aristóteles distingue entre
las acciones que aparecen por sí mismas y los “efectos de las palabras que tienen que ser
preparadas por el orador y provenir del discurso mismo” (Aristóteles, 1946, p. 30). En cuanto
a los elementos de la elocución, Aristóteles los enumera: la letra, sílabas, conjunción,
articulación, nombre, verbo, caso y frase. Aquí expresa que el nombre puede ser metafórico
y concluye con la tesis: “metáfora es transferencia del nombre de una cosa a otra; del género
a la especie, de la especie al género o según analogía” (Aristóteles, 1946, p. 33).
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Entendamos la tesis con los ejemplos del mismo Aristóteles. ‘He aquí que mi nave se
paró’, ilustra el caso del género a la especie, pues el género es anclar mientras que una de
sus especies es pararse; ‘miles y miles de esforzadas acciones llevó a cabo Ulises’, ilustra el
caso de la especie al género, donde miles y miles es la especie y muchas es el género. Como
los ejemplos hacen ver una metáfora es la “transferencia del nombre de una cosa a otra”“
(Aristóteles, 1946, p. 33). En posteriores ejemplos Aristóteles desarrolla la idea de metáfora
como adorno en el discurso.
Contra esta tesis de la metáfora como adorno del discurso, el mismo Aristóteles, en la
Retórica, expresa que la metáfora bien traída es la que apunta a un enigma. “En general, de
los enigmas que están bien hechos pueden obtenerse metáforas idóneas, porque las metáforas
apuntan a un enigma, de modo que (en esto) se hace evidente que está bien traídas”
(Aristóteles, 1994, p. 494). En este pasaje uno puede interpretar que la metáfora puede dar
que pensar y no exclusivamente hacer reír, servir de adorno y persuadir.
La metáfora como persuasión puede verse en la Retórica de Aristóteles, donde
prácticamente recupera las tesis básicas que ya ha desarrollado en su Poética. De este modo,
dirá Aristóteles, si se trata de decir algo hermoso “la metáfora habrá de sacarse de lo que hay
mejor dentro del mismo género, y si es de censura, de lo que haya peor” (Aristóteles, 1994,
p. 492). Lo que importa es que la metáfora sirva para persuadir sobre la belleza o la censura.
En este sentido Aristóteles expresa, que la “mayoría de las expresiones elegantes lo son en
virtud de la metáfora y en tanto que resultan de conducir a engaño” (Aristóteles, 1994, p.
541). Y esta es la lectura dominante sobre la metáfora, la que se centra en su naturaleza
persuasiva. Por cierto, acerca del origen de la metáfora hay una teoría interesante. Según ésta,
se adopta la naturaleza de lo que la metáfora indica. Así, ‘es un león en la lucha’ significa,
en el lenguaje mágico primitivo, que el personaje ha adoptado realmente la naturaleza del
león. Ahora bien, la eficacia de la retórica de la metáfora, se da porque una vez perdida la
creencia en la identificación, no por ello se pierden las resonancias mágicas evocadoras que
la metáfora logra establecer (Aristóteles, 1994, p. 491).
Sinteticemos lo hasta aquí desarrollado. Para ello, dividamos la Poética en dos partes.
En la primera, aparece como como fundamento la reproducción por imitación, centrada en el
arte de dar nombre, parte de los juegos de lenguaje que gobiernan esta acción. En
consecuencia, la primera parte de la Poética está centrada en la descripción del proceso de
reproducción, imitación, mimesis, centralmente de las acciones humanas; a través de este
proceso se logra justificar la construcción de los primeros mitos explicativos del mundo. Lo
que los mitos recuperan son las acciones humanas, para darles explicación. Aquí no parece
necesaria la metáfora, pues la Poética intenta recuperar las acciones humanas lo más
fielmente posible. En la segunda parte de la Poética, aparece la necesidad del bien decir, para
reproducir mejor las acciones, aparece el uso persuasivo y ornamental de la palabra. Y aquí
entra la metáfora.
A lo largo de la Poética, Aristóteles describe la metáfora como algo ornamental, en
tanto que en la Retórica la describe como algo que sirve para persuadir. De vez en cuando, y
de modo implícito, aparece una idea de la metáfora como algo que da que pensar, esto es
como un recurso heurístico. Esto es algo que en Aristóteles permanece marginal. Es plausible
afirmar que la concepción de metáfora en Aristóteles está centrada exclusivamente en el
proceso de nominación, de ahí su insistencia en que la metáfora es el cambio de una palabra
por otra. En el mismo sentido, el proceso de nombrar la realidad no nos permite hacer una
re-descripción de ella. En este sentido nos quedamos atados al mundo tal cual es, sin
posibilidad alguna de transformarlo mediante el uso del lenguaje.
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Hasta donde se puede ver esta ambigüedad sigue presente en la definición que ofrece
Lipman sobre la metáfora. Aunque la ubica en el pensamiento ampliativo (Lipman, 2016) y
como parte del razonamiento en el lenguaje (Lipman, 1988), lo cierto es que su definición
puede tomarse de modo ambiguo, “El pensamiento metafórico es, por tanto, una síntesis de
incompatibilidades que produce, como la binocularidad, una profunda visión mucho mayor
que la mera yuxtaposición” (Lipman, 2016, p.82), pero esa síntesis de incompatibilidades
puede tomarse como una relación, aunque incompatible, entre dos palabras. Reducida de ese
modo, la metáfora puede ser tomada como adorno del discurso o medio de persuasión.
Ricoeur deshace esta ambigüedad.
La objeción de Ricoeur consiste en cuestionar el presupuesto de Aristóteles de que cada
palabra tiene en sí misma una significación. Ricoeur pregunta “¿qué presuposiciones están
implícitas en este tratamiento retórico de la metáfora?”, y responde, “primero se admite que
las palabras han de ser tomadas aisladamente una de la otra, cada una teniendo en sí misma
una significación…” (Ricoeur, 1995, p. 61).
Por esta razón, la crítica clave de Ricoeur, consiste en que Aristóteles sostiene que las
palabras deben ser tomadas de modo aislado, cada una teniendo su significación en sí misma.
Se refiere a palabras que son comunes a determinado contexto, donde se fijan sus normas de
operación. En este sentido la metáfora inicia donde la gramática termina. Y la metáfora
trataría de las significaciones figurativas de una palabra, que pueden terminar, a fuerza de su
uso, como parte del empleo ordinario. Tales significaciones tendrían dos funciones: o sirven
de adorno o de persuasión. Pero se trata en todo caso de las palabras fuera de su contexto
pragmático de uso.
Para superar esta perspectiva de la metáfora, Ricoeur sugiere que la metáfora tendría
más que ver con la semántica de la oración que la de la palabra. En este sentido la metáfora
es predicativa, y no denominativa, pues su sentido lo adquiere en una expresión, y no en la
palabra (Ricoeur, 1995, p. 63). Las palabras nombran, las oraciones predican sobre la
realidad, la describen. Es justo este sentido predicativo de la metáfora, lo que nos puede
permitir una re-descripción de la realidad.
Ricoeur nos confronta con una distinción necesaria para entender un modo de evitar
aquella ambigüedad. Habrá que distinguir entre la función poética y la retórica, que es la
misma que entre ficción y redescripción. Mientras en la segunda se trata de persuadir a los
hombres adornando el discurso para que agrade; “…la primera trata de redescribir la realidad
por el camino indirecto de la ficción heurística” (Ricoeur, 2001, p. 325). Sólo usando la
metáfora en la poética, es como el lenguaje se despoja de su función descriptiva para liberar
su función de descubrimiento (Ibidem). La idea es que al usar la metáfora podemos ver lo
que un discurso guarda como intimidad. Y esa intimidad revela un mundo que pasa
desapercibido cuando solo hacemos su descripción, por más fiel que ésta sea. Aquí habrá que
entender que el discurso guarda la significación de las palabras.
Black (1966), por su parte, en continuo debate con la perspectiva clásica de la metáfora
y siguiendo algunos desarrollos contemporáneos, propone una alternativa, que puede ser
leída como una versión heurística de aquélla. Black (1966) distingue entre el foco y el marco
de la metáfora, que son las palabras usadas en sentido literal. De este modo en “el presidente
aguijó la discusión”, el foco es “aguijó”, mientras que el resto de las palabras forman parte
del marco. Esto es importante, pues la metáfora funciona si el foco es usado en un marco
adecuado. De no ser así la metáfora no es posible. De nuevo el problema no es del uso de las
palabras en un enunciado, sino del modo en que usamos los enunciados. Black (1966) aclara
que la metáfora pertenece más a la pragmática que a la semántica. De este modo la metáfora
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aparece en el uso que hacemos del lenguaje. Pero la distinción de Black (1966) opera en un
análisis pragmático del lenguaje.
Para Black (1966), hay tres perspectivas sobre la metáfora. La perspectiva del enfoque
substitutivo, que consiste en cambiar las expresiones literales por sus equivalentes
expresiones metafóricas. Así “el hombre es un ser solitario”, puede cambiarse por “el hombre
es un lobo”. En este enfoque, comprender una metáfora es equivalente a descifrar un código.
Este enfoque es algo que ha sido criticado anteriormente en este mismo trabajo.
Existe también la perspectiva del enfoque comparativo, que consiste en la presentación
de una analogía o semejanza, donde la metáfora sustituye a una comparación literal
equivalente. El ejemplo: “Ricardo es un león”, sustituye a “Ricardo es como un león” (en
cuanto a ser valiente). De este modo, seguimos ‘denominando’, ‘inscribiendo’, sin predicar,
pero, como objeta Black (1966), “la metáfora crea la semejanza, predica, y no formula una
semejanza existente con anterioridad” (Black, 1966, p. 47). Con esto, pasamos al tercer
enfoque, que es una definición interactiva de la metáfora. Esta se define cuando: “tenemos
dos pensamientos de cosas distintas en actividad simultánea y apoyados por una sola palabra
o frase, cuyo significado es una resultante de su interacción” (Richards, 1936, p. 93),
definición que usará el mismo Black. El ejemplo que nos sirve como ilustración: “los pobres
son los negros de Europa”. Desde la definición anterior, hay una actividad simultánea de
nuestros pensamientos acerca de los pobres en Europa y los negros de América. Pero aquí,
el foco metafórico ‘negro’ alcanza un nuevo sentido, que no pertenece al significado de sus
usos literales, ni al de ningún substituto metafórico, el nuevo sentido se da porque el marco
de la metáfora fuerza a la palabra focal a una extensión de su significado (Black, 1936, p.
49). Para que esto funcione el lector debe atender al mismo tiempo al antiguo y al nuevo
significado. En esta conexión de dos ideas, reside el secreto de la metáfora. Más aún, al
alcanzar el foco un nuevo significado, con ello logramos reorganizar nuestra visión de las
cosas. En el ejemplo, adquirimos una nueva visión de los negros de América.
Black, piensa la metáfora como una pantalla, donde el foco y su sistema de tópicos que
le acompañan permiten “ver”. Esto es, el asunto central se ve a través de la expresión
metafórica, pues la misma metáfora filtra y transforma, selecciona y pone en primer plano
aspectos que no se verían con otros medios. Y esto es un abrir y ver a través. El ejemplo, “el
hombre es un lobo para el hombre”, sugiere que el hombre posee rasgos lobunos: ¿no cambia
con ello mi perspectiva de hombre?, ¿no se abren nuevos caminos de investigación sobre lo
significa ser hombre? Quizá deba decirse que la metáfora nos permite destacar aspectos que
de otro modo no podrían destacarse, y que sale afectado el marco de la metáfora. Después de
todo, la actividad simultánea de nuestro pensamiento con dos ideas debe afectar el marco
donde operan, siendo la tercera idea diferente de las dos primeras. Con dos mundos podemos
construir un tercero. Construir mundos, no nombrarlos o describirlos, esa es la tarea de la
metáfora como heurística. Esto es posible si atendemos a la dimensión pragmática del
lenguaje donde funciona la metáfora. Con esto logramos que la metáfora tenga un sentido
heurístico, en términos de permitirnos construir nuevas realidades.
En el campo de Filosofía para Niños ha habido un amplio despliegue sobre
concepciones de infancia (Sheperd, 2006; Kennedy, 2006, 2010; Kohan, 2004); no por ello
puede verse una idea que relacione la metáfora y el modo de habla de la infancia. Lo que no
niega que se haga uso de metáforas para pensar esa infancia: Kennedy y su metáfora “la
infancia es un texto”, que expone cuando discute la forma que tenemos para comprenderla
(2006, p. 18); o Kohan y la metáfora la “infancia es ruptura y discontinuidad”, tomada como
argumento central para exponer su tesis sobre la infancia como una metáfora de la creación
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en el pensamiento (2004, p. 130). Esas metáforas nos hacen ver la infancia de otro modo al
obligarnos a pensarla de modo diferente.
Desde nuestra perspectiva habrá que avanzar en estas discusiones. Por esta razón en lo
que sigue exponemos la idea de que la infancia usa la metáfora como modo de habla, pero
esta idea funciona si se parte de su modo de trato con las cosas a-la-mano, que es lo que
permite apropiarse de su entorno.
La Metáfora como modo de trato con las cosas en la infancia o la discusión
de las metáforas por las que habla la infancia
En efecto, el sistema educativo escolarizado ha construido una estructura conceptual
como modo de dominio de los sujetos de la educación. En esta estructura se generan procesos
de cosificación, como el que se establece entre el orden del mundo y la infancia, en tanto el
mundo aparece clasificado, conceptualizado y así deberá ser aprendido. No aparece el mundo
en su diversidad, con la posibilidad de ser predicado diversamente, solo está un mundo puesto
en orden por los conceptos, un mundo de cosas.
Cuando nos queda un mundo así, ponemos como método de observación del mundo
ese entramado conceptual articulado con conceptos científicamente determinados, que
cancela las muchas formas de trato, por ser modos de relación que podemos establecer con
nuestro entorno. Desde esta lógica, nuestra relación con las cosas del mundo sólo puede ser
con cosas ya pensadas y congeladas en conceptos determinados. Ya no podrá pensarse desde
una lógica de trato con lo a-la- mano que es el modo de estar en nuestro entorno.
Afirmar y sostener esta lógica del trato con lo a-la-mano, sin mediación de conceptos
científicos, implica modos de relación de la infancia con su mundo, como el que está
articulado por su capacidad metafórica.
El mismo trato con lo a-la-mano, es lo que hace posible que la infancia use metáforas
como modo de habla y trato. Por ellas se permite la aclaración de sus propias perplejidades
y la creación de otras más.
¿Cómo llegamos a esta idea? Cierto que se ha investigado el aspecto moral y de
inteligencias múltiples en Pixie (Fresquet, 1997), además de una bien documentada
investigación sobre el tema de las relaciones en Pixie (Splitter, 1993); nosotros enfatizamos
el tema relacionado con las metáforas. Habíamos discutido en el grupo de sexto grado el
capítulo 5 y 6 de Pixie. Una frase llamó la atención de los niños y en ellas centraron sus
discusiones. ““Pero Jaime es un cerdo”. ¿Qué sería eso? Eso es lo que llamamos una metáfora
—dijo el señor Ponce” (Lipman, 1998, p. 54). A partir de esta serie de discusiones los niños
percibieron que hablaban así: usando metáforas en su lenguaje porque ese es su modo
habitual de trata con las cosas a-la-mano. Algo que pusieron en juego en las siguientes
sesiones, que se describen enseguida:
“Subir-bajando”
En el grupo de sexto grado, presenté en diapositiva un dibujo de M. C. Escher, House
of stairs. De las múltiples preguntas planteadas, esta fue particularmente interesante: “¿cuál
es la subida, y cuál es la bajada de cada escalera?”. Para el niño la pregunta requiere una
respuesta compleja, la pregunta misma es compleja. Esto generó múltiples respuestas, entre
ellas la respuesta basada en la perspectiva “todo depende de dónde nos paremos”, fue la
menos considerada; eso permitió que la discusión se centrara, desde mi perspectiva en una
especie de perplejidad: “si esta es la subida y la otra la bajada, al mismo tiempo la subida se
hace bajada y la bajada subida”. Entre los niños, surgió cautamente lo siguiente: “entonces
¿podrían las escaleras tener una bajada-subida y una subida-bajada? ¿Puede hablarse de
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bajada-subiendo o de subida-bajando?”. Porque, en su trato con las cosas del mundo a-la-
mano, aquello que les causa perplejidad lo resuelven apelando a la metáfora, no buscando
nuevas definiciones conceptuales. Aquí se usó la metáfora como modo de habla para
entender lo que les causó perplejidad. Por eso podemos decir que aquélla constituye su modo
de habla, porque es el modo como la infancia se relaciona con su mundo. Por esta vía la
infancia construye otros mundos, realidades alternativas: no solo hay escaleras que bajan y
que suben, también hay escaleras que bajan-subiendo y que suben-bajando.
“¿Líneas paralelas que son curvas?”
Lo que sigue fue observado y registrado en el mismo grupo de sexto grado en la clase
de matemáticas. No tomar en cuenta el modo de trato de la infancia con su mundo y de este
modo cancelar su modo de habla, articulado por la metáfora, explica lo poco significativa
que resulta esta clase. Esto podrá verse en dos clases en el sexto grado. Lo poco significativo
que aparece en la clase de matemáticas, la infancia lo llena con metáforas, que es el modo
de habla y de apropiación de su entorno.
Como cualquier día, la clase de matemáticas se inició con la siguiente indicación del
profesor: “anoten: dos líneas paralelas jamás se cortan y ahora veamos por qué está
definición es correcta”. El profesor continúa trazando líneas en el pizarrón; al parecer, la
idea es probar la verdad de su afirmación. Un grupo de niños, en el fondo del salón, se
preguntan intrigados: “¿cómo es eso? Porque parece que las líneas se hacen curvas y se
juntan”. Ante esta objeción el maestro réplica:”no es así, se prolongan, vean”. Y en la pizarra
prolonga las líneas.
Uno de los niños se atreve a preguntar: “¿Ha visto una carretera que se prolonga y allá
muy lejos parece que sus líneas se hacen curvas y se juntan?”. El profesor, seguro de su
mundo conceptualizado y cosificado, no cede en su pretensión de saber: “ cierto, no lo dudo,
a lo lejos se ve diferente, pero de cerca dos líneas paralelas no se hacen curvas ni se juntan.
Y eso lo pueden ver en el pizarrón”. Pero el modo de trato de la infancia para con su entorno
no cede terreno. Otro niño pregunta: “Dos líneas que van juntas ¿por qué se llaman
paralelas?” Ante un mundo cosificado sólo se puede responder con más cosificación, con
más conceptos sacados del entorno científico, por eso el profesor sólo atina a responder:
“Bueno, solo anoten la definición”.
Pero la infancia sale de sus perplejidades cobijándose entre sí. Varios niños inician un
intenso diálogo: “¿será que la definición del maestro solo sirve en el pizarrón?”, “¿tú crees?”,
“¡se me hace que sí!”. Como se ha insistido, el modo de trato con las cosas de su mundo,
permite a la infancia usar su modo de habla, que la mente adulta pasa de largo. De esto se
trata en lo que sigue.
Uno de los niños toma un balón de futbol entre sus manos y dirige la pregunta a sus
compañeros: “ ¿Qué pasaría si trazamos las mismas líneas en mi balón?”, a lo que responde
otro niño con su afirmación: “!Vamos, hay que hacerlo¡”. Como se ve, la infancia soluciona
las perplejidades con un retorno a su forma de trato con las cosas a-la-mano, no con recursos
teóricos o conceptuales. Pero ante un mundo cosificado, el modo de tratar las cosas a-la-
mano, que ofrece intimidad del mundo y un conocimiento de lo íntimo de uno y el mundo,
empieza a ser sometido a duda. Después que los niños trazan esas líneas sobre el balón, uno
en particular, pregunta: “¿Son líneas paralelas?”, con más duda, otro niño responde: “Se ve
que sí, pero se hacen curvas”. Contra esta duda y por su trato intimo con su balón, otro niño
responde con firmeza: “Pero en el balón si se hacen curvas y se juntan: las líneas paralelas se
juntan, ahora ¿que irá a decir el profesor?”. Que las líneas paralelas son curvas es una
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metáfora, que la infancia logra formular al aplicar a sus perplejidades su modo de trato con
las cosas a-la-mano.
“Los Números fraccionarios son los que se montan entre sí”
Tiempo después, a la hora de la clase de matemáticas en el sexto grado, durante un
ejercicio y después de que los niños han discutido el tema, el profesor ve pertinente aclarar
la discusión con un resultado provisional: “Anoten, los números fraccionarios son aquellos
que forman parte de una unidad”.
Claro que la discusión tomó como elemento los modos en que los niños se apropian de
su entorno, por eso la indicación les resultó ajena. Esto lo enfatiza la observación de un niño:
“¿Fraccionario, como partido?, ¿Cómo roto en varias partes?” “Con razón, mi papá se cortó
un brazo, pero no se le rompió, porque no se partió en dos o más partes”. Ante estas
afirmaciones, será el profesor el que caiga en perplejidades: “¿Números rotos?, ¿Números
partidos?, ¡dejen de jugar!”.
Pero la infancia, como modo de trato con el entorno y sus útiles a la mano, insiste:
“¿Podemos jugar a los números rotos?, o a los números partidos?”. El profesor sostiene sus
creencias: “Bueno lo que se parte son cosas y se cuentan sus partes usando números, además
el tema se llama “ números fraccionarios”. La infancia persiste y los niños rematan la
discusión, con lo que sigue: “ estos números no son como 1, 2, 3 o 289, etc., sino que tienen
la forma 1/2, 2/3, 5/7, etc.”; “números raros, uno encima del otro”; “que aguante del número
que está abajo”; “¡estos números fracturados son los que se montan entre sí!”. Esta es la
metáfora del número fracturado que monta una de las partes de la fractura, que es producto
del modo de trato de la infancia para con las cosas a mano, con los útiles a su disposición,
así ve el mundo porque de este modo se lo apropia.
Por esta vía en el pensar propio de la infancia es factible su apropiación del mundo, y
resulta viable su vivir en tránsito, entre lo a-la-mano y lo que le resulta extraño. Porque en
ese tránsito entre lo conocido y lo que desconoce juega de modo metafórico con su lenguaje,
lo hace su modo de habla.
Conclusiones
Dos ideas articulan las exposiciones sobre la metáfora, como modo de habla de la
infancia, para apropiarse de su mundo. La idea de Ricoeur sobre la metáfora como
predicación, como modo de decir otro mundo, de predicar acerca de otro mundo, cosa que
hacen los niños en las metáforas presentadas. Y lo hacen por su peculiar trato con las cosas
a-la-mano en su entorno, solo en este gesto, la infancia se apropia de su mundo y lo hace
porque la metáfora es su modo de habla. También se pone en juego la idea de foco y marco
de la metáfora, según Black (1966), porque en ese choque entre dos palabras se produce un
tercer Sentido que, al predicarse, da como resultado una nueva forma de ver la relación
trazada por el marco.
En una de las metáforas los niños juegan con su modo de habla al plantear la pregunta:
¿y ahora qué pensará el profesor? Y la juegan porque, en su modo de habla, ven una
posibilidad no presente en el esquema acotado por el profesor para el tratamiento de las líneas
paralelas. En consecuencia, la metáfora como modo de habla de la infancia, permite ver el
modo como van construyendo nuevos mundos, mundos no pensados, no tomados en serio
por la clausura que les impone la definición científica de los conceptos.
No se trata de pensar que el uso de la metáfora permite que el niño amplíe su
vocabulario conceptual al comparar una cosa con otra, porque en su modo de habla
metafórico produce nuevas realidades, cosas novedosas para la misma infancia.
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REFERENCIAS
Aristóteles (1946) Poética. México: UNAM.
Aristóteles (1994). Retórica. Madrid: Aguilar.
Beardsley, M. (1958) Aesthetics. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
Black, M. (1966). Modelos y metáforas. Madrid: Tecnos.
Derrida, J. (1989). Márgenes de la filosofía. Madrid: Ediciones Cátedra, S. A, 1989
Escher, M. C. (1994). Estampas y dibujos. Germany: Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH.
Fresquet, A. (1997). “Emotional intelligence in Pixie: A psychopedagogical Perspective in
Philosophy for Children”, en: Pálsons, H., Siguröardottir, B., Nelson, B. (1997).
Philosophy for children on Top of the World. Proceedings of the Eight International
Conference on Philosophy with Children. Iceland: University of Akureyri.
Gadamer, H. G. (1988). Verdad y método. Salamanca: Sígueme, 1998.
Heidegger, M. (2003). Ser y tiempo. Madrid: Editorial Trotta, S. A.
Kennedy, D. (2006). The Well of Being. Childhood, Subjetivity, and Educaction. Albany:
State University of New York Press.
— (2010). Philosophical Dialogue with Children. New York: The Edwin Meller Press.
Kohan, O. W. (2004). Infancia, entre educación y filosofía. Barcelona: Lartes de Ediciones.
Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to school. USA: Temple University Press.
— (1998). Pixie. México: Editorial Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, A. C.
— (2016). El lugar del pensamiento en la educación. Barcelona: Ediciones Octaedro.
Ricoeur, P. (1995). Teoría de la interpretación. Discurso y excedente de sentido. México:
Siglo XXI.
— (2001). La metáfora viva. Madrid: Editorial Trotta.
Richards, I. A. (1936) The philosophy of rhetorics. Londres: Oxford University Press.
Rovatti, P. A. (1990). Como la luz tenue. Metáfora y saber. Barcelona: Gedisa.
Sabines, J. (2012): Horal / La señal, México: Planeta
Sheperd, D. “Contra Deficient Child Perception: A Husserlian Analysis”. childhood &
philosophy, v. 1, n. 3, jan./jun. 2006, issn 1554-6713.
Splitter, L.J. (1993). “Reference and relationships in Pixie”. Inédito: Australian Council for
Educational Research (ACER
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4. DIFERENTES CONTEXTOS / DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS
Al principio el proyecto fue diseñado para hacer frente a los problemas del
crecimiento cognitivo y afectivo de los niños en la educación formal. Fue recibido
con una mezcla de escepticismo respecto a las capacidades de los niños y de
entusiasmo por algo que parecía ser una propuesta verdaderamente innovadora.
Algunos años más tarde, la práctica filosófica en una comunidad de investigación
se lleva a cabo en diferentes entornos educativos, con personas de edades muy
diferentes. Cada una de esas prácticas (cafés, asesoramiento, niños de la calle,
campamentos de verano, los museos de arte, actividades extraescolares...) ha
desarrollado su propia manera de hacer filosofía, pero todas ellas comparten
algunas ideas comunes acerca de la filosofía y su papel en el mundo actual.
The P4/wC project was originally designed to address the problems of children’s
cognitive and affective growth in formal education. It was received with a mix of
skepticism about children’s abilities and enthusiasm over what seemed to be truly
innovative proposal. Within a number of years, the practice of doing philosophy
in a community of inquiry was being implemented in many different educational
environments, at a variety of age levels. The way of doing philosophy in each of
those environments (cafes, counseling, with street children, summer camps, art
museums, as extracurricular activities, etc.) has developed in its own way, yet all
share some common ideas about philosophy and its role in today's world.
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Embracing Plurality: Wisdom and Method in Philosophy for

Children Summer Camps
Anastasia Anderson
University of the Fraser Valley
anastasia.anderson@ufv.ca
Elizabeth Wilson
Josh Friesen
Serena Geary
CV
Anastasia Anderson is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of the Fraser
Valley. She is Assistant Director and a counsellor for THINK FUN Camps.
Elizabeth Wilson has a BA in Philosophy from the University of the Fraser Valley. She has
been involved in leading and designing the curricula for THINK FUN Camps for the past
four years.
Josh Friesen has a BA in Philosophy from the University of the Fraser Valley. He has been
a camp leader and curriculum designer for THINK FUN Camps for the past three years.
Serena Geary is currently attending the University of the Fraser Valley and hopes to go on to
get her MA and PhD in Philosophy after she graduates. She has taken part in THINK FUN
Camps as camp leader, volunteer, and curriculum designer for the past four years.
ABSTRACT
As practitioners of philosophy for children in a summer camp setting, we have found that
embracing a plurality of methods and aims is the optimal approach for success. We rely on
anecdotes, Hannah Arendt’s notions of plurality and freedom, and an examination of the
goals of philosophy for children to describe and defend forgoing rigid parameters in
facilitating, and understanding the scope of, communities of philosophical inquiry during
summer camp.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy, children, community of philosophical inquiry, plurality, methodology, Arendt,
Crawford, P4C, summer camp, Think Fun.
RESUMEN
Como practicantes de Filosofía para Niños en el contexto de campamentos de verano, hemos
descubierto que el mejor enfoque para lograr el éxito consiste en combinar distintos métodos
y objetivos. Nos basamos en anécdotas, en la noción de pluralidad y de libertad de Hannah
Arendt y en la evaluación de los objetivos de la filosofía para niños de las comunidades de
investigación filosófica durante los campamentos de verano.
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PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía, niños, comunidad de investigación filosófica, pluralidad, metodología, Arendt,
Crawford, FpN, campamento de verano, Think Fun.
INTRODUCTION
The implementation of Philosophy for Children1 programs in summer, day-camp
settings is a relatively new phenomenon in North America. As facilitators and curriculum
designers in one such summer camp for children aged 6 to 12, we have found that philosophy
for children camp programs are most successful when they tailor their methods to camp
contexts. We maintain that in the case of our camp,2 the context requires flexibility in method.
We shift our methods for conducting communities of philosophical inquiry in response to the
time available, children's input, children's experiences, and their level of engagement –
sometimes several times a day. We extend children's philosophical activity and inquiry
beyond dialogue, seize opportunities to acknowledge and address philosophical questions as
they arise, and keep an open mind about what should count as doing philosophy for children.
In what follows, we explain how the camp context lends itself to flexibility in method, and
share examples of our use of different approaches to doing philosophy with children. We
further suggest that our methodological pluralism is defensible in light of an Arendtian
understanding of the conditions for freedom and action, and our acceptance of the view that
the goal of philosophy for children is itself multiform.
The camp context
The philosophy summer camp we have been involved with encourages children to
engage in philosophical dialogue through the development of communities of philosophical
inquiry (CPI). Our camp adopts variations of Matthew Lipman’s model of philosophy for
children. A CPI of this model involves the presentation of philosophical stimulus material
and the soliciting of philosophical inquiry questions from the children. A question is chosen
and then the children sit in a circle and seek to answer the question by engaging in a
philosophical inquiry dialogue facilitated by an adult. Lipman developed this method as a
way of teaching thinking to children. Through dialogue within the community, children come
to learn and use cognitive tools, practice thinking about thinking, and internalize the
reasoning exhibited by the group. Since its development, his method has been modified and
adapted by various practitioners around the world. Our camp has taken inspiration from
Lipman's model of the CPI and his arguments for the importance of philosophy for children,
but we have allowed our own practice to be responsive to the camp context.
The Philosophy for Children movement began with the aim of bringing philosophy into
schools. As a result, much of the training, research, and development of resources, has been
directed specifically at school programs. Camp counsellors have a challenge in adapting
existing practices to fit a camp curriculum because there are important structural differences
between camps and schools. One of the major differences between school and camp is the
comparatively short amount of time children spend at camp. Our camps are five days long,
1 We use ‘philosophy for children’ as a general term to refer to what has been called ‘P4C’, ‘philosophy with
children’ and ‘engaged philosophical inquiry’ with children. The term is used in a way meant to leave open the
methodological commitments of the practice.
2 THINK FUN Camp: http://thinkfuncamps.ca/
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and run for 7.5 hours a day. According to McCall (2009), a minimum of twenty hours of
practice using her CoPI method is needed before children are able to engage in philosophical
inquiry (p.210, note 3). The time frame of camp is short in comparison with a school year.
Some of the skills and habits that can develop over weeks of practice with the steps and
protocols of a set method for running a community of philosophical inquiry would not have
time to flourish during camp if we insisted on adherence to a single method. A typical day at
camp is packed with philosophically rich activities. Everyday there is a new theme that relates
to the overall theme of the week. For example, if the week’s theme is navigating through the
different challenges we encounter in life, then one day’s theme may be deception (in the
media, in friendships, etc.), while the next day may focus on courage. Each day will have
many different activities ranging from art projects, to modified field games, to stories, and
so on. All of the activities are designed with philosophical sensitivity so that the children's
experiences with them can be drawn on later during CPIs. Generally, we plan for two CPIs
per day related to the theme of the day. The amount of time spent in a CPI each day ranges
from thirty minutes to two hours, depending on the response of the children. This leaves us
with at best 10 hours a week in a standard CPI, only half of McCall’s suggested time. Due to
this, we take moments throughout the day to have philosophical discussions with the children
in spontaneous bouts, typically relating to whatever activity the children are engaged in.
Camps often have smaller numbers of children than many school classrooms. Each
camp has approximately 12 to 25 campers, and four camps run simultaneously. They draw
in children of many cultural and socio-economic backgrounds. While our camp is fairly
costly in comparison to other local camps, we offer free or discounted admission to those
children that would otherwise not be able to attend. This makes our camp community diverse.
There are one or two official camp leaders for each group as well as several volunteers, so
that the ratio of adults to children never exceeds 1:5. The constant engagement with the
children at this ratio creates a community that is unique to summer camp. When philosophy
is done in school, there are usually two models of relationship between adult and the child.
Either there is a trained philosopher visiting schools for an allotted amount of time per week,
or else the CPI is facilitated by the classroom teacher who is with the children every day. In
the first case, the visiting facilitator can face difficulty in building meaningful relationships
with the children and relating philosophical inquiry to their lives simply due to time
constraints and not having firsthand knowledge of how the children spend their days. In the
second case, the teacher is an authority figure, separate from the children, due at the very
least to their power over how time is spent in the classroom. The nature of the relationship
between the facilitator and children is of vital importance. Despite the short duration of
summer camp, we are able to develop the community aspect of inquiry and create an
environment in which the differences in power between child and adult are not as pronounced
as they are in the classroom. At our camp, the counsellors interact and play with the children
and create meaningful relationships throughout the week. These relationships foster a sense
of trust between adult and child, creating a safe place to share ideas. The importance of trust
when doing philosophy for children is highlighted by Lipman, Sharp, and Oscanyan (1980)
who write that it is “indispensable to encouraging children to think philosophically…” (p.88).
Our ratio of children to adults allows children to have more focused adult attention for longer
periods of time, resulting in more individualized modeling of philosophical questioning and
may give children a stronger sense that their feelings, concerns, and questions are being taken
seriously by adults.
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An additional difference between school and camp is the camp’s emphasis on fun and
play. Most children have experience with camps and do not associate them with school.
Although teachers want children to enjoy their educational experiences, both children and
teachers understand that school is a place where learning takes place in accordance with a
standard curriculum. At camp, children are engaged in exciting activities and are often
unaware they are learning. Philosophy is not seen as another thing to ‘learn’ but rather as
another fun camp activity. However, sometimes the children come to expect to be doing
something more exciting than participating in dialogue and their willingness to sit down and
thoughtfully engage can be impaired by their desire for the next ‘easier’ and more stimulating
activity. Being open and flexible in our approach can help in these moments. If the children
are hungry and restless, we can easily move a few things around that day. We can be
responsive to the mood and energy level of the entire group when determining, for example,
where, when, and how to engage in a CPI. At our camp, counsellors play, run through fields,
eat lunch, and generally participate in activities with the children. One of the greatest
advantages of the camp setting is this wide range of activities that children and counsellors
engage in together, which gives facilitators the background knowledge necessary to engage
in inquiry dialogue based on actual experiences that the children have during the day, or
inspired by casual conversations that are had during lunch. Haynes and Murris (2013), who
emphasize the importance of thinking with children to avoid the epistemic injustice that can
result from the adult assumption of a position of authority, suggest that part of what is
required in order to listen to children’s ‘voices’ is “to consider how we create experiences of
thinking and learning that have meaning in the here and now, and what matters to them, as
well to keep an eye on what young children are carrying into their futures.” (p.2). Counsellors
have the opportunity to initiate philosophical dialogue relevant to children's experiences and
interests, and are able to facilitate with a good understanding of the children's recent activities
and reactions to them.
We try to find ways to take advantage of the opportunities uniquely available to
facilitators in the camp context by being open to using a variety of methods in doing
philosophy for children. There are many methods to choose from when deciding how to
conduct a CPI. In Thinking in Education, Lipman (2003) describes the Community of Inquiry
as involving more than simply dialogue3, and some theorists have suggested that dialogue is
not a necessary part of philosophical activity for children. 4 In deciding how to approach a
CPI, a facilitator has a range of choices regarding method. A sample of the variety of
approaches can be found in comparing Lipman (2003), McCall (2009), Worley (2015),
Wartenberg (2014), Kohan (2014) and Oscar Brenifier (n.d.).5 For example, the stimulus
material can be a planned reading of a philosophical novel or the reading of a picture book,
a planned activity, a fragment of Heraclitus, or watching a film. Or, the stimulus material can
be unplanned and emerge from the day's activities. When it comes to choosing an inquiry
3 Lipman includes the sharing of the stimulus material, construction of the agenda, exercises, professional
philosophical guidance, eliciting further responses such as stories, poetry, and painting, as well as the
celebration of the deepened sense of meaning that results from inquiry all as stages of a community of inquiry
(pp.100-103)
4 For an example of philosophical activity without an associated inquiry dialogue see Vansieleghem (2011).
5 A detailed comparison of these approaches is beyond the scope of this chapter. For an excellent discussion
of differences between McCall’s CoPI method and some other methods of philosophical dialogue with
children, see chapter 6 of McCall (2009).
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question, there are also several methodological choices that must be made. For example, an
adult can offer a question, children can devise their own questions, or questions can come up
in the course of a discussion. Questions can be chosen by the children, by the facilitator, at
random, or all be discussed in turn. Facilitators, too, can follow different methods to
determine how, and how actively, they should participate and guide inquiries. Murris (2008),
in describing the current state of philosophy for children with particular reference to the need
for it to remain a ʽcritical and self-critical pedagogyʼ writes:
P4C can be the home of a complex mixture of educational ideas and philosophical traditions as
practitioners situate the approach in their own cultural context and infuse the practice with their
own identity and philosophical beliefs. In a profound sense, what P4C is, can be experienced only
in practice, and it embraces a wide range of practices worldwide. In a Wittgensteinian sense, they
are united in the way members of a family share certain resemblances—any generalisations about
P4C fail to do justice to what is unique about each family member. (p. 672)
We recognize the existence of these differences in practice and find the camp context
allows curriculum and methodology to emerge from the interactions and experiences of the
camp community. The camps are most successful when we (1) are flexible in the methods
we use when conducting a CPI, primarily by choosing and varying method in response to
children's preferences and behaviour, (2) are careful to recognize opportunities for types of
inquiry dialogue that do not easily fit into the standard model of a CPI, and (3) develop and
recognize philosophical activities, and allow space for philosophical experiences, that do not
involve words or are not explicit inquiries. This flexibility in method not only allows us to
fit philosophy for children successfully into a camp context, but it is fully defensible in light
of the goals of philosophy for children.
A defense of flexibility in method
When philosophy for children is done in schools, the emphasis is often placed on
learning outcomes and improved test scores6. This perspective can lead to rigidity in method
without sacrificing the successful attainment of the goal. If one views the CPI solely as a
pedagogical tool for use in schools to teach students how to think logically and make sound
judgements, then formatting the CPI according to a series of stages in which the facilitator is
both guide and model, naturally follows. Gregory (2007), offers potential facilitators a road
map for how to structure a CPI which, if modelled properly, will be passed on into the
student's own reasoning. While he acknowledges witnessing creative and critical thinking in
the CPIs he observed, he bemoans their tendency to be “disorganized and haphazard” which
he believes is a product of the “lack of a shared framework for systematic inquiry” (p.61).
While we do not argue against the use of a single methodological approach in some contexts,
in a summer camp setting we have found success outside of a single structured method. By
adopting the perspective and vocabulary of Arendt, we believe that a door can be opened for
a flexible and fluid methodological approach. Through the lens of Arendt, what becomes
apparent is the importance of the creation of the space that is the CPI. This is a philosophical
space that creates the possibility of action and freedom.
Using Arendt’s idea of the public realm, we can understand the CPI as a unique space
which emerges in the world when certain conditions are met. In The Human Condition, she
uses a distinction between public and private spaces. Self interest dominates the private
realm, as one’s primary goal there, according to Arendt (1958), is the preservation of one’s
6 For example, see Education Endowment Foundation (2015) research.
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life and family. A resulting effect is that the web of relationships in the private realm tend to
be goal oriented; individuals are treated as a means to an end. The private realm stands in
sharp distinction to the public realm, which is directed towards public interests. To enter
public space, one has to literally and symbolically leave the security of the home, and with
it, one’s own private interests, in order to engage with others directly through action. By
‘action’, Arendt is primarily referring to speech in terms of a capacity to begin: to introduce
new ideas, to partake in reasoned dialogue, to disagree, to try to change the actions of others.
For Arendt, action and freedom are closely related through natality, the capacity to bring
something new into the world7. She claims that “The fact that man is capable of action means
that the unexpected can be expected from him, that he is able to perform what is infinitely
improbable.” (p. 178). This spontaneous quality of action, its capacity to bring something
new into the world that was not there before, needs to be recognized as an important aspect
of freedom and respected in the CPI.
According to Arendt, while freedom and action are possible outside of the public realm,
they have the opportunity to flourish within it due to the conditions which establish the public
realm. The CPI can be viewed as a type of public realm for children, as it requires the same
conditions for its emergence into the world, and as a result, allows for the same possibilities
of action and freedom. Both require a spatial quality, a distinction from the private realm,
and plurality. Through the CPI, the facilitator preserves democratic principles such as
equality to ensure that it is a space where it is possible for children to confront each other
through action instead of treating each other as a means to an end. The underlying condition
for the CPI to be possible is the condition of plurality. By plurality, Arendt refers to the fact
that we are all the same (in the sense that we are all human and thus can all communicate)
and the fact that we are all different (in the sense that we are all unique, have different
biographies, react differently in different situations, etc.) She states:
Action would be an unnecessary luxury, a capricious interference with general laws of behavior, if
men were endlessly reproducible repetitions of the same model, whose nature or essence was the
same for all and as predictable as the nature or essence of any other thing. Plurality is the condition
of human action because we are all the same, that is, human, in such a way that nobody is ever the
same as anyone else who ever lived, lives, or will live. (p.8)
The condition of plurality is the foundation for the existence of the CPI, and philosophy
for children in general, as it is necessary for inquiry dialogue that multiple people with
differing perspectives are present. However, this respect for plurality and the inherent
differences between any two children suggests that equal respect should be shown for
flexibility in method. Because no two children are the same we cannot assume that any one
method works best to incorporate the actions of all children. Each CPI contains within it a
unique web of human relationships at a distinct place and time, and as a result, it is impossible
to know how best to manage the CPI before it has begun. Structured approaches can be
helpful if a facilitator lacks experience, but they run the risk of limiting the freedom present
in the CPI if they do not allow for children to break free of top-down structures. By focusing
on the conditions which allow children to act freely and engage with each other as equals
instead of what we want the children to become, or how we want the children to structure
their thoughts, we allow the children to ‘write their own stories’ and allow for spontaneous
action.
7 For another application of Arendt’s concept of natality to Philosophy for Children, see Vansieleghem (2005).
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Further support for the use of multiple methods at philosophy camp can be found by
considering the multitude of expressed aims of philosophy for children. Theorists and
practitioners within the philosophy for children movement have not reached clear or lasting
consensus as to its goals. We understand philosophy for children as having a multifaceted
aim which provides support for flexibility in both method and evaluation of success. Maughn
Gregory (2013) identifies four kinds of objectives commonly stated in the philosophy for
children academic literature: “1.To help students acquire cognitive skills...2. To help students
learn the concept of philosophical inquiry... 3. To help students learn the concept of dialogue
as method for collaborative inquiry and peer accountability...and learn to dialogue with
competence... 4. To help students learn canonical philosophical content... the development
of a ‘philosophical ear’.” (pp.7-8). Other goals Gregory notes are more overtly instrumental
in nature. These include helping children to improve in their school work, prepare for college
and standardized tests, become economically successful, and become better democratic
citizens. Gregory reports that philosophy for children has also been described as having the
goal of providing children with an intellectual challenge, giving children cognitive tools to
use in meeting life's challenges, to achieve “personal autonomy by avoiding manipulation”,
to help children learn to make better judgments and “enhance their life experiences” (p.9).
The descriptions of aims have also included giving children the opportunity to express
themselves, to think and entertain ideas that are new and new to them, and encourage wonder.
There are some who hold that the goals are to give children the opportunity to challenge the
structures of power that exist between adults and children, to form their own conceptions of
childhood, and to determine for themselves what questions are important (Vansieleghem and
Kennedy, 2011).
While there is detailed analysis of the goals of philosophy for children in Lipman's
work, he describes the general aim as enabling children to become ʽmore thoughtful, more
reflective, more considerate, and more reasonable people’ (Lipman 2013, p.15). The
Philosophy Foundation (2017) has described their objective as being the development of
intellectual virtues. Susan Gardner (n.d.), in her role as the director of the THINK FUN
camps, has written that the goal of the camps is to help children develop into wise people and
relates this to individual freedom. Gregory (2013) also advocates for wisdom as the primary
objective. He describes wisdom in Stoic terms as involving Ethics (theoretical and lived)
Physics (theoretical and lived), and Logic (theoretical and lived). These more general
descriptions of the aims of philosophy for children are particularly helpful in the camp
context. Accepting wisdom as the overarching aim has the powerful advantage of allowing
us to understand the diverse set of expressed goals as related to each other either as different
aspects of wisdom, results of wisdom, virtues necessary for wisdom, or as the beneficial
consequences of wisdom understood as living well. However, to be fully inclusive, the goal
of helping children to become wise people must explicitly respect the child as child and not
simply as a potential future adult. The goal should take into account the newness of each
child and Arendt's understanding of freedom. The objective understood as wisdom or living
well is one that must recognize the importance of the child's philosophical thought and
experience as it relates to the child living well as the particular child it is. Philosophy for
children, we suggest, in the most general (and poetic) terms, aims to provide nourishment to
feed the roots of the child's philosophical life and to enable those roots to grow and multiply
in order to support further development.
Once we accept that philosophy for children has a plurality of aims that can be unified
under the general goal of ‘nourishing wisdom’, it is easier to recognize that using a wide
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range of methods for doing philosophy with children is defensible. Some methods may be
developed to support wisdom in many or all of its aspects, others are most effective at feeding
a particular root of wisdom, and using some elements of a particular method and not others
can be defended with reference to that aspect of wisdom that is being supported. Given the
camp context in which we have a limited amount of time and are dedicated to providing fun
experiences for children, we have found it best to follow the children's interest and
engagement in determining what method to use at any given time. We embrace a certain
amount of openness as to which aspect of wisdom will be supported through any given
activity and fit method to the given circumstances. Moreover, the camp counsellors are
dedicated to enabling children to engage in inquiries that are relevant to their own lives.
Ideally, counsellors hope to eliminate the worry about transfer of thinking skills from
classroom to life because the philosophical thinking is done in the context of lived, camp
experiences. Because of this, counsellors seek out opportunities to support (in Gregory's
terms) 'lived ethics' and 'lived logic' and this, we have found, requires flexibility in how we
approach inquiry and what we take to be philosophically relevant activity.
Responsiveness to children in choice of method
The result of embracing flexibility in method is that often at camp the choice of method
for running a CPI is made spontaneously in response to what is happening at that moment.
Often, the children are looking for an answer to some sort of dilemma they just
experienced, and reasons are being offered and analysed for the best way to resolve that
dilemma. One example of a spontaneous CPI occurred after a game of 'cold war'. During
this game, two teams build Lego cities and then decide whether they will make an
alliance, or attack the other team. The choice is made public by the team showing an
‘attack’ or an ‘alliance’ card. The teams elect a leader, who discusses with the group what
card to play. Then, both leaders meet in the middle of the room and show either the
‘attack’ or ‘alliance’ card. The game is a variation of the prisoner's dilemma. It is run as
a stimulus activity for a CPI and there is a pre-planned inquiry question. One year, the
two teams drew up a contract stating that they both pledged to draw the alliance card.
However, one team changed their minds at the last moment. Betrayed, the ʽlosingʼ team
was devastated. Once given the rules, the children had the complete freedom to engage
in action that would directly affect their community at large. It was the children’s decision
to make up a contract, and to renege on their word. This was an outcome that was not
predicted by the counsellors. As such, our planned inquiry question was abandoned in the
heat of the moment because of one boy’s vigorous call to exact revenge. The demand for
vengeance suddenly became the stimulus and the heightened emotional state of the other
children meant that they were deeply invested in answering the question of whether they
should agree with this boy. Without stating a formal CPI question, we jumped right into
deciding whether we should seek revenge. The children were all seated in a circle, but
there was a lot of jumping up mid passionate responses. This inquiry led us through an
exploration of the nature of deception, the question of what it means to break a rule and
if that ever made a difference to what should be done, the concept of fairness, and the
nature of revenge. The children clearly engaged in critical thinking and reflected on the
consistency of their own thinking, but the flexibility of the camp setting allowed the
reasoning to immediately impact their actions and contribute to the development of lived
ethics.
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It is interesting to contrast this CPI and activity to the same activity as it unfolded a
week prior, working with younger children (ages 5 to 9). The Cold War game was played
with the exact same rules and exact same setup. However, these children were not interested
in any sort of feuding. They almost immediately decided to make an alliance. Of course, the
CPI following was completely different. The planned question was used for the inquiry and
the dialogue was calm. These children spoke best in small groups and so the CPIs were with
only 4 to 5 children and one adult facilitator in each community. The use of small group CPIs
to encourage increased participation and focus is another way in which we are flexible in
method and respond to the preferences and behavior of the children. The CPIs developed
differently due to the different reactions of the children, but both included successful inquiry
dialogue. This is a prime example of not being able to predict how each activity will resonate
with the children, as each group contains a unique web of relationships, so we must be ready
to utilize different methods in response to the children’s responses.
Non-standard models of a CPI
The example above illustrates how flexibility in method can allow children to engage
in philosophical inquiry based on questions of pressing interest to them, the answers to which
will lead immediately to action. The next example illustrates how abandoning the typical CPI
structure of pursuing a single inquiry question can be a fruitful way of following the
children’s lead and helping them to develop a ‘philosophical ear’ or what Lone (2015) calls,
‘philosophical sensitivity’ and Weber and Wolf (2017) refer to as a ‘philosophical attitude’.
On the third day of one of the camps, a CPI was planned for groups of 5 children between
the ages of 6 and 9. The stimulus was the children’s story The Giving Tree (Silverstein, 1964).
In one of these small groups a spontaneous discussion emerged out of the stimulus without
the counsellor providing any input. Instead of stopping the conversation to begin a formal
inquiry dialogue by providing a question or soliciting questions from the children, the
counsellor waited until opportunities arose to introduce philosophical questions implicit in,
or relevant to, the ongoing conversation. The children were talking about whether people can
be friends with trees and exploring the concept of friendship. The facilitator asked whether
this seemingly one-sided friendship was a good friendship. The children quickly decided that
the friendship between the boy and the tree was not a good friendship and one child suggested
that by always taking from the tree and never giving anything back, the boy in the story was
a bully. The other children quickly agreed; such behavior was indeed that of a bully. At this
point, the counsellor recognized the philosophical relevance of the nature of obligation and
how friendships are affected by the character of the friends. So, the counsellor asked the
children if we should be friends with bullies. Until this point the children had been focused
on the boy’s side of the story, and they had reached a conclusion that he was not being a good
friend. By shifting perspectives to that of the tree, the children were confronted with an
ethical question of far more relevance to their lives. Immediately sides were formed, and the
children offered and evaluated the arguments for the opposing positions. The argument
eventually came to a standstill, as both sides had well reasoned positions and refused to
budge. However, it wasn’t long until a child steered the conversation to a new topic by asking
a question. While the question of whether or not the children should be friends with bullies
proved the most philosophically stimulating, the children exhibited interest and critical
thinking throughout the nearly 30 minute conversation. This CPI was a success because the
counsellor was modeling a philosophical ear and the asking of philosophical questions, and
because the children engaged in sustained philosophical reasoning about questions that they
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found relevant to their lives and genuinely puzzling. The facilitator let the children guide the
inquiry while he ensured the conditions of the CPI were met by keeping the inquiry on
philosophically relevant topics.
Recognizing the importance of the unspoken
The central role of the inquiry dialogue in philosophy for children cannot be overstated.
Philosophy for children is often called 'teaching through dialogue'. However, in Lipman's
description of the stages of the community of inquiry, and in many of the methods that we
are familiar with, there is space made for thinking that is not communicated through the
ʽlanguage of wordsʼ (Lipman, 2003, p. 268). At camp, these activities and forms of thinking
are recognized as part of philosophy for children because of their contribution to the aim of
nurturing wisdom. Even during a spoken dialogue, there are strictly speaking moments that
are essential to children's learning that emerge due to the dialogue but that cannot be reduced
to words spoken during the dialogue. These are moments of realization, of wonder, of
disequilibrium, of caring, or of personal meaning that lay the groundwork for motivating
individual thinking, imagination, caring, and philosophical sensitivity. Sharp (1987) writes,
ʽImagining is a crucial step in the growth of philosophical reasoning in the community. It is a
crucial mental act. It expresses itself not only through speaking and hearing with regard to the
philosophical dimension of one's experience, but through dancing, drawing, music-making,
writing and scienceʼ. (p. 43)
We have found it best to take full advantage of the flexibility of the camp context
to recognize and open up space for unspoken philosophical activities as well as spoken
philosophical dialogue. For example, on the last day of one of our camps, a shy eight-
year-old girl said she wanted to sing a song she had written for our group. The music and
lyrics of the song expressed the child’s thoughts about her camp experience and her
feelings of community with the group. The other children listened respectfully and
encouragingly. We can say that the child's increase in self-confidence and willingness to
engage in self-expression is a positive outcome of the community of philosophical inquiry
created during the camp. However, we would also argue that the song and singing of it
should also be understood as a child philosophizing; it was a form of metacognitive
engagement, a personal reflection on, and expression of, the critical, caring, and creative
thinking that had occurred during the week. Although this example might be distant from
the ones discussed in conventional philosophy for children forums, the interpretation of
a little girl’s song as a measure of philosophical development is justifiable when departing
from rigidly structured methods.
Situations such as the one above, as well as creative hands-on activities, which are often
used as CPI stimuli, can be philosophically rich in and of themselves. Matthew Crawford
(2009) looks at ‘craft’ as a form of active engagement with the world which is cognitively
demanding, not only in the decisive use of theoretical knowledge, but because, as an
investigative process, it demands a ‘disciplined perception’ likened to Homer's conception
of sophia or wisdom (p. 21). This wisdom is a form of knowledge gained through practical
engagement with the world: the ‘know-how’ which allows us to navigate tasks. The type of
hands-on inquiry that may be considered philosophically significant are activities that
encourage what Gregory (2013) cites as common objectives: the development of cognitive
skills and disposition (ability to logically inquire, see a problem from multiple angles, and
ponder for some time), the search for reasonable beliefs and values (the ethics of
determination, patience, as well as knowing when to take a break), dialogue as a method of
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collaborative inquiry (collectively debating how to best build something), and the use of a
philosophically trained ear to critically assess which insights, advice, and feedback, are
valuable. By promoting activities which encourage these cognitive and metacognitive
moments, we are often rewarded with a greater personal investment in the following CPI,
and as the children learn critical thinking skills, become familiarized with the structure of
arguments, and have practiced distinguishing ‘good’ reasoning from ‘bad’ reasoning, this
transfer of mental skills can be expressed in the deductive reasoning which is evident in craft.
Lipman (2003) refers to the importance of recognizing the cognitive nature of ‘active
thinking’. In being flexible in what we accept as philosophically relevant activity, we
recognize the contribution that imaginative and active thinking makes to wisdom.
Conclusion
The summer camp context presents new and exciting opportunities for doing
philosophy for children and new ways of utilizing and conceptualizing the various
methodological approaches to the practice. Our intention in describing important differences
between camp and school and sharing some examples from our practice is to inspire
discussion about the unique camp context. Summer camp is particularly well positioned not
only to allow philosophical inquiry to emerge from children's questions, but also
methodological approach to emerge in response to children's interests, experiences and
communities. We believe that further research into the type of methodological flexibility
available and practiced in the summer camp context is overdue.
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children-ORIGINAL-1.pdf. Accessed December, 2017.
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Philosophy for Children in Primary School Classrooms: The

Teachers’ Perspective
Ben Kilby
Melbourne Graduate School of Education,
University of Melbourne
ben.kilby@hotmail.com
CV
Ben Kilby is a current PhD student at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education at the
University of Melbourne. His research focuses on teachers in Melbourne based schools who
are newly practising Philosophy for Children, and aims to better understand their beliefs,
values, goals, and interpretations of this practice. This paper is an outline of the research that
will form the basis of his PhD thesis.
ABSTRACT
This paper is the outline of a research project which studies the beliefs and values of teachers
newly practising Philosophy for Children (P4C) in their primary (5-12 year olds) classrooms.
This paper outlines the need for research in this area by analysing literature in the field to
reveal a lack of information about how teachers interpret P4C in classrooms. This paper takes
this problem and builds a research design out of it. This paper will detail the methodology,
methods, and tools that this project will utilise in an attempt to better understand our primary
school classroom teachers who practice P4C.
KEYWORDS
P4C; Philosophy; Teachers Perspective; Classroom Practice; Qualitative Research.
RESUMEN
Este artículo es el bosquejo de un proyecto de investigación que estudia las creencias y los
valores de los maestros que empiezan a practicar la Filosofía para Niños (FpN) en sus clases
de Educación Primaria (5-12 años). En él se describe la necesidad de investigación en esta
área mediante el análisis de la bibliografía en este campo para descubrir la falta de
información sobre cómo los maestros interpretan FpN en las aulas. Este artículo enfrenta este
problema y propone un diseño de investigación a partir de él. Este artículo detallará la
metodología y las herramientas que este proyecto utilizará en un intento de comprender mejor
a los maestros de Primaria que practican FpN.
PALABRAS CLAVE
FpN; Filosofía; Perspectiva del Profesor; Práctica en el aula; Investigación cualitativa.
322
INTRODUCTION
This study will focus on developing an understanding of the beliefs and values which
teachers new to Philosophy for Children (henceforth P4C) hold about the practice.
Identifying the beliefs and values of teachers is important to school leaders, policy makers,
and P4C academics whose desire it is to see P4C reach more students. The purpose of this
qualitative study is to investigate the beliefs and values of teachers new to P4C to glean
information from teachers’ experiences which influence their beliefs and values, and impact
that those beliefs and values may have for their understanding and practice of P4C in their
classrooms.
Context
P4C is a method of learning that is underrepresented in schools, and especially in the
primary years of schooling. (Hand & Winstanley, 2008, p. xiii). Few schools offer regular
and structured P4C at all, and in those schools that do offer it there is significant variation in
how it is conducted. This is because there are ‘few if any universally-agreed-upon criteria for
its proper conduct’ (Gregory, 2009, p. 338). In this research study, the participant-teacher
will use the training provided by the Victorian Association of Philosophy in Schools (VAPS)
as their model of Philosophy for Children. This model draws strongly from the original
Lipman, Sharp, and Oscanyan (1980) material, as well as more modern advances from
Golding (2014) in his conception of P4C, as well as Cam (2006) and his philosophical
toolbox.
Research indicates that there are significant benefits for students who participate in
P4C (Gorard, Siddiqui, & Huat See, 2015). Yet despite these benefits, there are few schools
in Victoria which incorporate P4C into their curriculum (Victorian Association of Philosophy
in Schools, 2017) Haynes and Murris (2011) suggest that some reasons teachers find P4C
difficult include that:
 ‘Teachers lack familiarity with both content and methods of philosophy’ (p. 286);
 ‘Teachers may hesitate to adopt deeper approaches that take time to establish, such
as PwC [Philosophy with Children]’ (p. 286);
 ‘The rigour of philosophically building on ideas causes anxiety to some PwC1
educators with little philosophy in their educational background. The democratic
practice and respect for children that the theory presupposes often generates
discomfort and disturbance with all educators’ (p. 290);
 ‘Educators can be anxious about not knowing the questions in advance, and can be
reluctant to regard children as experts in respect of their experiences’ (p. 295).
Haynes and Murris (2011) posit that teachers may not want to engage with P4C because
they lack confidence, are anxious and unfamiliar, and do not understand the practice. This
supposition is based on the anecdotal accounts of the writers’ experiences as expert
practitioners of P4C. We have these expert anecdotal accounts, but we lack the empirical
research to back up these claims, nor do we have the detail needed to begin explicitly
addressing the issue here. Considering these claims, this study will focus on teachers new to
P4C in coming to a deeper understanding of their beliefs and values related to it. This will
1
PwC is an acronym for ‘Philosophy with Children’. This is not a distinct approach from Philosophy with
Children (P4C): they are equivalent. A short discussion of the variety of terms used in place of P4C is available
on page 4.
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provide insight into how new teachers experience implementing P4C, and with this insight
the specifics of how beliefs and values impact teaching practice will come to light and
provide a direct area of research to address further in the future, as well as opportunities for
P4C practitioners to modify their training and resources in light of these new understandings.
This research is particularly timely as this year (2017) the new Victorian Curriculum
was introduced, and this curriculum requires teachers to engage with philosophical ideas
from foundation to year ten. In particular, philosophy finds itself embedded in the capabilities
which are to be integrated across all learning areas. These capabilities are Critical and
Creative Thinking, Ethical Understanding, Intercultural Capability, and Personal and Social
Capability (VCAA, 2016). Critical and Creative thinking are terms used by in P4C
historically and also in modern P4C writing (Murris, 2017) to describe what P4C aims to do,
and ethics is a primary branch of the philosophical tradition in general and is also important
in P4C education (Cam, 2012). P4C practitioners have also written about the benefits in
relation to intercultural understanding (Camhy, 2007) as well as personal and social
capabilities (Sharp, 2009). The authors referenced here all show that these features of the
Victorian curriculum documents sync up with P4C as a pedagogical approach, and the
researcher will therefore explore the practice of P4C within the context of the Victorian
public education system, which requires these areas to be addressed.
As seen above, these capabilities have significant links to philosophical ideas, and as
P4C has been seen as an approach to address many of those same philosophical ideas,
teachers, schools, and policy makers can look to the Philosophy for Children movement for
knowledge about how one might approach addressing these capabilities in school. Moreover,
updates from July 2017 to the Principles of Learning and Teaching (PoLT) explicitly
reference Matthew Lipman and the Philosophy for Children program, as well as more recent
developments in P4C from Clinton Golding. The Principles also state that classrooms should
be turned into communities of inquiry (State Government of Victoria, 2017). In addition,
because this is the first year that the Victorian Curriculum has been in use, there is no
evidence (yet) to suggest that the new Victorian Curriculum has had any significant impact
on teachers’ actual classroom practice. There is little research about how teachers might
approach the capabilities, despite the requirement to do so. There is also little research about
how teachers might approach Philosophy for Children or the community of inquiry in
Victorian government schools, despite the Victorian government advocating their practice.
Research into the beliefs and values of teachers will offer understandings for how they see
the alignment of P4C with the curriculum framework in Victoria.
Research on Beliefs and Values impacting Teaching Practice
In other areas of educational practice, beliefs and values have played a significant role
in the practices teachers utilise in the classroom. In project-based learning, health, the arts,
science, and music, research has shown beliefs and values to play a significant role in
influencing the practices of teachers in those learning environments. Teacher motivation for
the implementation of project based learning increased over time with the gaining of
experience, showing all teachers becoming motivated after motivations between teachers
following the initial training were varied (English, 2013). Analogous to the study which will
be conducted here in P4C, teachers may also find that significant changes occur immediately
following P4C training, compared with several months into their implementation. For this
reason, the study has taken a longitudinal focus to continually conduct research with the
teachers over five months.
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In health education, a study analysing the attitudes of teachers toward unhealthy food
showed that the attitudes which teachers held were significant predictors for their tolerance
and teaching about unhealthy food. The study showed that attitudes toward the behaviour of
consuming unhealthy food were statistically significant predictors of their tolerance and
teaching about unhealthy foods in their primary school classrooms. (Lambert, Chang, Varner,
& Monroe, 2016). Although this study phrases the research in terms of attitudes, beliefs and
values are closely linked with attitudes and the P4C research here may similarly show that
the beliefs and values teachers hold about P4C may predict their responsiveness, dedication,
or willingness to open up their practices.
Oreck (2004) found in the use of arts-based pedagogies that most teachers valued the
arts and thought every child should have access to the arts, but those same teachers also had
a low incidence of using arts-based instructional strategies. In addition, those teachers who
voluntarily attended workshops on arts-based pedagogies were significantly more likely to
use them in the classroom, and the conclusion drawn was that those teachers were likely to
have established a professional identity as a teacher who uses arts-based pedagogies. This
study has a strong relationship with the Oreck study, as values were seen to have little impact
on practice, but identity forming beliefs had a significant impact. Also, the participant-
teachers in this P4C study similarly volunteered to undergo the three-day training in P4C.
Building on the Oreck study, Lee and Cawthon (2015) also found that teacher beliefs about
arts-based pedagogies had a significant impact on practice, and this impact was not variable
based on age, gender, ethnicity, or specialisation. This P4C research may similarly be able to
detail the influence (or non-influence) of beliefs and values in terms of the practices of the
participant-teachers. The research on arts-based pedagogies described above details a
disunity between holding beliefs about the pedagogy and valuing what it aims to achieve.
There may be similarities with the beliefs teachers hold about P4C and the connection those
beliefs have to why teachers value it in their classrooms. This research will be able to identify
the effects that those differing beliefs and values have on the practice of teachers in P4C.
In science education, teacher beliefs have also been described as having a significant
impact on teacher practice. In a study by Anderson and Moeed (2017), teacher beliefs about
science as a discipline were highly variable and often misguided, but those beliefs changed
after an immersion in scientific inquiry alongside scientists in primary school classrooms
over six months. These changes in beliefs and practices were also sustained 12 months after
the program finished. Moreover, in a study by Dwyer (2014) into the beliefs and values of
music teachers, she found that there was a significant impact on teaching practice stemming
from both the values and beliefs that teachers held. She also held the hypothesis that music
teachers were elitist and that their conception of music teaching did not align with the way
that the majority of students perceived it. There are often similar misconceptions (Golding,
2010, pp. 17-18) about philosophy which affect beliefs as well as the thought that philosophy
is an elitist discipline (Ravenscroft et al., 2010, p. 5; Weinberg, 2015), so it is possible that
this study will mirror the study of Anderson and Moeed (2017) in observing changes in
beliefs over time which lead to changes in teaching practice, and also that, similarly to Dwyer
(2014), both the beliefs and values of teachers may significantly affect teaching practice.
Recent research into teacher agency will also help with understanding the kind of
research that will be undertaken for this project. Priestley, Biesta, and Robinson (2013, p.
151) conducted research which focussed on
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the role of teachers’ values and beliefs in the achievement of agency, and on the role of
relationships. Values and beliefs partly concern the discourses through which teachers make sense
of the situations in which they act (the cultural aspect of the practical-evaluative dimension), partly
articulate their short-term and longer-term aspirations (the projective dimension), and partly stem
from their personal and professional histories (the iterative dimension).
The research that will be conducted for this project is similar in design. This research
will also focus on the role that teachers’ values and beliefs play in the implementation of P4C
in primary schools. This research will similarly attempt to understand how teachers make
sense of the situations in which they act and their goals for students in utilising P4C in their
classrooms. Rather than looking at teacher agency in general as Priestley et al. (2013) have
done, this research will look at how teachers’ beliefs and values influence the implementation
of P4C. This research will reveal how teachers’ beliefs and values impact upon P4C practices
in primary school classrooms, and reveal the extent to which they connect these practices
with recent policy changes (discussed in the previous section of this paper).
Recent Research on the Beliefs and Values of Teachers in P4C
Within the P4C field, there has been some recent research related to teachers’ beliefs
and values, but there is more research required to fully understand this relationship. Both
Newell-Jones (2012) and O'Riordan (2015) have conducted research which gathered
teachers’ beliefs about P4C. This study is distinct from these research projects as they both
focussed on implementing P4C in schools first, as a research directive, then later interviewed
teachers in an attempt to understand their perspectives on the intervention. The research that
will be undertaken for this study will not be an intervention which asks teachers to begin
implementing P4C practices in their classrooms, but will target teachers who have already
begun to implement P4C in their classes, under their own initiative. Both of the
aforementioned studies only focussed on teachers’ perspectives as a secondary research goal.
The primary focus of both studies was on the results of the intervention. For Newell-Jones
(2012), the primary outcomes of the research were related to the benefits students received
(based on teacher judgements) from the intervention of P4C in their classes. And secondarily,
teachers’ perspectives were sought out to determine factors which acted as barriers and
factors which promoted embedding P4C in the class. While some of the interview data
revealed insights related to the beliefs and values of the teachers participating in the
intervention, this was not a focus and therefore did not include a significant amount of data
about these features. Similarly, the research of O'Riordan (2015) focussed on an intervention
where teachers were asked to begin to implement P4C in their classes. O'Riordan (2015, p.
30) stated that her goal in this research was to ‘understand the considerations which bear
upon curricular action’ in relation to implementing P4C. She also set out to test the veracity
of the claim of ‘teacher efficacy (i.e. teachers’ beliefs about their ability to positively
influence student outcomes) is a measure of the chances of implementing change.’ In doing
this she used teacher interviews to examine the factors which teachers perceived to determine
the effectiveness of the implementation of P4C in their own classrooms. This is similar to
that of Newell-Jones (2012) with a focus on the barriers and promoters of implementing P4C
during the intervention.
The Gap This Research Aims to Address
Both the Newell-Jones (2012) and O'Riordan (2015) studies focused on, and revealed,
primarily external factors for barriers and enablers to the implementation of P4C. The
research that will be undertaken here will focus on the internal locus of teachers in their
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relationship with P4C. In doing so, this may reveal features on the other side of the coin to
Newell-Jones (2012) and O'Riordan (2015) in determining barriers and enablers to the
implementation of P4C. While they have focussed on determining these barriers and enablers
in terms of external factors such as a lack of time; lack of resources (Newell-Jones, pp. 10-
11); or professional development (O'Riordan, pp. 32-33), the research conducted here may
shine light on the internal factors about teachers’ relationships with P4C. These internal
factors may include teachers’ beliefs about what P4C is, how to practice it, and why it is
useful. The research will be conducted in an exploratory manner with a focus provided by
each individual participant-teacher’s perspective. Participant-teachers driving beliefs and
values form that data being sought in this study, therefore it is necessary to allow them to
talk about and reveal those features of their experiences in a naturally occurring way. The
research will be semi-structured, however much of the research design will be influenced by
the individual characteristics of each participant-teacher. The different beliefs and values
revealed in the research about elements of P4C may be shown to affect the way P4C is
implemented in the classroom.
It is important to broaden to picture of research that Newell-Jones (2012) and
O'Riordan (2015) have begun. Their research has provided some insight into teachers’
perspectives on the implementation of P4C, but given the continual growth of P4C, most
noticeable in the policy changes referenced above, there ought to be a full picture of teachers’
perspectives on P4C practices in their classrooms. This will help to get policy makers and
classrooms teachers in sync with each other, and allow a better understanding of the
relationship between teachers and the policy changes that have recently been made, while
also providing a research base for any future policy changes with regard to P4C.
Purpose of this Research
The purpose of this research is to understand the beliefs and values of teachers who are
newly implementing P4C in their primary school classrooms. The research approach will
take the form of a phenomenological case study consisting of four teachers, focussed on
understanding from the perspectives of those being studied. The teachers implementing P4C
have made the decision to do so based on the recent policy changes in Victoria mentioned
previously, most prominently being the Victorian Curriculum now requiring the teaching and
assessing of Critical and Creative Thinking and Ethical Understanding. The research design
focuses on the beliefs and values of the teachers in regard to their implementation of P4C
specifically, rather than their beliefs and values about recent policy change. However, all the
participant-teachers in this study have indicated that the reason they have become interested
in P4C is because of recent policy changes. Therefore, the beliefs and values of these
particular teachers in regard to P4C can be expected to touch on the connection between
Victorian education policy and P4C, but it does not force teachers to make this connection,
and so leaves open the possibility that teachers will begin to implement P4C but find no
connection with Victorian policy changes at all.
A full and vivid description of the experience of implementing P4C in primary school
classrooms for inexperienced teachers is the focus for this study. It will achieve this by
describing the details of this phenomenon through the participants’ perspectives: from the
insider’s perspective or emic. These perspectives may include understanding perceptions of
successes, failures, varying confidence levels, and ways of solving problems. This research
may produce results which indicate how new teachers are successful and struggle with
aspects of P4C, or seek support, or other aspects that may help or hinder their experience of
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implementing P4C for the first time. These outcomes will provide an understanding of how
teachers who are new to P4C interact with its implementation in their classrooms, which
ultimately has influences on their practice of P4C. In summary, this study will provide an
understanding of how these new teachers perceive their experience and interpret P4C in the
classroom through an understanding of the role their beliefs and values play in their practice.
Research Design
This research design will identify four teachers who are new to implementing P4C in
their primary school classrooms. These teachers are keen early adopters at their school, but
have no formal background in philosophy, P4C, or community of inquiry. They have all
recently undertaken a three day training course in P4C and community of inquiry provided
by VAPS (Victorian Association of Philosophy in Schools, 2017), and have recently sought
to implement these newly acquired skills in their own classrooms.
Research Questions
1) What is the role of teachers’ beliefs and values in the practice of P4C?
1.1) How do the beliefs and values of teachers impact their teaching practice in
P4C?
1.2) How do the beliefs and values of teachers about P4C align with the recent
policy change incorporating P4C practices?
The primary research question addresses the problem by attempting to gather data that
reveal insights into the teacher’s perspective regarding P4C through their beliefs and values.
It will allow an exploration of the interplay between teachers’ beliefs and values and P4C
practices, and the sub-questions will allow an exploration into the interplay between the
policy changes about P4C and teachers’ own perspectives, through their beliefs and values.
Data Collection
This research will aim to come to an understanding about how these teachers perceive
their experience as they implement P4C for the first time. This understanding will come from
several forms of data that will be gathered throughout the study. This interpretive research
will use several forms of data collection providing a triangulation to more clearly understand
these teachers’ experiences. The first data collection tool will be participant observations and
video recordings (Patton, 2002) by the researcher during sessions of P4C. The second data
collection tool will be semi-structured interviews. The third data collection tool will be focus
groups with all of the participant-teachers. And the fourth data collection tool will be
document analyses of the lesson plans and resources used by teachers as they implement P4C
in their classes.
Observations
Participant observations will allow the researcher to note the actions and behaviours of
each participant-teacher during a session of P4C. This will provide data on how the teacher
is implementing P4C in her classroom. The researcher will take field notes describing what
the teacher does during lessons. Patton (2002) has detailed the benefits of participant
observation which include allowing the researcher to understand the context, gather first-
hand experience, and understanding the setting in which the participants are being studied.
Participant observations are particularly important for phenomenological research as the
primary target of phenomenological knowledge is the ‘understanding of meaningful concrete
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relations implicit in the original description of experience in the context of a particular

situation’ (Moustakas, 1994, p. 14). Therefore, an in situ understanding of the
implementation of P4C is important so that the particular context of the experience is
incorporated into the description. The observation protocol will be unstructured and a
subsequent analysis of the data will be used to create meaning from what occurred (Patton,
2002). This ensures that the researcher is not biased in searching for a particular observational
event, but captures as much of the contextual and informational data as possible without
prejudice. There will be ten observations of each teacher, which will take place once a
fortnight during school times and these observations will be video recorded. This longitudinal
data collection will allow the researcher to return to collect data at fortnightly intervals and
observe the changes which occur over time. Observations will be compared to analyse the
changes in perceptions of experience from earlier to later in the study and also across
participants, as well as analysing the different practices observed in P4C and how they might
link to the beliefs and values that a particular teacher holds, as identified during the interview
process.
Interviews and Personal Meaning Making Maps
Semi-structured interviews with participant-teachers will provide an alternate
perspective to the observations, but also be informed by the observations. The observations
will provide an understanding of a situated lived experience in the classroom and how the
teacher practices P4C, but interviews will provide that understanding from the inside, as the
teacher is able to reveal her perceptions, beliefs, and values in relation to implementing P4C.
The interviews will allow the teacher a place to reflect on her experience during the
implementation of P4C, as well as reflect on the entirety of the year of implementation in
later interviews. The interviews will utilise Personal Meaning Making Maps (PMMM) to
enhance the interview process and provide valuable data. Falk, Moussouri, and Coulson
(1998, p. 110) describe the design of PMMMs as being able to measure how a specified
experience uniquely affects the conceptual, attitudinal, and emotional understanding of each
individual. Adams, Falk, and Dierking (2003, p. 22) extend this description by adding that
PMMMs measure the unique effects on each individual’s meaning-making process.
Giardiello, Parr, Mcleod, and Redman (2014, p. 27) claim that PMMMs support the gathering
of perspectives in a way that ensures an understanding of the ‘individual’s perception of
objects, events and the relationship of the self to these elements.’ In this study, PMMMs will
be used during the interview process as a tool to deepen the understanding of the experience
of implementing P4C. PMMMs may identify how participant-teachers make sense of what
they are doing, as well as enabling the researcher to understand the meaning-making process
behind their intentions, beliefs, and actions. This understanding will help to create the link
between what it is that teachers believe and value in P4C and how they practice it in their
classrooms.
Adams et al. (2003, p. 23) also claim that PMMMs are a useful tool to capture
longitudinal data and measure change over weeks, months, or years after the initial PMMM
was conducted. This aspect also benefits this study, as the researcher will return to the
interview process with participant-teachers monthly to collect longitudinal data. Therefore,
in these monthly interviews, follow up PMMMs will provide further data to help understand
the experience these teachers are going through. Adams et al. (2003, p. 30) state that the most
obvious advantage of PMMMs is that they can ‘look at change within as well as across
individuals and register the degree and intensity of change over time.’ These are aspects that
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will be important in this study, as an attempt is made to make sense of data across multiple
teachers over multiple months. PMMMs also connect with the phenomenological
underpinning of this study, as Giardiello et al. (2014, pp. 28-29) state that some strengths of
using PMMMs lie in the fact that the participant is the one generating responses, rather than
anticipating what the researcher wants to hear, and also that follow up questions respond
directly to the participant’s ideas to clarify thinking. PMMMs are a way to understand the
existing narratives of the participants, and to bring those storylines to the forefront to more
deeply understand teachers’ landscapes and experiences.
The interviews will also enhance the understanding that the observations provide, as
the participant-teachers will be able to reflect on the researcher’s field notes, as well as review
video recordings of themselves teaching. Through this, the participant-teacher will be able to
provide details of her intentions for any particular lesson, and reflect on her experience in the
classroom to give a more detailed description of her experience. This will provide a deeper
level of understanding than researchers’ field notes by themselves could provide. The
participant-teacher will be able to describe her reasons for acting in a certain way during
class, or using a certain method or tool during class. This will help the researcher understand
not just what it is that the teacher is doing, but also why. An analysis of this reasoning
provided by participant-teachers will allow for a deeper investigation of the relevant beliefs
and values they each hold. By combining this with an analysis of their practices in P4C
through observations and document analyses the bigger picture of the impact that those
beliefs and values have on their practice will be revealed. In addition, interviews throughout
the research will gradually become more focussed on gathering information specific to each
participant-teacher’s practice. As more data is collected generally, that data will be able to
drive a focus onto specific areas of practice in which the participant-teachers will be able to
comment on through the interviews and focus groups, further specifying the links between
beliefs and values and the practices of teachers in P4C.
Focus Groups
Focus groups with the four participant-teachers will allow them to share their
experiences of implementing P4C with each other. This will enable them to compare
experiences, problems, solutions, resources, barriers, or issues that have arisen during their
classes. There is a common experience across these participant-teachers, and focus groups
will allow for a comparison between individual participant-teachers. Collecting data on the
common and differentiated experiences that the participant-teachers have and allowing them
to collaborate and share those experiences with each other is an important data collection
tool. The researcher will be able to gain a greater understanding of the individual differences
between the participant-teachers in implementing P4C, as well as the commonalities that may
arise throughout their teaching. This will provide the researcher with a better understanding
of the central experiences of being a new teacher implementing P4C for the first time, as it
is viewed from multiple angles (Moustakas, 1994, p. 86), in order to come to
phenomenological understandings of the experiences.
In the focus groups, Collaborative Interactive Discussions (CIDs) will be used as a tool
to stimulate discussion. Giardiello et al. (2014, p. 25) state that CIDs provide opportunities
for reviewing and reflecting on understandings while guaranteeing opportunities for voice
and time for thinking. CIDs provide the ‘necessary stimulus for the deeper exploration of
existing ideas’ (p. 25). These features are important for this study as the researcher attempts
to understand the experience of implementing P4C for the first time. CIDs will provide the
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opportunity for participate-teachers to collaboratively reflect upon their experiences and

explore their existing ideas about the experience. This will enable the research to reveal
clearer descriptions for understanding this experience. Moreover, ‘CIDs value the associated
‘feltness’, or degree of affect, related to the ideas, and experiences’ (p. 25). This feature of
CIDs will also be valuable in this study, as an understanding of an experience will require an
insight into emotional or affective dimensions of that experience, and CIDs are capable of
enabling that access.
Document Analysis
Document analysis will provide the researcher with an understanding of the planning
routines of these new teachers to P4C by analysing the lesson plans and resources used. This
analysis will be most useful when paired with the semi-structured interviews or focus groups.
The aim of phenomenological research is to ‘determine what an experience means for the
persons who have had the experience and are able to provide a comprehensive description of
it’ (Moustakas, 1994, p. 13). Therefore, a researcher analysing documents from the outside
will provide little revelation about the experience of the participant from the inside. The
document analysis will primarily take place collaboratively with the participant-teachers as
co-researchers, as they will be able to describe their experience and intentions in relation to
the lesson plans and resources that will be analysed.
Methodology
This research will take the form of a phenomenological case study of four teachers who
are newly practising P4C in their primary school classrooms. This case study will observe,
document, and analyse a typical instance of the implementation of P4C by a new teacher in
a real and situated primary classroom context.
Phenomenological Background
The methodological background of the study will take a hermeneutic
phenomenological approach to research. The purpose of this approach is to identify
phenomena from the perception of the participants. The phenomenon in this research is the
implementation of P4C in primary schools, and the actors in this situation are new teachers
who are teaching this area. The researcher seeks to gather perceptions of the experience of
implementing P4C as perceived by teachers who are new to the practice. In a
phenomenological study, we are not interested in what participants decide, but in how they
experience their decision making (Vagle, 2014, p. 21). In this light, this study will not be
focussing on what it is that teachers do or do not do in class, but on how they experience,
understand, and make sense of what they are doing with P4C in the classroom.
Phenomenological studies attempt to access the world as it is experienced prereflectively;
which is the ordinary experience that we live through for most or all of our existence (van
Manen, 2016, p. 24). This study aims to describe and interpret individual and particular
occurrences in which the phenomenon appears, in order that there is a better understanding
of what it is like to experience that phenomenon.
Conclusion
This research projects aims to provide a detailed description of the experience of a
teacher implementing P4C for the first time in a primary school classroom. The description
will help to broaden the understanding that currently exists in the field about the experiences
of new teachers in this area. This may lead to changes in training for new teachers in P4C,
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new resources that specifically target the needs of new teachers, or new initiatives to support
the practice of new teachers in this area. By analysing the experience of four teachers over a
five-month period as they introduce P4C to their class, this research will gather data detailing
the small and specific details each individual teacher experiences, as well as the variance
across all four teachers, in order to provide detailed descriptions that are capable of informing
further research in the practices of P4C.
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La escuela de pensamiento libre: Personas con discapacidad
Fátima Álvarez López

Centro de Filosofía para Niños de la (Comunidad Valenciana)
fatimaalvalo@gmail.com
Luis Alberto Prieto Barbero

Centro Filosofía para Niños (España)
Luisalbertoprietofpn@gmail.com
CV
Fátima Álvarez López: Licenciada en Filosofía. Formador de formadores en FpN. Máster en
Filosofía 3/18. Especialista en Creación Literaria. Profesora de la Escuela de Pensamiento
Libre desde su primera edición. Miembro del equipo guía y tutora de los pilotajes de
Pensamiento Libre. Formadora en Ética para personas con discapacidad intelectual.
Luis Alberto Prieto Barbero. Presidente del Centro de Filosofía para Niños (España).
Miembro del equipo guía para el pilotaje de Pensamiento Libre. Formador en talleres de FpN
en contextos de exclusión. Profesor voluntario en graduado escolar con jóvenes en
reinserción social. Cofundador y secretario de la revista Rescoldos. Educador Social. Experto
en gestión de instituciones públicas.
RESUMEN
¿Es posible que exista una escuela de filosofía donde se piense con libertad y cuyos maestros
sean personas con discapacidad intelectual? Esta escuela ya existe y está en la Comunidad
Valenciana: La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre.
Esta escuela une un nuevo paradigma de la discapacidad (centrado en las potencialidades y
no en los déficits) con la corriente pedagógica de Filosofía para Niños (dialógica, flexible,
inclusiva y participativa).
La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre es una escuela de diálogo entre ciudadanos. Los alumnos
son personas con discapacidad intelectual, profesionales, familiares y la propia comunidad.
Es un espacio inclusivo donde las personas con discapacidad, no solo son alumnas, sino que
algunas también forman parte del claustro.
El éxito de esta experiencia pionera ha llevado a iniciar un pilotaje para extender el proyecto
a otras comunidades autónomas del territorio español.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Discapacidad intelectual, pensamiento libre, escuela de pensamiento libre, filosofía para
niños, escuela de diálogo, plena inclusión, empoderamiento.
ABSTRACT
Is it possible to have a school of Philosophy where people can think freely and whose teachers
are people with intellectual disability? This school already exists in Spain, in the Valencian
Community: The School of Free Thinking.
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This school combines a new paradigm of disability (centered on potentialities and not on
deficits) with the pedagogical currents of Philosophy for Children (dialogic, flexible,
inclusive and participatory).
The School of Free Thinking is a school based on the dialogue between citizens. The pupils
are persons with intellectual disability, families, professionals and the community. This is a
real inclusive space, where people with intellectual disability are not only students, but also
can be part of the teaching staff.
The success of this pioneering experience has driven a Pilot Project to implement it in other
regions in Spain.
KEYWORDS
Intellectual disability, free thinking, school of free thinking, philosophy for children, school
of dialogue, full inclusion, empowerment.
INTRODUCCCIÓN
La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre (EPL) es una experiencia pionera en educación no
formal en la que se traslada el proyecto pedagógico de Filosofía para Niños (FpN) a un ámbito
de exclusión social y cognitiva: el de las personas adultas con discapacidad intelectual (DI).
Tengamos en cuenta que la Asociación Americana para las Discapacidades
Intelectuales y del Desarrollo (AAIDD) dice que: ʽLa discapacidad intelectual se
caracteriza por limitaciones significativas tanto en funcionamiento intelectual como en
conducta adaptativa tal y como se ha manifestado en habilidades adaptativas conceptuales,
sociales y prácticas. Esta discapacidad aparece antes de los 18 añosʼ. (Verdugo y Schalock,
2010, p. 12).
Pues bien, es en este ámbito, que la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre trabaja las
habilidades de pensamiento –de acuerdo con el proyecto pedagógico de Filosofía para Niños-
y apuesta porque las personas con discapacidad intelectual, que históricamente han estado
relegadas al otro extremo del atreverse a pensar, avancen —con los apoyos necesarios— en
la conquista de su libertad.
La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre surge como colaboración de dos entidades: el Centro
de Filosofía para Niños de la Comunidad Valenciana y Plena Inclusión (el movimiento de la
discapacidad intelectual mayoritario en España), también de la Comunidad Valenciana y
supone una utopía hecha realidad. Se trata de una escuela de filosofía donde se piensa con
libertad y cuyos maestros son personas con y sin discapacidad intelectual. Precisamente en
este punto radica su potencia. Estamos ante una escuela de ciudadanos, donde la inclusión es
una realidad en el claustro pues hay maestros con y sin DI; al igual que hay alumnos con y
sin DI. No es una escuela al uso, sino al desuso. No hay calificaciones ni niveles, solo
personas dialogando en un espacio de confianza que nos permite ejercitar la actitud filosófica
de cuestionarnos, de cuestionar nuestra relación con los otros y el mundo que compartimos.
Todo ello en aras de aprender a pensar por nosotros mismos y llevar, en la medida de lo
posible, las riendas de nuestra vida. Es decir, avanzar en el empoderamiento, la
autodeterminación y la conquista de nuestras libertades para ser ciudadanos activos.
Una nueva mirada a la discapacidad
La EPL pone el acento no en los déficits sino en las potencialidades, siguiendo el nuevo
paradigma de la discapacidad (modelo social) que supone un importante avance respecto al
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modelo anterior (modelo médico) que consideraba que la discapacidad intelectual era una
enfermedad que había que abordar con medidas rehabilitadoras y compensatorias. El nuevo
paradigma, sin embargo, da más peso a las capacidades que a las limitaciones y considera
que la discapacidad intelectual no es algo intrínseco a la persona, sino que se produce en su
interacción con el entorno. Es decir, tenemos limitaciones y potencialidades que ponemos a
funcionar en nuestro entorno. La discapacidad se produce cuando ese entorno no se adecúa
en cuanto a actitudes y prácticas.
La historia de la discapacidad intelectual es un largo que camino que discurre de la
antipatía generadora de palabras como “idiotas”, “subnormales”, “retrasados”…, a posturas
paulatinamente más empáticas que van superando la actitud paternalista de velar por el
bienestar de las personas con DI y apuestan porque, en la medida de lo posible y con los
apoyos necesarios, sean agentes activos de su propia vida.
En este sentido la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre se suma a esa mirada llena de
posibilidades para que, estimulando el potencial de las personas con DI, mejoren sus
funcionamientos. Abandona la idea de que son eternos niños y los reconoce como adultos
capaces de pensar y de aportar a la sociedad. Para ello trabaja a partir del proyecto de
Filosofía para Niños de Matthew Lipman que ofrece una pedagogía dialógica, flexible,
inclusiva y participativa.
Las limitaciones de la inteligencia no anulan la capacidad de pensar. El coeficiente
intelectual (CI), que ha sido el criterio taxonómico por excelencia, no es la totalidad de una
persona. Somos mucho más que un número. El pensamiento es una función vital. Las
personas con DI tienen derecho a pensar por sí mismas, tienen valores morales y emociones
complejas. Y pueden ejercitar ese derecho a pensar en un espacio, como el de la Escuela de
Pensamiento Libre, que se asienta en la libertad, la autodeterminación, la confianza y la
autoestima mientras desarrolla el pensamiento crítico, creativo y ético desde el programa
pedagógico de Filosofía para Niños.
No se trata de una escuela basada en la transmisión de contenidos, tarea en que las
personas con DI arrastran una historia de fracaso escolar, sino de un contexto de diálogo
filosófico entre ciudadanos que permite a las personas adultas con DI recuperar la voz
silenciada, aprender a hacer preguntas relevantes, crear hábitos de escucha activa, desarrollar
la creatividad…, aprendiendo en interacción con los otros.
Historia de la EPL
Sus creadores son José María Sánchez Alcón, filósofo y presidente del Centro de
Filosofía para Niños de la Comunidad Valenciana y Juan Carlos Morcillo, psicólogo con una
larga trayectoria profesional en el mundo de la discapacidad. Ambos aunaron sus
conocimientos y sus ilusiones para dar luz a este proyecto.
Presentaron por primera vez el Programa en un Encuentro de Autogestores, allá por
el año 2008. A continuación, dedicaron un periodo de tres años a formar a Personas de
Apoyo. Estas personas ponían en práctica en sus centros lo aprendido en estas formaciones
e informaban del impacto que había tenido. Así, poco a poco, fueron perfilando esta
aplicación del proyecto educativo de FpN al ámbito de la discapacidad intelectual. En el
año 2013 dan un paso importante formando directamente a personas con DI y es
definitivamente en el año 2015 cuando comienza propiamente la Escuela de Pensamiento
Libre. En la primera edición hubo una persona con DI en el claustro; en la actual hay cuatro,
de un total de ocho profesores.
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Marco teórico de la EPL

Vamos a presentar, brevemente, la fundamentación teórica de este proyecto innovador
que es la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre. En sus bases filosóficas está el enfoque de las
capacidades de Martha C. Nussbaum que se centra en la protección de ámbitos de libertad
tan esenciales que su supresión haría que la vida no fuese humanamente digna. Distingue
distintas capacidades centrales o esferas para el desarrollo humano. A la EPL le interesa la
que denomina capacidades cognitivas diciendo lo siguiente: todos los seres humanos tienen
capacidades cognitivas (emocionales, volitivas, morales) y dejarían de ser parte de la especie
humana si no las tuvieran. De ahí que consideremos que una persona con DI, con los debidos
apoyos, es capaz de pensar por sí misma y es libre a la hora de tomar decisiones (Sánchez
Alcón, 2014, p. 2). Y el profesor José María Sánchez Alcón añade:
Pero la autodeterminación no es solo un derecho sino una conquista que toda persona con DI y su
entorno debe propiciar; por ello consideramos que es esencial ese “aprendizaje de
autodeterminación”, un aprendizaje que comienza con otra manera de ver y entender la educación
de las personas con DI donde se tenga en cuenta no solo lo que saben sino lo que pueden hacer y lo
que pueden pensar (ibídem)
Esta nueva forma de entender la educación tiene como hilo conductor de la actividad
de reflexión el diálogo filosófico que remite al origen de la labor de la filosofía, a la mayéutica
de Sócrates. Esta aportación socrática parte de que el aprendizaje solo se da a partir de la
ignorancia reconocida previamente a través de una pregunta. Es decir, la posición inicial del
filósofo es provocar la duda para, a partir de ella, activar la reflexión. A través del diálogo
filosófico reflexionamos cuestionando las creencias en que reposa nuestra vida cotidiana de
cara a mejorar su calidad.
Siguiendo a Xabier Etxeberría, Doctor en Filosofía y profesor emérito en la
Universidad de Deusto, investigador en ética y Derechos Humano,): ʽ (…) que las personas
con discapacidad intelectual puedan valerse por sí mismas en el marco de su
autodeterminación no persiga la estrecha perspectiva de que se valgan por sí mismas para sí
mismas, sino la más amplia y fundamental de que, también, se valgan por sí mismas para
establecer lazos positivos con los otros, y expresamente, para ayudar a los otrosʼ. (Etxeberría
y Sánchez, 2013, p. 138).
En esta línea está la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre.
Como ya hemos señalado la EPL, pedagógicamente, se asienta sobre el pilar del
Proyecto Filosofía para Niños ideado por Mathew Lipman que parte de que no es posible
conseguir sociedades verdaderamente libres y solidarias si no conseguimos personas
capaces de pensar por sí mismas. Su línea educativa de “aprender a pensar” es la base
teórica del Proyecto Pensamiento Libre para ejercitar el pensamiento, las emociones y los
valores. El diálogo filosófico es el hilo conductor de las actividades que se desarrollan en
la EPL y la comunidad de investigación el modelo organizativo. Se reflexiona en primera
persona, buscando el aprendizaje relevante que nos permita elaborar nuestra propia
concepción del mundo y dar sentido a la vida; pero, aunque se trata de una tarea personal,
se reflexiona en comunidad a través del diálogo con los otros que comparten la misma
inquietud. En el diálogo filosófico cada uno expresa sus ideas y escucha activamente al
resto porque es una tarea de construcción de significados abierta a la riqueza de la
pluralidad de opiniones.
También la EPL enlaza con Paulo Freire, uno de los más destacados pedagogos del
siglo XX, que transmitió el principio del diálogo como un nuevo camino para la relación
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entre profesores y alumnos. Freire ideó su propio método de enseñanza en el que la

persona deja de ser un sujeto pasivo al que se le transmiten unos contenidos fijos y pasa
a tener el poder de participar activamente en su propio proceso de aprendizaje a partir de
su experiencia vital. La palabra es acción y reflexión y decir la palabra verdadera es
transformar el mundo. Paulo Freire se ocupó de aquellos llamados “los desharrapados del
mundo”, los oprimidos, los ignorantes. La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre también da voz
a otro colectivo históricamente silenciado, el de las personas con discapacidad intelectual.
Algunas de las principales ideas de Vygotsky se encuentran en las bases psicológicas del
Programa Pensamiento Libre. En primer lugar, la idea de comprensión del lenguaje que
no está separada de otras funciones superiores de la mente. Los niveles de comprensi ón
son diferentes dependiendo de la persona, pero todo sujeto tiene un nivel de comprensión.
En segundo lugar, la tesis de que el pensamiento, el habla y la escritura están relacionados
y esto supone un carácter dialógico del aprendizaje. El pensamiento es la interiorización
del diálogo. Y, en tercer lugar, su teoría del aprendizaje consistente en ir de la zona de
desarrollo próximo a la zona de desarrollo potencial. El aprendizaje consiste en pasar de
lo que se sabe, de lo que se es, a lo que se puede llegar a ser. Es aquí donde entra en juego
el papel de los otros, de la interacción social para el logro del aprendizaje, para la
internalización del conocimiento.
Organización de la EPL
En la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre están presentes personas con discapacidad
intelectual (aproximadamente un 70%) mientras que el resto son profesionales (personas de
apoyo de las personas con DI), familiares y la propia comunidad. Se trata de un espacio
inclusivo donde las personas con discapacidad, no solo son estudiantes, sino que algunas
también forman parte del claustro, de forma que no es una escuela para ellos, sino de ellos o
con ellos. Además, en este contexto de igualdad, los profesionales aparcan su función para
pasar a ser unos alumnos más.
Los objetivos pedagógicos de la EPL son los siguientes:
Aprender a pensar: estimular las habilidades cognitivas de las personas con
discapacidad intelectual. Se trabaja el pensamiento crítico y la creatividad para buscar nuevas
soluciones a los problemas.
 Aprender a sentir: desarrollar las habilidades emocionales porque somos
pensamiento y emociones. Nuestra manera de pensar no puede desligarse de nuestro
componente emocional.
 Educación Ética: trabajar la educación en valores porque las personas con
discapacidad intelectual son seres morales, capaces de distinguir el bien y el mal.
 Aprender a filosofar: descubrir la dimensión metafísica de las personas con DI a
través de la reflexión sobre cuestiones esenciales y vitales como la Felicidad, la
Muerte o la existencia de Dios.
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Estos objetivos se llevan a cabo en jornadas de una vez al mes, en horario de 10:00 a
18:00, con la siguiente programación:
 Por la mañana: Dinámica de Inicio-Pensamiento Crítico-Educación Emocional
 Pausa para comida
 Por la tarde: Educación en Valores-Dinámica de Cierre
Esta estructura responde, fundamentalmente, a fines organizativos ya que el
aprendizaje siempre es transversal. Las dinámicas de inicio y cierre cumplen la función de
cohesionar el grupo y suelen tener un carácter lúdico. En la sesión de Pensamiento Crítico se
parte siempre de una lectura y sigue el desarrollo de una sesión clásica del modelo Lipman:
lectura de texto, elaboración de pizarra con preguntas, diálogo filosófico… (Lipman y otros,
1998). En la sesión de Educación Emocional se trabaja el reconocimiento y gestión de las
emociones. Por ejemplo, se trabaja la empatía y la asertividad como forma de resolver
conflictos. En Educación en Valores se trata de reconocer la dimensión moral de todo ser
humano, distinguir entre niveles de conciencia moral y dialogar acerca de valores básicos
como la libertad, la igualdad o la justicia. Uno de los recursos utilizados son los dilemas
morales como forma de razonar sobre lo que nos rodea.
En cuanto a materiales didácticos, además del currículum Lipman y otros que han
surgido con el tiempo, la EPL dispone de material propio. Principalmente el libro
Pensamiento libre para personas con discapacidad intelectual de José María Sánchez
Alcón (2011). En esta obra recoge la experiencia previa a la creación de la EPL, su
fundamentación y el programa ideado para la aplicación de las bases de FpN en personas
con discapacidad intelectual, bajo el lema “Pienso, luego soy uno más” en el que da una
vuelta al principio cartesiano de “Pienso, luego existo” para remarcar que existo entre los
otros y en calidad de igual.
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También dispone la EPL de un material, aún inédito, en el que se recogen veinticinco

de las múltiples sesiones llevadas a cabo en el recorrido de la escuela y al que se le ha dado
en llamar Semillero.
La dinamización de las sesiones siempre se lleva a cabo en tándem: dos profesores, uno
con y otro sin DI. Es así también como las personas con discapacidad intelectual van
introduciéndose en la dinamización, siendo acompañadas en este proceso por otro profesor.
De todas las jornadas se recogen múltiples experiencias de aprendizaje conjunto y
situaciones y frases que se recopilan como muestra a la hora de tratar de explicar esta
experiencia de educación que a veces resulta inefable y que exige un tempo deliberadamente
lento. Desde la pregunta “¿Nuestra mente es un jarrón que hay que llenar o un hilo del que
tirar?”, que actúa de disparador inaugurando todos los cursos y que ya nos pone en situación
de esta forma de trabajo de la dialéctica socrática, a frases y comentarios de los alumnos
como los siguientes:
“¿Por qué los animales no necesitan pasaporte y las personas sí?; “¿Cómo distinguimos
a un sabio falso de uno verdadero? El verdadero comparte”; “Nos enseñan muchas veces los
valores, pero no a valorarnos”; “¿Por qué cambiamos de opinión?”; “Estas paredes servirán
para hacer eco”; o “La educación es herramientas más cariño”.
Entre preguntas y diálogos, cuando se termina un curso de la EPL se celebra una
ceremonia de graduación –con invitación de familiares y amigos- en la que se les entrega a
los alumnos un diploma de “Maestros Socráticos”.
Una escuela con espíritu de red
La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre fue galardonada en el año 2016 –entre un total de
casi trescientas prácticas- con el Primer Premio a Práctica Excelente en el campo de la
discapacidad en el I Encuentro de Prácticas Admirables de Plena Inclusión. El éxito de esta
experiencia pionera ha llevado a iniciar un pilotaje para extender el proyecto a otras
comunidades autónomas del territorio español. Este pilotaje surge de la colaboración de las
dos entidades que colaboran en Valencia más sus representantes nacionales, es decir, más la
Confederación de Plena Inclusión y el Centro de Filosofía para Niños (España).
Actualmente hay cuatro comunidades autónomas del territorio español participando en
el pilotaje tutorizado por el equipo de Valencia. Son: Galicia, Castilla y León, Castilla La
Mancha y Murcia. Estas comunidades siguen un proceso de dos años en el que van realizando
Talleres de Pensamiento Libre. Al término de esos dos años se valorará la posibilidad de que
comiencen una Escuela de Pensamiento Libre.
De esta forma la Escuela de Pensamiento Libre continúa su vocación de red y avanza
en extender este concepto de escuela en la que se elabora y se expresa el pensamiento propio
en un contexto en el que la diversidad es riqueza educativa.
REFERENCIAS
Etxeberría Mauleón, X. y Sánchez Alcón, J.M. (2013). “¿Por qué no me miras como una
persona entre personas?”. En Rezola, R. (Ed.) Otra educación es posible. Barcelona:
Laertes, 121-141.
Lipman, M.; Sharp, A.M.; Oscanyan, F.S. (1998). La Filosofía en el aula. Madrid: Ediciones
de la Torre.
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Sánchez Alcón, J.M. (2012). “Un tema de nuestro tiempo: pensamiento, moralidad y
autodeterminación en personas con (dis)capacidad intelectual”. Diálogo Filosófico.
Revista de Filosofía, 84, 53-71.
Sánchez Alcón, J.M. (2011). Pensamiento libre para personas con discapacidad intelectual.
Madrid: Ediciones Pirámide.
Sánchez Alcón, J.M. (2014). Proyecto “Pensamiento Libre”. Creación de “Escuelas de
Diálogo” entre ciudadanos con y sin discapacidad intelectual. Inédito.
Verdugo Alonso, M.A.; Schalock, Robert L. (2010). “Últimos avances en el enfoque y
concepción de las personas con discapacidad intelectual”. Siglo Cero. Revista Española
sobre Discapacidad Intelectual, 4, 236, 7-21.
La Escuela de Pensamiento Libre en las redes:

Facebook: LA ESCUELA DE PENSAMIENTO LIBRE: UNA UTOPÍA POSIBLE
Blog: http://escueladepensamientolibre.blogspot.com.es/
Twitter: EPLValencia
Correo electrónico: escueladepensamientolibre@gmail.com
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Skills, Multiple Intelligences and Philosophy with Children in

Intercultural Education
Fiorenzo Ferrari
Chiara Colombo
Filosofia con i Bambini (www.filosofiaconibambini.it)
CV
Fiorenzo Ferrari is a philosopher and learning support teacher. He is teacher in P4C and
belongs to the Società Filosofica Italiana sezione Vco.
Chiara Colombo is a pedagogist and educator. She studied in the Institut de Pratiques
Philosophiques of Paris. She is also involved in activity research for the Catholic University
of Milan.
Together, they design and lead philosophy-based projects for children and provide
educational training for teachers and parents in Verbania and Milan, in northern Italy.
ABSTRACT
Research assumes that philosophical dialogue can contribute to defining a model of
competency-based education and that, in a circular manner, the concept of competencies can
offer a learning perspective through which one can qualify the philosophical approach. The
educational and teacher-training project activated at the schools of Verbania (Italy) aims at
exploring the possibility of practicing philosophy with 5-12- year-old children using both
their minds (cognitive intelligence) and their hands (multiple intelligences). The goal is to
better the children’s social, civic and intercultural competences since they are seen as
competent subjects and citizens from a very early age.
KEYWORDS
Wonder, Otherness, Transversal skills, Ontogenesis/Phylogenesis, Multiple Intelligences.
RESUMEN
La investigación asume que el diálogo filosófico puede contribuir a definir un modelo de
educación basada en las competencias y que, de manera circular, el concepto de competencias
puede ofrecer una perspectiva de aprendizaje a través de la cual se puede calificar el enfoque
filosófico. El proyecto educativo y de formación docente que se ha puesto en marcha en las
escuelas de Verbania (Italia) tiene como objetivo explorar la posibilidad de practicar la
filosofía con niños de 5 a 12 años utilizando tanto la mente (inteligencia cognitiva) como las
manos (inteligencias múltiples). El objetivo es mejorar las competencias sociales, cívicas e
interculturales de los niños y niñas, ya que son considerados como sujetos competentes y
ciudadanos desde una edad muy temprana.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Maravilla, alteridad, habilidades transversales, ontogénesis / filogénesis, inteligencias
múltiples.
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NOTE
This article is a joint effort by the two authors. However, in terms of development, sections
1 to 2.4 are attributable to Fiorenzo Ferrari, while sections 3 to 5 are attributable to Chiara
Colombo.
INTRODUCTION
1. The enigma of childhood
1.1. Expertise and freedom
Children are full of desires and expectations, resources and expertise. In one word –
competences. Starting at a tender age, children possess a ‘completely valid awareness’
which allows them to experience reality; they possess strong practical knowledge which
allows them to learn about and make choices in the life situations and relationships they
are a part of. Children are thus able to bring life to thought through independent
movement; they animate what already exists (cf. Martens, 1999) in a personal, tangible,
and contextualized way through their ability to master concepts, and the concepts’ content
and reciprocal intersections. Therefore, during the philosophical experience, the adult’s
attention should not be on serving children but rather on ‘assisting them in carrying out
useful actions’ (Montessori, 1950, p.50), while guaranteeing the children’s independence
and freedom. In this way, children can overcome a ‘modest sensitivity’ which lets them
express themselves ‘only when adults do not intervene with their directives, such as tests,
advice, and pleas’ (Montessori, 1948, p.105).
We believe that children are interlocutors who bring their own suitcase full of skills,
theories about the world, and personal stories into their relationships and shared
experiences – whether those were created for them or created with them. Even though the
child’s suitcase is obviously lighter than that of an adult in terms of time that has passed
and life experiences, it is still significant – if not heftier – in terms of present experiences
and future potentials.
1.2. Ontogenesis and phylogenesis
Paraphrasing Reale (2004), we might think of the Aristotelians as ‘those who first
philosophized’, referring both to the very first philosophers as well as to those who, for
the first time in their lives, philosophize in wonder.
How do they philosophize? Giambattista Vico (1744, paragraphs 375-377) would say
that this is done through a constant cross-referencing between ontogenesis (i fanciulli /
children) and phylogenesis (i primi uomini / the first humans), which create poetry and
metaphysics without any dualism. According to Vico’s holistic viewpoint, existing
together are the body and mind (corpolentissima fantasia / bodily imagination), pleasure
and fear (maravigliosa sublimità / amazing sublimity), ignorance and knowledge
(curiosity, the child of the former and the mother of the latter), and emotion and intellect
(wonder disturbs and opens the mind).
Why should one start to philosophize? According to Agamben (2017, p.129-130),
language is the developmental response of a being who is ‘condemned to a prolonged state
of immaturity’ which is somatic; in order to survive, this being mustn’t be just an animal,
but also a rational and social animal. And so Aristotle tries – but also, we try, following in
the footsteps of Vico –to remember that humans are also, and always, animals with bodies.
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1.3. Culture and cultures

Children are minors only in terms of the law, which legitimately considers them in a
diachronic logic and doesn’t allow them to be considered according to the same categories
used for the adult world, which –as we have already stated– is different from the world of
children.
Yet we like to think of this concept of being a minor the way Kant (1784) illustrated.
Offering a space for childhood becomes a challenge for adults, as we are called to respect
the dignity of children’s expertise and their abilities to act socially. Children have bodies
and voices and they use them to enter into the lexicons and rules of society, contributing
to its organization and interpretation, both at the horizontal level (elaborating childhood
cultures), as well as the vertical one (participating in cultural production and reproduction)
(cf. Corsaro, 2015).
Children who inhabit the world as minors are children who are trapped in the myths
of childhood by adults. These myths consider them to be small adults who are more or
less involved in the process of becoming complete, or see children as subjects/objects that
are custom-made to be like adults, with their adult vision of the world and childhood. But
there are also myths with romantic ideas about childhood being an uncontaminated and
lost world, something to be approached with admiration and nostalgia.
Children who are able to escape this ‘minor status’ are those that inhabit their culture
and contribute to its definition. This is why they have skinned knees, dirty clothes, and a
schoolbag full of objects and myriad ideas. They deal with their biographies, families, and
multiple areas of belonging –which are often mixed and quite different from one another.
Offering a space for childhood therefore means to just let childhood be, to stop
thinking for childhood and to start to think with childhood, by exchanging and listening
that is respectful of the differences and different maturities which each person embodies.
This concept of childhood is strongly intercultural: different worlds which share family
similarities meet; they discover their intersections, become aware of what they have in
common, and also what they don’t. They perceive that the starting and ending points are
different for everyone, but that the path of life can often be shared for long stretches.
2. Offering a space for philosophy
2.1. Children’s questions and philosophical classics
During philosophy workshops, children ask the initial question. According to Nagel
(1987) and Casati (2011), questions that cannot be answered by the discipline which
formulates them are philosophical questions. When children build a house for dinosaurs
to play in, they are thinking about some characteristics of these prehistoric animals. They
also know very well which companions to ask for specific information about dinosaurs,
and they know that that child will have knowledge about other sources where they can get
more information. But sometimes they feel that this isn’t enough to build a real house for
real dinosaurs in their real game.
The question originates from this feeling, and is dealt with through the words of a
philosopher who, to revisit the reflection on ontogenesis and phylogenesis, has dealt – in
a conceptual and radical way – with the same question himself. The philosopher is just
one more participant in the workshop. There’s no interest in placing him within the history
of philosophy, or contextualizing him in space and time. Instead, we propose the
philosophical classics because we are convinced that, just as the Mona Lisa is for art, they
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have ‘a universal value, because they are able to speak to those who are not inclined to
personally commit to starting a dialogue’ (Bencivenga, 2013, p.81).
Whether it occurs at the beginning of the workshop or at another point, the listening
time is well-defined. All the participants sit in a semicircle, with their bodies, eyes, and
minds focused on the person who is reading. The task of the person reading is to use his
or her voice and movement – as well as images, sounds, and costumes at times – to bring
words to life. This is why an adult who already knows the text is the reader, and not the
children; reading and listening are different ways of dealing with a written text. The
listening space is as secluded as possible, set apart from the rest of the space that’s
available for the workshop.
The texts are always proposed in their entirety, without being sugar-coated or
summarized. In this way, the youngest children come to learn about such authors as
Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel, but also Montesquieu, Nietzsche, and Heidegger, who speak
to the children with adapted words but not with adapted thoughts – just as parents,
teachers, and adults in general attempt to do when they wish to enter into a respectful and
open dialogue with young children and older kids.
The text is not explained, but is left to speak for itself. It enters the conversation like
a thought that has the same weight as the young children’s and older kids’ thoughts –
whether those thoughts are generated by the text or by other activities, and whether they
represent autonomous input from one individual or from the entire group. Like in any
dialogue, sometimes the text remains in the background as a suggestion, leaving space for
other threads in the conversation; sometimes the text takes a more central position and is
examined more deeply, whether to confirm the philosopher’s words, disassociate from
them, or open new horizons of meaning.
2.2. Activating multiple intelligences
Children can be included in the philosophical experience if that experience isn’t
limited to words and thoughts, but puts each child’s multiple intelligences into action (cf.
Gardner, 1983). Our entire proposal gravitates around this fundamental principle and is
founded on its most innovative part (www.filosofiaconibambini.it/pubblicazioni/), as
compared to the wide panorama of philosophy for/with children experiences which are
typically encountered in Italy. By assuming an approach which sees the individual as the
sum of a variety of resources and actions, the philosophical experience becomes much
more respectful of plurality. Children are not all the same, and many of them can more
easily and more fully access knowledge through emotions, relationships, and
introspection, but also through their bodies, movement and space. Or through theoretical
speculation, contact with nature, and musical vibrations. Doing philosophy while
activating multiple intelligences respects inter-individual differences and allows children
to become fully active. Children have the right to experience their lives fully.
Ideas need a place to be positioned, and materials to help them take shape. They come
to the philosophy workshop inside a cardboard suitcase full of glue and drums, pieces of
fabric and balloons, clay and colorful yarn, tape and cameras, paints and mirrors. The
intersection between what the philosophical text suggests and what is evoked by the
question needs to be the starting point when deciding how to fill the suitcase, so that the
planned activities allow children to enter as protagonists. While hands shape clay, bodies
sweat, and voices shout out, ideas are echoed in individual minds and between one mind
and another; then those ideas are chewed on, start to have a scent, and become stronger.
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There is plenty of space for activating multiple intelligences: during each session, it’s
possible to experiment with a philosophical question through proposals which have little
to do with words, especially written words. It’s the body that philosophizes in its entirety;
it’s the body that is therefore called to be questioned and to answer through a variety of
experiences which activate multiple talents. The activities are simple and everyday, and
are often familiar to the young children and older kids. However what’s original is the
philosophical slant that is used in these activities: seeing your own image reflected in the
eyes of your partner allows you to have an immediate experience of Socrates’ ‘Know
thyself’. Making a rope with individual strands that have different lengths and colors
offers children the opportunity to touch Wittgenstein’s ‘family resemblances’ with their
own hands.
The multiple intelligences thus stay alert even during moments of listening and
dialogue, which may be interspersed with physical activities and which, in any case, are
not limited to promoting verbal and logical skills but instead single out, for example, the
relational, emotional, and kinesthetic dimensions.
2.3. The dialogue between strictness and imagination
How does one respond to philosophical questions? According to Casati (2011, p.5-
7), ‘one attempts to sketch an explanation or narration which allows us to recreate a
conceptual tension’. This means a cognitive dissonance or, to put it better, the ‘wonder’
which Vico wrote about and which we will consider later. In this way, ‘a philosopher is a
conceptual negotiator’, and ‘philosophy is not so much a subject as an art: the art of
negotiating concepts. This requires not only strictness but also a good dose of
imagination’.
Strictness, because philosophical dialogue is hard, hostile, and persistent: it doesn’t
allow for asides, provocations, or lack of consistency, because otherwise it would lose its
meaning (cf. Brenifier, 2015). Imagination, because the dialogue is simple, welcoming,
and slow (cf. Zavalloni, 2012). The dialogue is developed through children’s voices, with
words that belong to the stories and imaginations of everyone participating in the
experience. Also, the dialogue waits for everyone, leaving no one behind, because the
answer is a process and not just a product. The dialogue isn’t in a hurry to reach a goal;
its origins have nothing to do with pedagogical goals, or emotional urgencies. The adult’s
role is as an actor and not a spectator, because he or she should guarantee that the dialogue
is respectful of everyone and consistent with the meaning which is unraveled through it.
2.4. Metacognition: last but not least
Going back to the first concept we dealt with, metacognition is what allows us to
acquire the so-called transversal skills. According to Rey (1996), the objective
resemblance which makes up the transversal is one subject to be recognized amongst other
subjects. Transversal skills don’t exist, because the transversal is a psychological reality.
However, there is the possibility for transfer or for the transversal: it abides by the fact
that the subject becomes aware of his/her practices and of the similarities between
situations.
At a certain point the workshop ends, but the experience hasn’t ended yet; there is a
final piece which makes the experience completely philosophical, because it moves the
experience onto a reflective plane, onto a level which is, indeed, metacognitive.
The participating children and adults are asked to make a further effort at reflecting,
to try and observe themselves from the outside, as they retrace the entire activity and
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highlight whatever it produced inside themselves and, thanks to them, through a variety
of mediators.
3. Skills and Plato’s cave
We’d like to share another example of a philosophical workshop which we did as part
of the project in the Verbania area schools. This workshop emerged from a question the
children had about the nature of choice. In the allegory of Plato’s cave, the freed prisoner
goes back into the cave and is ridiculed by his companions. This is where we interrupt the
scene in the philosophical text in order to ask the children what they would do if they were
in his shoes. This represents the starting point for reflecting on the theme of skills and their
link with the philosophical experience.
Le Boterf (2000) represents a skill as the totality of four concentric and interdependent
circles: cognitive resources (knowledge and ability), knowing how to act, being able to act,
and wanting to act. These are like the concentric circles that are formed in water.
By identifying themselves with the prisoner, children can first and foremost use their
will as motivation to respond and as a values system which guides their relationships (do I
or don’t I want to free my companions?). Riding the waves, they find a proposal within
themselves: the allegory, the activities, and the participants form the setting in which to
experiment one’s own sensitivity to bonds and opportunities. Knowing how to act comes into
play when a child investigates the question and, through multiple cognitive processes,
represents it to himself and to the others (what does it mean to be free?), and activates
resources to deal with it (should I or shouldn’t I end up like Socrates?). This is how the design
on the water is completed: the movement of the waves has returned to the first circle, which
represents the knowledge and skills that are useful for philosophizing.
We believe in a circularity between skills and philosophical experience: learning
through skills is constructive and the philosophical method actually requires us to re-build
our mental framework, as we intervene in a subject – dialogue – endowed with reasoning
which is linked precisely to the discussion of multiple subjects. It is socio-cultural, and
social interaction represents a cognitive support for learning. It is positioned, and the
dialogue, as the embodied cognitive science suggests, is a process of constant and
reciprocal causation in which it is difficult to separate the environment (the class), the
internal elaboration (each person’s thoughts) and the physical-material nature of the
cognitive agent (bodily emotions) (cf. Clark, 1997).
Today, just like two thousand years ago, relationships require skill. At the time, Plato’s
disillusioned pen concluded the allegory with Socrates’ death. Today, the creative mind of a
young child assimilates social and civic skills, allows itself to be amazed by a philosopher’s
words, and tries to suggest alternative solutions.
4. The meaning of the philosophical experience: the other
The other can be a neighbor from the same continent, neighborhood, from a nearby
desk or… department, as was the case of Wittgenstein and Sraffa (McGuinness 2012). Not
that this is easy, as shown by the capital letters in the first text, and the many ‘I’s’ in the
second text.
I wish to say one more thing. I think that your fault in a discussion is this: YOU ARE NOT
HELPFUL! I am like a man inviting you to tea in my room, but my room is hardly furnished; one
has to sit on boxes, and the teacups stand on the floor, and the cups have not handles, etc., etc. I
hustle about fetching anything I can think of to make it possible that we should have tea together.
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You stand there with a sulky face, say that you can’t sit down on a box and can’t hold a cup without
a handle, and generally make things difficult. At least that’s how it seems to me.
Yours, Ludwig Wittgenstein (31.1.1934)
As to the method of our discussions (remarks or arguments) I have this to say. I must have long
stories, not short ones; I must try to stick to a point & not saunter from one to the other, apparently
disconnected; I am much too slow for that, and cannot find the hidden connection. Also, I cannot
be content with hints or allusions (or things which cannot be laid down black or white), I must have
it all thrashed out.
But it is no use laying down conditions to which anyhow we could not stick; if in practice it works
out in a way that is intolerable to either of us, then we shall give it up.
Notes by Piero Sraffa, (23.2.1934)
Mutual tolerance: it is possible with philosophy to proceed towards unique objectives
in peace education, towards the formation of an intercultural attitude which is intended not
so much as good behavior towards a foreigner or someone different, but rather as the
development of a propensity for curiosity and openness towards otherness, while recognizing
that otherness is at once both a limit and a resource for individuals and society as a whole.
The foreigner is plural and ambiguous, just like the process of philosophical reasoning is (cf.
Kohan 2006). But philosophical reasoning is also a resource for identifying answers that are
unexpected and therefore unpredictable (cf. Haynes, 2016).
Is the foreigner a ‘double’? According to Freud (1919), the experience of the ‘double’
would be solvable with the verification of the material reality of the phenomenon, that is, of
the fact that we are not talking about a real double but only, for example, of a reflected image
of oneself. And yet the double is unpleasant for us, and the reflected image in the case of
Freud is that of an ‘elderly man, with travelling clothes and hat’, an ‘intruder’. And so: ‘isn’t
it perhaps possible that our dislike for the “double” is a remnant of that archaic reaction in
which the “double” is felt as something distressing?’
During the 2016-2017 academic year spent in the Verbania Trobaso school district, we
launched a challenge which paved the way for disturbance; it began when we first proposed
our project to the teachers in the various schools. This encounter with philosophy occurred
through sessions that included schoolmates of different ages, and their questions.
We opened up and mixed the class groups, sometimes proposing encounters between
very different age groups (first grade and the first year of middle school; the last year of
preschool and fifth grade). The mixed groups proceeded to explore a question they had
devised themselves, which neither the young children nor the older ones would be able to
answer on their own.
This experience had everything to do with offering space: children and kids offered
space for the question of others – people they didn’t know at first – and they offered their
own questions. They experimented how an unexpected viewpoint is valuable for increasing
knowledge. They remodeled their day-to-day living spaces so that they could offer space for
everyone: low chairs, tall windows, wide mattresses and short pencils gained new meaning
when they were inhabited by (un)expected schoolmates. They explored being big and being
small as different sides of the same way of being. They discovered the freedom to be small
while big, and the value of being big when small. They discovered the commonality of
experiences which can be shared just as they are. They encountered differences and made
space for them, just as they are. This truly was an encounter between foreigners who launched
questions and caused wonder (cf. Ferrari, 2015).
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What’s innovative about the Verbania project is its vertical nature, that is, the desire to
structure a vertical curriculum in order to promote critical citizenship through the
philosophical method. The involvement of young children and kids aged 5 to 12 allowed for
communication across different ages and between teachers and parents who relate across
different ages; as a consequence, this all contributed to the definition of a common identity.
According to the teachers, this project enhances and trains the ability to listen and
analyze – in one word – thought. It teaches how to reflect on many issues: how to behave,
how to work, how to simply listen, how to reflect on an idea or on a concept expressed by
someone else, and how to take the time to understand and evaluate content. Philosophical
practice offers a space to stop and think during the rush of everyday life. This is also how
one learns to take a position, even if there are a variety of positions. Listening to difference,
that is, to another person who is intended as different; the space for reflection is intended by
the teachers as listening to difference and growing through that exchange.
The children can also see this objective when they express that they have learned how to
be together and collaborate with everyone, despite all the hard work of coming to agreements.
According to one boy: ‘we need to be with everyone, not just with our best friend: when
someone you don’t like very much talks, and you couldn’t care less, you should listen to him,
too, because he listens to you and you listen to him’. A girl spoke about collaborating and being
in a group: ‘maybe at first you thought a child wasn’t very nice, but now that you have worked
with him in philosophy you are his best friend’; or, according to another boy: ‘if you happen
to be next to a schoolmate with whom you don’t want to be close, after a while you get used to
being next to him, and then you don’t want to be far from him anymore’.
5. Wondering with Plato and Aristotle
Various sources (cf. Curi, 2010) have associated disturbance with the philosophical
experience, an experience which had its origins in wonder for ancient peoples. Once again,
we can learn from the classics.
In Plato’s Theaetetus [155 c-d] we read the following exchange of remarks:
Theaetetus: By the gods, Socrates, I wonder exceedingly as to what in the world these visions are,
and sometimes in looking at them I truly get dizzy.
Socrates: The reason is, my dear, that, apparently, Theodorus’ guess about your nature is not a bad
one, for this experience is very much a philosopher’s, that of wondering. For nothing else is the
beginning of philosophy than this.
This passage, as we know, is taken up in Aristotle’s Metaphysics, I, 2, 982 b 11-28.
In a typical interpretation wonder is seen as cognitive dissonance; however, the fact that
wonder is an emotion presents a challenge to classic cognitive science. Philosophy for Children
has accepted this challenge, and Lipman revisited his idea about infantile thought by
introducing emotions, in light of Antonio Damasio’s studies. However, his attempt did not
succeed because in Lipman’s theoretical framework, having a thought means having a sentence
in one’s head, and therefore that thinking is logical. In this sense, for Lipman (2003) the
linguistic equivalent to emotions are propositional attitudes: with them, the proposition appears
as if contained in an emotional state which deftly manipulates the value of the declarer’s
knowledge. However, there’s the risk of hypothesizing the overall structure – in this case that
wonder is ‘essentially the question of an explanation’ (Berti, 2007, p.VIII) – in organizations
of inferior order (cf. Di Francesco, 2011). An incorporated emotion, in this case.
To paraphrase Damasio (1994), we can say that Plato and Aristotle did not commit any
errors by suggesting that an emotion – Theaetetus’ bodily dizziness – is essential to the
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rational process par excellence: to philosophize. To paraphrase Vico, we can affirm that
inferior and superior do not exist, but that emotion and explanation live together in the
personal stories and evolutionary history of the human species.
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A Thinking Culture: Philosophy in Public Spaces
Dr. Janette Poulton

Melbourne Institute of Technology: Academic Coordinator and Lecturer. Victorian
Association for Philosophy in Schools: Education and Innovations officer.
Janette.poulton@gmail.com
Ms Jill Howell
Brunswick East Primary School. Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools:
Coordinator of COI review project.
CV
Dr. Janette Poulton is the Academic Coordinator of the School of Education and Arts at
Melbourne Institute of Technology. She is also employed as the Education and Innovations
Officer for the Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools (VAPS) and as such is
responsible for curriculum development, training of presenters, and administration of courses
supporting and promoting the P4C pedagogies. Her current projects include development of
‘Ethics Tool Kits’ for the new state Ethical Capabilities Curriculum, and the development of
‘Ethics Trails in Public Spaces’ at the Melbourne Museum and the State Library of Victoria.
Janette has served as joint Secretary on the ICPIC Executive and twice served as President
of the Federation of Australasian Philosophy in Schools Associations (FAPSA). She has
delivered papers and conducted workshops internationally and in various Australian states.
Her Doctorate of Education is titled The Development of Philosophical Dispositions in the
Middle Years of Schooling.
Jill Howell is the Assistant Principal at Brunswick East Primary School (BEPS). She
completed her Level 1 training in 2003 and introduced Philosophy for Children to the school.
She completed her Level 2 training in 2006. Philosophy for Children is now threaded through
the learning that takes place at BEPS and underpins the school’s values of empathy,
creativity, resilience, friendship and wonder. All students participate in regular Philosophy
for Children sessions. Jill has mentored, coached and led Professional Learning sessions for
teachers in Philosophy for Children, presented at conferences and continues this work in her
role as Assistant Principal at BEPS and VAPS Level 1 courses. She is newly appointed to
the Professional Development panel for VAPS.
ABSTRACT
This paper explores connections and differences between doing philosophy in the classroom
context and in the setting of Public Spaces, such as Museums, Libraries and Galleries in
Victoria, Australia. How does environment enhance or limit philosophical discussion? We
draw some conclusions by comparing students’ experience of philosophical inquiry when set
in a museum and a school classroom. This paper falls into three sections. We begin with a
theoretical exploration about ‘thinking culture’ in the context of public institutions. The
middle section describes the strategies used at the Melbourne Museum to promote a thinking
culture. We then report an informal case study, involving students from Brunswick East
primary school, describing the processes, benefits and problems associated with providing
Public Spaces as settings for developing thinking.
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KEYWORDS
Thinking culture, Philosophy in Public Spaces, Philosophy in Schools.
RESUMEN
Este artículo explora las conexiones y las diferencias entre hacer filosofía en un contexto
escolar y en contextos de espacios públicos como museos, bibliotecas y galerías en Victoria
(Australia). ¿Cómo puede incentivar o coartar el entorno al diálogo filosófico? Extraemos
algunas conclusiones a partir de la comparación de la experiencia de indagación filosófica
con estudiantes en el entorno de un museo y en el entorno de un aula escolar. El artículo se
divide en tres secciones. Comenzamos con una exploración teórica sobre “la cultura del
pensamiento” en el contexto de las instituciones públicas. La segunda sección describe las
estrategias empleadas en el Melbourne Museum para promover la cultura del pensamiento.
Por último, en la tercera sección, presentamos un estudio de caso informal con estudiantes
de la escuela primaria de Brunswick East, describiendo los procesos, las ventajas y los
problemas asociados con el uso de espacios públicos como ámbitos de desarrollo de
pensamiento.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Cultura del Pensamiento, Filosofía en espacios públicos, Filosofía en la escuela.
‘Philosophy makes us go over things that would normally wash over us and think about things
that we normally would not give a thought to’. Will Osborne (10 years old)
Part one – A thinking culture

This paper explores connections and differences between doing philosophy in the
classroom context and in the setting of Public Spaces, such as Museums, Libraries and
Galleries in Victoria, Australia. How does environment enhance or limit the development of
a Thinking Culture?
For any education system to thrive it needs to provide a clear articulation of its
overarching goals, and to take practical measures to ensure these are enacted. In 2005, the
goals of the public education system in Victoria, Australia, were clearly articulated in the
Principles of Teaching and Learning (PoLT) (Department of Education and Training [DET]).
These six Principles are designed for educators to use ‘to reflect on practice and support
professional dialogue to strengthen pedagogical practices’. They are consistent with the work
being done in the Philosophy for Children project, drawing on a similar body of theorists,
including Dewey, Vygotsky and Lipman. We are thus justified in relying on the principles
as a framework for our endeavours in this field in Victoria.
We draw attention to Principle 4, which states that ‘Students are challenged and
supported to develop deep levels of thinking and application’. We are told that the role of
educators is to challenge students ‘to explore, question and engage with significant ideas and
practices’. An instruction to ‘challenge’ others is an interesting one, which we will draw
attention to throughout the paper. The relationship of educator to learner is deemed to be an
enabling one, and not one concerned to promote particular viewpoints (such as that of the
educator, the common-sense view, a religious view or the politically correct one). The role
of the educator is to assist the student to ‘move beyond superficial understandings’ of
prevailing ideas and practices and ‘to develop higher order, flexible thinking.’ Furthermore,
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this Principle asserts that the key foundations of good thinking are ‘attention to a thinking
culture’ and the development of thinking dispositions.
Thus, our project was to design activities that promote a thinking culture; and in turning to
Public Institutions as sites for this work we referred to a seminal paper by Ron Ritchhart:
Cultivating a culture of thinking in Museums (2007). Although we agree with this idea in
principle, and recognise its efficacy with regard to enacting PoLT4, we suggest that the
pedagogical principles outlined by Ritchhart in this paper are not adequate to the task. Whilst he
reports museum educators are using effective thinking routines (like ‘see, think, wonder’, and
‘connect, elaborate and challenge’), he also observes that students are encouraged to face an adult
rather than talk with their peers; that the substantive questions are formed by an adult and
answered by an individual rather than through dialogue; that the focus is not on conceptual
understanding but on visual literacy. We draw attention to these pedagogical practices as
limitations to the project of creating a thinking culture. The more ambitious project requires a
pedagogy that can establish sustainable necessary conditions defined by productive philosophical
dialogue. I am referring here to the pedagogy of the Community of Inquiry (COI).
The idea of a COI has its origins with the philosophers Pierce and Dewey, and was
developed over recent decades as an educational ideal for the teaching of thinking by
Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp. Responding to Dewey’s famous description of the school
curriculum as ‘information severed from thoughtful action’ … ‘a dead, a mind-crushing
load’, Lipman said it does not have to be so. An alternative is to convert the classroom into
a community of inquiry where ‘children are encouraged to think philosophically.’ (Lipman
et al, 1980, p.45)
One of the first principles of COI is that of offering students a shared experience by
careful selection of a prompt, provocation or stimulus material such that will motivate
students to employ ‘procedures of inquiry, to use responsible search techniques, that
presuppose openness to evidence and to reason’. Early advocates of Lipman’s program have
thought that thinking in schools must start with the standard Lipman method of asking
questions about a shared story. But this meant they overlooked other shared experiences that
could legitimately stimulate philosophical inquiry and they mistakenly thought that any
philosophical questions asked about a story would be appropriate when, in fact, philosophical
inquiry ‘can only be motivated by questions that are experienced as live problems’ (Laverty,
2014 p.2). The response of our Australian colleagues was to expand the pool and genre of
provocations, and to design trails and events that would offer a broad range of big questions
and learning opportunities as shared experiences for children to reflect upon.
Museum Culture
It almost goes without saying that many public institutions provide opportunities for such
rich shared experiences. Museum curators, those who organise and select artefacts according
to their expertise, use a variety of principles for organising exhibits across styles, periods,
themes and genres, thus providing a suitably rich set of provocations for philosophical inquiries
to evolve. Thus, we support Ritchhart’s claim that public institutions provide unique
circumstances for the setting of a Thinking Culture project. As he notes, many students arrive
at the Museum with some thinking skills, and the occasion ideally encourages them to practice
these skills ‘in the wild’ as recommended by Perkins. Perkins argued that whilst thinking skills
are taught in many classrooms, students need opportunity to apply them in unfamiliar places
where the usual triggers are not in play. This is the familiar claim that exposure to these
accidental opportunities to think helps establish a disposition to think, as it requires students to
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transfer skills to new contexts. This is a claim that needs further attention; and we suggest the
way forward is to gain a better understanding of what it means to intentionally challenge
students ‘to explore, question and engage with significant ideas and practices’. The Museum
presents rich and complex stimuli of shared experience – interesting, fun, informative… but
not necessarily challenging ones. This brings us to the point at which we take issue with
Ritchhart: the choice of stimuli for philosophical stimulation needs to be challenging in the
sense that it is framed to produce problematic and contradictory experiences for students.
This idea is based on a distinction between active and passive thought. What passes for
thinking is often mere habits of thought or ‘automaticism’ (Vygotsky’s term) closer to
daydreaming than to autonomous and responsible thinking. We express pre-rehearsed
thoughts and develop our ideas by mere free association, rather than being guided by rules
of argument and logical structures. The educator needs to challenge students by intentionally
juxtaposing ideas that produce puzzlement based on conceptual or logical contradictions and
ambiguities … not just a novel experience. This will be exemplified in Part 2.
Philosophy is concerned with essentially contestable concepts. This suggests that one
way of animating a visit to a public institution with the spirit of thinking is by attention to the
conceptually problematic. As explained by Lipman (1991, p.33-34): ‘Philosophy is attracted
by the problematic and the controversial, by the conceptual difficulties that lurk in the cracks
and interstices of our conceptual schemes. The significance of this quest for the problematic
is that it generates thinking’.
Lipman warns that if educators deliver information and experiences that, although
interesting or surprising for students, are not essentially conceptually or logically
‘problematic’, they are also unlikely to recognise, let alone be willing to work with, the
philosophical in students’ response. Such teachers are unlikely to tolerate deviation from
their own agendas. Furthermore, ‘the instructional approach they favour is that their students
must learn what they are taught, whereas the more problematic the image these disciplines
have of themselves, the more they will favour an instructional approach of joint, shared
inquiry by teachers and students alike’. (ibid).
This point not only sheds light on pedagogical pitfalls with regards to academic
‘disciplines’, but extends the warning to approaching any kind of curated experience from
such a limited viewpoint. As Ritchhart observes, during a visit to a Museum, students ‘enter
into’ a ‘unique, if transitory, microculture’ and are exposed to particular ‘ways of thinking
about museums’ (p.137). Whilst it is true that curators have particular ‘ways of thinking about
objects’ it is also worthwhile considering that students can enter this space with a critical eye
to all the elements used to construct public institutions. By entering a publicly funded
institution, students are presented directly with the overt values of the community in which
they live: these deliberately chosen artefacts, works of art, historical documents, bones and
so on assert in a very concrete way what prominent social groups deem to be significant and
of value to their fellow citizens. Thus the Museum experience is governed by institutional
policies, professional standards and social norms in addition to the unique aesthetic of the
curator, and any one of this complex cluster of interests and values might capture the attention
of a philosophy student.
The aim of philosophy is to examine basic commonly held opinions and practice that
otherwise go unnoticed, to examine our assumptions and implicit implications of what we
express. As ten-year old Will Osborne said, ‘Philosophy makes us go over things that would
normally wash over us and think about things that we normally would not give a thought
to.’ So, what better place to exercise deep thinking than places that frame for our attention
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the ideas and practices that are deemed ‘significant’ by the community – our public
institutions!
Significant Ideas and Practices
The Principles of Learning and Teaching require students to focus on ‘significant
ideas and practices’. To understand what makes ideas and practices significant it is helpful
to build on the Department of Education’s (DET) recommendations about values education.
DET defines values as ‘what has been judged to have ethical weight’. We understand that
the strongest commonly held values, the ‘weightiest’ values, may be shaped into Principles
or may be protected by legal structures and represented as Rights. However, DET, in fine
philosophical spirit, recognises that, regardless of accepted gravitas, our values are
contestable and require active re-evaluation. Areas of contestability include:
 identifying what is valuable.
 for whom is it valuable.
 how valuable it is and why.
 whether something is valued because it is good, or good because it is valued.
How are educators to drive this process of re-evaluation of the most significant ideas
and practices? Even the capacity to identify one’s own most significant ideas is elusive. Often
these are the kind of things that go unnoticed when lists of significant things are first
constructed. For example, when students are asked to list their own most significant ideas
and practices, they will first think of possessions signifying status, rather than much deeper
aspects of life. In one class, students contested whether ‘fresh air’ even counted as a
significant value. One student exclaimed, ‘Breathing, a value? No, that is not what we are
talking about.’ And then reconsidered their position. ‘Yet I fight anyone or anything that gets
in the way of my breathing.’ The student concluded that a criterion for recognising that
something was of value was ‘the effort they would make to defend it’. This insight enabled
students to explore criteria they used for identifying ideas and practices that were personally
significant, and to develop a model for understanding criteria used to identify social and
general items of significance.
Being able to articulate and share what we mean when we say something has value is
a starting point for exploring values. Establishing criteria does not enable us to fix a final
catalogue of things that should be valued. The criteria we use to evaluate our experience may
change. In accord with DET insights, we argue that values are context dependent, and for
many reasons contestable. Hence, values need to remain a target of active, ongoing
philosophical inquiry.
Are the kind of activities proposed by Ritchhart sufficient for the development of such
vital connections with the world? This is the point at which educators may lose their way for
it takes time to identify our deepest responses. Ethical education must be respectful of the
actual nature and circumstances of the world each person inhabits. This brings us back to the
point raised by Ritchhart that the Museum context provides students with opportunities for
thinking – but we still may ask, what we should be thinking about in such contexts? The
possibility offered by public places is that those ideas that are most entrenched in community
life are there exposed– those deepest ideas that inform our way of life are made transparent.
But is this sufficient? A thinking culture does not simply affirm the identified values – it
evaluates the values it commits to. This requires more than habituated thinking processes.
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Regarding ‘Critical Thinking’, Lipman (1991) constructed a useful theoretical model

representing critical thinking skills as more complex forms of ordinary thinking skills. This
model demonstrated a qualitative difference between the same traits, thus ‘guessing’ and
‘preferring’ are things we do as ordinary thinkers, and ‘estimating’ and ‘evaluating’ are
things we do as critical thinkers. The difference may be described by the conscious use of
criteria when thinking critically. In Table 1 below we see that each ordinary thinking skill
(listed in the left-hand vertical column), is matched by a critical form of thinking (in the right-
hand column).
Table 1 A comparison of Ordinary and Critical Thinking (Lipman 1991)
LEVEL 1 LEVEL 2
Ordinary Thinking Critical Thinking
Guessing Estimating
Preferring Evaluating
Grouping Classifying
Believing Assuming
Inferring Inferring logically
Associating Concepts Grasping logically
Noting relationships Noting relationship amongst relationships
Supposing Hypothesising
Opining without reasons Offering opinions with reasons
Making judgments without criteria Making judgments with criteria
We see this as a useful model for educators, as it shows how once a student is prepared,
for example, ‘to give an opinion’ the educator has opportunity – using questioning and
modelling strategies – to reinforce the skill of ‘giving reasons’. The capacity to ‘give reasons’
enables a viewpoint to be evaluated in a way that ‘expressing opinions’ often seems to escape
(‘everyone has a right to their own opinion’.) This model highlights the idea that both the
foundations of, and the objects of critical thinking, were thinking itself – that Philosophy is
best conceived of as ‘thinking about thinking’. This point has been well elaborated by Fred
Newmann who identified Higher Order Thinking as ‘expanded use of the mind’, where a
person analyses, interprets or manipulates information. Lower order thinking, he said,
signified ‘routine, mechanistic application, and constraints on the mind’ (1991, p.63). Thus,
there is no correlation between the objective complexity of a problem and the complexity of
the thinking it solicits. An expert may in fact address a complex problem mechanically; a
novice may address a simple problem with Higher Order Thinking Skills. If this is the case, it
is not the presence of intrinsically complex object of thoughts that signifies a thinking culture,
but the complexity of the behaviour actually employed in engaging with that object of thought,
that is of interest. Further ideas that may be used by an educator to work with this insight are
offered by leading discourse analysts David Perkins and Gordon Wells.
Thinking on the Hoof
A model of open-ended inquiry was advanced by Perkins (1994) to analyse discussions
that took place within a P4C framework. He arrived at this model by studying informal
discussions and describing some of the patterns of what he calls ‘thinking on the hoof’. He
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developed a view that open-ended, oral inquiry can be seen as a process of ‘building a
conception’, which is dominated by recurrent patterns, called ‘epistemic games’, that give
thinking a loose syntax. He observed the goal-directed nature of ‘thinking on the hoof’. He
pointed out that when the participants he observed were engaged in ‘building conceptions’,
they were constructing sets of interrelated models about a topic (1994, p. 86). Some of the
earmarks of this broad notion of conception building are:
 Very broad guiding principles to make sense of a topic.
 Multiple frames of reference interlaced.
 Questions of evidence mixed with conceptual critique.
 Evolution of the purposes of the inquiry as part of the inquiry.
 An emerging conceptual landscape, with many aspects, some addressed and some
not.
Whilst a process of building a conception gives an overall structure to the thinking of oral
inquiry, Perkins notices patterns within diverse kinds of thinking which explain the
microstructure of the discussions. He called each kind of thinking he observed an ‘epistemic
game’. An epistemic game is an area of expertise, containing its own language, tacit rules, and
‘epistemic moves’ (p. 86). Such ‘games’ include activities such as defining a concept, providing
a justification and giving examples. Any of the thinking skills listed by Lipman are potential
‘epistemic games’.
In summary, the epistemic game theory seeks to describe oral inquiry through three
components, namely, the process of ‘building a conception’, the ‘epistemic games’ used to do
this, and the control mechanism of ‘the structured heap’. While epistemic games have the most
important role in building a conception through cooperative inquiry, the individual epistemic
moves, or utterances, are also significant. However, their significance is derived from their
contribution to the inquiry referred to as ‘the structured heap’, and not as isolated individual
kinds of thinking. What is required is time enough for students to create ‘structured heaps’,
which, it could be argued, form the foundation from which a thinking culture can emerge.
On this note, we focus on some of the problems raised about Ritchhart’s examples of
dialogue between teachers and students by drawing on the tradition of Discourse Analysis led by
Gordon Wells. Like Ritchhart, Wells observes, much depends on the nature of the teacher's
interventions. However, what seems to be present in Ritchhart’s examples is a familiar
impediment to successful dialogic interchange in the classroom: the ‘triadic dialogue’ led by the
adult. It takes this form: Teacher Initiate, Student Response, Teacher Follow-up (IRF), by which
the teacher ensures that the students can produce acceptable answers. Wells (1996; 1999) advises
that the teacher-student interaction does not have to be restricted to this form of pseudo-dialogue,
even in whole-class settings. If, instead of merely praising or rejecting students’ contributions,
teachers request they provide explanations, justifications, and amplifications, what starts as an
IRF exchange can develop into a genuine dialogic co-construction of meaning moving beyond
initial spontaneous responses.
In contrast to Wells’ recommendations, Ritchhart’s examples of successful questioning by
educators, were evidenced with the following examples of students’ responses wanting to find out
more about print-making (p.141) or comparing various means to address basic needs at one time
with the present (p.143) without examining the concept of ‘basic need’. These are practical
questions that stay on the surface of the culture, rather than addressing underlying contestable
concepts or provisional values. For the purposes of this paper a Deweyan model is used to explain
the nature of philosophical inquiry. This may not coincide with all understandings of the discipline
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of philosophy, but it is consistent with many. The strategies include encouraging museum
educators to build a thinking culture by encouraging students to pursue an enquiry with their peers
that is facilitated in such a way as to both deepen their thinking and broaden their perspective, by
allowing students to ask questions based on their own interests and to frame open questions
designed to engage the diverse interests of their peers.
A Thinking Culture
We now turn our attention to the idea of a ‘thinking culture’; exploring this idea with
reference to a longstanding tradition of ‘cosmopolitanism’ as a touchstone. This word first
appears in the Greek kosmopolitês, and has been attributed to Diogenes of Sinope who
described himself as a ‘citizen of the cosmos’. Diogenes hoped to free himself from ‘the
shackles of local cultural and political allegiances’, and to embrace a world ‘beyond the local
sphere of engagement’. Cosmopolitanism blossomed in the Enlightenment taking the form
of universalism, as expressed in the ‘Declaration of Human Rights’ (1789). According to the
enlightenment version of cosmopolitanism, we have obligations to others with whom we
share the planet beyond our local allegiances, because our lives are inter-connected in
multiple ways (Camhy et al). The extent to which we are responsible to others of our species,
regardless of cultural and personal connections, remains a contested question. Issues include
establishing which traits are universally relevant, and which of these ‘multiple inter-
connections’ are actually worth maintaining.
Despite the universalist positioning, 18th century cosmopolitanism took interest in the
value not just of human life, ‘but of particular human lives, which means taking an interest
in the practices and beliefs that lend them significance. People are different, the
cosmopolitans know, and there is much to learn from the differences’ (ibid). A contemporary
question is what general capabilities enable us to navigate this world of cultural and personal
difference; and how we can develop and maintain them whilst maintaining a sense of a
common humanity and purpose.
When students are brought into a public institution, exposed to artefacts that provoke
contested meanings and significance they are challenged to find strategies to navigate
difference amongst their peers. They must develop the rules of engagement with other
students and negotiate how to work together. The P4C project provides a framework for
generating the social skills through which students are able to develop the capacity to reflect
in a critical, creative and caring way on their shared experience.
The Agora – Claiming Public Space for Public Dialogue
Many P4C educators have wondered whether they can really convince the community
at large that Philosophy and the Teaching of Thinking can make a difference. How can the
Community of Inquiry approach be promoted so it is understood as both a feasible and viable
way of providing opportunities to develop the skills required in a thinking society? One
strategy is to take the approach to invite parents and the community into the school classroom
where this form of relationship happens on a regular basis. Another, more courageous
strategy is to conduct the community of inquiry in public spaces for all to see, under the
protective rule of museum protocols.
We have noted the surprise of adult visitors in a public space when they see students
in dialogue, and it is not simply that children express such interesting ideas, it is that dialogue
itself should take place in a public space. Why is such activity so surprising? Why does public
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expression of thought for the common person entail either being subjected to speakers or the
performances of others, rather than collaborative reflection of what is significant in our lives?
In the next section we provide a description of the kind of work we are promoting in
the context of public institutions. We sketch the kinds of interventions made in order to build
a thinking culture as described above.
Part two – A particular museum experience
I, along with 8 others from Serpell Primary School, visited the Melbourne Museum on the 16th of
March for a different reason than you may think. We were not there simply as visitors, but as
budding Philosophers! We were greeted with a warm welcome and this made us feel valued and
comfortable knowing that we were in for a big day of mind opening activities. The exhibits gave
me the big ideas, while like-minded people helped me look at my own ideas from a different
perspective and they also unlocked my mind to new ideas! The Philosothon facilitators helped us
to think deeper and provided us with new techniques for expanding our thoughts. It was a great day
and I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge.
We now provide an outline of how the Museum visit was organised. Justification of
each step in this process will be found above in Part One of this paper.
Bunjilaka, The First Peoples Exhibition, was curated by Indigenous Elders in
collaboration with non-Indigenous professional museum curators, and is located within
Melbourne Museum. This is a rich environment to stimulate philosophical discussion with
several sections: the pre-settlement period, Our Shared History, a listening shell, and stories
and images of individual indigenous experience. The voices and languages of Victoria’s
Koorie Community are unfamiliar to most of the children we bring to this site.
1. Stimuli chosen to be problematic

We chose ‘the story of the feather skirt’ and the ‘indigenous girl dressed for a debutante
ball’ provoking students to raise questions of the relative values of equality versus
authenticity, relative value of rituals across cultures, and puzzlement as to the many reasons
why we dress.
1) Students organised into groups with children they have not worked with before - Rule of
engagement negotiated.
2) Students go on a treasure hunt to locate their preselected exhibits, aided by a work sheet.
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3) Students (in pairs or as they choose) identify Big Ideas stimulated by the particular exhibits.
(We make suggestions to model what a Big Idea looks like.)
4) Students make their own Big Claim using their big ideas.
(We make suggestions to model what a Big Claim looks like.)
5) Students turn their claims into Big Questions.
6) Students, as a group, use the Questions Quadrant to distinguish research questions from
inquiry questions.
7) Students share big ideas, claims and questions and decide with their school groups which
question is the Most Significant Question to pursue with others back at school,
accompanied by photos of the exhibits that stimulated the question.
8) Students pursue their inquiry back at school over the next few months.
9) A select group return to the Museum and present their new questions that have evolved
from school COIs for the select group of students to address at the final event.
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Part three – Brunswick east primary school

During 2017 students from Brunswick East Primary School attended a Philosothon at
the Melbourne Museum. As this was the beginning of our research project, we sent out a
plain language statement asking for permission from the school and parents of the students
involved explaining that data would be de-identified and where it would be used. We did not
seek further Ethics clearance at this stage as we are still in the process of developing the
methodology including data collection and analysis protocols.
The students’ participation in the Philosothon raised several key research questions
about the effect of the environment on learning and philosophical discussion.
 What effect will the museum environment have on students’ thinking?
 How would the philosophical inquiry develop?
 Will the students’ questions be more sophisticated at the museum than those
formulated at school?
The School
Brunswick East Primary School (BEPS) is a school located in Brunswick East, about
6 kilometres north of the Melbourne Central Business District Australia. The research was
undertaken at BEPS because of:
 The whole school approach to the pedagogy of Philosophy for Children, with
students from Foundation to grade 6 participating in Philosophy for Children (P4C).
 The commitment to the establishment of a thinking culture.
 The belief that environment can promote thinking and is a cultural force within the
school.
 Participating in four Philosothons.
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The school’s current enrolment of 430 students comes from a medium to high socio-
economic profile. Organised into Multi-Age Learning Communities (LCs) of Foundation,
Grades 123 and Grades 456. Each LC contains 66 students and three teachers. Children at all
levels learn through inquiry, explicit teaching, active participation and philosophical discussion.
The school uses the Victorian Curriculum which contains four capabilities; Critical and Creative
Thinking; Cultural Understanding; Ethics; and Personal and Social Learning.
P4C was introduced into the school twelve years ago with the LCs teachers facilitating
sessions with students on a regular basis. It has been the leading influence on the pedagogical
approach of the school. Other influences are Reggio Emilia, Vygotsky and Harvard’s Project
Zero’s Thinking Routines. Half the teachers have formal training through the teachers’
association of the Victorian Association of Philosophy in Schools (VAPS). A VAPS Level 2
facilitator runs Professional development sessions for all teachers on a regular basis. The
school uses an inquiry approach supported by the school’s values of Wonder, Empathy,
Friendship, Creativity and Resilience. Big Ideas such as Sustainability or Community frame
an inquiry across the curriculum. P4C is embedded in this learning, supporting understanding
by unpacking contestable concepts linked to the inquiry such as ‘right’, ‘wrong’ or ‘fair’.
BEPS has participated in four Primary School Philosothons, at the National Gallery of
Victoria (NGV) and the Melbourne Museum. The aim was to promote philosophical inquiry
and rigour by bringing students from different schools in Years 4-6 together in an external
environment containing rich stimuli to participate in P4C sessions.
At the beginning of 2017, Dean Rupcic, who teaches in a Grade 456 LC at BEPS, was
approached to work with a group of grade 456 who would attend the Melbourne Museum
Philosothon at the First Peoples Exhibition, Bunjilaka. A productive environment to
stimulate philosophical discussion with the voices and languages of Victoria’s Koorie
Community, with artefacts, photography, and videos portraying the story of Aboriginal
Victoria on display.
Dean had completed Level 1 training with VAPS, was enthusiastic about P4C and had
completed a university-level study in philosophy. Dean asked for expressions of interest from
the BEPS students to take part in the Philosothon. There was keen interest from the grade 456
LC students. Ten where chosen and they were engaged and excited to be participants.
The Environment and Learning
BEPS sees the school environment as essential and a stimulus to the learning that takes
place within them. Drawing from Reggio’s experience of education, the physical
environment of the LCs is used to promote thinking, creativity, collaboration, differentiation,
questioning, and exploration of ideas. The school environment has become more homelike,
with multi-aged groupings, no fixed desks, some moveable tables and chairs, couches and
armchairs, plants and the use of natural materials. Students are supported to become
independent learners. Often provocations such as different artefacts, maps, artworks or
books are placed in the LCs. These often become the spark to begin discussions at the
beginning of an inquiry or a P4C session.
Data Collection
Data collection for the three research questions began at the start of 2017 and consisted of:
 Student notes
 Transcripts of CoI discussions
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 Interviews with the students

 Teacher reflection
 Documentation of student thinking
The Philosothon
At the museum, the BEPS students were teamed up with students from other schools
for them to explore, investigate and hypothesise together about the exhibition. They were
asked to come up with some claims regarding what they had experienced. Students discussed
the claims several times. Then they went back into their school groups to come up with a
question to take back to school. Examples of some of the claims and questions are listed
below.
Claims:
 We must pass on traditions and culture – they can help us to be less reliant on
machines and technology. We need to be in touch with skills and traditions.
 Country and creatures create our stories. They rely on each other.
 Indigenous people lived with nature – they didn’t force it to change.
Questions:
 Without our tradition and culture, what would our stories be?
 Why/how/is indigenous culture important to our history? How has it impacted us?
 What is the point of connecting to the land? Why is it important?
At the end of the day the BEPS student question was:
Can the beliefs and technologies of indigenous cultures help us create a balance in the
modern world?
In interviews, both Dean and the students who attended the Philosothon reported a
higher level of philosophical discussion and engagement. The students were both challenged
and enthused with what they experienced.
Teacher Reflection
Reflecting on the students’ level of thinking and engagement Dean noted:
As a facilitator who has now had the opportunity to work with students using the P4C model in
both the LC setting and at the Melbourne Museum I believe when students have the opportunity
interact with and deeply immerse themselves in environments that activate and appeal to the senses
(audio, visual, spatial, textural) their ability to be empathetic and in turn devise philosophical
questions and ideas is heightened.
Perhaps the most apparent benefit of using events such as the Philosothon is that the students in
attendance have volunteered themselves or been chosen by school staff to attend. This means two
things: the students themselves have a genuine interest in philosophical discussion and… (have the)
ability to skilfully engage in philosophical discussion. As a result, when students are engaged in
dialogue, the skills required for a fruitful philosophical discussion, listening, reasoning, challenging
ideas respectfully, allowing everyone to share their ideas, blossom into an area that I believe is often
not reached in the LC setting.
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Rupcic, D 2017, unpublished teacher reflection
Upon returning to school, the students have met their teacher on a regular basis at
lunchtimes. They have continued to be engaged with their question and have spent a great
deal of time classifying what the question means. Their thinking was documented as they
analysed their understanding of the question and concepts involved.
Student Reflection
When reflecting on the Philosothon and how it was different from doing P4C at school
the students’ comments were:
 We were able to explore more questions.
 We made up our question.
 It was a big question with lots of pathways, things to explore.
 There were new things to talk about.
 There were new things to think about.
Also, several students commented on the effect of having people they didn’t know
watching them doing P4C and being interested in what they were saying.
‘(We could) see them thinking, wanting to do philosophy. There were lots of good
thoughts’.
Effects on Student Learning and Engagement

When the students returned to school, they were excited and engaged in philosophical
discussions. They took a stronger leadership role and often acted as facilitators with other
students when doing P4C. The students who took part in the Philosothon were able to connect
the learning that had taken place at the museum with the LCs inquiry into truth and history
‘Whose story is it?’ back at BEPS. This ripple effect continued when all students in the LC
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visited the First Peoples Exhibition at the Melbourne Museum as part of their inquiry. The
students who attended the Philosothon led other students through the exhibition, asking,
‘What do you think about this?’, ‘Can you see this?’
Conclusion
Vygotsky (1978) theorised that the environment in which children grow up in would
influence how they think and what they think about. Although this is an ongoing project in
the initial stages, it appears that the environment we expose students to influences learning
and development of philosophical discussion. Allowing students to leave the confines of the
school, develop their wonder and experience philosophical discussion in a vibrant
environment has resulted in more complex and rigorous outcomes.
Future Directions
Reading the article by Ritchhart raised concerns about a needed distinction between
lower and higher order thinking skills. Was higher order thinking to be regarded as
philosophically interesting in itself? Could not higher order thinking be conducted
automatically, as when an accomplished classifier classifies? If so, was it only philosophically
interesting when it was conducted consciously? In other words, although a student may have
more sophisticated cognitive skills and, for example, may be able to solve complex
classification problems, might they nonetheless be acting in a less philosophical way than
someone having difficulty with the task? A thinking culture can be deemed to be in action
when citizens/students are conscious of what they are doing intellectually, that is, when they
are aware of possible courses of intellectual action and intentionally choose the epistemic
moves with a view to developing shared understandings of human experience. We can see the
beginning of this experience in the students from Brunswick East Primary School when they
attended the Philosothon and other students who have had the opportunity to do P4C in the
public domain. Further documentation of such experiences will provide rich data enabling us
to launch a fully developed empirical study of the central research question: What
interventions should educators make to build a Thinking Culture?
REFERENCES
Camhy, D., García Moriyón, F., Glaser, J. & Striano, M. (2013). ‘Cosmopolitanism in
Education: Theoretical Foundations of the New PEACE Curriculum’, paper presented to
the ICPIC Conference, Cape Town, August 2013.
Dewey, J. (1916/1966). Democracy and Education, New York, The Free Press.
Dewey, J. (1933/1968). How We Think. A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking
to the
Educative Process. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company.
Laverty-Smith, M. (2002). ‘Philosophy and Pedagogy in Australian School’, Critical and
Creative Thinking vol.10, no.1.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A. & Oscanyan, F. (1980). Philosophy in the Classroom, Philadelphia,
Temple University Press.
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Lipman, M. (1987). ‘Some thoughts on the foundations of reflective education’, in Baron, J.

& Sternberg R., (eds), Teaching Thinking Skills: Theory and Practice, New York,
Freeman.
Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy Goes to School, Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in Education New York, Cambridge University Press.
McLeod, S. (2014). Lev Vygotsky. Available from:
www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html (retrieved on 8 May 2017).
Newmann, F. (1990). ‘Qualities of thoughtful social studies classes: an empirical profile’,
Journal of Curriculum Studies, vol. 22, no.3.
Perkins, D. & Ritchhart, R. (2008). ‘Teaching Students to Think: Making Thinking Visible’,
Educational Leadership. vol.65, no.5, pp. 57-61.
Perkins, D. (1994). ‘The hidden order of open-ended thinking’, in J Edwards (ed.), Thinking
International Interdisciplinary Perspectives. pp. 83-96. Melbourne, Hawker Brownlow
Educational.
Poulton, J. (2011). The Development of Philosophical Dispositions in the Middle Years of
Schooling, Doctoral thesis, University of Melbourne.
Department of Education (2005). Principles of Learning and Teaching, Victorian
Government. Retrieved on October 10th 2017, from
http://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/ support/Pages/teaching.aspx
Ritchhart, R. (2007). ‘Cultivating a culture of thinking in museums’, Journal of Museum
Education, vol.32, no.2, pp.137-154.
Ritchhart, R. (2015). Creating Cultures of Thinking, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
Sutcliffe, R. (2002). Philosophical enquiry with children – a personal journey. Unpublished.
Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Towards a sociocultural practice and theory of
education, New York, Cambridge University Press.
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Philosophical Inquiry as a Deweyan Way of Teaching Dewey's

Philosophy at University
Maura Striano
Department of Humanities at the University of Naples, Federico II
maura.striano@unina.i
CV
Maura Striano, Fulbright scholar, Fulbright alumna and PHD in Educational Sciences at the
University of Perugia is full professor of Education at the Department of Humanities at the
University of Naples, Federico II. She is the Director of the Professional Development
Course in Philosophy for Children www.p4c.unina.it.
She has been a member of the Board of Directors of the John Dewey Society, of the Executive
Board of the International Council for Philosophical Inquiry with Children whithin which
she also served as vice president).
She is co-director of the series Impariamo a Pensare (Liguori); Dewey Studies (Fridericiana
University Press) and of the international review Educational Reflective Practices.
ABSTRACT
Philosophical inquiry, according to the model developed by Lipman, can be used as a way of
addressing Dewey's philosophical ideas and theories in higher education courses. Within this
framework, it is possible to engage with Dewey’s ideas, starting “from within” and therefore
using the same generative matrix from which they have been produced , the matrix of inquiry.
The community of inquiry is a context within which it is possible to operationalize and
actualize, in higher education contexts, the ideas that Dewey himself developed regarding
the study of philosophy and its educational value.
KEYWORDS
Philosophical inquiry, Dewey, higher education.
RESUMEN
La investigación filosófica, de acuerdo con el modelo desarrollado por Lipman, puede ser
utilizada como una forma de abordar las ideas y teorías filosóficas de Dewey en los cursos
de educación superior. Dentro de este marco, es posible comprometerse con las ideas de
Dewey, comenzando “desde dentro” y por lo tanto utilizando la misma matriz generativa a
partir de la cual se han producido, la matriz de investigación.
La comunidad de indagación es un contexto en el que es posible poner en práctica y
actualizar, en contextos de educación superior, las ideas que el propio Dewey desarrolló sobre
el estudio de la filosofía y su valor educativo.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Investigación filosófica, Dewey, educación superior.
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INTRODUCTION
Teaching and learning in higher education contexts: challenges and new
perspectives
In the last twenty years we have witnessed the emergence of a strong interest in
teaching in higher education. This is due to the fact that, as Ramsden puts it, ‘higher education
has become a part of a global shift to a new way of creating and using knowledge’ which is
focused on solving problems, sensitive to customers’ needs and striving for quality beyond
quantity (Ramsden, 2003: 4). Nonetheless, the current debate regarding higher education and
its outcomes highlights how it is always at risk of failing in achieving its goals and objectives,
if teaching practices are not challenged and revitalized. Several academic institutions are
therefore engaged in a process of renewal, reinvigorating their educational practices through
professional development activities for university teachers and an experimentation with new
approaches to the disciplines. This implies also a reframing of the epistemological
understanding of their nature and content.
One of the main challenges for teaching in higher education is the necessity of
establishing what Brew and Boud have defined a ‘vital link’ between research and learning
(Brew & Boud, 1995), taking into account the fact that what these two activities have in
common is the process of inquiry. This is relevant for all fields of research and requires two
epistemic moves: a) a redefining of the understanding that teachers and students have of the
disciplines; and b) an identification of a different approach to learning and teaching.
However, we should avoid the risk of what Biesta defines as the ‘learnification’ of
educational processes, and contrast an approach to knowledge focused on an input-output
perspective. This requires a consideration of the active role of the learner and the
interconnectedness and situatedness of learning processes within a cultural and social
framework, all of which calls for agency and responsibility (Biesta, 2010).
In addition, we should mention that any discipline cannot be conceived as a fixed
corpus of static knowledge to be transmitted to the learners, but rather as the ongoing
production of new elements of knowledge and understanding. These elements stem out from
a continuous process of inquiry, realized through the shared use of languages, methodologies
and previous research outcomes.
If this can be said for all the disciplines, it is the main characteristic of philosophy
which, by its very nature, cannot be understood as the object (or a sum of objects) of a
learning process.
As McDonald Ross points out, with reference to Kant, philosophy is not a body of
knowledge that can be transmitted from a teacher to a learner: there are, indeed, no thoughts
that should be learned, but, instead, a process of thinking in which the students should be
actively engaged (McDonald Ross, 2005).
For this reason, Lipman has criticized the understanding of philosophy as an
‘academic discipline’, highlighting how on this basis ‘the students in the upper echelons
of education have been expected to learn philosophy rather than to do it’ (Lipman, 1985),
an approach which is, in his opinion, absolutely wrong. Doing, as Dewey had clearly
pointed out in Democracy and Education, is the most effective key to engage students in
a process of knowledge construction and understanding from which learning derives as a
natural outcome: ‘give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing
is of such a nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results’ (Dewey, 1996; MW
9: 162).
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In a Deweyan perspective, doing should be, therefore, always supported by thinking, and
philosophy, as Paul notes, can be understood both as a ‘mode’ and as a ‘framework for thinking’
(Paul, 1993). Further, as Lipman states, thinking is the core of philosophical inquiry, which can
therefore proceed according to a reflective pattern, having thinking both as a tool as well as a
content (Lipman, 2003). Philosophy, therefore, offers us the possibility both of exploring our
world and the worlds of others (even those very far from us in time and space) and of reflecting
on our exploration with a metacognitive perspective, due to its reflective epistemology.
This leads us to focus on the possibility of ‘practicing’ philosophy; entering the inquiry
processes that characterize its epistemic structure, making them visible and identifying the
possible connections of this understanding to the teaching practices implemented within
academic courses. In this perspective, it could be useful to define a theoretical frame of
reference that can support a different approach to teaching philosophy in higher education,
taking into account the contribution offered by John Dewey and Matthew Lipman to the
exploration of this specific issue.
Dewey and the Study of Philosophy
Dewey approached philosophy on the basis of his experience as an educator and high
school teacher (from 1879 to 1882 in Oil City and in Charlotte) and this empirical and
experiential background would be reflected in his thought and in his research themes, from
his Early to Later Works. Moreover, during his academic experience, he had the opportunity
not only to develop his speculation, but also to be an instructor and to give classes in
Philosophy. This double position (scholar and teacher) was extremely helpful for Dewey and
enabled him to identify the epistemic structure of philosophy and to acknowledge its cultural,
educational and social function. Moreover, Dewey's experience as a teacher of philosophy
legitimates and justifies the strong relationship existing in his thought between philosophy
and education, which can be explored at a theoretical level and at a practical level.
Philosophy is not only considered by Dewey as a subject matter to approach within
educational curricula, but also as a reflective device which helps in clarifying the problems
emerging from all the experiences that characterize human life.
Within this framework, Dewey proceeds to analyze and elucidate the cultural and social
necessity of studying philosophy, first in the essay Why Study Philosophy (Dewey, 1996;
EW, 4), where he describes the study of philosophy as a ‘deliberate and reflective
overhauling’ of ideas which must be extracted from the cultural tissue grounding human
experience and explored in their meaning (ibid., EW, 4.63).
Further, in the essay The study of philosophy (ibid., MW, 6), he points out that
philosophical studies ‘acquaint the student with the forces that create ideas and make them
potent’ and therefore give them ‘some increase of expertness in the use of the tools by which
the leading ideas of humanity are worked out and tested’. In this perspective, philosophy
comes to have an educational role, considering that ‘to help a man make a living is the
ultimate end of education’ and that ‘to have some part in the making of ideas is a necessary
part in the making of a living that is worth living’ (ibid., MW, 6.138).
Finally, in Democracy and Education, Dewey highlights the ‘intimate connection
between philosophy and education’ which is grounded in the fact that education offers to
philosophy ‘a vantage point from which to penetrate to the human’; this is due to the fact that
‘the educational point of view enables one to envisage the philosophic problems where they
arise and thrive, where they are at home, and where acceptance or rejection makes a
difference in practice’ (ibid., MW, 9, 338).
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This justifies the idea that philosophical inquiry should not be understood as a
‘technical’ practice, performed by experts on academic issues and problems, but as an
educational practice, grounded on experience, which supports the development of attitudes
and competences and provides individuals and communities with new forms of knowledge,
as well as new meanings and understandings.
In The Child and the Curriculum Dewey explained how no form of knowledge can be
introduced into human life ‘from without’ since ‘learning involves reaching out of the mind’
and ‘involves organic assimilation starting from within’ (ibid., MW, 2, 277); that’s why the
study of philosophy (as all other studies) requires to be activated ‘from within’ the fields of
human experiences taking into account the fact that individual and collective experience
‘already contains within itself elements – facts and truths – of just the same sort as those
entering into the formulated study; and, what is of more importance, of how it contains within
itself the attitudes, the motives, and the interests which have operated in developing and
organizing the subject-matter to the plane which it now occupies’ (ibid., MW, 2, 278).
This implies a strong involvement of the learner, starting from different fields of human
experience and finding within her/himself the ideas, issues and/or problems that have
generated the construction of a specific form of knowledge, considered as the by-product of
a process of inquiry deeply imbedded in those fields. Within this framework, the study of
philosophy must be conducted on the basis of the acknowledgment of the emergence of
philosophical motives and interests in individual and collective life, which recover and reflect
ideas, problems and themes of the past and lead us towards the future. These insights have
been the background of Dewey’s educational philosophy and have constituted the frame of
reference for Lipman’s approach to philosophy.
Lipman and the introduction of Dewey’s philosophy into educational practice
In an interview published in the journal Scuola e Città and later reprinted in an Italian
collection of articles and essays, Lipman described Philosophy for Children as a ‘method to
introduce Dewey's philosophy into educational practice’ (Lipman, in Striano, 2002)
acknowledging the Deweyan matrix of his educational project and grounding it in Dewey's
‘theory of education’, which is, indeed, Dewey's philosophy.
Like Dewey, Lipman approached philosophy both as a scholar and a teacher and this
experience engaged him in the design and development of the Philosophy for Children
curriculum and methodology: he was teaching Logic at the Columbia University when he
started to think of the possibility of introducing philosophy into the primary school curriculum
and he continued to teach philosophy when he moved to Montclair State University.
Lipman develops his project within a Deweyan framework but adds fresh insights. As
he states in Philosophy Goes to School, Dewey was mainly interested in reframing curricular
subject matter in the form of scientific inquiry and, therefore, did not think about the
possibility of introducing philosophy into the primary school curriculum, even if he
acknowledged its educational potentialities (Lipman, 1988).
Indeed, as Lipman points out:
Just as scientists apply scientific method to the exploration of problematic situations, so students
should do the same if they are ever to think for themselves. Instead, we ask them to study the end
results of what the scientists have discovered. We neglect the process and fixate on the product. When
problems are not explored at first hand, no interest or motivation is engendered and what we continue
to call education is a charade or a mockery. Dewey had no doubt that […] the educational process in
the classroom should take as its model the process of scientific inquiry. (Lipman, 2003: 20)
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Lipman applied these ideas to philosophy, reconstructing philosophy itself as a

discipline and translating it into a form of philosophical inquiry, therefore concretely
operationalizing Dewey’s vision. Lipman and Sharp have also acknowledged that ‘there
is a clear distinction between thinking about a subject and thinking in a subject’ and
acknowledge that ‘the proper’ teaching of philosophy generates philosophical thinking
(Lipman and Sharp, 1978). In this perspective, the proper teaching of any philosophical
contents and problems should be focused on the possibility of making students think ‘in’
those contents and problems, being actively engaged in their exploration. Students should
also be aware of and capable of mastering the forms of thinking and inquiry that
characterize the subject matter, making use of appropriate cognitive and linguistic tools
in order to enter deeply within it.
Moreover, as Lipman explained in Getting our Thoughts Together, introducing the
curriculum of Philosophy for Children and describing its pedagogical rationale (Lipman,
2003), Dewey did not appreciate that philosophy could be used as a transdisciplinary tool to
ground the curriculum and make it more meaningful.
For these reasons, according to Lipman, Philosophy for Children should be understood
as a ‘Deweyan way to go beyond Dewey’ (Lipman, 2000), as from an early stage it engages
students in the exploration of ideas and problems that emerge from individual and collective
experience and are strictly connected with agency and practice, through a process of shared
inquiry that highlights multiple dimensions and unfolds through multiple logical paths.
In Thinking and Education (recalling the title of a paragraph of Democracy and
Education) Lipman explores in depth the diverse dimensions of philosophical thinking,
which are revealed as ‘critical’, ‘creative’ and ‘caring’, and develops inquiry paths that
allow us to explore the logical, esthetic and ethical dimensions of human experience
(Lipman, 1991).
Again, Lipman is moving within the Deweyan legacy as logic, esthetics and ethics had
indeed been identified by Dewey as the three features of philosophical thought in the
Syllabus: Types of Philosophical Thought that he had written for his students at Columbia
University (Dewey, 1996; MW, 13, 349-395), thereby introducing philosophy as a
multidimensional and multi-logical device for inquiry into human experience.
In Philosophy for Children, Dewey’s conception of philosophy, its cognitive and logic
patterns, and its social engagement are clearly and effectively operationalized within
educational practice, from the primary school to the high school and beyond.
As we have seen, for Dewey the study of philosophy involved the exploration but also
the deconstruction and reconstruction of the leading ideas to which individuals and
communities refer; accordingly, Lipman develops the P4C curriculum around ‘leading ideas’
which become the focus of the processes of philosophical inquiry. These ideas are
approached and explored within various contexts and at multiple levels as students are
accompanied in acquiring a growing expertise in the use of conceptual tools and thinking and
language skills that support the development and testing of the leading ideas.
As Lipman pointed out in Getting our Thoughts Together the curriculum of Philosophy
for Children unfolds at different levels of complexity. At the high school and university level
the approach of ‘philosophical inquiry’ offers the possibility both of engaging students not
only with philosophical problems emerging from their areas of experience but also with
philosophical ideas and problems culturally sedimented in our philosophical tradition, and of
allowing them to explore them ‘from within’, reproducing and recovering the processes of
inquiry from which they have been generated, making these explicit and visible.
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The process of philosophical inquiry is operationalized in its articulation in the

structure of the session designed by Lipman (the agenda, discussion plan, exploration and
discussion of ideas, and evaluation) which reflects the phases of the process of inquiry
described by Dewey, starting from an indeterminate situation, passing through the definition
of the problems, the analysis and testing of ideas, and the operationalization of the ideas in
situation, and concluding with the evaluation of the outcomes of the process.
The community of philosophical inquiry and the session format are good contexts to
engage students, not only in processes of inquiry focused on problems and situations
connected with individual and collective experience, but also in ‘thematic inquiry’, focusing
on some particular philosophical problems characterizing a historical moment or the main
interest of one or a group of philosophers in a specific age.
Exploring Dewey’s philosophy through philosophical inquiry
In higher education contexts, but also at high school level, the methodology of
philosophical inquiry can work as a powerful device to make students think ‘in’ the subjects they
are studying, focusing on the main contents, issues and problems, using the specific language
and cognitive moves, and analyzing the most prominent references acknowledged by the
scientific community, through an active engagement in the questions and themes addressed by
the authors.
This approach contrasts with the traditional practice generally used when introducing
an author to students in philosophy or in educational theory. The classic method starts with
the historical contextualization of the life and works of the author, and continues with the
presentation of the author’s works, followed by the reading of some parts of those works, in
order to elicit comments and discussion, and finishing with the summary of the author's ideas
and theories, comparing them with his references and the current debate.
In contrast, a Deweyan and Lipmanian approach would start with the identification of
a list of issues and questions related to a specific historical period, defining a contextual
debate; it would continue with the definition of a discussion plan identifying crucial inquiry
questions, including questions elaborated by the author, that the community acknowledges
as ambiguous with reference to current issues, and following with a dialogical exploration of
the issues emerging from the discussion plan, using as a model the Community of
Philosophical Inquiry; finally, it would end with the summary and evaluation of the outcomes
of the process on inquiry, tracking the categories and words used and the reasoning path.
Through this approach it is possible to open up an experiential dimension of the
recognition and translation of the perplexities, problems, and predicaments of life and
philosophical distinctions, issues, theories, and traditions through the medium of the
individual and collective past and present experience and life. This dimension is a medium
space composed of narratives of philosophical inquiry that lies between the history of
philosophy and philosophical inquiry, and is grounded in lived experiences of philosophical
inquiry within which students come to participate in enlarged communities of inquiry with
past and present participants.
According to this framework, the author and his references would be introduced as
additional members of the community of inquiry in terms of categories, words and reasoning
paths, and the students would be engaged with them in an ongoing discussion. This
investigation would conclude with the identification of the point of view of the author, in
comparison with other opinions, including those of other scholars as well as of the students
participating in the process of inquiry.
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Finally, the possibility of being fully engaged in the experience of philosophical inquiry
helps us to overcome the risk, clearly highlighted by Dewey, that ‘the student of philosophy
will become simply a student of philosophic traditions, of something that is conventionally
called philosophy but from which philosophic life has departed because the genuine problem
in life which called out the formulation has departed from consciousness’ (Dewey, 1996;
MW.7.305). Dewey’s philosophy itself can be explored through a process of shared
philosophical inquiry, starting from the problems and questions around which it has been
developed, and involving the students as participants in the process of inquiry. The
engagement in a process of ‘philosophical inquiry’ using as a discussion plan the main
questions and problems that have been addressed by the philosopher in his lifetime, would,
therefore, represent a Deweyan way to study Dewey’s thought.
We can begin with the questions that are the starting points of Dewey’s works or that
are part of Dewey’s argumentation within a specific historical moment, study or research
area, with which the students may ‘associate’ if they feel sufficiently engaged, or that the
students may re-elaborate according to different focuses. One could, for example offer to the
students the following discussion plan and ask them to choose one or more questions, to
articulate and reframe, or to find connections and relations.
Discussion plan
What is an experience?
Is having an experience the same as undergoing an experience?
Are human beings the only ones who have or undergo experiences?
What is the relationship between experience and education?
What is the relationship between experience and knowledge?
What is the relationship between experience and thinking?
Is there a quality in relation to experiences?
Students are, therefore, immediately engaged with the leading questions and ideas
around which Dewey’s thought unfolds, and proceed to explore them in depth, taking
different positions, as we can see in this short transcript of a thematic session held in a high
school class.
Students have identified the first question, ‘what is an experience?’ as the starting point
for their inquiry and are beginning to explore it by seeking a suitable definition.
‘So you would define experience as…’ (F)
‘The capacity of an individual to interact with her/his environment …’ (M)
‘I would rather say that it is the capacity to know the society we live in and to address
the problems according to what we have learnt.’ (A)
‘Do you all agree?’ (F)
‘No.’ (R)
‘It is not a capacity…for me it is something that the individual does day by day…’ (S)
‘It is something that he/she finds on her/his life path and therefore he/she lives.’ (M)
‘For me it is an ability that the individual has in order to interact with the environment.’
(R)
‘For me it is the relationship between the individual and the environment.’ (M)
377
‘So here we have two dimensions of experience, one is doing and having, the other is
finding…moreover we have different concepts: capacity, ability, something that one
does, or something that one finds.’ (F)
‘Yes, but in any case the individual is active, not passive.’ (M)
‘The interaction with the environment modifies her/him …in an active or passive
way…’ (R)
‘I would say that experience is a possibility.’ (A)
‘Why?’ (F)
‘Because everyone has different experiences and we cannot say that everyone
undergoes the same experience.’ (A).
‘So do the experiences that I have today depend upon the ones I had as a child?’ (F)
‘I believe that they can be disconnected, I can have a new experience today that is not
connected with my previous ones.’ (R)
‘Can you offer an example?’ (F)
‘Experience is subjective and individual, and everyone has different experiences, but
these experiences have an influence on the others.’ (A)
‘I don’t believe that all the experiences I have in my life have a relationship with the
ones I had in the past.’ (M)
‘Is there a difference between having an influence and having a relationship?’ (F)
If we analyze the transcript and compare it with the argumentation followed by Dewey
in his works we find significant connections with the constructs and the ideas that the author
uses, as well as with the examples that he provides for the readers, even if the students
involved in the session have not been directly exposed to Dewey’s works.
This discussion highlights how the students are deeply engaged within the unfolding
of the inquiry process activated by Dewey’s questions, and therefore move along the same
inquiry paths opened up by the author, on the basis of their own experience. They will later
be surprised to encounter in Dewey’s writings comments, examples and remarks that sound
like clarifications and responses to their own questions, and to the issues emerging during
the discussion. Dewey’s ideas will, therefore, sound meaningful for them, and they will be
able to contextualize them within a particular line of reasoning and to understand the
argumentative moves made by the author.
The following example, starting from a discussion plan focused on Human Nature and
Conduct, shows how the process of inquiry follows Dewey’s argumentative path, even if
none of the participants in the session (in this case graduates in a teacher training course) had
had the opportunity of reading the book beforehand.
Drawing on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859), Dewey conceives human beings
as creatures within the natural order who, like members of other species, are obliged to adapt
continually to one another and to their environments in order to survive. Therefore, their
habits have a special place in this process. Humankind, like other species, has no fixed natural
end; therefore, events could be shaped by the free use of human intelligence, which is also
the tool that grounds moral customs and behaviors. The structure of the book, according to
the index, is the following: part one, the place of habits in conduct; part two, the place of
instincts in conduct; part three, the place of intelligence in conduct; part four, conclusion,
where Dewey explores morality as human and social.
Here is a short excerpt from the transcript of the session.
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‘And we, like the animals, are characterized by instincts…’ (A)

‘Man has impulses, not instincts. Moreover, while animals transmit their own culture,
we have the capacity to change, not only as a response to a stimulus, but we are willing
and free to change’ (D)
‘The specificity of man is the capacity to dialogue with himself, it is consciousness…’
(E)
‘Intentionality is something that includes the elaboration of a conscious purpose… man
can reflect on what he does…he deliberates…’ (N)
‘I would say, we are deeply different from animals…but it is difficult to identify our
specificity…where does language come from…what are the origins of our goals…we
are not able to find out what is ours…only ours…’ (D)
It is interesting that also the field of study of the participants in the session is influential
in their framing of the ideas and questions discussed. The following transcript is from a
session drawing on Democracy and Education in a degree course in Psychology. The
students started by trying to figure out whether thinking could be defined as an experience,
and went on in the exploration of the problem operationalizing constructs and definitions that
are part of their background.
‘Experiencing means perceiving.’ (S)
‘Thinking is what makes an experience; everything that we live at an unconscious or
conscious level.’ (A)
‘We have therefore to consider things that have not been elaborated yet.’ (N)
‘The question was if thinking is an experience…’ (F)
‘Thinking is a kind of experience.’ (S)
‘It is in some experiences….not in others…’ (N)
‘It is in all conscious experiences.’ (A)
‘You would say that in unconscious experiences there aren’t any elements of thought?’
(F)
‘Thinking is consciousness?’ (F)
‘It is reflection.’ (F)
‘It is reflection on experience, as Dewey states.’ (F)
‘It is a conscious activity.’ (A)
‘No…it is also an unconscious activity.’ (N)
In this case, Dewey’s ideas are understood and worked out within a specific field of
knowledge that could be considered as a ‘source’ (to put it in Deweyan terms) for the process
of inquiry activated by the reading of a paragraph of Dewey’s masterpiece; this highlights
how the space of philosophical inquiry can be used as a transdisciplinary or metadisciplinary
space of encounter of different disciplines, as well as a space, which supports the
‘transaction’ between common sense and scientific knowledge, according to a process
highlighted by Dewey and Bentley in Knowing and the Known.
Conclusions
Undoubtedly, the cultural and social elements that are brought into the process of
inquiry by the participants, together with their personal and unique experiences, are important
elements in the process of knowledge construction and understanding. However, what makes
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the difference is the educational process (including the context and setting), which works as
a ‘medium’ between the cultural and historical background of the philosophical problems
and the concrete experience of the students.
As Dewey points out, ‘when philosophic distinctions are approached from the
standpoint of their bearing upon life through the medium of the educational process in which
they take effect, the perplexity, the predicament of life which generates the issue can never
be far from recognition’ (Dewey, 1996; MW.7.305).
The model of the community of philosophical inquiry designed by Lipman offers us
the possibility of activating an educational process, which highlights the ‘bearing upon’ the
life of different individuals, as well on the life of the community they belong to, of many
philosophical issues.
This is due to the fact that within a community of philosophical inquiry the perplexities
and predicaments that generate those issues are acknowledged as a common ground for a
collaborative process to which each one contributes on the basis of her/his own experience,
and with the aid of her/his own capabilities and resources.
These capabilities and resources are also shared with all the members of the
community, and contribute to the cultural and personal growth of each and every one, which
occurs through the acknowledgment and internalization of new and different approaches,
cognitive and relational moves, perspectives and world views.
The recognition within one’s own experiential living space of the ‘predicaments of life’
that generate the problems addressed over time by philosophical inquiry, is the necessary
condition to make the study of philosophy a meaningful experience for all. It is an experience
of cultural, intellectual, relational and spiritual growth, which the students may share with
many different companions (including the philosophers encountered along the educational
pathway), and which can offer them new insights and understandings of the world they live in.
Dewey himself can become one of these companions, if the problems he has been
working on are acknowledged and shared by the students as their own, and if his inquiring
mode becomes a leading path towards the exploration of the issues emerging from the
different fields of experience the students are imbedded in.
REFERENCES
Biesta G. (2010). Good Education in an Age of Measurement, Boulder, Colorado: Paradigm
Publishers.
Brew A., Bould D. (1995). Teaching and Research: Establishing the Vital Link with
Learning, Higher Education, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Apr., pp. 261-273.
Dewey J. (1996). The Collected Works of John Dewey, 1882-1953: The Electronic Edition,
Carbondale and Edwardsville, London and Amsterdam: Southern Illinois University Press
Feffer & Simons, Inc.
Lipman M. And Sharp A.M. (1978). Some Educational Presuppositions of Philosophy for
Children, Oxford Review of Education, Vol. 4, No. 1, pp. 85-90
Lipman M. (1985). Philosophical Practice and Educational Reform, Journal of Thought, Vol.
20, No. 4 (Winter), pp. 20-36
Lipman M., (1988). Philosophy Goes to School, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
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Lipman M. (2003). Getting Our Thoughts Together, Montclair: IAPC

Lipman M. (2003). Thinking in Education, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
MacDonald Ross, G. (2005). Kant on teaching philosophy. Discourse: Learning and
Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies, 5 (1). pp. 65-82,
http://prs.heacademy.ac.uk/publications/discourse/5_1.html
Paul R. (1993). Critical Thinking. What Every Person Needs to Survive in a Rapidly
Changing World, Tomales: Foundation for Critical Thinking.
Ramsden P. (2003). Learning to Teach in Higher Education, New York: Routledge Falmer.
Striano M. (2002). La filosofia come educazione del pensiero. Una conversazione con
pedagogica con Matthew Lipman in Cosentino A. (ed.) Filosofia e Formazione: 10 anni
di Philosophy for Children in Italia (1991-2001), pp. 61-65.
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El desarrollo del juicio moral en niños involucrados en contextos

de maldad sistemática
Nelson Iván Bedoya Gallego

Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales de UNIMINUTO (Colombia)
nelsbedoya@gmail.com
CV
Licenciado en Filosofía de la Universidad Santo Tomás de Colombia, Magister en
Prosocialidad y Logoterapia de la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona y estudiante del
Doctorado en Filosofía de la Universidad de Granada, España. Vicerrector Académico de la
rectoría Bogotá Sur y Director académico y profesor asociado del Departamento de Filosofía
de la Facultad de Ciencias Humanas y Sociales de UNIMINUTO (Colombia). Miembro de
las líneas de investigación de Filosofía y Educación y Éticas aplicadas del Grupo de
Investigación Pensamiento, Filosofía y Sociedad, categoría C en COLCIENCIAS. Autor de
varias ponencias, capítulos de libro y artículos en temas de Filosofía para Niños, educación
filosófica y filosofía de las emociones, en el que destaco, estos tres últimos: Las emociones
en el desarrollo del juicio moral, en perspectiva de educación filosófica; El desarrollo del
pensamiento creativo en contextos de marginalidad, una mirada desde la Filosofía para Niños
y el cine; y Prácticas en responsabilidad social y filosofía para niños.
RESUMEN
El presente trabajo forma parte de una investigación en desarrollo en torno a la cuestión sobre
si se afecta o no el juicio moral de los niños y jóvenes que han estado involucrados en
contextos de extrema maldad, que parte de una experiencia de práctica de Filosofía para
Niños con un grupo de jóvenes infractores de un reformatorio en Colombia. Desde allí, se
plantea la importancia que tiene la práctica de Filosofía para Niños en contextos marginales,
en la medida en que promueve el desarrollo de la imaginación moral, capacidad esencial a
tener en cuenta en la educación moral, que favorece la comprensión de emociones morales,
como constitutivas fundamentales del juicio moral.
PALABRAS CLAVES
Filosofía para Niños, imaginación moral, emoción moral, juicio moral, educación
moral.
ABSTRACT
This work is part of a research project on the question of whether or not the moral judgment
of children and young people who have been involved in contexts of extreme evil is
affected. It is based on a Philosophy practice experience for Children with a group of young
offenders from a reform school in Colombia. Based on this, it establishes the importance
of the practice of Philosophy for Children in marginal contexts, since it promotes the
development of moral imagination, an essential capacity to take into account in moral
education, which favors the understanding of moral emotions, as fundamental constituents
of moral judgment.
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KEYWORDS
Philosophy for Children, moral imagination, moral emotion, moral judgment, moral
education.
INTRODUCCIÓN
El presente artículo busca ofrecer una perspectiva al problema de la educación moral
desde Filosofía para Niños (FpN), a partir del diálogo entre algunos supuestos que subyacen
a la idea de educación moral en dicho proyecto de educación filosófica y la reflexión sobre
una práctica con niños y jóvenes entre los 12 y 18 años privados de la libertad en un
reformatorio por haber cometido algún tipo de delito (hurto, homicidio, tráfico de
estupefacientes, secuestro, etc.) o que han formado parte de grupos insurgentes, paramilitares
o pandillas, es decir niños y jóvenes que han estado involucrados en contextos de extrema
maldad. Esta práctica derivó en una investigación en torno al desarrollo de la conciencia y el
juicio moral en este tipo de población.
El texto se compone de tres apartados: el primero desarrolla de forma sucinta algunos
conceptos centrales de la investigación sobre el desarrollo de juicio moral y sus diferentes
perspectivas, centrándose en la que se considera consecuente con la propuesta de FpN; el
segundo, presenta un panorama global del fenómeno de los niños y jóvenes involucrados en
contextos de extrema maldad y sobre la afectación o no de su juicio moral; y, el tercero,
aborda algunos elementos para el desarrollo de la imaginación moral, como capacidad
constitutiva del juicio moral y la importancia de su formación desde un proyecto filosófico
como FpN.
Sobre el juicio moral
En términos generales y a riesgo de ser simplistas, cuando se acude al concepto de
juicio moral se hace referencia a la capacidad para reconocer aquello que es correcto o
incorrecto, bueno o malo, justo o injusto. Este es imprescindible en las decisiones de las
personas y sus consecuentes acciones y orienta a “obrar correctamente” en distintas
circunstancias, de ahí, que para la FpN resulta fundamental su formación, al ser parte
esencial del pensamiento multidimensional (crítico, creativo y cuidadoso) y del ideal de
razonabilidad que subyace a la misma. Lipman (1992) plantea la necesidad de que el
profesor de filosofía ʽanime a los alumnos a ver la importancia que tiene llegar a juicios
morales bien fundados, que exige en ellos el desarrollo de una sensibilidad, de un interés
y de un cuidado éticosʼ, (p.145) advirtiendo que la propuesta ética de FpN ʽno está
interesada en inculcar reglas o principios morales, sino en familiarizar al estudiante con
la práctica de la investigación moralʼ (p.145).
Tradicionalmente se ha considerado que el juicio moral es el resultado del razonamiento
consciente a partir de principios éticos o morales explícitos; así, la moral, como afirmarán
algunos filósofos, “estriba, primero y, ante todo, en consultar a la razón”. Estas teorías, que
destacan el papel central de la razón en el desarrollo del juicio moral, consideran a los
sentimientos o emociones como distractores u obstáculos para un adecuado juicio; de ahí que las
instituciones, como máxima expresión de la racionalidad moderna, sean las responsables de
orientar a la humanidad hacia el bien, a través de la promulgación de máximas, normas y leyes.
Dicha perspectiva, plantea varios interrogantes, por ejemplo: si es verdad que la
sociedad, a través de sus instituciones proporciona principios o directrices de acción ¿Cómo
hemos de decidir si son justos y razonables? ¿Por qué habríamos de aceptarlos sin más? Para
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filósofos como Descartes o Kant hay como mínimo una respuesta incuestionable: prescinde
de las pasiones y deja que la razón y la racionalidad salgan triunfantes del proceso. Dicha
postura, especialmente la Kantiana, influyó de una forma importante en la psicología moral
del siglo XX, sobre todo en las figuras de Jean Piaget y Kohlberg, donde ambos coincidieron
en que los juicios morales proceden de la sociedad (instituciones), se perfeccionan con la
experiencia y se fundan en la capacidad de razonar a partir de los dilemas que se nos
presentan continuamente.
Desde otra perspectiva, se encuentra un grupo de teóricos que afirman que el juicio
moral es principalmente producto de la emoción (emotivistas); Hume, considerado el
primero y principal representante de esta perspectiva planteó que las emociones no solo
son necesarias, sino fundamentales para emitir un juicio moral, ello en tanto estamos
dotados de un sentido moral innato, que nos permite hacer juicios, sin apelar al
razonamiento consciente.
La razón, según él, nos ayuda a identificar nuestros medios y nuestros fines, pero no
puede motivar nuestras elecciones. En suma, para Hume, el sentido moral está equipado con
un mecanismo valorativo, capaz de observar la virtud o el vicio en cada acción, siendo la
simpatía la que proporciona la motivación central. Con menor fuerza, dadas las malas
interpretaciones que las ideas de Hume tuvieron en su momento, sus reflexiones influyeron
en la psicología del siglo XX, particularmente en la teoría del desarrollo moral de Hofman,
que se basa en la empatía. Más recientemente, desde la Neurociencia, autores como Damasio,
han rescatado la importancia de la teoría de Hume y demostrado a través de experimentos y
estudios clínicos que las emociones son fundamentales, no solo para el adecuado
razonamiento moral, sino en la toma de decisiones y para el razonamiento en su conjunto. En
el mismo sentido, recientemente el psicólogo social Jonathan Haid sostiene que estamos
equipados con cuatro familias de emociones morales: 1. Heterocondenatorias: desprecio, ira,
repugnancia; 2. Autoconscientes: vergüenza, embarazo y culpa; 3. Simpatizadoras:
compasión; 4. Heteroencomiásticas: gratitud, enaltecimiento. Estas emociones morales son
las que mueven todo el proceso; nos proporcionan nuestras intuiciones sobre lo que está bien
o mal y sobre lo que hemos de hacer y lo que no (Haid, 2003, 852-870).
Estas dos perspectivas, aparentemente irreconciliables han dado lugar a otras teorías
que cuestionan si efectivamente entre razón y emoción debe haber tal escisión: reflexiones
sobre el alcance que tienen las emociones en la explicación de lo que está bien o lo que está
mal, o cómo se orienta un niño en medio de las normas generales y las normas morales, ponen
en cuestión el papel único de las emociones en el desarrollo de un juicio, y, de otra parte,
hallazgos de las ciencias, demuestran que el adecuado razonamiento requiere del concurso
de las emociones, por lo menos de algunas de ellas. En consecuencia, hoy en día existe un
acuerdo bastante amplio en que emoción y razón tienen un mismo nivel de importancia en la
constitución del juicio moral.
Esta última perspectiva, es retomada desde la FpN por Ann Sharp (2008), quien
haciendo referencia a los trabajos de la filósofa Martha Nussbaum, define a las emociones
como juicios, que se basan en creencias y orientan a la acción, cumpliendo un papel
fundamental en las decisiones. Sharp propone que la educación de las emociones es esencial
para un proyecto de educación filosófica, en la medida en que son estas las que permiten
tomar conciencia del alcance de nuestras acciones y decisiones. Excluir a las emociones del
razonamiento moral supone no solo que quitar un elemento del juicio, sino una parte esencial
del propio pensamiento.
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Sobre el desarrollo del juicio moral en contextos de extrema maldad, el caso

de los niños soldado.
En línea con lo expuesto en el apartado anterior, enseguida trataremos la cuestión sobre
si se afecta o no el juicio moral de los niños y jóvenes que han estado por largos períodos de
tiempo vinculados a contextos de extrema maldad (guerras, persecución, exterminio, entre
otros), donde se han sobrepasado sistemáticamente los preceptos morales y las leyes. Para
tratar de responder a la cuestión planteada recurriremos al creciente problema de los niños
soldado, como un flagelo mundial propio de los conflictos contemporáneos, en su mayoría
de países en desarrollo como Colombia.
Diversos estudios (Martos 2016, Krista 2015, Rodríguez 2014, Carmona 2012, Blom
2009, Wessells 2006, Boyden 2003), afirman que, aunque existe una normatividad
internacional amplia sobre la prohibición del “uso de menores” en conflictos bélicos, este
fenómeno continúa en crecimiento debido a las siguientes razones:
1) La reducción del peso y tamaño de las armas.
2) Los niños son más dóciles, obedientes y fácilmente manipulables que los adultos.
3) Los niños añaden confusión a las batallas, afectando el progreso de las fuerzas
opositoras.
4) Los niños son menos conscientes del peligro que corren y, dependiendo de las
edades, es más difícil que perciban el significado de sus acciones y sus
consecuencias.
5) Reclutar niños supone una inversión menor, ya que prepararlos y adiestrarlos es más
barato que hacerlo con adultos.
6) Por su escasa preparación, los niños son fácilmente reemplazables, normalmente
son enviados a la batalla con un adiestramiento mínimo, pero con todas las
consignas ideológicas bien aprendidas.
7) Las situaciones de pobreza y miseria siempre inciden más en los niños,
convirtiéndolos en un blanco fácil para el reclutamiento.
Ahora bien, contrario a lo que se pudiera pensar, la hipótesis inicial de esta
investigación es que los contextos de maldad extrema como las guerras, no afectan de forma
determinante el desarrollo del juicio moral de los niños que han participado en ellas. Dicha
hipótesis se fundamenta en distintos estudios empíricos importantes (Boyden, 2003;
Rodríguez, 2014; Krista, 2015) que dan cuenta de que los niños soldado una vez retornan a
sus comunidades, pese a los traumas y secuelas de la guerra son capaces de adaptarse de
forma adecuada al grupo social y distinguir lo justo, lo correcto y lo bueno y actuar en
consecuencia. De todos modos conviene ser cautos, pues estos estudios son todavía
insuficientes (Boyden, 2003).
De otra parte, se han identificado emociones morales en niños y jóvenes que han regresado
de la guerra o se han reincorporado a la sociedad luego de estar vinculados por largos períodos
de tiempo a grupos al margen de la ley, lo cual es una muestra de que por lo menos hay en ellos
un sentido de moralidad y que se sienten, en parte, responsables de sus acciones. Recientes
estudios de la Psicología y la Filosofía moral coinciden en esta idea: “los sentimientos de
culpabilidad que los niños soldados experimentan parecen indicar que se ven a sí mismos, al
menos en cierto grado, responsables de sus acciones, incluso aunque hayan sido coaccionados y
otras personas piensen que no son responsables”. (Thomanson, 2015)
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Estos estudios nos platean dos aspectos esenciales: 1. Ponen en cuestión la tesis de la
ceguera moral, defendida por diversos autores desde finales del siglo XX y principios del XXI,
comprendida, en este texto, como la incapacidad de los sujetos de juzgar sus propias acciones
morales, fruto de una inversión de valores a causa de una situación de sumisión o del interés
de alguien (un Estado, un tirano) lo suficientemente poderoso como para reconfigurar la
moralidad. 2. Invitan a replantear las tesis existentes sobre la inteligibilidad de las emociones,
en este caso, la no correlación entre culpa y responsabilidad; al respecto, Krista (2016), en
un estudio sobre la culpa en niños soldado, afirma:
Tradicionalmente, la culpa surge cuando nos damos cuenta de que hemos obrado mal. Por supuesto,
podríamos hacer algo mal y no sentir culpabilidad, pero cuando nos sentimos culpables nuestros
sentimientos se explican tradicionalmente por una apelación a un mal que hemos hecho. Esta
explicación surgirá incluso en los casos en que creemos que hemos hecho algo malo que otros
podrían no clasificar en esos términos. Podría pensar, por ejemplo, que yo he hecho algo malo al
violar un juramento y otros pueden no ver nada malo en ello. Para los propósitos de la emoción, la
culpa depende generalmente de cómo el agente percibe sus acciones. Si una persona percibe que
ha cometido un error, su culpa puede ser aún inteligible, incluso así los otros puedan estar en
desacuerdo. (p. 115-127)
Poner en cuestión la tesis de la ceguera moral supone una esperanza para la humanidad,
pues se estaría afirmando que incluso en condiciones extremas las personas no pierden su
capacidad de juicio, y, confirmando que estas situaciones son las que obligan a las personas,
en este caso a los niños, a actuar de manera violenta y no una torsión de su voluntad o
afectación en su desarrollo o juicio moral. Precisamente, volviendo al problema de la
inteligibilidad de las emociones, es conveniente tener en cuenta que la culpa es una emoción
que surge cuando el agente reconoce que cometió una acción incorrecta, una injusticia o algo
malo: “Sentimientos de culpa, vergüenza y remordimiento son precisamente los sentimientos
que esperamos de las personas que se hacen responsables de hacer algo malo” (Krista K,
2015, 11). Y, dado que en la mayoría de los casos estudiados sobre niños soldados estos
fueron coaccionados a participar en la guerra, es bastante significativo observar que, en los
testimonios recogidos en los estudios mencionados, varios de los jóvenes reportaron
sentimientos de remordimiento o vergüenza por los actos cometidos al regresar a sus hogares
y anhelaban ser perdonados (Boyden 2006, 356). Es decir, se puede inferir que hay en ellos
conciencia del daño infligido y que actuaron así porque no tuvieron más opciones; es decir,
“no son robots que adoptan pasivamente la retórica y la moral de los grupos armados en los
que viven” (Wessells 2006, 144).
Lo anterior refuerza la idea de las emociones como juicios morales y la necesidad de
su cuidado y formación. La emoción, en este caso la culpa, parece ser un indicador más
apropiado del sentido del bien o del mal, que el ser capaz de discernir racionalmente sobre
las propias acciones. Por ejemplo, si se aplicara el criterio de inteligibilidad anteriormente
expuesto, en el caso de un niño soldado que fue coaccionado a obrar mal, éste no tendría por
qué sentir culpa dado que no fue responsable directo de dicha acción, sino sus captores que
lo obligaron; sin embargo, el hecho de que en dicho niño aparezca la culpa es un indicador
de la importancia de ciertas emociones para una vida moral y, en consecuencia, está
reafirmando la importancia de su cultivo.
La educación moral, la importancia del desarrollo de la imaginación moral
Reconociendo la importancia de la educación moral en la vida de las personas, es
conveniente revisar lo que ella supone desde la perspectiva de FpN. Según Lipman “en la
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educación moral hay un elemento de razonamiento, un elemento de construcción del

carácter y un elemento de liberación emocional y sensibilización”. (Lipman, 1992, 272).
Ello, en tanto la moralidad no consiste únicamente en conocer unas reglas y seguirlas, sino
y sobre todo en la capacidad de hacer elecciones y asumir la responsabilidad de sus
implicaciones y consecuencias. En la práctica la educación moral supone considerar
aspectos como:
a) La relación entre el saber y el hacer, no es suficiente con que el niño o el joven conozca
lo que debe hacer, sino que se le debe involucrar en situaciones donde tenga que tomar
decisiones morales y sopesar su alcance. Ej. Estudiar y discutir en la comunidad de
diálogo problemas morales; deliberar sobre los fundamentos de algunas decisiones que
se toman en las Instituciones o en la ciudad; tomar posturas frente a conflictos sociales o
políticos, entre otros.
b) La relación entre el pensar y el sentir, según Nussbaum “una emoción es un juicio que se
fundamenta en una creencia, se orienta hacia un objeto (algo que la propicia) y posee un
valor o importancia para quien las vive” (Nussbaum, 2008, 83). Por lo tanto, se debe
orientar a los niños y jóvenes a leer las propias emociones y las de los otros; favorecer el
desarrollo de la sensibilidad estética y la imaginación que posibilitan toma de perspectiva
sobre lo que viven, piensan y sienten otros. Ej. Plantear actividades que potencien
habilidades y capacidades para comprender el sentido y las implicaciones de una
situación y su contexto e identificar todos los elementos que la componen, apoyados por
la literatura, el arte o el cine.
Hecho este breve panorama de lo que supone la educación moral, en esta parte final
haremos énfasis en la capacidad de la imaginación moral, que permite enlazar lo desarrollado
en las dos primeras partes del texto con el proyecto de FpN y, como anunciamos al inicio,
con una experiencia práctica con jóvenes expuestos a contextos de extrema maldad. Para ello,
partimos la idea de que una sociedad en postconflicto que tenga que afrontar el drama de
niños y jóvenes reinsertados o que han sido víctimas de una maldad sistemática, necesita
participar de escenarios que favorezcan la imaginación moral como una dimensión que
privilegia una educación de ciertas emociones y el genuino interés por los demás, buscando
superar actitudes excluyentes.
Lipman reconoce el papel de la imaginación en el razonamiento moral es de la
mayor importancia; plantea la tesis de que “frecuentemente se obra mal, no por malicia
sino por incapacidad de imaginar una perspectiva más constructiva o creativa de una
situación complicada y conflictiva”. (Lipman, 1992, 278). La imaginación moral supone
la capacidad de acercamiento a situaciones vividas por otros y a sus contextos, a partir de
las propias experiencias o por las que representan, por ejemplo, los personajes de una
obra o de una película.
La imaginación moral también favorece la comprensión empática en la medida en que
obliga a la persona a ponerse en el lugar del otro y de sus vivencias, a anticiparse a su
sufrimiento o a sus necesidades. Posibilita el desarrollo de emociones como la compasión, la
gratitud, el enaltecimiento, la vergüenza o la repugnancia que, si bien tienen una base
biológica, se aprenden y sustentan reglas morales; por ejemplo, la repugnancia supone el
rechazo a una situación que se considera contraria a ciertos preceptos (jugar con un cadáver,
torturar a alguien); la compasión es el reconocimiento de que alguien está sufriendo un mal
que no es merecido y por lo tanto genera rechazo hacia quien lo comete y solidaridad por
quien lo sufre.
387
Lipman propone dos tipos de ejercicios para desarrollar la imaginación moral: “los que
tienen que ver con la consideración de los diferentes tipos de relaciones medios-fines y los
que tienen que ver con diferentes tipos de relación parte-todo”. (Lipman, 2002, 284) El
primer tipo de ejercicios hace referencia a la postulación en comunidad de diálogo de
escenarios reales o hipotéticos que diseña cada integrante de la comunidad a partir de una
pregunta y pueden ser complementados entre todos, desde los cuales se desarrolla la
discusión. Un ejemplo puede ser este: imagina un lugar en dónde te gustaría vivir, escríbelo
y compártelo con un compañero del grupo, quien puede complementarlo; otros ejemplos
serían: ¿qué características debería tener un buen amigo? ¿Cómo se podría solucionar un
problema como X? ¿Qué puede estar sucediendo en X o Y situación, que ha generado ese
problema? ¿De qué manera podríamos mejorar esta situación?
Los ejercicios tipo relaciones parte-todo, son aquellos que posibilitan la consideración
de cómo una situación hipotética o real puede ser dividida en partes para su análisis y cómo
las partes pueden ser utilizadas para construir un todo. Ejemplo: supongamos que formas
parte de una comunidad con necesidades básicas insatisfechas y con un alto nivel de
corrupción entre sus dirigentes; a ustedes los han encargado para nombrar un comité que
administre unos recursos económicos que enviará el gobierno. Definan quienes conformarían
ese comité, ¿qué características personales deberían tener?, ¿cómo operaría dicho comité?,
¿cuáles deberían ser sus prioridades?, ¿qué mecanismos de control se podrían usar para evitar
que se pierdan los recursos? Aquí se observa cómo una actividad hipotética sitúa un problema
moral en un marco amplio, donde se deben analizar cooperativamente distintas opciones para
su solución.
Sobre los modelos de imaginación moral, la importancia de la literatura, el
cine y la escritura
La educación se desarrolla a lo largo de toda la vida y, dependiendo de la etapa en que
se encuentra la persona, participan distintos actores con mayor o menor fuerza, como la
familia, la escuela o la sociedad. La educación moral no es la excepción; desde los primeros
años de vida el niño se enfrenta a una serie de problemas y normas morales y descubre que
los otros esperan que actúe bien o correctamente, cuando ven compensadas o corregidas sus
acciones. Sin embargo, el asunto no es tan fácil en la medida en que, como se mencionó
anteriormente, la constitución de la moralidad no se trata solo de aprender normas o
principios y obrar en consecuencia, sino y, sobre todo, de aprender a sopesar situaciones y
tomar decisiones. En ese contexto, los modelos de imaginación moral cobran sentido y la
literatura y el arte empieza a ocupar un lugar importante en la vida de las personas. Lipman
(2004), presenta un panorama interesante de relatos que abordan problemas morales y de
alguna manera orientan o acompañan el desarrollo moral, como las fábulas, las parábolas, la
literatura clásica o la filosofía literaria.
De otra parte, plantea la importancia de los modelos en la imaginación moral y defiende
que “una de las virtudes de Filosofía para Niños es que las novelas que los niños leen, se
constituyen en modelos de comunidades de niños” (Lipman,2002, 282).
Según él “éstas no están tan idealizadas que impidan a los niños identificarse con los
personajes; al mismo tiempo, proporcionan modelos de discusión inteligente entre los niños,
así como entre los niños y los adultos” (ibídem). Novelas como Lisa o Nous cuentan con
diversos episodios donde se hacen evidentes situaciones que favorecen la imaginación moral,
por ejemplo, la escena del sufrimiento de Lisa por la muerte de su padre. (Lipman, 2007, p.
96).
388
Sin embargo, en la práctica filosófica con menores que han estado vinculados a
contextos como los expuestos en este trabajo, se ha evidenciado que las novelas no son un
material apropiado dadas las características y el ambiente de los personajes que estas
representan, los cuales son muy distantes de las realidades que ellos han vivido.
Ahora bien, independientemente de lo distantes que resultan ser las novelas del
programa de FpN para grupos como el de los menores infractores, la tesis planteada por
Lipman sobre la importancia de los modelos en el desarrollo de la imaginación moral es
bastante potente y la experiencia ha constatado la relevancia del uso de la literatura, el
arte o el cine en el desarrollo de la imaginación moral con este tipo de población, dado
que favorece la reflexión a partir de las vivencias de personajes que son confrontados con
problemas morales. A manera de ejemplo, a continuación, se presentan tres escenarios:
—uno desde la literatura, otro desde el cine y un último desde una experiencia literaria
que se está desarrollando actualmente en Bogotá (Colombia) con presos y estudiantes de
educación media— que pueden ser tenidos en cuenta para trabajar sobre la imaginación
moral con comunidades como las que trata este artículo.
El primero, es el clásico libro de Louis-Ferdinand Céline sobre la primera guerra
mundial, Viaje al fin de la noche, que narra la historia de un estudiante de medicina de
20 años (Ferdinand Bardamu) que, entusiasmado por un desfile militar, se enlista en la
guerra y luego, enfrentado al campo de batalla, descubre el horror que esta supone. Más
adelante, después de una convalecencia a causa de una herida, que alarga para no volver
al campo de batalla, pasa por un campo de tiro abandonado y es nuevamente presa del
pánico por la idea de volver a la guerra, acabando en un hospital enfermo y enloquecido
por el miedo (p.74). Frente a las tres salidas que se le ofrecen tras un tiempo de
internamiento: el frente, el manicomio o el paredón, discurrirá el resto de la novela y para
evitar que acaben con él, realiza un ejercicio imaginativo a partir de la siguiente cuestión:
¿Qué es la locura en un momento de “mundo al revés”? (p.78); ejercicio que nos ha
servido como punto de partida para hacernos preguntas como: ¿qué es la moralidad en
tiempos de guerra? ¿Podemos juzgar a los combatientes de una guerra desde los mismos
parámetros que usamos para no combatientes? ¿Qué es permisible y qué no en una guerra?
¿Por qué cosas que son permisibles en una guerra, no lo son en tiempos de paz? que han
orientado algunas de las comunidades de diálogo con jóvenes reinsertados y han sido el
inicio de disertaciones profundas en torno a lo que supone la moralidad en la guerra.
El segundo es la película Bests of no nation (Bestias sin patria) del director Cary
Joji Fukunaga (Fukunaga, 2015), que narra las vivencias de niños y jóvenes que son
reclutados en las guerras poscoloniales africanas, en este caso de un grupo rebelde de
Sierra Leona. Su protagonista Agu, un niño de aproximadamente 11 años, es secuestrado
y enlistado por el ejército rebelde, luego de huir tras ver morir a toda su familia en manos
del ejército oficial. En los primeros momentos de la película se observa a un niño
tranquilo, lleno de sueños, que juega en medio de la pobreza, pero en la tranquilidad de
un campo protegido por el ejército oficial. Posteriormente, la película se centra en cómo
Agu va perdiendo su inocencia y es inducido a participar en todas las atrocidades que
supuso una guerra como la de Sierra Leona, al tiempo que muestra las vivencias de otros
niños en su misma condición, que son obligados a actuar como mercenarios. Así, Agu es
abusado, expuesto a una iniciación religiosa, obligado a matar a su primera víctima a
sangre fría y puesto como carne de cañón en las tomas del ejército rebelde. Con el tiempo
encuentra amigos, se destaca Strika, un niño que, pese a sus problemas de comunicación,
se convierte en el confidente y la mano derecha de Agu, hasta que muere en una
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emboscada. La película termina con la desintegración del grupo de rebeldes en donde se

encuentra Agu que posteriormente es capturado por soldados de la ONU y llevado a un
campo de refugiados.
Lo que llama particularmente la atención de la película es que a través de sus
distintas escenas se hacen evidentes las reflexiones morales de un niño, que pese a que es
obligado a cometer atrocidades, inducido al uso de alucinógenos, como el brown browm1,
nunca deja de cuestionar el sentido, el alcance y la responsabilidad de las acciones que
realiza. La narración, es capaz de presentar algunos rasgos del problema del juicio moral
y pone en cuestión, en la persona de Agu, el hecho de que los casos de extrema maldad
produzcan “ceguera moral”. Así, como “narrador personaje”, categoría usada por Bal
(1990, 126–128), Agu, permanentemente hace reflexiones como estas: ʽHe visto cosas
horribles. He hecho cosas horribles. Y si hablo contigo me pondré triste. Y tú también te
pondrás triste. En esta vida solo quiero ser feliz. Si ahora te lo cuento todo, creerás que
soy una especie de bestia o de diablo. Soy las dos cosas. Pero también tuve una madre,
un padre, unos hermanos hace tiempo... y me queríanʼ.
Nuevamente la imaginación, en este caso mediada por un filme, plantea aspectos
morales profundos, tales como el problema sobre el desarrollo y el juicio moral en
personas expuestas a contextos de extrema maldad. Su autor toma una postura, el juicio
moral de Agu no se ve afectado, sin caer en la tentación de presentarlo como una simple
víctima, pues Agu, pese a su edad y condición es un agente que toma decisiones, siente
culpa, y esta es inteligible, aunque sabe que sus acciones son consecuencia de unos
hechos que no controla, siempre hay otras posibilidades que tal vez la guerra y el miedo
no hagan posibles, por ejemplo, negarse a matar a alguien. Así, al igual que con el caso
anterior, las preguntas de Agu y sus vivencias han sido punto de partida de comunidades
de diálogo con jóvenes reinsertados. Este mismo caso se presenta en el documental The
Flute Player, documental que cuenta la historia de Arn Chorn-Pond, que es un antiguo
hijo del régimen de los Jemeres Rojos (Glatzer, 2003).
El tercero es una experiencia literaria que se desarrolla actualmente en Colombia:
“correo a la libertad”, que consiste en el intercambio de historias entre internos de la
cárcel y estudiantes de educación media. La idea de correo a la libertad comenzó con una
novela escrita por un recluso de la cárcel de Guaduas, Cundinamarca, que llega a las
manos de una profesora de literatura de un colegio público de Bogotá, quien empieza el
trabajo de corrección de la misma y en ese ejercicio comienza un intercambio epistolar
entre ella, sus estudiantes y el personal de la cárcel. Posteriormente, por cosas del azar ,
la profesora se encuentra con un filósofo miembro de un colectivo artístico, “aleteo”, que
además trabajaba en algunos proyectos sobre el desarrollo de la escritura creativa con
personal carcelario, y entre juntos, darán un mayor dinamismo y fuerza al proyecto.
Correo a la libertad busca una comunicación entre los estudiantes y los reclusos a
través de cartas, logrando vincular la visión de aquellos que se encuentran encerrados con
aquellos que se encuentran “en libertad”, donde se presentan las perspectivas desde la
cual cada uno observa y siente el mundo y la vida. Esta iniciativa es otro ejemplo de cómo
a través de un recurso como la escritura, se puede desarrollar la imaginación moral.
1
Los niños soldados en Sierra Leona, por ejemplo, tenían el “brown browm” (una mezcla de heroína y polvo
de arma de fuego) puestos en hendiduras en sus frentes que eran luego cosidos para que no pudieran
quitárselos (Singer 2005).
390
A manera de cierre
La imaginación moral amplía el espectro de formación del juicio moral y posibilita que
los niños y jóvenes desarrollen la comprensión empática, en la medida en que postula la
importancia de la vinculación de las emociones en el análisis de los problemas éticos. Más
allá de enseñar de la manera tradicional a los niños y jóvenes a reconocer si algo es justo o
injusto, bueno o malo, correcto o incorrecto, se hace énfasis en la importancia que tiene el
comprender el punto de vista del otro, el reconocer sus sentimientos y las situaciones por las
que está pasando, además de reconocer sus propias emociones y las razones o creencias que
las sustentan. Por otro lado, la imaginación moral, posibilita el desarrollo de ciertas
emociones morales como la compasión, la gratitud, el enaltecimiento, la vergüenza o la
repugnancia, indispensables en la formación del carácter, en la medida en que son indicadores
universales que potencian el simple conocimiento de normas o reglas.
Nuestra sociedad actual requiere de modelos educativos que favorezcan el desarrollo
de la imaginación, en la medida que esta posibilita que los niños y jóvenes se identifiquen
con los otros o con personajes que bien podrían ser ellos, con angustias, logros, sueños y
necesidades como las suyas y amplíen su perspectiva de mundo y de sociedad. La formación
de la imaginación moral es determinante para que los niños y jóvenes, además de dar razones
suficientes, puedan comprender lo que están sintiendo frente a una decisión o una situación,
los motivos que generan esa emoción y las implicaciones en su propia vida y en la de los
demás, de cada una las decisiones que toman, lo cual, sin duda, es una forma más profunda
de educar el juicio moral.
REFERENCIAS
Bal, M. (1990). Teoría de la narrativa. Una introducción a la narratología. Madrid, Cátedra.
Damasio, A. (2007). El error de Descartes. Barcelona, Crítica.
Fukunaga, C.J. (2015). Beasts of No Nation (película). Estados Unidos: Netflix / Red Crown
Productions / Participant Media.
García Moriyón, F. (Coord) (2008). Matthew Lipman: Filosofía y Educación. Madrid,
Ediciones de la Torre.
Glatzer, J. (Dir.) Glatzer, J. and Courtney, C. (Prod.) (2003). The Flute Player. (Documental).
New York, Over the Moon Production.
Boyden, J (2003). The Moral Development of Child Soldiers: What Do Adults Have to Fear?
Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, 9:4, 343-362, DOI: 10.1207/
s15327949pac0904_6.
D’Arms J., Jacobson D. (2000). The moralistic fallacy: on the ‘appropriateness’ of emotions.
Philos Phenomenol Res 61:65–90.
— (2003). The significance of recalcitrant emotions. In: Hatzimoysis A (ed) Philosophy and
the emotions. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, p. 127-146.
Haid, J (2003). The moral emotions, en R.J. Davidson, K.R. Scherer y H.H. Goldsmith
(comps), Handbook of affective Sciences, Oxford University Press, Oxford, p. 852 -
870.
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Kohan, W. Y Waksman, V. (1997). ¿Qué es Filosofía para Niños? Ideas y propuestas para
pensar la educación, Buenos Aires, Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Lipman, M. & Sharp, A. (1988). [Traducción de Félix García (Coord.)] Investigación ética.
Manual para acompañar a LISA. Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre.
Lipman, M. Oscanyan, F. & Sharp, A. (1992). [Traducción de Félix García (Coord.)] La
Filosofía en el aula. Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre.
Lipman, M. (1998). [Traducción de Virginia Ferrer Cerveró] Pensamiento complejo y
educación. Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre.
— (2004). [Traducción de Pilar Pedraza]. NOUS. Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre.
— (2004). [Traducción de Pilar Pedraza]. Decidiendo qué hacemos. Manual para
acompañar. a NOUS. Madrid, Ediciones de la Torre.
— (2007). [Traducción de Horacio Pons]. Lisa. Buenos Aires, Manantial.
— (2016). El lugar del pensamiento en la educación. Barcelona, Octaedro.
Nussbaum, M. (1997). Justicia poética. La imaginación literaria y a vida pública. Barcelona,
Andrés Bello.
— (2008). Upheavals of thought: the intelligence of emotions. [Traducción de Araceli Maira]
Paisajes del pensamiento: la inteligencia de las emociones. Madrid: Paidos.
— (2010). Sin fines de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita de las humanidades. Barcelona,
Paidós.
— (2012). Crear Capacidades. Propuesta para el Desarrollo Humano. Barcelona, Paidós.
Rodriguez, J. (2014). Los niños soldado en las guerras de África. El caso del Norte de
Uganda. En: Paz para la paz. Prolegómenos a una filosofía contemporánea sobre la
guerra (Primera, Vol. 37). Barcelona: Horsori.
Sharp, A. (2008). Educación de las emociones en la comunidad de indagación. En: Gómez,
C y Rojas, V. Filosofía para Niños. Ideas fundamentales y perspectivas sociales.
Bogotá, UNIMINUTO.
Singer, P.W. (2005). Children at war. Pantheon Books, New York.
Thomason, K. (2015). Guilt and Child Soldiers. Ethic Theory and Moral Practice (2016) 19:
115–127. DOI 10.1007/s10677-015-9595-3.
Wessells, M. (2006). Child Soldiers: From Violence to Protection. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
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Abraçar com a alma: uma experiência filosófica na Escola

Joaquim da Silva Peçanha, Duque de Caxias, Rio de Janeiro,
Brasil
Vanise Cássia Dutra Gomes

vanisedutragomes@gmail.com
Edna Olímpia da Cunha

dinha2rj@hotmail.com
Walter Omar Kohan

wokohan@gmail.com
CV
Vanise Dutra Gomes: Professora na Escola Municipal Joaquim da Silva Peçanha em Duque
de Caxias, RJ e pesquisadora do Núcleo de Estudos de Filosofias e Infâncias (NEFI) da
Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brasil.
Edna Olímpia da Cunha: Professora na Escola Municipal Joaquim da Silva Peçanha em
Duque de Caxias, RJ e pesquisadora do Núcleo de Estudos de Filosofias e Infâncias (NEFI)
da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), Brasil.
Walter Omar Kohan: Professor da Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (UERJ).
Pesquisador do Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa do Brasil CNPQ e da Fundação de Amparo
a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ). Atualmente bolsista PDE pelo CNPq na
University of British Columbia, Canada.
RESUMEN
En este texto nos proponemos presentar una experiencia realizada en el marco del proyecto
“¿En Caxias la filosofia en-caja?” realizado conjuntamente por la Universidad del Estado de
Río de Janeiro (UERJ) y la Escuela Municipal Joaquim da Silva Peçanha de Duque de
Caxias, Río de Janeiro. Mostramos como la práctica de la filosofía se relaciona con los
cuerpos y la vida de un grupo de profesoras, estudiantes, personas jóvenes y adultas, que
estudian, de noche, en esa escuela pública, del conurbano fluminense.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Escuela pública; filosofía con personas jóvenes y adultas; vida.
ABSTRACT
In this text we aim to present an experience realized in the framework of the project “In
Caxias the philosophy in-box?” Realized jointly by the University of the State of Rio de
Janeiro (UERJ) and the Municipal School Joaquim da Silva Peçanha de Duque de Caxias,
Rio de Janeiro. We show how the practice of philosophy relates to the bodies and life of a
group of students, youth and adults, who study, at night, in that public school, the
surroundings of Rio de Janeiro.
393
KEYWORDS
Public school; philosophy with young and adults; life.
RESUMO
Neste texto, propomos apresentar uma experiência realizada no âmbito do projeto “Em
Caxias, a filosofia em caixa”. Realizada em conjunto pela Universidade do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro (UERJ) e pela Escola Municipal Joaquim da Silva Peçanha de Duque de Caxias, Rio
de Janeiro. Mostramos como a prática da filosofia se relaciona com os corpos e a vida de um
grupo de professoras, professores e estudantes, jovens e adultos, que estudam, à noite, nessa
escola pública, na baixada fluminense.
PALAVRAS CHAVE
Escola pública, filosofia com pessoas jovens e adultas; vida.
INTRODUCTION
Todo mundo é parecido quando sente dor,

mas nu e só ao meio dia
só quem está pronto para o amor...
Barão Vermelho
O poeta é um fingidor
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente
Fernando Pessoa
Um estado de situação e de exceção

Vivemos tempos difíceis no Brasil e, em particular, no Estado do Rio de Janeiro.
Configurado e legitimado o Golpe de Estado na República pelas instituições corruptas dos
três poderes, com o alicerce das grandes corporações midiáticas, nos últimos tempos o
Governo do Estado do Rio de Janeiro explicitou, sem qualquer signo de vergonha, mas com
um cinismo que se assemelha ao do Governo Federal, a sua mais absoluta falta de sentido
público e político em relação à educação: a Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
(UERJ), a principal instituição de ensino superior do Estado e uma das principais do país,
deixou de receber os repasses mínimos para seu funcionamento básico, os funcionários
passaram a receber com muito atraso e em parcelas seus salários, os alunos mais necessitados
pararam de receber suas bolsas e, por conseguinte, ela passou a trabalhar em condições
extremamente precárias. O descontentamento da população é evidente: pesquisas recentes da
Datafolha mostram que o índice de aprovação do Governador do Estado do Rio de Janeiro é
394
de 3% e o de desaprovação de 81%.1 Em soma, vivemos uma situação vergonhosa e indigna,

inadmissível para qualquer sociedade dita democrática e inaceitável para qualquer aspirante
sério à política. No vizinho munícipio de Duque de Caxias, na chamada Baixada Fluminense,
a situação é semelhante, com uma paralela mostra de desprezo do poder público pela
educação pública.
Este texto narra uma experiência de um projeto que reúne a UERJ com a escola
Joaquim da Silva Peçanha, do município de Duque de Caxias. O projeto, “Em Caxias a
Filosofia en-caixa?”, congrega atividades de ensino, pesquisa e extensão do Núcleo de
Estudos de Filosofias e Infâncias (NEFI) da UERJ e leva mais de dez anos buscando
aproximar a universidade e escolas públicas desse município, a partir de exercícios
filosóficos com estudantes (crianças e adultos) e professoras e professores das duas
instituições de ensino com apoio de outros parceiros, como a Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa
do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ)2.
O que narraremos neste texto diz respeito a um dos exercícios que propomos na escola.
O último ano tem sido de duras intermitências para o projeto, com a escola e a universidade
públicas resistindo aos já narrados ataques da política econômica, social e cultural pós-golpe,
que já não esconde a que veio, com medidas regressivas em todos os campos. Muitos dias de
paralisações, greves, protestos, aulas públicas, mobilizações, diversas formas de
manifestação e de luta... Nesse contexto, procuramos problematizar o sentido de nossos
exercícios filosóficos, em que medida eles podem contribuir nesse contexto de dificuldades
e sem sentidos. Sentimos que a filosofia, como experiência de pensamento, continua a
acontecer numa escola pública e tenta resistir com e dentro dela, acompanhando seu
movimento, oferecendo um espaço para pensar e problematizar o que ali está acontecendo...
É uma prática de começo, interrupção e retomada. Começamos, interrompemos e
retomamos constantemente nosso trabalho com estudantes, professoras e professores.
Quando, como em nosso caso, o que se trabalha de mais específico é o pensamento, é ele que
começa e recomeça uma e outra vez. Claro que os exercícios não impactam apenas o
pensamento e, a partir deles, outras formas de recomeço acontecem nas vidas dos que
habitamos a escola. Também trata-se de uma prática de muita espera de parte dos estudantes,
espera das condições que tornem habitável uma escola de verdade, para que ela não seja
apenas um local onde se tem que passar, mas um mundo que se queira habitar e cuidar, um
mundo próprio.
Uma dessas sextas-feiras de julho de 2017, depois de um trânsito engarrafado,
demorado, como é habitual para esse dia da semana no Rio de Janeiro, a professora Edna
chega esbaforida à escola e uma das turmas participantes do projeto já está lá em cima,
esperando por ela na chamada “sala do pensamento”... Dentro já da escola, o tempo parece
passar mais rápido do que o normal, em particular, quando subimos para a sala do
pensamento. Aos poucos, pelo menos isso parece, a coordenadora do turno também sobe para
nos avisar que está na hora de a turma 901 ir para a sala de aula... Edna acompanha a turma
901 até a sua sala e vai para a sala 903. Ambas são turmas da Educação de Jovens e Adultos,
1
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2017/10/1925194-crivella-e-aprovado-por-16-e-pezao-por-3-
dos-cariocas-aponta-datafolha.shtml Acesso em 10/10/2017.
2
Entre a literatura sobre o projeto, destacamos: Kohan, W.; Olarieta, F. (orgs.) A escola pública aposta no
pensamento. Belo Horizonte: Autêntica, 2012 (Trad. Cast. La escuela pública apuesta al pensamiento. Rosario:
Homo Sapiens, 2013) e Gomes, Vanise Dutra. Dialogar, conversar e experienciar o filosofar na escola pública:
encontros e desencontros. Rio de Janeiro: NEFI, 2017.
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EJA, segmento que este ano passou a contar com participação de professores de diversas
disciplinas, quais sejam: Matemática, Artes, Educação Física e Ciências.
Na sala de aula, há poucos alunos e alguns perguntam se vamos “fazer filosofia”, outros
parecem desanimados e perguntam se “tem mesmo que ir para a sala de filosofia”. Maria,
Wesley e Marina são alguns dos que compartilham dessa inquietação... Fazem gestos,
ensaiam expressões faciais, esboçam um ou outro comentário entre eles... O que mais
transmitem é um certo desconforto, próprio de quem ainda não consegue expressar
exatamente o que sente, mas quer manifestar algo da ordem da desconformidade... Para esta
turma, que também tem sofrido as consequências do completo descaso do governo municipal
com a escola pública, as experiências de pensamento são algo novo na escola. O convite à
participação de todos é sempre reforçado pela professora de Português. Talvez os estudantes
sintam, inicialmente, que a filosofia seja um convite, que poderíamos todos experimentar,
para saber se vale ou não a pena continuar. Recolhemos nossos materiais e seguimos para a
salinha. Todos parecem aceitar o convite, com exceção de Maria... que sumiu da sala e não
sabemos onde está...
Um círculo de perguntas
Uma vez dentro da sala do pensamento, retomamos a atividade com as perguntas que
a turma escreveu em nosso encontro anterior. Cada aluna e aluno escreveu sobre uma
inquietação própria, uma questão que ocupa seu pensamento e que gostaria de compartilhar,
tornar pública. Elas estão escritas cada uma numa folha e depois de serem lidas pelas
professoras Edna e Vanise, as perguntas são colocadas formando um círculo no chão para
que, conforme a proposta de alunas e alunos, possamos escolher aquela que daria início as
nossas experiências de pensamento daquele segundo semestre.. Percorremos o círculo para
que todos possam ler mais uma vez cada uma das perguntas e pôr sobre a pergunta escolhida
um chocolate “Bis” que lhes é oferecido pelas professoras. Duas perguntas se destacam como
as que receberam as preferências dos estudantes:
“Por que os professores fingem que ensinam e os alunos fingem que aprendem?”
“Por que algumas pessoas têm vergonha de mostrar que sentem dor?”
As duas perguntas são muito inquietantes. Quem as fez percebe a escola como um
espaço de simulação ou, pelo menos, onde não se vive a realidade mais própria ou autêntica.
Consideremos a primeira. A princípio, a escola é um espaço para ensinar e aprender, mas
essa pergunta afirma que as pessoas que habitam a escola fingem fazer o que seria para fazer
nela. Ou seja, indiretamente, a pergunta afirma que na escola não se aprende nem se ensina,
mas se finge que se faz uma e outra coisa. E a pergunta: “por quê?” Ela questiona por que
isso acontece, por que se finge que se ensina e se aprende na escola quando é isso que deveria
justamente acontecer nela. Em outras palavras, pergunta por que a escola não está sendo
propriamente uma escola. Compartilhamos a pergunta entre nós. Nós, alunas e alunos,
professoras e professores, habitantes por igual de escolas e salas de aula, perguntamo-nos o
que essa pergunta nos convida a perguntar. E nos colocamos a nós mesmos sob os efeitos da
pergunta: e nós, cada um e cada uma de nós, o que fazemos em nome do ensinar e do aprender
cada vez que entramos numa escola, numa sala de aula?
A segunda pergunta, que também começa com um porquê, é de igual modo
extremamente inquietante, mas em outro sentido. O foco nela já não está na vida escolar, mas
na vida de alguém, ou mais de uma pessoa, que não mostra a dor que sente. A pergunta afirma
que algumas pessoas sentem dor e também vergonha para expressar essa dor. Embora ela não
o mencione, pensamos que o locus dessa inquietação é também a escola, pois é esse o espaço
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que compartilhamos as pessoas que ali estamos. E, como a pergunta anterior, também
pergunta “por quê?”. Afirma que algumas pessoas sentem dor e questiona por que essas
pessoas sentem vergonha de expressar a dor que carregam. Mais uma vez, compartilhamos a
pergunta entre nós, nos colocamos a nós mesmas sob os efeitos dessa pergunta: expressamos
o que sentimos na escola?
Voltemos ao exercício. Paramos um tempinho para olhar e pensar juntos, professoras,
alunos e alunas, em todas as perguntas, as que receberam mais chocolates e as que receberam
menos... Surgem alguns comentários, cada um e cada uma de nós pensa na sua própria
pergunta e na que escolheu no círculo. João parece desapontado por que ninguém escolheu a
dele, e ele reclama sem esconder a decepção... parece não sentir vergonha dessa dor ou pelo
menos a vergonha não lhe impede de se expressar... Começamos a conversar sobre o que é
uma pergunta, o que nos faz perguntar isso ou aquilo, isto em vez de aquilo... Muitos falam
e dizem coisas tais como que “perguntamos para obter uma resposta”, ou que “perguntamos
quando não sabemos a resposta e queremos saber”, ou que “as perguntas podem ser bem
diferentes”, e citam exemplos de perguntas que são muito diferentes das que obtiveram a
maioria dos votos no círculo.
Wesley, um dos que a princípio não mostrara muito entusiasmo em subir para a sala de
filosofia, se apresenta bastante inquieto, se mexendo todo e, de repente, diz: “Eu não sei o
que fazer!” Ele nos oferece essa frase como exemplo de uma pergunta sem resposta... Sua
intervenção provoca reações na turma. Bianca, também muito inquieta, diz que “isso não é
uma pergunta, pois para ser pergunta teria que ser assim: “eu não sei o que fazer, você pode
me ajudar?”, reformulando a pergunta de Wesley. Edna pergunta a ela por que a frase de
Wesley precisa ser “completada” e se o que ela acrescentou já não seria uma outra pergunta.
Bianca tenta falar algo, interrompe, volta a começar, volta a parar... não consegue se
expressar claramente, fica pensativa, parecendo buscar uma resposta ou uma outra pergunta...
As perguntas já não são mais apenas escritos espalhados em tiras de papel, elas impulsionam
o pensamento, movimentam os corpos, fazendo o círculo girar... Surgem, nesse momento,
muitas outras perguntas na turma a partir do que Wesley e Bianca trouxeram:
“Quem é esse ‘você’ em ‘você poderia me ajudar”?
“Podemos fazer pergunta para nós mesmos?”
“Há sempre um outro quando fazemos perguntas?”
“Existe um outro de nós mesmos quando perguntamos?”
“Quem é, então, esse outro?”
São todas perguntas da maior relevância. Elas nos desbordam. Ficamos, alunas, alunos
e professoras, pensando nelas e o que fazer com elas...
Um grito, uma dor?
Enquanto estamos nesse espaço de pensamento, um choro repentino se faz ouvir,
deixando o grupo todo perplexo e em silêncio... É um grito forte, intenso, impossível de não
escutar. Marina agora é o centro de nossas atenções, ela grita e chora... Ainda não sabemos
o motivo de suas lágrimas. Faz-se um silêncio momentâneo até que ela o quebra com novos
soluços e palavras: “às vezes a gente só quer um abraço, é só isso, um abraço...” Marina chora
com dor, e todos os que estamos ali ficamos em silêncio, aturdidos pela sua explosão
afetiva.... Edna e Vanise correm até Marina para abraçá-la... ela não para de chorar. Marina
desabafa, se desnuda, mostra sua ferida, conta-nos sobre as ameaças que vem sofrendo de
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um vizinho, a dor de não poder compartilhar sua história com ninguém, nem dentro da própria
família, por medo de ser incompreendida, de ser desacreditada...
A turma permanece em silêncio...Todos saem logo em seguida para que Marina possa
se refazer um pouco. Parecem deixá-la como uma forma de dar espaço e tempo para ela
própria. Seus colegas parecem, dessa forma, acolhê-la, permitindo que ela possa chorar seu
choro, regar sua alma à vontade... Ficamos apenas Marina, Edna e Vanise para tentar
conversar sobre o que a faz se sentir dessa forma. Não somos terapeutas. Somos professoras.
A filosofia não é terapia, mas ela comporta dimensões e efeitos terapêuticos inegáveis. Esse
aspecto se verifica nas mudanças, nas transformações que vão-se revelando, pouco a pouco,
não só no momento da experiência, como também em nosso convívio dentro e fora da escola.
Tentamos dar acolhida à explosão afetiva da Marina. O grupo também oferece essa condição.
E buscamos que esses afetos potenciem a experiência de pensamento que está tendo lugar
em Marina e no grupo.
Ao mesmo tempo, em meio à perplexidade que a explosão afetiva de Marina nos
trouxe, perguntamo-nos quais seriam os motivos que a fizeram trazer, naquele momento da
experiência de pensamento, um relato tão intenso, uma confissão. Perguntamo-nos,
sobretudo, qual seria o espaço dessa dimensão tão surpreendente da vida dentro da escola,
nos movimentos que fazemos dentro dela. Perguntamo-nos sobre a relação entre a explosão
da Marina com aquelas perguntas inicialmente mais escolhidas pela turma, sobre a escola
como um espaço onde se finge que se faz o que não se faz e sobre a vergonha que as pessoas
sentem de expressar a dor que experimentam, na escola e fora dela. Uma dor, a dor que existe
na escola, pensar uma dor, a dor de pensar o que ainda não pensamos, escutá-la, dar tempo a
ela, escutá-la mais uma vez, compartilhá-la, ter a coragem de não mais negá-la, não mais
fingi-la, a dor como uma potência de vida, uma dor que dá vida ao pensamento, que força o
pensamento a pensar a vida e a vida a se pensar a si própria... O que fazer com o que dói,
com o que nos dói? O que é uma dor? Ambas as perguntas gritam uma dor...Escutemo-la...
De quando o que é de uma pessoa torna-se o que é de todas
Cada vez que algo assim acontece, nos acontece, voltamos infinitamente a nos
perguntar o que é uma escola e o que estamos fazendo nela; questionamo-nos pelos modos
em que a habitamos: qual forma de escola defendemos efetivamente com nossas
palavras/ações? O que fazemos quando a vida invade a escola com toda a força que ela é
capaz, com suas alegrias, perplexidades, e dores? Principalmente perguntamo-nos a forma
em que reagimos quando, como disse Wesley na sua afirmação indagativa: “Eu não sei o que
fazer.”
Repetimos, com Wesley: “eu não sei o que fazer”. Qualquer viajante pela história do
pensamento deve estar pensando nas diversas vezes e variados contextos em que essa
pergunta foi colocada e também na sua potência de fazer brotar pensamento no pensamento.
Aqui talvez habite uma das potências enormes das experiências de pensamento na escola
pública que é a nossa: possibilitar trazer à tona o que mais propriamente nos faz a cada um
habitar o mundo, as paixões, as alegrias, as dores, as perplexidades, as fragilidades, o
impensado quase insuportável de nossas efêmeras e complexas existências...
Quando, se não através desses momentos inspirados de perguntas nas quais pulsam
dores, a vida, de verdade, se torna uma questão pública dentro da escola? Lembramos, nesse
momento, das palavras do napolitano Giuseppe Ferraro, na sua participação no VIII Colóquio
de Filosofia e Educação, realizado em outubro de 2016 na Universidade do Estado do Rio de
Janeiro (UERJ), quando afirmou que “a vida é pública”. Se concordamos com ele, é
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necessário pensar a escola pública como um espaço/tempo de atenção à vida, à vida que
vivemos, um espaço, justamente, para tornar pública a vida.
O que significa viver hoje numa escola e universidade públicas no Brasil, num
contexto, como já referido anteriormente, de dissolução, de asfixia política e econômica,
sentindo dia após dia as consequências de um projeto de destruição da coisa pública,
sobremaneira evidenciado no Estado do Rio de Janeiro? As instituições públicas, talvez
mais do que em qualquer outro momento, precisem tornar pública a dor que as habita. É
preciso fazer pública essa dor e não somente constatá-la, mas pensá-la na sua potência
afirmativa de vida.
Pensamos que a situação que vivemos com Marina em nossa escola coloca também
em questão o que poderíamos considerar como algo de caráter público, questão tão
discutida em nosso grupo de pesquisa, NEFI, a partir das contribuições de autores como J.
Masschelein e M. Simons (2014). Quando uma vivência, uma história, uma narrativa
intensa, como a de Marina, é compartilhada a viva voz, ela se torna uma questão pública?
Ela torna-se de interesse comum, ou seja, algo que diz respeito ao mundo que
compartilhamos ou que desejaríamos compartilhar? Seria esse o momento em que o que é
de uma pessoa - de um modo particular ou, ainda, singular - se torna comum, de todas,
tornando-o público? Importa-nos a dor de Marina não enquanto dor particular de Marina,
mas enquanto essa dor diz respeito à condição de qualquer aluna ou aluno de uma escola
pública de periferia em nosso tempo. É uma espécie de dor mundana, de dor do mundo a
que está em jogo na dor da Marina? É a escola pública o espaço para manifestar, se
interessar e pensar nas nossas dores de cada um e cada uma na medida em que elas são
também dores comuns, dores do mundo comum?
Marina talvez tenha nos feito um convite muito importante neste momento quando ela
fala da necessidade de um abraço: “às vezes o que precisamos é de um abraço”... Com sua
ajuda, nos perguntamos: em que escola se ensina/aprende a abraçar uma dor? Em que escola
a vida se faz uma questão? Em que escola a vida que vivemos na escola é posta em conexão
com a vida que vivemos fora da escola? Em que escola se faz escola tornando a vida, de
dentro e de fora da escola, uma questão pública? Nesse momento crítico, do presente,
defender, na escola, a dimensão pública da vida talvez tenha se tornado uma luta diária para
afirmar, defender a própria vida... Vida de muitas e muitos estudantes, vida de professores e
professoras e demais servidoras e servidores que dedicam a vida à educação pública, em
escolas e universidades, vivendo (ou sobrevivendo) com condições de trabalho indignas nos
mais diversos sentidos. Mas também vida do mundo, vida do comum, vida de qualquer ser.
Jan Masschelein afirma que, com Maarten Simons, seu ex-aluno, foi provocado quando
este lhe disse que “a escola é o impensado da filosofia” (Masschelein; Simons, 2014, p.203).
É, de fato, uma provocação a todos nós que procuramos levar a filosofia até a escola, que
trabalhamos e estudamos na escola pública, lendo tantos escritos e exercitando nossa escrita
com a pretensão de reunir a filosofia e a escola. Será talvez que ali está precisamente o sentido
do que afirma Simons, e deveríamos, então, melhor dizer que estamos levando a escola até a
filosofia para lembrá-la dela? Ou, quem sabe, será que a filosofia, os exercícios de
pensamento que propomos como uma questão pública, justamente ao expor e interrogar os
modos de viver uma vida escolar estão sendo um exercício de anamnese filosófica, para
recordar, rememorar o que a filosofia esqueceu?
Nenhum das e dos que habitamos essa escola tinha pensado no que Maria nos trouxe.
Ninguém pensou que poderíamos encontrar ali um motivo para a filosofia. Nesse sentido, as
experiências de pensamento em nosso projeto carregam com elas essa potência provocativa,
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que força a pensar no impensado, no que a vida tem se encarregado de trazer com seus
enigmas e que nos faz transitar o caminho do que parece particular (de um) ao que é publico
(compartilhado por todas e todos, ou por qualquer ser). Por isso, pensamos que a filosofia
tem um caráter necessariamente público quando habita uma escola igualmente pública.
Apostamos, com os exercícios de pensamento que propomos, não somente que os
conteúdos, os saberes de uma ou outra disciplina sejam “colocados na mesa” para serem
melhor compreendidos e colocados em questão, mas também que esse mesmo trabalho possa
alcançar os modos de vida, as relações que nos percorrem com suas diferenças, seus conflitos,
seus impasses e atravessamentos, fazendo de tudo isso uma matéria, uma questão educativa,
pública, que possa ser pensada por todos e qualquer ser dos que habitam a escola.
A investigação educativa e o jogo do fingimento
Masschelein e Simons nos trazem mais uma contribuição importante quando pensam
não apenas a escola, mas o que seria o mais próprio de uma investigação educativa. Eles
enfatizam o valor do caminhar, de sair do lugar que se habita e colocar-se a caminho. Assim,
aproximam o sujeito do caminhar ao sujeito da experiência, como aquele que é “coagido pelo
presente e se deixa conduzir por ele” (Masschelein; Simmons, 2014, p. 53). Ora, deixar-se
ser conduzido ou conduzida é, num certo sentido, suspender, renunciar a uma permanente
necessidade de controle e acolher o que o caminho/experiência nos oferece, pois é “isso
precisamente o que está jogo na investigação e-ducativa: a abertura de um espaço existencial,
de um espaço de liberdade prática: a nossa alma” (ibidem). Pensamos que disso também se
trata em situações como a vivida com Marina: o que ela nos questiona é precisamente o que
devemos fazer ou, nas palavras dos autores belgas, se estamos dispostos a abrir um espaço
de liberdade prática, a nossa alma. Como fazer isso num espaço onde parece que se aprende
e ensina a fingir? Ou num espaço em que não é possível conversar sobre o que nos dói, sobre
o que nos incomoda e afeta a vida? Quais são as condições para que possamos abrir a nossa
alma e escutar as outras almas que se abrem na escola, como a da Marina?
A ferida de Marina talvez não esteja mais na história do vizinho ameaçador que,
segundo nos disse, já não mais a importuna, mas na necessidade premente de um olhar, um
outro olhar que não a julgue, de uma escuta que não a recrimine nem desacredite de suas
palavras e que lhe permita transitar acompanhada esse novo caminhar de sua alma...Ela, mais
adiante, compartilha também as dificuldades enfrentadas em sua trajetória escolar e afirma
que, em decorrência das dificuldades de leitura e de escrita, chegou a ser retirada da turma
da qual fazia parte para ser colocada numa “turma de crianças com necessidades especiais”.
Ela retorna a este episódio na intimidade, narrando-o em voz baixa, deixando transparecer
sua tristeza...
Mais uma vez lembremos das palavras de Marina: “às vezes o que precisamos é tão
somente de um abraço...”, um abraço que abrace a alma, que não é, certamente, qualquer
abraço. Um abraço que nos convide a acolher o novo, o estranho, o impensado na escola, que
nos permita encontrar outra vida na escola e outra escola na vida... Um abraço que abrace a
educação pública como questão de interesse e de importância na defesa da vida, de muitas
vidas, do comum da vida e da vida em comum.
Quem sabe a ferida mais dolorida, trazida nas perguntas desse intenso grupo de
estudantes de uma turma de EJA, iniciantes nas experiências de pensamento, seja justamente
a ferida de não encontrar, no jogo que se joga com a filosofia na escola, o suposto jogo do
“fingimento” e, diferentemente, encontrar um espaço para pensar o próprio jogo e os
desdobramentos na vida das e dos que nele estão implicados. Talvez esse seja o nome da
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399filosofia nessa turma com jovens, adultas e adultos: um espaço para não fingir, para
encontrar outras almas, para pensar a vida que nos atravessa a todos por igual.
Não por acaso, temos testemunhado, nos encontros de cinquenta minutos dedicados às
experiências de pensamento, a participação verbal de estudantes que na cotidianidade da sala
de aula permanecem calados. É o caso, por exemplo, de Luísa e de Thayane, que, num
determinado momento da conversa, resolveram falar, soltar a voz, provocando surpresa nos
colegas da turma que, quase em uníssono, exclamaram: “A Luísa falou, a Thayane
também!!!! Olha, professora, o que aconteceu?” E permaneceram algum tempo comentando
umas com as outras, admiradas pelo que viram e ouviram...
A coragem de pensar a vida que se vive: um desejo de verdade, um desejo de
igualdade?
No encontro seguinte, Ozilene, que é a autora da pergunta sobre o fingir que obteve a
preferência da maioria, tenta esclarecer o motivo pelo qual trouxe a pergunta para a roda de
conversa. Segundo ela, esta pergunta surgiu numa reunião de pais na escola particular onde
sua filha estudava. A pergunta foi pronunciada por uma das mães que participavam da
reunião naquela época. Ozilene nos conta que, depois de um tempo, esta pergunta voltou a
ressoar quando ela, afastada muito tempo da escola, resolveu retomar os estudos. A
professora Edna lhe pergunta se ela poderia citar um exemplo, no momento atual, do que ela
percebe como um “jogo de fingimento” na escola. Ficando pensativa por algum tempo, ela
nos diz: ʽOutro dia, o professor de Matemática passou um trabalho em grupo e eu não pude
fazer com meus colegas porque eu não sabia a matéria, não sabia fazer, mas mesmo assim
eles colocaram meu nome no trabalho e eu tive uma nota. Não acho isso certo, porque o que
eu queria mesmo é aprender a fazer o trabalho, mas eu não aprendi nada...ʼ.
De um modo corajoso, honesto, Ozilene coloca em questão um certo modus operandi
do que, para ela, poderia exemplificar, o referido “jogo do fingimento” que envolve as
questões em torno do ensinar e do aprender na escola. É interessante que ela não relata um
fingimento alheio, mas próprio, do qual ela participa. Mais do que isso, ela parece expressar
um desejo de verdade, desejo de estar de verdade nos acontecimentos de uma sala de aula,
numa condição de igualdade com os colegas que demonstraram estar preparados para
enfrentar o desafio proposto no trabalho de Matemática. Esta jovem senhora, estudante da
EJA, foca sua atenção não no fim de um processo que culmina com a atribuição de uma nota,
mas no meio, no desenrolar dos acontecimentos, numa ética que põe em evidência o modo
como se vive o dia a dia, o presente na escola. De sua inquietação, que passa a ser a de todas
e todos os participantes da experiência, emergem perguntas: Como o presente se presentifica
aos nossos olhos, aos nossos ouvidos, aos nossos sentidos? Quais os desdobramentos disso
para as relações que se estabelecem na escola? Ozilene pensa uma situação e se pensa a si
mesma, trazendo seu desconforto de receber uma nota por um trabalho com o qual, segundo
seu entendimento, não contribuiu. No entanto, na roda do pensamento, não temos dúvida de
que as palavras da estudante contribuem muito para pensarmos por que fazemos algumas
coisas de um modo e não de outro, se o exercício de pensar pode nos inspirar a criar outras
maneiras de habitar a escola e de viver uma vida. A coragem da verdade de Ozilene é uma
ruptura, uma transgressão que desafia as balizas do suposto “jogo do fingimento” na escola.
Ela se coloca em questão dentro desse próprio jogo, ocupando-se consigo mesma, pois.
Tomando-se como objeto de seu cuidado, há que interrogar-se sobre o que ele é e o que
são as coisas que não são ele. Há que interrogar-se sobre o que depende dele e sobre o que
não depende. Há que interrogar-se, enfim, sobre o que convém fazer, segundo as categorias
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quer dos kathèkonta, quer dos proegoúmena, etc. Consequentemente aquele que tiver se
ocupado consigo como convém, isto é, aquele que tiver efetivamente analisado quais são as
coisas que dependem dele e quais as que não dependem – ao ter cuidado consigo mesmo de
tal maneira que, se alguma coisa vier à sua representação, saberá o que deve e o que não deve
fazer, este saberá, ao mesmo tempo cumprir seus deveres enquanto parte da comunidade
humana. (Foucault, 2011, p.177).
Foucault está se referindo, nessa passagem, à filosofia praticada por Sócrates como um
cuidado de si, como uma ocupação consigo mesmo. Há que se interrogar sobre si mesmo,
sobre as coisas que dependem e não dependem de si. Há que interrogar a própria vida
atravessando outras vidas no espaço comum da polis, sobre os próprios deveres enquanto
parte de uma comunidade. Quando menciona seu incômodo, Ozilene pode estar apontando
para essa dimensão da responsabilidade do que é viver em grupo, do que é desejável que se
faça, não como algo de caráter privado, mas como o que seria necessário ao grupo, ao comum,
à comunidade, ou seja, aquilo que é importante e fortalece a dimensão pública da escola, com
a verdadeira participação de todos. Ocupando-se de si mesma, Ozilene está se ocupando do
que é comum, de todas e todos que compartilham sua vida na escola.
Em dado momento da experiência, Wesley havia nos inquietado com sua própria
inquietação, ao trazer sua afirmação/pergunta: “Eu não sei o que fazer”. Muitas vezes, a força
dos acontecimentos do presente impõe este desafio, como o temos experimentado agora, no
contexto atual de profundo descaso à educação pública e à vida daqueles que se dedicam a
ela. Todo dia passa a ser um dia de resistência, em que nos vemos diante da perplexidade, da
vulnerabilidade. Nesse sentido, entendemos que o projeto de filosofia em nossa escola,
através das experiências de pensamento, tem marcado um espaço/tempo de afirmação das
questões que são de interesse comum, que afetam as nossas vidas mutuamente. Nem sempre
saberemos o que fazer, melhor, poucas vezes sabemos o que fazer, mas talvez o mais
importante seja estar atentas e atentos, nos questionar e nos ocupar do que estamos fazendo
de nós mesmas, umas com as outras, uns com os outros, nos espaços que temos habitado e
afirmado com a vida que vivemos, no espaço comum de uma escola pública...
Vanise agradece a confiança desses estudantes, Edna lhes agradece também a coragem,
a de todos aqueles que trazem um pouco da sua história viva, em carne viva, com alma. Sim,
porque é preciso muita coragem para expor, se expor do modo como estes estudantes o fazem,
trazendo algo tão íntimo, pungente das suas vidas... Cada uma, na sua singularidade, parece
ter encarnado, nas experiências de pensamento, as inquietações trazidas pelo grupo,
publicamente. Agradecemos também por todas as vidas que têm se arriscado na defesa da
educação como uma questão pública. Já não é mais este/a ou aquela/a que, sozinho/a,
pergunta e se pergunta, é a vida comum, compartilhada que nos pergunta: “Eu não sei o que
fazer”...você poderia me ajudar? Você poderia me abraçar?”.
REFERÊNCIAS
Foucault, Michel (2010). A Hermenêutica do Sujeito. Curso no Collège de France, 1981-
1982. São Paulo: Martins Fontes.
Frejat, Roberto; Quental, Dulce (1990). O poeta está vivo. In: Barão Vermelho. Rio de
Janeiro: WEA, Faixa 11. CD e LP.
402
Gomes, Vanise Dutra (2017). Dialogar, conversar e experienciar o filosofar na escola

pública: encontros e desencontros. Rio de Janeiro: NEFI.
Kohan, W.; Olarieta, F. (orgs., 2012). A escola pública aposta no pensamento (Belo
Horizonte: Autêntica. Trad. Cast.: La escuela pública apuesta al pensamiento
(Rosario: Homo Sapiens, 2013).
Masschelein, Jan; Simons, Maarten (2013). Em defesa da escola: uma questão pública. Belo
Horizonte: Autêntica.
Masschelein, Jan; Simons, Maarten (2014). A pedagogia, a democracia, a escola. Belo
Horizonte: Autêntica.
Pessoa, Fernando (1995). Obra Poética. Rio de Janeiro: Nova Aguilar.
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5. DIFERENTES MODELOS DE EVALUACIÓN / DIFFERENT

MODELS OF EVALUATION
Cuando el programa comenzó en los Estados Unidos se optó por realizar
evaluaciones rigurosas y sistemáticas con el fin de verificar el impacto que tenía la
práctica filosófica sobre el crecimiento de los niños. Desde entonces, se han
realizado muchas investigaciones, utilizando metodologías cuantitativas,
cualitativas y mixtas, sin descuidar nunca los supuestos y las bases filosóficas de
la evaluación. Algunos investigadores se han centrado en el desarrollo cognitivo,
otros en las dimensiones afectivas, o en una combinación de ambos enfoques.
Algunas personas son muy críticas y prefieren no hacer investigación educativa ni
psicológica.
When the program started in the United States, it chose to undertake rigorous and
systematic evaluations in order to verify the impact that philosophical practice had
on the growth of children. Much more research has been done since then, using
quantitative, qualitative and mixed methodologies without ever neglecting the
assumptions and philosophical foundations of the evaluation. Some researchers
have focused on cognitive growth, others on affective dimensions, or on a
combination of both. Some people are very critical of this and prefer not to do
educational or psychological research.
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The Potential for Philosophy with Children in International

Schools
International Teacher Education for Primary Schools (ITEPS) student
teachers’ perceptions of philosophical inquiry with children for Global
Citizenship Education.
Caroline Ferguson
caroline.ferguson@stenden.com
Marcel Haagsma
marcel.haagsma@stenden.com
CV
Caroline Ferguson, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences. M.Ed. B.A. Dip. Ed. Dip.
Mus. Stud. is a lecturer in teacher education at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
in The Netherlands and Doctor of Education candidate at The University of Tasmania
Australia, researching Global Citizenship Education in international schools.
Marcel Haagsma M.Ed. M.A. is a senior lecturer, teacher educator and researcher at NHL
Stenden University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands.
NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences.
ABSTRACT
We set out to explore how the student teachers from the international teacher education
Bachelor of Education degree course at NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences
perceive philosophical inquiry with children. This initial investigation is a starting point for
a wider study and aims to open the potential of philosophy with children in the vast
educational landscape of international schools. We found out how the pre-service teachers
value the different ways of doing philosophy with children and their perceived self-
confidence in using these methodologies with the purpose of educating for the complexity of
global citizenship. The students connected philosophical inquiry with a profound
interpretation of Global Citizenship Education, acknowledging the complexity of the moral
global citizen. Philosophy with children was understood as a way to access the moral
dimension but limitations were identified. Furthermore, the student teachers showed an
inclination to linguistic-based inquiry and interpersonal philosophical inquiry with children
rather than individual processes. The study shows the international application of
philosophical inquiry with children in diverse multicultural environments.
KEYWORDS
Global Citizenship Education, Philosophical inquiry with children, P4C, Globalization,
Philosophy, International Schools, International Education.
RESUMEN
Nos propusimos explorar el modo en el que los profesores en prácticas, del curso sobre
educación internacional para profesores del Grado en Educación de la Universidad
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NHLStenden de Ciencias Aplicadas, perciben el diálogo filosófico con niños. Esta

investigación inicial es un punto de arranque para un estudio más amplio y pretende abrir el
potencial de la filosofía con niños al amplio panorama de las escuelas internacionales.
Descubrimos cómo los maestros en prácticas valoran las diferentes maneras de hacer filosofía
con los niños y su percepción de la autoconfianza al usar estas metodologías con el propósito
de educar para la complejidad de la ciudadanía global. Los estudiantes relacionaron la
investigación filosófica con una interpretación profunda de la Educación Global de
Ciudadanía, reconociendo la complejidad del ciudadano global moral. La filosofía con niños
se entendió como una forma de acceder a la dimensión moral pero se identificaron
limitaciones. Además, los profesores en prácticas mostraron una inclinación hacia la
investigación lingüística y la investigación filosófica interpersonal con los niños en lugar de
los procesos individuales. El estudio muestra la aplicación internacional de la investigación
filosófica con niños en diversos entornos multiculturales.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Ciudadanía global, Investigación Filosófica con niños, Globalización, Filosofía, Escuelas
internacionales, Educación Internacional.
INTRODUCTION
As teacher educators, we investigated our ITEPS student teachers’ perceptions of
philosophical inquiry with children for Global Citizenship Education, for part of a wider
exploration into the potential for philosophy with children in international schools. ITEPS is
an acronym for International Teacher Education for Primary Schools, a course that prepares
people for a teaching career in international primary education (www.iteps.eu). We examined
pre-service teachers’ perceptions of philosophy with children with the specific commitment
to Global Citizenship Education. Global citizenship is based on the philosophy of
cosmopolitanism, and human connectedness with rights and responsibilities across borders.
Global Citizenship Education aims to create morally responsible world citizens. It is a
contested concept, which can be articulated in international education as instrumentalism, in
the form of social capital or moral obligation with an understanding of global injustice.
Moreover, there is tension between local politics, national allegiance and notions of world
citizenship. As ITEPS students aim to work in international schools, there is a layer of
political complexity in teaching global citizenship, as schools may or may not have national
affiliations, and student populations can be diverse. The national and global tension creates
challenges for the application of Global Citizenship Education in multicultural international
schools as the perspective of these schools can be supranational, void of a local identity or
based on a national curriculum and must negotiate approaches to diversity within the nation
state and internationally. Our study found that pre-service teachers identify the potential for
philosophical inquiry with children for deep Global Citizenship Education including for
navigating the moral dilemma of good global citizenship. They also perceive philosophy with
children as a linguistic activity based in a community dialogue. This is important in
expanding the horizons for philosophical inquiry in diverse educational settings and
highlights the need for further development of philosophy in teacher education through
approaches beyond verbal communication.
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The nexus of P4C for GCE in teacher education for international schools
Haynes & Murris (2011) state that ʽphilosophy with children is concerned with the
interactional properties of a concept – that is how people use the concept in a variety of
situated contextsʼ (p.293). We are interested in the intersection of Philosophy for Children,
abbreviated as P4C and Global Citizenship Education, abbreviated as GCE in the context of
international education. We have started to investigate how P4C can work for GCE in teacher
education and in the professional field of international schools. As preliminary research, we
have investigated how this is perceived by our student teachers in the ITEPS course. We are
aware of the criticism that P4C risks becoming instrumentalized for other purposes (Gregory
and Murris, 2017). Despite this criticism, the P4C movement can contribute to opening up
moral dimensions or dilemmas (Kizel, 2017). A complexity of moral objectives exists in
GCE, especially in international schools (Bates ,2012).
ʽPhilosophy for children offers a (…) counter-narrative to psychological and
sociological perspectives that often dominate educational discourseʼ and ʽP4C is a field in its
own right through its articulation of philosophy in, rather than of educationʼ (Gregory,
Haynes and, Murris, K , 2017, p.XXI). These two characterisations of philosophy for children
presented themselves during our work as teacher educators in the ITEPS programme. We are
interested in how we can prepare future international teachers for the task of educating global
citizens. Belgeonne (2017) mentions P4C as one of the appropriate methodologies to be
effective for working constructively with classroom diversity. We are interested in the
specific instance of international education and how P4C methodologies could help teachers
to explore questions of belonging, identity, fairness and ambiguities around matters of moral
response to global issues among learners.
Historical and theoretical framework
In the first part of the theoretical framework, we sketch a brief history of the P4C methods,
the later P4C movement and now, as we argue for the diversification of philosophical practices
in education, especially in teacher education. We then set the theoretical framework for the
context of the research, and some background on GCE in international schools. This framework
will be used to give us a firm understanding of the development of P4C and will help us to analyse
data that reflects how our student teachers look upon using P4C methods for GCE in their
teaching practices. We are interested in the potential for exploring the moral dimension of GCE,
as research shows that GCE in international schools should enable a movement from a charity to
a social justice approach (Marshall, 2015).
A first generation of P4C
According to Echeverria & Hannam (2010) cited in Gregory, Haynes & Murris (2017,
p.3), the practice of P4C can ʽequip children and young people with the tools to become
more critical and to develop a more social and global consciousnessʼ and (…) to ʽtake an
active role in the shaping of a democratic societyʼ (p.3). Moreover, the authors state that,
in the Lipman/Sharp tradition ʽP4C is best understood as an educative praxis with
democratic purposesʼ (ibidem). The authors position the Lipman/Sharp approach of P4C in
the Dewey tradition of deliberative democracy which can be characterised as ʽan
imaginative rehearsal for future activitiesʼ (ibidem), an idea that really speaks to us as
teacher educators, when it comes down to the question of what the purpose and character
of international education should be.what the purpose and character of international
education should be.
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Matthews’ critique of Paiget’s theory of developmental stages of children concluded

that ʽchildren can help us investigate and reflect on interesting and important questions
(…)ʼ (Matthews, 1980 p.3) and even suggests that children ask more interesting questions
than adults. We agree with this, and consequently see P4C as a logical site for working with
children on questions of global citizenship. We agree with Vansieleghem & Kennedy’s
idea that P4C needs to be understood as ʽdemocratic education and not only as education
for democracyʼ (Gregory, Haynes & Murris, 2017, p3). The first generation of the
movement of P4C opened the door to this field for children and educators, introducing
critical thinking skills, challenging traditional Piagetian ideas of child development and
providing a site in education to strive for a better world.
A second generation of P4C
Where Lipman emphasised analytical reasoning as a method for philosophising, new
scholars such as Kennedy, Haynes, Murris & others such as van der Leeuw, put more focus
on P4C as a movement with multiple approaches (Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011).
Introducing children, through various methodologies, to reflect upon knowledge on their
own and to question power structures in society in order to resist totalitarian ways of being,
has brought the P4C movement into new waters. This second wave of P4C sees the school’s
mission to teach pupils as ʽhow to reflect upon knowledge on their ownʼ (Vansieleghem &
Kennedy, 2011, p.178). Especially in international schools, many children in transition
struggle with feelings of belonging, identity and meaning as to where and how they are or
should be citizens. An interesting contribution to the discourse about how P4C could work
for this issue comes from Kizel (2017). In arguing that communities of inquiry, such as
P4C sessions, create relationships which in turn enable people to construct meaning, Kizel
suggests that they also call for responsibility and action. Furthermore, it could be argued
that Fletcher’s (2016) view on the development of empathy through moral imagination via
P4C could help children to find focus in moral responsibility around matters of global
citizenship. we say that we are curious as to how P4C and GCE can meaningfully intersect
in international teacher education. P4C and GCE can meaningfully intersect in international
teacher education.
A third generation of P4C
More recently, educators are experimenting with visual art and philosophy. We have
signalled work of Ellen Duthie and Anastasia Avdieva during the last ICPIC conference in
Madrid in 2017. Duthie is a philosopher, from the UK and works in Spain on what she has
coined as visual philosophy for children. Her approach is to provoke children’s minds with
big questions in playful and appealing ways. Duthie (2017) has created three boxes of
colourful cards with questions about puzzling situations that are illustrated on these cards.
The themes are cruelty, questions of identity and freedom, initiative with conceptual art is
used by Anastasia Avdieva, a Russian philosopher who runs philosophy clubs for children
in Moscow. By asking questions about works of art, such as the title of the work, Avdieva
allows children to use everyday objects to create conceptual art projects themselves, and
lets them think about purpose, language and concepts in a fascinating way. We argue that
these visual points of departure on philosophy for children sets these initiatives apart from
other, more classical or other text-bound initiatives in philosophy for children. As
Nussbaum describes the richness of thought offered by the ʽnarrative imaginationʼ
(Nussbaum, 1997 p.85), the visual arts approach to philosophy could open children to the
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moral aspects of global citizenship. This can be achieved by appealing to different skills
and competencies, although concrete approaches in this direction have not been made until
now outside secondary art and social sciences education (Wilkes, 2001; Leckey, 2017). It
is within this wave that we locate a research trajectory. Some studies indicate that it is
worthwhile exploring this path further (Kim & Wiehe-Beck, 2016).
Initial teacher education and P4C
Initial teacher education is an integral element in the promotion of philosophy with
children to prepare pre-service teachers with the skills and confidence for engaging in
philosophical reasoning. Scholars advocate the development of evaluativist perspectives
in pre-service teachers and exposure to theories which support the use of philosophy in
the classroom (Knight & Collins, 2014; Brownlee, Curtis, Davey Chesters, Cobb-Moore,
Spooner-Lane, Whiteford & Tait, 2014). Evaluativist epistemology is the understanding
that there is no absolute knowledge and two people with opposing views can be right.
Evaluativism encourages thought and appraisal of ideas, acknowledging the uncertainty
of knowledge. In promoting this perspective in pre-service teachers, we create
educational environments where they can witness knowledge located in the subject.
Teachers with evaluativist perspectives are aware of their own epistemologies and are
more successful in engaging with philosophy with children in schools (Brownlee et al,
2014). The abstract moral reasoning stimulated through the P4C approach can cultivate
multiple perspectives (Kizel 2012) and opens up epistemological possibilities including
consideration about the role of teacher and student in education (Lewis & Robinson
2017). Through philosophizing activities, the student teacher can understand that the
teacher does not hold all knowledge.
Global Citizenship Education literature review
Global citizenship is based on the concept of cosmopolitanism, the philosophy of
human connectedness, rights and responsibilities across borders, influencing notions of
citizenship, identity and belonging. Cosmopolitanism encourages human solidarity in dealing
with problems that transcend national boundaries. We live in a world where power is
distributed to units beyond nation states (Held 2015) and education is part of interconnected
global forces (Suárez-Orozco 2007). Challenges to the world transcend national boundaries
and require global cooperation. We believe that P4C allows for the nurturing of
cosmopolitanism as well as the complexity and variation in interpretations of global
citizenship in educational environments.
GCE is a contested space with different expressions and aims. The focus of GCE could
be conveyed as a thick or thin cosmopolitanism (Held 2015). There is a myriad of the
potential global citizens that GCE can create. Urry (2000) outlines a multiplicity of global
citizenship articulations from ʽglobal networkersʼ to ʽearth citizensʼ (p 173) showing the
range of global citizen types. Global citizenship is interpreted as a set of competencies with
an ethical commitment to human rights by Reimers (2010) ʽpreparing students for the social
and economic contexts in which they will have to invent their livesʼ (p184). Shultz (2007)
identifies three types of global citizen: the neoliberal citizen, the radical global citizen and
the transformationalist global citizen.
The different expressions of global citizenship relate to political agendas (Carr, Pluim
& Howard 2014; Marshall 2011; Weenink 2008). The two main agendas identified by
Marshall (2009) are moral cosmopolitanism —ʽglobal social-justice instrumentalism that
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requires an emotion (and arguably active) commitment to, and understanding of, economic,
political, legal, or cultural injusticeʼ (p 255)—, and pragmatic cosmopolitanism —
ʽtechnical-economic instrumentalismʼ (p 255). Noddings (2012), and Merry & Ruyter (2011)
advocate for moral cosmopolitan education for a sense of responsibility to all humans. Rizvi
(2008; 2009) emphasises the goal of cosmopolitan learning to understand global connectivity
and how our personal lives and communities are impacted by globalization in real ways.
These distinctions between the goals of global citizenship education determine the
interpretation of global citizenship in the international school community.
International Schools literature review
The context for our study is teacher education specifically for international schools. It
is important to understand the particular educational environment of international schools to
appreciate the connection that can be made with philosophy for children. The initial
complexity arrives in attempting to define the international school. International schools can
be local schools with global perspectives, national curriculum schools located in a different
country to cater to expatriates who are not citizens of the country where the school is located,
or international curriculum schools which attract many nationalities (Hayden & Thompson
1995). Not all international schools are international in curriculum, which makes gauging
GCE and notions of cosmopolitanism in these schools difficult. Curricula is imported,
adapted, integrated or created to meet the needs of expatriate and local markets. It is a diverse
educational environment, and it is constantly responding to the forces of globalization.
International schools are increasing in number and influence on the global educational
landscape (Hayden 2008). Globalization has led to the increase in the number of international
schools responding to the need for their children to be world citizens (Hayden, Thompson &
Williams 2011). International schools with multicultural populations of local and expatriate
students and staff are often based on an ethos of global understanding and peace. They
encourage intercultural relations and understanding and have student bodies with diverse
cultural backgrounds. International schools have the purpose of preparing students for an
interconnected world, with the skills to study and work worldwide.
The question of how international schools educate for global citizenship is still being
answered. There are different interpretations of cosmopolitanism, the underlying foundation
of global citizenship education, on which schools can base their approach. Schools can
promote several versions of the cosmopolitan individual or global citizen in one global
citizenship education program (Schattle, 2008). Furthermore, international schools can teach
cosmopolitanism through non-formal learning, for example through the composition of
students and staff (Hayden, Rancic & Thompson, 2000). It has been argued that the formal
curriculum in international schools is less influential than the personal contact with multiple
nationalities and cultures in creating cosmopolitanism (Hayden & Wong, 1997).
Cosmopolitan education for global citizenship can be ʽunifying or divisiveʼ (Golmohamad,
2008 p.521) depending on the concept of citizenship that informs it.
P4C for the moral dimension of GCE
Education for global citizenship, in particular the moral dimension, could be advanced
deeply and critically through various forms of philosophical inquiry. It is a contested space.
The moral world of the global citizen is a subjective concept. For example, critical scholars
such as Andreotti (2006) and Pashby and Swanson (2016) insist on a fundamental shift in
thinking about GCE, engaging with post-colonial, critical race and indigenous perspectives
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to make a goal of social justice. The community of inquiry which characterizes some
approaches to philosophy with children could support moral questioning on controversial
topics (Gregory, 2014) and this can be a method for exploring the multiple perspectives of
citizenship education (Glasser, 2009). Furthermore, approaches such as inquiring through
aesthetic inquiry and play, as shown by Duthie and Avdieva, provide an avenue to question
various notions of a moral world in global citizenship. Exposure to different opinions is
important in educating for a deep and active citizenship education (Brownlee, Johansson,
Walker & Scholes, 2017). This supports a deep interpretation of GCE involves looking at the
sources of inequality and social injustice and interrogating our moral responsibility.
Communal thinking allows many perspectives to be heard which develop individual
thinking. The use of philosophical inquiry using oral questioning and discussion in a group
could foster empathy by understanding that others in the community of inquiry have their
own ideas and also allows students to question their thoughts and assumptions (Costa-
Carvalho & Mendonça, 2017; Kizel, 2016; Sharp, 1987). This critical thinking through
dialogue with others can access profound and critical GCE by engaging with global ethical
issues (Splitter & Sharp, 1995). Guiding student dialogue within a framework of social
justice, for better reasoning through controversial issues (Gregory 2014) could also be
applicable to GCE. This aligns with Dewey’s ideas in Democracy and Education that
children must develop a functional relationship with society, with the sense of agency to
change what does not work. It also fits with Lipman’s notion of philosophical inquiry
promoting judiciousness, knowing when to act and when not to act (Lipman, 1980). In using
philosophical inquiry with children for GCE, the reality of the world and societies is
connected to thinking with an opportunity for significant action. There are limitations to this
dialogue approach in international schools with a high level of linguistic diversity.
Potential limitations of P4C in international schools
We are interested in the possibilities for P4C in international schools, plus the
challenges and limitations of P4C in diverse cultural settings. P4C could provide an avenue
for discovering cosmopolitan thinking in international schools and inviting students to
uncover the chances, complexities and problems in getting along with others in multicultural
educational environments. As Kizel (2016) states, students finding what is difficult, ʽthe
boundaries of their capacitiesʼ are important to ʽdevelop cognitive and social skillsʼ (p.508).
Further research is required to assess the suitability of the approach in different socio-cultural
and political contexts. This path would also benefit from a variety of philosophical traditions
to avoid a dominant Western lens. There may be instances where P4C needs to adapt to
different cultural situations.
Our study
We use P4C techniques with ITEPS pre-service teachers to help develop an awareness
of personal epistemologies and opportunities to challenge them. A variety of methodologies
are explored in the first year of the ITEPS curriculum, such as guided philosophical sessions,
philosophical questioning, storytelling, visual stimuli and use of picture books. Students
come from various backgrounds, often without any previous exposure to philosophy. During
the full degree course, students continue to be exposed to, have the opportunity to research
and try out in teaching practice, a range of possible methodologies for P4C. However, some
younger student teachers may only have the opportunity to facilitate philosophical inquiry
with peers in classes. Some have the opportunity to trial P4C during teaching practicum
412
periods with primary aged children in schools. The student teachers have a range of teaching
practice experiences with different mentor teachers in various schools. The variety of P4C
and teaching practice experience may limit this study.
Methodology
1. Aim of the study. To explore ITEPS student teachers’ perspectives on the use of P4C
to open up the moral dimension of global citizenship education.
2. Research question. The research question that drives this inquiry is: How do ITEPS
student teachers perceive the use of philosophy for children to open up the moral
dimension of global citizenship education?
3. Paradigm. The plurality of individual experiences within the investigated population,
and the intrinsic subjectivity of the concepts of global citizenship education, as well as those of
concepts such as Community of Inquiry and Philosophy for/with Children, underpin the choice
to work within an interpretivist paradigm. A mainly qualitative approach is taken, because we
wanted to portray and analyse ʽa single caseʼ (Cohen, Morrison, Manion, 2011, p.129) and we
wanted to understand (ʽverstehenʼ) how respondents perceive the use of P4C for the education
of global citizens.
4. Methodology. The chosen research methodology is that of a case studyteaching practice
experiences in various foreign contexts, globally. It is not the aim of this study to cover all of the
complexities of these geographically and culturally diverse areas. Rather this study is a first step
to highlight student perspectives at one particular site of ITEPS. Within this international teacher
education programme, we have chosen to focus on the perception of students from the
Netherlands campus only. This is a convenience sample as only ITEPS students from
NHLStenden University ITEPS course were invited to participate. Outcomes of the study are
limited to the sample of the researched population only and cannot be generalised.Stenden
University ITEPS course were invited to participate. Outcomes of the study are limited to the
sample of the researched population only and cannot be generalised.
5. Research design. In order to gain in-depth understanding about respondents’ points of
view, a mixed-methods approach was chosen in which quantitative and qualitative methods of
data collection were combined. It was the aim of the researchers to ʽcatch the complexity and
situatedness of behaviourʼ (Cohen, Morrison, Manion, 2011, p.129). In order to do that we
envisaged a research project that would have multiple stages. First, we needed base-line data.
That is why we have constructed a brief questionnaire with open ended and closed questions.
The outcomes have been analysed and have been followed up by semi-structured interviews.
According to Cohen et al. (2011, p.409) ʽInterviews enable respondents (…) to discuss their
interpretations of the world in which they live, and how they regard situations from their own
point of viewʼ. The interviews have allowed us to ʽgo deeper into the motivations of respondents
and their reasons for responding as they doʼ (Cohen et al, 2011, p.411).
6. Respondents. The online questionnaire was set out among all 176 students studying at
the Meppel campus of ITEPS in the academic year 2016-2017. From these, 69 filled out the
questionnaire. This is the sample in this study. From that sample, 27 students in total filled out
the questionnaire completely. 14 respondents were students from year 1, 3 from year 3, 5 from
year 3 and 5 from year 4. No further demographic details were asked for. It was decided to
analyse only the responses of this group of 27 respondents.
7. Methods of data collection & analysis. As stated above, a questionnaire was constructed,
in which respondents could give their views on their understanding of philosophical inquiry with
children, global citizenship education and the possible links between the two. Besides that,
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respondents were asked to rank philosophical teaching methodologies in order of importance, as

well as indicate their own feeling of confidence in how they would master these methodologies
in their practices. The questionnaire generated nominal and ordinal, non-parametic data on
independent variables. That is why descriptive statistics were used to represent findings from
closed questions. This enabled analysis of the relative presence of answers in the data. Findings
from open questions have been presented through word clouds, open answer questions have been
analysed by categorizing answers by means of categories using theoretical concepts from the
literature. The aim of this study is to present ʽa specific instance (…) to illustrate a more general
principleʼ (Cohen et al, 2011, p.289). The main data collection method chosen in this research
project is a questionnaire. The questionnaire is therefore the baseline data. Semi-structured
interviews were held with 5 respondents to further function as illustration to the data findings
from the questionnaire, to ʽgo deeper into the motivations of respondents and their reasons for
responding as they doʼ (Cohen et al. 2011, p.411). Coding for analysis was open, axial and
selective (Cohen et. Al, 2011).
8. Ethics. Respondents have only participated in the research after informed written
consent was obtained. Respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and have been
informed about their rights as respondents. Respondents were asked to sign a consent form.
Confidentiality was ensured by the following measures. Respondents were requested to fill out
the questionnaire anonymously. Results of the findings of questionnaire were openly discussed
with the respondents. Interviewees gave written consent after being informed of the study and
interview data.
9. Follow up. A considered follow up is to repeat the study at one of the partner institutes
or to expand it to the professional field.
Results
In order to investigate ITEPS student teachers’ perceptions the questionnaire had open
and closed questions. Q.1 & 2 were asking for informed consent and about the year of study
of the respondents. This is presented above in point 6 of methodology.
We asked open questions about the perceptions of the nature of philosophical inquiry
with children, the respondents’ understanding of the moral dimension of global citizenship
education and perceptions on how respondents would view the intersection of the two.
Subsequently we asked closed questions about teaching methodologies and afterwards we
finalised the questionnaire with questions about suggestions for raising awareness about the
moral dimension of global citizenship educations and suggestions for how P4C could
contribute to this process. The open questions were the following:
Q.3. What is your understanding of Philosophical Inquiry with Children?
Respondents’ answers were coded as the following categories:
I. Have children express their thoughts;
II. Inquiry/dialogue; and
III. Creative and critical thinking.
Q.4.What is your understanding of the moral dimension of Global Citizenship Education?
I. Human rights;
II. Global citizens; and
III. Cultural diversity.
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Q.5.How do you think that Philosophical Inquiry with Children can help develop the moral
dimension of Global Citizenship Education?
I. Dialogue/discussion;
II. Explore variety of ideas; and
III. Independent thought.
Code construction
Open coding, axial coding and selective coding (Cohen et al., 2011) were used. Where
respondents answered this question with answers like: ʽ(…) more and different ways of
understanding in education (…)ʼ and ʽ(…) philosophy shouldn’t be understood as a Western
interventionʼ and ʽ(…) they are developing an understanding of their own and others’ actions
and the effects on global citizenshipʼ, this motivated us to code such answers under ʽII.
Explore variety of ideasʼ. Answers like: ʽIt will help them to learn to think independentlyʼ
and ʽ(…) learn to think for themselvesʼ led us to the code ʽIII. Independent thoughtʼ.
Question six asked, ʽOf these five teaching activities/ methodologies, which one do
you think is more important? Rank them from 1-5 in order of importance. 1 = Very Important,
2 = Important, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Less Important, 5 = Not important.ʼ The findings are presented
in the table below.
The results shown in the table below present that the respondents rated classroom
dialogue as most important. The table represents the proportion of respondents rating each
activity, not the ratings.
Score
Philosophical artistic expression

Philosophical atististic tasks
expresson tasks
Phiosophical
Individual classroom
philosophical experiments
inquiry/reading tasks
Philosophical storytelling
Philosophical storytellingtasks
tasks
Individual Philosophical
philosophicalclassroom experiments
inquiry/ reading tasks
Classroom
Classroomdialogues
dialogue
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5
Question seven was: ʽRank these activities/ methodologies in how confident you are to use
them in the classroom. 1 = Very Confident, 2 = Confident, 3 = Neutral, 4 = Not very
confident, 5 = Not confident at all.ʼ As with question six, the results presented in the table
415
represent the frequency with which the respondents rated each item as per the classifications.
The respondents were most confident utilizing classroom dialogue.
Score
Philosophical atististic
Philosophical artistic expresson
expressiontasks
tasks
Philosophical
Phiosophical classroom
classroomexperiments
experiments
Philosophical storytelling
Philosophical storytellingtasks
tasks
Individualphilosophical
Individual philosophical inquiry/reading
inquiry/ readingtasks
tasks
Classroom dialogue
Classroom dialogues
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3 3,5 4 4,5
Q.8 How could you make learners aware of the moral dimension of Global Citizenship
Education?
I. Teaching about;
II. teaching through; and
III. Variety of methods.
Q.9 What Philosophical Inquiry with Children could be used to help learners develop the
awareness of the moral dimension of Global Citizenship Education?
Respondents’ answers were coded as the following:
I. Dialogue/group discussions;
II. Pair work; and
III. Projects.
Interviews
Interviews allowed us to illustrate the results of the questionnaire. The transcribed
interviews were coded to identify key responses. This followed the protocol and process of
open coding, axial coding and selective coding (Cohen et al., 2011). We validated the
participant’s understanding of P4C and GCE at the beginning of the interview. The
participants demonstrated their understanding and the complexity of P4C and GCE. P4C was
described as a process of thinking deeper, critically, exploring and listening to others. It was
described as having a purpose of broadening children’s horizons. The participants captured
GCE in moral descriptions highlighting respect of the other. They attributed importance to
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GCE, describing its purpose as to know what it is to be a good human, to know one’s place
in the world as an accepting and open-minded person with an understanding of self.
With these foundations in place, the discussions moved on to the moral dimension of
GCE and how GCE presents a moral world. The definitional answers above implied a moral
dimension which was discussed directly. The consistency of response reinforced the
complexity of GCE and how it reflects a subjective moral position. A moral position must be
created within a cultural context. The participants recognised this hurdle in a multicultural
and/or ‘other’ cultural environment. The cultural and moral mores of the teacher are
inevitably transmitted and so it was reflected on the importance to manage, to acknowledge
and potentially to actively present the views that reflect the culture of the country or the
specific school they may be in.
The majority of the participants have had direct experience using P4C in the classroom.
Consistent with the questionnaire, they found most success and were most comfortable with
storytelling and class discussions. One participant reinforced that it is “…about what the
children think, not the teacherʼ reinforcing the findings above.
The interview discussions moved onto the application of P4C specifically as an
approach to teach global citizenship and in doing so to raise awareness of the moral
dimension and moral dilemma in global citizenship. The outputs from this discussion
highlighted that P4C is considered an important approach that can be integrated into learning.
They discussed exploring differences and hypothetical situations to have children use
philosophy in understanding the moral dimension or dilemma of global citizenship. The
participants consistently advocated the use of recent world events, local issues, and current
affairs to bring a reality to the students in integrating the moral dilemma of global citizenship.
The participants were consistent in advocating P4C for GCE, however all realised
limitations in P4C. The primary limitations centred around teacher proficiency and
confidence in using philosophy as a teaching methodology. The mitigation recommended by
all participants was more teacher training in P4C and in using philosophical inquiry to teach
for global citizenship.
Limitations of GCE centred around the complexity of the topic, the complexity of
international school environments, adapting for a cultural spectrum within a classroom, for
countries and schools with less freedom of expression, or firm beliefs. As one participant
described it, “cultural diversity means a diversity of views, so what is right?ʼ. This is a
reinforcement and a reminder that the cultural norms of the teacher cannot be taken as
absolute as the facilitator of these classroom activities.
The consistency across the interviews and across all questions in the discussion, was
the acknowledgement of the complexity of teaching GCE and that P4C can facilitate this.
However, teachers require more training to give them the resources and confidence. The
participants showed enthusiasm for philosophical inquiry and the desire for more exposure
to different approaches that could overcome the cultural limitations.
Analysis
The findings of the questionnaire with the illustration provided by the interviews have
led us to the following analyses:
1) Respondents look at P4C as a linguistic activity mainly, especially expressed in how
they see P4C materialise in classroom discussions, dialogue, inquiry and (verbal)
thinking activities.
417
2) Respondents localise the moral dimension of global citizenship education in topics

such as human rights, global citizens and cultural diversity and understand the
complexity of what a moral global citizen is.
3) Respondents think that P4C can help to open up the moral dimension of global
citizenship education mainly through dialogue/discussion, exploration of variety (of
ideas) and development of independent thought. However, there are limitations to
using P4C to explore GCE in some socio-cultural settings.
4) Paradoxically respondents do not see individual philosophical inquiry/reading and
philosophical artistic expression as important methodologies, where they state
elsewhere that exploration of variety and development of creative, critical
independent thought are seen as important ways of how P4C can contribute to
fostering the moral dimension of global citizenship education.
5) Implications for international teacher education.
It could be argued that the current practice, both in the teacher education programme
as well as activities by students in practice, has its base in the first and second generation of
P4C. In our theoretical framework, we see the first generation of P4C as mainly dialogue and
text-bound, where the second wave has a more diversified visual approach. The main
implication from the findings from the questionnaire is that currently our student teachers
perceive P4C for GCE to mainly circle around these more traditional P4C activities. There
are also limitations to the use of P4C in some international schools, depending on cultural
norms and socio-political situations. Students desire more knowledge about P4C and how
they can use it in these complex global environments.
Conclusion
This study sheds some more light on the importance of pre-service teachers’
perspectives on using philosophy with children, and also contributes to the widening and
burgeoning application of philosophy with children in the international school setting.
International schools claim to create global citizens, having GCE as a main focus of their
mission. They are varied in terms of national and political affiliation, creating local and
global tensions, which challenges GCE and P4C. The student teachers that we studied have
displayed an awareness of the complexity of GCE, and the morality intwined in the various
concepts. The study showed the opportunity to use P4C to explore this complexity, and the
willingness of pre-service teachers for more training in P4C. With further investigation into
the potential of philosophical inquiry with children in the diverse field of international
schools, we can encourage students and teachers to think about the nature of education,
human relations and moral responsibility in a globalised interconnected world.
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Appendix 2 Interview questions

1) What is your understanding of philosophical inquiry with children?
2) What is global citizenship education? How does GCE present a moral world?
3) What teaching activities/ methodologies do you think are important for effective
philosophical inquiry? What kinds of P4C methodologies are you comfortable using?
4) a) How could Philosophical inquiry with children be used to educate for global
citizenship?
b) What could you do with P4C to make students aware of the moral dimension of global
citizenship?
5) What are the limitations of P4C for GCE?
6) How could we improve P4C’s ability to open up the moral dimensions of GCE?
7) What are the limitations of GCE for how it represents a moral life or world?
8) How can P4C help address those limitations?
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Does Philosophy for Children Make a Difference?
Félix García Moriyón. Dept. Specific Didactics. UAM (Coord.)

felix.garcia@uam.es
Juan Botella. Dept. Social Psychology and Methodology. UAM.

juan.botella@uam.es
Diana Centeno-Gutiérrez. Team Family Guidance Association.

dcguti@yahoo.es
Jara González-Lamas. Faculty of Education, Universidad Camilo José Cela.

jglamas@ucjc.edu
CV
Felix García Moriyón, Ph.D. in Philosophy, is Honorary Professor at the Dept. of Specific
Didactics (UAM), after 35 years as a high school philosophy teacher. He has authored 19
books and co-authored or edited 22 books on various philosophical and educational topics,
with a specific focus on practical philosophy. He has published 198 articles. He is a founding
member of the Spanish Society of Philosophy Teachers (1980) and he is also a founding
member of Sophia, the European foundation for the dissemination of Philosophy for Children
and has been a member of the ICPIC since 1987, acting as vice-president from 2005 to 2007,
and president between 2009 and 2012. He was the Editor of Thinking. The Journal of
Philosophy for Children from 2006 to 2014.
Juan Botella, PhD, is Professor of Research Methods at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
and a member of several national and international scientific societies and organizations. He
has more than 35 years’ experience teaching courses related with research methods and
applied statistics, both for graduates and for undergraduates. His research work has focused
both on substantive topics of psychology, especially the study of attentional processes, and
on research methods. He has directed many research projects and has contributed to his field
with a high number of publications. The priority of his research in the last decade has been
the methodology of meta-analysis and the synthesis of scientific evidence, on which he has
published several papers and books.
Diana Centeno Gutiérrez, a graduate in Psychology, is a team coordinator at Family
Guidance Association. She works on different programs focusing on children at risk of
social exclusion and school failure, and with children from vulnerable and culturally
deprived environments.
Jara González Lamas, PhD, has focused her interest on written argumentation and reading
and writing as tools for the construction of thinking. She has worked in educational
consulting, and is currently Professor at the Faculty of Education of the Universidad
Camilo José Cela in Madrid and teaches at a master’s course on Psycho-pedagogy at the
Centro Universitario Internacional de Barcelona (UNIBA), of the Universitat de
Barcelona.
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ABSTRACT
This meta-analytic review explores the impact on children’s reasoning and thinking skills of
the practice of philosophy in the classroom through the ‘Philosophy for Children’ (P4C)
method. A total of 27 independent studies (21 between-group and 6 within-group) were
included in two separate meta-analysis, one for each type of comparison. The total sample is
composed of 5,526 students in the between-group comparisons and 1,431 in the within-group
comparisons. The combined effect size from the meta-analysis based on between-group
studies is d = 0.441, whereas that from the within-group studies is d = 0.696. None of the
moderator variables explored showed a significant association with effect size. These results
point to the importance of employing active programs in the classroom, and confirm the
previous conclusion that they not only improve learning, but also significantly increase some
cognitive skills.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy for children, reasoning skills, meta-analysis.
INTRODUCTION
For nearly 50 years the theory and practice of Philosophy for Children (Vansieleghem
& Kennedy, 2011; Välitalo and alia, 2016) has grown in diverse contexts and global settings,
in interaction with other educational movements (Santi and Oliverio, 2012; Gregory, 2007).
At present, it is a worldwide educational program, with different philosophical and
pedagogical approaches to education, although all of them share the same general educational
and philosophical framework and the basic premise that the practice of philosophical inquiry
should have a positive impact on the cognitive and intellectual growth of students.
From the very beginning, in the seminal work of Matthew Lipman (Lipman, 1988:
Lipman et alia, 1980) at Montclair State University (at the time, Montclair State College)
there has been a deep interest in the impact of the program on students. The interest focused
initially on the impact of the practice of philosophical dialogue on children’s cognitive skills,
and P4C was shown to be one of the most valuable programs in the broader educational field
for teaching critical thinking. Lipman and Bierman, in cooperation with the New Jersey
Department of Education and the Educational Testing Service, designed a specific test to
evaluate thinking skills (the New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills), proceeding to conduct a
field experiment in two schools in the Montclair district (Lipman & Bierman, 1975a) to
which was added, two years later, a broader study involving thousands of children from
different schools in New Jersey (Shipman, 1983).
Following Lipman, other active members of the international community of teachers
committed to implementing philosophical inquiry in education, conducted additional
research on the impact of the program, focusing on children’s cognitive skills as well as social
and affective skills. Most of those studies reported a positive impact on children’s reasoning
skills; however, the discussions concerning the program’s evaluation were controversial in
international and national conferences. The discussion was centered on methodological
questions as much as problems of research design and the way results were presented. In any
case, after three decades of implementation, there has been a great amount of research on the
implementation of the program, and the findings tend to agree that P4C has a positive effect.
However, there remain a number of evaluations that are more skeptical.
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In 2003, García Moriyón and Cebas (2003) compiled an initial collection of papers
about the impact of the practice of philosophy in the classroom, providing an annotated
listing of 108 studies. One year later, Trickey and Topping (2004), published a systematic
critical review of controlled outcome studies of the ‘Philosophy for Children’ (P4C)
method in primary, elementary and secondary (high) schools. After a careful survey of the
Philosophy for Children literature, only ten studies met their stringent criteria for inclusion;
namely those that (1) measured outcomes by norm-referenced tests of reading, reasoning,
cognitive ability, and other curriculum-related abilities, (2) included measures of self-
esteem and child behavior, and (3) reported results of child and teacher questionnaires. All
studies showed some positive outcomes, but they did not offer any detailed quantification
of this positive impact.
In 2005, Thinking, The Journal of Philosophical Inquiry with Children published the
first meta-analysis and, as far as we know, the only one carried out to date, on the impact of
the program (García Moriyón, Rebollo & Colom 2005). According to the authors, the time
was right to offer a more technical evaluation of the impact of the program based on research
carried out by experts in the field. The meta-analysis covered the period from 1970 to 2002;
more than 120 publications were collected, but only 16 fit the inclusion criteria. The results
of their meta-analysis revealed that P4C had a positive effect, but the authors acknowledged
that the breadth of the search for empirical reports resulted in a great variety in the studies
included, making it difficult to arrive at clear and simple conclusions. Thus, they
recommended that future research would be necessary to lead to definitive conclusions about
the value of the program.
Another important conclusion of García Moriyón et al.’s (2005) work is that much of
the research on the impact of P4C did not offer sufficiently detailed outcome information for
the studies to be included in the meta-analysis. The positive impact evaluations lacked the
rigor and precision of traditional psychological and educational research. Reznitskaya (2005)
reports a similar view, claiming that many empirical investigations of P4C present
unsystematic reflections on the goals of the philosophical practices in the classroom. The
authors usually support their conclusions with exemplary excerpts from discussions and
quotes from students and teachers. While interesting and thought-provoking, such research
is merely anecdotal, and the authors did not “ʽfollow and/or report a thorough, planned,
methodical process of data collection, analysis, and interpretation”ʼ (ibid., p. 4). She stated
that there remains a substantial need for a theoretically-driven, rigorous empirical study of
the P4C educational approach.
The previous meta-analysis (García Moriyón, et al., 2005) offered some relevant
suggestions to improve the research quality for evaluating educational outcomes. The authors
urged researchers to use a standard design, not only for comparative purposes, but also for
achieving a clear answer about the effectiveness of learning-to-think programs. They
recommend: (a) testing an experimental (treated) and a control (untreated) group before and
after program implementation; (b) providing the appropriate data, preferably from
standardized tests, including means, standard deviations, and numbers of participants, both
for the pre-test and post-test measurements; (c) implementing P4C according to its design
not only for one school year, but intensively across several school years.
Since 2002 much new research on the effectiveness of P4C has been conducted, and
we believe that it is time to update the previous meta-analysis by including these new studies
and reconsidering the decisions and recommendations made earlier. A significantly larger
number of studies now meet the criteria for inclusion in a meta-analysis, and two of them
425
include a very large sample of participants, providing us with the opportunity to confirm or
refute previous conclusions and to analyze the evidence from new and different perspectives.
Thus, it was possible to collect a sufficient number of primary studies published since 2002
while again making the search as broad as possible across the most important databases, the
journals that have reported effectiveness of the P4C program and with a general request
through the main mailing list of the program.
We aim to answer several important questions typically addressed in a meta-analysis
(Borenstein and alia, 2009; Botella, & Sánchez-Meca, 2015). A meta-analysis explores the
information offered by previously published studies and provides a quantitative synthesis of
the cumulated evidence about specific and well-defined research questions. As expected in
any research, meta-analysis demands precision, objectivity and replicability, and it provides
a method for arriving a reliable estimate of the effect size for the main independent variable
(Botella & Zamora 2017). This study was designed to explore the following questions: (a) Is
there a relationship between the program application and the factors that it is intended to
influence? That is, does the P4C program have a positive impact on students’ thinking
abilities and other cognitive skills? (b) What is the effect size of the observed relationship?
(c) Are the results obtained across studies homogeneous? (d) If they are not, what
characteristics of the studies explain the variability in their results?
We would also like to assess the impact of certain moderator variables that the previous
meta-analysis identified, but did not analyze or could not include, such as: (a) gender of the
students; (b) mean age, focusing on the possible differences in impact for children vs.
adolescents; (c) teacher training; (d) the type of control group, according to what they
experience as an alternative to philosophical dialogue; (e) source of publication and possible
publication bias.
Method
Search of studies
The literature search was carried out through the PsycINFO and ERIC online data bases
and other informal sources, by browsing the main specialized journals (ʽThinkingʼ, ʽAnalytic
Teachingʼ, ʽCritical and Creative Thinkingʼ, ʽAprender a pensarʼ) and searching through
mailing lists of researchers involved in implementations of the P4C program. The search was
done with the key term ‘philosophy for children’ without any restriction in the field
specification. The date of the last search was July 2017.
The first search yielded 164 papers, from which we selected those reporting empirical
studies and containing enough information for calculating the effect size: sample size,
averages and standard deviations of the dependent variable. The design could be a two-
groups between-participants, a within-participants pre-post intervention, or a combination of
both in a two-moments by two-groups design. The final sample was comprised of 21
independent between-group comparisons and 6 independent within-group comparisons (the
sources are marked with asterisks in the list of references).
Characteristics of the studies
Beyond the statistical information needed for effect size calculation, the following
variables were coded: country where the study was done, gender and average age of the
sample, length of the program (number of sessions), source of publication, activity of the
control group, teacher training, teaching resource used, measuring instrument, and
sociocultural context.
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Effect size
To estimate the effects of the P4C interventions on reasoning skills, the standardized mean
difference, d, was used (Cohen, 1988). For the between-participants comparisons, d was
calculated by dividing the difference between the mean of the group receiving the program and
that of the control group by the pooled standard deviation, so that positive values indicate better
performance for the group that received the program. That is,
X P 4C  X Control
d between 
Sˆ pooled
For the within-participants comparisons d was calculated by dividing the difference

between the mean post intervention and the mean pre intervention by the standard deviation of
the direct differences, so that positive values indicate better performance for the group after
receiving the program. That is,
X post  X pre
d within 
Sˆdiff
Statistical methods
A random-effects meta-analysis was conducted. A random- (rather than a fixed-) effects
model was chosen for two main reasons (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins & Rothstein, 2010). First,
a random-effects model allows for generalizing the results of the effect of P4C beyond the
specific set of studies included here. Second, random-effects models are more conservative
concerning statistical inferences as compared to fixed-effects models. The inter-study or specific
variance was estimated by the maximum likelihood method.
Statistical analyses of heterogeneity were performed using the R package METAFOR
(Wichtbauer, 2010) and the SPSS macros by Lipsey and Wilson (2001). The forest plots were
obtained with Review Manager (2012). Combined estimates of the effect size indices were
obtained by weighting using the inverse variance method. The procedures provided by Hedges
and Olkin (1985) were employed for analyzing the sample of effect size values: Q test for
homogeneity, Qb for categorical moderators, and QR for continuous moderators.
Despite the relatively small number of studies involving designs with between-participants
comparisons (k=21) we tested for potential association between the effect sizes and two
moderator variables. Specifically, we tested the quantitative variables mean age of the sample
and duration of the program as reflected in the number of sessions.
The potential influence of the well-known effect of publication bias against non-significant
results was also analyzed. We obtained the funnel plot and tested for any asymmetry in it, and
also calculated the fail-safe number (Rosenberg, 2005).
Results
Figure 1 presents the forest plots for effect sizes from P4C interventions (the between-
participants studies are shown in the upper figure and the within-participants studies are shown
in the lower figure). Data from the between-participants designs come from 21 effect sizes and
5,226 participants (2,653 in the program and 2,573 controls). The combined effect size is d =
0.441, 95%CI [0.605 - 0.277]. One of the studies (Gorard et al, 2015) has a much larger sample
size than the other studies. Thus, we did a sensitivity analysis for the effect of this study, re-
analyzing the data without it. The results are essentially the same [d = 0.469, 95%CI [0.626 -
0.313]. Data from the within-participants designs come from 6 effect sizes and 1,431 participants.
427
The combined effect size is d = 0.696, 95%CI [0.853 - 0.540]. As expected, the effect size is
larger for the within-participants than for the between-participants designs, as the within-
participants comparisons confound the positive effect of natural maturation with any positive
specific effect of the program. These results support the existence of a positive effect of the P4C
interventions on cognitive skills.
Figure 1. Forest plots of the estimates of the effect size. The upper figure shows the 21 estimates obtained from the between-
participants comparisons, and the lower shows the 6 estimates from the within-participants comparisons.
None of the two quantitative moderators tested were significant: mean age [QR(1) =
0.891; B = -0.047 ; p = 0.345] and duration [QR(1) = 0.102; B = -0.0003 ; p = 0.749].
Nevertheless, both analyses are low-powered, as they are based on a small number of studies
(k = 16 and k = 14, respectively). None of the qualitative moderators can be analyzed, because
there are always categories with null or very small frequencies.
Regarding the publication bias issue, Rosenberg’s fail safe number is Nfs = 357.
Therefore, with a number of 357 estimates of effect sizes not published, and with an average
zero effect size added to our meta-analysis, the combined effect would statistically be zero.
According to the criterion proposed by Rosenthal (1979), the value for tolerance is 21·5 + 10
= 115. As this value is lower than Nfs it cannot be said that the existence of a non-null effect
428
is threatened by a publication bias against the non-significant results. In the same vein,
Egger’s regression test for asymmetry was not statistically significant (p = .345). Both
analyses, together with a visual inspection of the funnel plot (figure 2) suggest that the main
results of our analysis are not due to an artefactual effect of the well-known effect of
publication bias.
Figure 2. Funnel plot of the 21 estimates from between-participants comparisons (upper), and the 6 estimates from within-
participants comparisons (lower).
429
Discussion
The results show a small but solid effect of the interventions with P4C on reasoning skills
programs. This general conclusion is coherent with the two previous studies: the systematic
survey (Trickey & Topping, 2004) and the previous meta-analysis (Garcia Moriyón & alia,
2005).
Although the results of our quantitative synthesis are quite clear as to the beneficial effect
of P4C programs, we can still say very little about the factors that moderate this effect. Our
analysis focused on the set of potential moderators that seemed to us to be the best candidates.
However, for most of the moderators we did not obtain information from a sufficient number of
studies for their statistical analyses to be reliable. We only reached a sufficient number for two
quantitative moderators (mean age of the sample and duration of the program), and even so, the
small number of studies results in low power for the tests. In both cases, no significant association
430
with effect size was found, but if in the future we could increase the number of studies, these
associations may result in significant moderation of effect size.
With respect to the categorical moderators, it has not been possible to fit a statistical
model for any of them. In some cases this is because the original paper does not report the
data for those moderators. For example, sometimes they do not report the activity performed
by the control group while the experimental group was administered P4C sessions. In other
cases, the number of alternatives for the categorical variable is too large for the frequencies
within each category to be greater than 1 or 2 studies. As for the possible impact of
publication bias, we found that there is not a sufficiently large bias effect in this topic so as
to affect the conclusion of the meta-analysis.
In order to anticipate future meta-analyses based on more and better evidence, we call
for controlled evaluations of the effects produced by implementations of P4C programs. Such
assessments should reach the educational community interested in this topic. Reports should
include information related to potential moderators. Sometimes researchers do not include
this information because it is not relevant to the interpretation of their studies or because they
are not manipulated. However, meta-analysis compares studies that differ precisely in those
characteristics, so that comparisons that cannot be made at the study level can be made at the
meta-analysis level. For example, the type and amount of training of the teacher that delivers
the program. This information does not help to statistically assess the impact of a particular
study, but meta-analysis can compare studies in which teachers have different types or
amounts of training.
Despite the large number of studies (164) that dealt, in one way or another, with the
importance and benefit of Philosophy for Children, it was only possible to include 27 of them
in this meta-analysis. This is unfortunate, as there does seem to be some interest and
importance given to researching in this area. Yet conclusive data cannot be obtained because
most of the studies do not contain sufficient statistical data, so we cannot include them in the
meta-analysis.
Perhaps the size of the effect could have been greater, or some moderating variables could
be determinants of the effects of philosophy training interventions, if more statistical data had been
incorporated or greater statistical rigor had been taken into account when reporting these
investigations. Still, most of these studies pointed to the positive effects on the children as a result
of the Philosophy for Children programs in the classrooms.
Therefore, in order to make progress on this point, it would be desirable for future research
to collect and include as much statistical data as possible for the benefit of the scientific and
educational community.
In short, the positive impact of the program on children’s reasoning skills has been
demonstrated in this meta-analysis. By demonstrating a greater positive impact of Philosophy on
the development of children's cognitive competences, it could lead to a greater weight and
relevance of this discipline in the educational community. Philosophy could increasingly be
included as an essential part of the educational curriculum, reversing the current trend to reduce its
presence at schools.
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Modelos de evaluación para Filosofía para Niños y Niñas
Irene de Puig.
GrupIREF (Barcelona, España)
irenedepuig@gmail.com
CV
Presentación autobiográfica
Maestra, licenciada en Filosofía y Filología catalana, he dedicado mi vida profesional a la
enseñanza. Ejercí de maestra mientras estudiaba, después pasé unos años impartiendo clases
de Filosofía en la Secundaria y durante más de 30 años he trabajado en el GrupIREF, en
formación del profesorado, creando algunos programas del currículum y difundiendo el
proyecto. He sido su directora durante 25 años. He cooperado con la Universidad de Girona
en docencia y como Coordinadora del Master Filosofía 3/18 (FpN) durante 10 años. Co-
creadora del proyecto Noria. He participado en numerosos congresos en España, Italia,
Brasil, México, Colombia y sigo escribiendo para varias revistas relacionadas con el mundo
educativo. Actualmente soy colaboradora y asesora del GrupIREF en calidad de senior.
RESUMEN
Desde el GrupIREF ofrecemos la descripción de tres modelos de evaluación.
El primero, en 2012, fue un estudio cuantitativo realizado por la Consejo Superior de
Evaluación del Sistema Educativo de la Generalitat de Catalunya (CSESE) en el que se
tuvieron en cuenta los siguientes aspectos: el potencial educativo del proyecto, la
aplicabilidad a la realidad educativa catalana, los efectos en el profesorado y en el alumnado
y la contribución general a la educación.
El segundo, en 2014, fue un estudio cualitativo de carácter biográfico sobre la repercusión
de la escuela en la vida de jóvenes adultos ex alumnado del CEIP ʽEs Pontʼ de Palma
(Mallorca).
Y el tercer modelo, en 2015, también propiciado por el CSESE, evaluó la contribución de la
aplicación de la filosofía en las escuelas de primaria del municipio de Argentona (Barcelona)
en el que se muestra que las competencias cognitivas y actitudinales son mejores que las del
grupo control.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Evaluación, modelo, cualitativo, cuantitativo, resultados.
EVALUATION MODELS FOR PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN

At GrupIREF we present three models for evaluation.
The first one, in 2012, is a quantitative study developed by the High Council of Evaluation
of the Education System of the Generalitat of Catalunya (CSESE in its Catalan initials).
Aspects considered: the project's educative potential, its applicability to the Catalan
education reality, the effects on the teachers and the pupils and its general contribution to
education.
The second one, in 2014, was a qualitative study of a biographical nature on the repercussion
of school in the life of young adult alumni of CEIP ʽEs Pontʼ de Palma (Mallorca). Survey
435
respondents acknowledge that Philosophy for Children had a positive effect in their personal
and vital trajectories.
And the third model, in 2015 also, also motivated by the CSESE evaluated the contribution
of Philosophy for Children in the town of Argentona (Barcelona). Attitude and cognitive
skills are better than those of the control group.
KEYWORDS
Evaluation, model, qualitative, quantitative, results.
INTRODUCCIÓN
El tema de la evaluación en Filosofía para Niños y Niñas ha sido siempre una cuestión
importante para poder justificar objetivamente algunas de las bondades del proyecto.
Normalmente no preocupa a los docentes puesto que viven y constatan día a día algunas de
las ventajas de su implantación, pero viene muy bien para poder mostrar su eficacia a los
escépticos (sean autoridades educativas, familias o periodistas).
Por ello presentamos aquí, en el marco de ICPIC, estas tres aproximaciones, que
provienen de diversas instancias y que, inequívocamente, señalan algunos de los logros de la
puesta en marcha del proyecto en las aulas.
PRIMER MODELO
La primera evaluación externa que se propuso desde el GrupIREF, en 2012, fue un
amplio estudio cuantitativo realizado por la Consejo Superior de Evaluación del Sistema
Educativo de la Generalitat de Catalunya y consistía una evaluación a un grupo
suficientemente representativo de centros educativos (Martínez-Olmo, 2012).
Objetivo del estudio
El objetivo de este estudio fue la evaluación del desarrollo del proyecto (Filosofía para
Niños y Niñas (Filosofía3/18 en Cataluña) en diferentes centros educativos.
Método de trabajo
El método principal fue la investigación evaluativa a través de una encuesta, ex-
postfacto, combinando estrategias cuantitativas y cualitativas (cuestionarios y entrevistas),
triangulando las fuentes y las estrategias de obtención de información, tal como se detalla en
los apartados siguientes. La evaluación se centró en diversos aspectos del diseño, en el
proceso de aplicación y en los resultados del proyecto Filosofía 3/18.
Fuentes de información
Una vez revisados los estudios existentes que tratan la evaluación en el marco del
proyecto Filosofía para Niños, se consideró oportuno profundizar en los conocimientos y las
opiniones que podían aportar los siguientes agentes:
 Expertos. En el ámbito de la filosofía y la pedagogía buscamos en Cataluña
profesionales y académicos que conocieran, desde diversas perspectivas, algunos de
los temas centrales de este estudio. Su visión, a la vez cercana a la filosofía y con
cierta distancia de la aplicación del proyecto, se valoró como una aportación que
permitiría reflexionar más profundamente sobre los datos obtenidos en el estudio.
Las personas escogidas, cumpliendo los criterios de adecuación al perfil indicado
436
de expertos fueron: Carla Carreras, Jordi Nomen, Josep M. Puig, Mercè Serrat i
Josep M. Terricabras.
 Docentes. La opinión de los principales agentes impulsores y aplicadores del
proyecto es clave para conocer el estado en que se encuentra la evolución del
proyecto. Se tenía constancia de casi 700 maestros y profesores que trabajaban
directamente en el aula.
 Equipos directivos. El proyecto Filosofía 3/18 está pensado de tal manera que
algunos de sus efectos se pueden reflejar más allá de las aulas. Por otra parte, es
sabido que el éxito en la aplicación del proyecto Filosofía 3/18 viene condicionado
por el apoyo de los equipos directivos. Por estos motivos, también es primordial
tener presente la opinión de las personas que tienen una visión institucional y
organizativa del centro educativo.
 Centros educativos de referencia. La aplicación del proyecto nunca ha sido un
proceso automatizado, se necesitan esfuerzos diversos que a menudo no acaban de
encajar hasta que pasa un tiempo prudencial. Por ello, se ha considerado pertinente
obtener información de aquellos centros educativos que son un referente en la
aplicación del proyecto, a fin de conocer ciertas particularidades que les han llevado
a tener más éxito y que podrían ser transferibles a otros centros.
 Alumnado. La opinión del principal destinatario del proyecto, el alumnado,
también es fundamental en la evaluación del proyecto. Sin embargo, dado que esta
información ya ha sido tratada en un estudio previo, se ha optado por centrar la
recogida de información en el resto de agentes implicados, aprovechando las
conclusiones del estudio citado.
Técnicas de obtención de información
La obtención de información para el estudio se dividió en varias fases. En primer
lugar se preparó un guion de entrevista para los expertos. Las entrevistas, aplicadas de
manera presencial, fueron registradas y de cada una de ellas, posteriormente, se elaboró
una síntesis que fue revisada y validada por los entrevistados. El trabajo de campo se
llevó a cabo en el mes de julio de 2011, excepto en un caso que se realizó en el mes de
noviembre.
En segundo lugar, se diseñaron dos cuestionarios ad hoc para recoger las opiniones de
los docentes y de los equipos directivos. Antes de enviar los cuestionarios se hizo llegar a los
destinatarios una carta explicando el estudio e invitando a participar en él. El trabajo de
campo, aplicado por vía telemática, se llevó a cabo la segunda quincena del mes de octubre
con respecto a los docentes y la segunda semana del mes de noviembre con respecto a los
equipos directivos. La población de docentes y centros que aplican Filosofía para niños y
niñas fue determinada por el registro que lleva el GrupIREF.
En tercero y último lugar se elaboró un guion de entrevista para los centros educativos
referentes, focalizado en los temas centrales del estudio teniendo en cuenta los resultados.
Esta fase se llevó a cabo entre los meses de noviembre y diciembre de 2011.
Para obtener información relevante sobre la aplicación del proyecto se han tenido en
cuenta los temas centrales que se detallan a continuación:
Potencial educativo del proyecto Filosofía 3/18.
Los principales potenciales del proyecto Filosofía 3/18, expuestos por docentes y
equipos directivos son:
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a) Promueve el razonamiento como competencia básica a partir del rigor, la

argumentación y el diálogo. Más del 90%, de docentes y de equipos directivos,
manifiestan que el proyecto ha tenido como efecto que los estudiantes acaben
pensando mejor.
b) Capacita para encontrar razones a las opiniones (94%) y proporciona autonomía
intelectual (más del 80%).
c) Mejora la comprensión y la expresión oral del alumnado (89%).
Respecto a la convivencia, favorece la gestión de las emociones y el valor del respeto,
como condición del diálogo. Ayuda a desarrollar la tolerancia, a saber escuchar, y la
capacidad de avanzar en un diálogo. Además, se reconoce que el proyecto mejora la
autoestima del alumnado y la cohesión del grupo. Cada uno aporta al grupo lo que sabe, lo
que le preocupa y sus experiencias, y desarrollan así actitudes colaborativas. Casi un 90% de
los docentes reconocen que el proyecto promueve la construcción de la personalidad del
alumnado.
Potencial innovador.
En opinión de los expertos, el proyecto se fundamenta en la pedagogía activa
constructivista y tiene una metodología actual y original de entender la actividad filosófica.
Combina el impulso de la creatividad, la traducción y el uso de lenguajes diversos (artístico,
cinematográfico, teatral, etc.). Incluso, los mismos productos del alumnado resultan
innovadores.
Por otra parte, se constata que aún resultan innovadores hechos como organizar las
aulas en forma círculo o herradura, evaluar formativamente y deliberar en grupo sobre
cuestiones éticas.
Para los centros referentes, el proyecto motiva la introducción de innovaciones, la
búsqueda de nuevos recursos, nuevas técnicas o nuevas dinámicas. Consideran que es una
propuesta actual y de vanguardia, aunque sería deseable que se convirtiera en una práctica
habitual y generalizada.
En definitiva, se considera que el proyecto tiene mucha vitalidad y que continuamente
se pueden encontrar nuevos recursos que lo mejoren.
Aplicabilidad a la realidad educativa catalana.
La adaptación de los materiales internacionales y la aportación del GrupIREF,
especialmente en la ampliación del currículum y en la propuesta estética complementaria, se
ha hecho para que el proyecto sea perfectamente aplicable.
El objetivo del proyecto es lo suficientemente transversal como para ser aplicable a una
realidad diferente a la de su origen. Asimismo, los materiales son flexibles y pueden
adaptarse fácilmente. Una muestra evidente de su aplicabilidad es que una gran mayoría de
centros tienen integrado el proyecto Filosofía 3/18 en su PEC (Proyecto Curricular de Centro)
Casi la totalidad de docentes y de equipos directivos reconocen que tiene un carácter
globalizador o transversal y que es aplicable a situaciones de la vida cotidiana. Sus efectos,
en ocasiones, se transfieren al ámbito familiar, de manera que se promueve la continuidad
educativa entre escuela y familia. Los centros referentes ilustran este hecho cuando
mencionan que las familias están “entusiasmadas y [...] no podrían concebir la escuela sin
filosofía”; en algunos centros se realizan actividades de filosofía con las familias para que
conozcan el proyecto de primera mano, actividades muy bien valoradas.
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Características del material curricular

El material básico tiene un apoyo en las artes (relato, pintura, música, cine) que
disponen de unos manuales o dosieres documentados y adecuados a los niveles y
temáticas. En términos generales, se considera que el material es relevante, pertinente,
claro, sistemático, eficaz, y también que facilita la planificación y la evaluación.
El proyecto es sistemático, aunque se reconoce que la realidad educativa supera la
sistematización absoluta. Algún equipo directivo menciona este proyecto ofrece una vía
para trabajar de manera continuada la reflexión y la construcción del pensamiento.
En cuanto a la planificación, debe haber un equilibrio entre la previsión y la
improvisación porque en la práctica es difícil de prever el tiempo que conllevará tratar un
tema o aspecto. El profesorado debe estar muy atento al desarrollo de las sesiones.
El uso de la narrativa para provocar reflexión está bien considerado, ya que la
exposición a situaciones concretas abre muchas posibilidades de conversación y diálogo.
No se trata de generar disputas de opiniones sino aclaraciones de conceptos, análisis de
situaciones, mostrar argumentos con criterios. El recurso narrativo es considerado
esencial como medio para llegar a lo universal a través de lo concreto.
En cuanto a la evaluación figuro analógica casi un 80 por ciento de los docentes
afirma que resulta útil para mejorar. Dos terceras partes afirman que resulta fácil seguir
las orientaciones para evaluar las sesiones y constatan que tiene como efecto que el
alumnado se autoevalúe con más rigor.
Motivos para la aplicación y cumplimiento de expectativas.
Puede haber varios motivos para la aplicación. En general proviene que la detección
de lagunas educativas: falta de reflexión de niños y jóvenes, falta de atención y
responsabilidad, pero también por el afán de mejorar la convivencia, la prevención de la
violencia, la adquisición de mejor razonabilidad, hacerlos más dialogantes, que
argumenten, etc.
Los principales motivos que se aducen para aplicar el proyecto son, por orden de
elección:
 La falta de reflexión/razonamiento (75% de los docentes y 82% de los equipos
directivos están de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo).
 Las dificultades de expresión oral (57% de los docentes D y 54% de los equipos
directivos ED).
 Los problemas de convivencia (alrededor de una tercera parte de los docentes y
un 47% de los equipos directivos).
 En cuanto al cumplimiento de las expectativas iniciales con respecto al proyecto,
un 92% de los docentes y un 87% de los equipos directivos manifiestan que están
de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo. Sólo un 1% dice que está en desacuerdo y
el resto (un 7% de los docentes y un 12% de los equipos directivos) se sitúa en
un punto intermedio (ni de acuerdo ni en desacuerdo). Las razones aducidas para
no estar de acuerdo son la incapacidad de dar continuidad al proyecto por la
inestabilidad de las plantillas, las dificultades vinculadas al tipo de alumnado del
centro, la necesidad de garantizar la formación y las motivaciones del
profesorado, la dificultad a la hora de utilizar el libro de apoyo y los cambios en
los horarios escolares.
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Efectos de la aplicación en el alumnado según la opinión de los docentes.

Se espera que esta práctica tenga consecuencias observables en las aulas y se produzca
una transferencia en otras materias y también en la vida personal (patio, familia, etc.) del
alumnado.
Efectos de la aplicación en el alumnado
De acuerdo Ni de acuerdo ni En desacuerdo

en desacuerdo
Piense mejor 92% 8% 0%
Tenga más conciencia democrática 86% 14% 0%
Mejore respecto a la comprensión
y la expresión oral 89% 10% 1%
Mejore respecto a las destrezas de
convivencia 85% 14% 1%
Sea más autónomo
intelectualmente 83% 16% 1%
Sea más responsable 66% 31% 2%
Sea menos agresivo en la escuela o
instituto 46% 46% 8%
Mejoras respecto a la manera de pensar

En concreto, respecto a las mejoras sobre la manera de pensar del alumnado, los
docentes han opinado mayoritariamente que están de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo en los
aspectos siguientes, por orden de intensidad:
 Sea más capaz de encontrar razones a sus opiniones (94%).
 Tenga más respeto por las ideas de los demás (92%).
 Participe de manera más constructiva, creativa y cuidadosa (92%).
 Sea más flexible en sus opiniones (87%).
Mejoras respecto a la comprensión y la expresión oral
Las mejoras, en detalle, sobre la comprensión y la expresión oral se concretan en las
siguientes:
 Analice más el significado de los conceptos (72%).
 Haga un uso de vocabulario más matizado (60%).
 Tenga más cuidado en el uso de la lengua (58%).
Mejoras respecto a la autonomía intelectual
Las mejoras específicas sobre la autonomía intelectual del alumnado se ordenan de la
siguiente manera en función del porcentaje de docentes que están de acuerdo o totalmente de
acuerdo:
 Argumenta mejor (90%).
 Aplica criterios más frecuentemente (73%).
 Dé más ejemplos y contraejemplos (67%).
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Mejoras respecto a la conciencia democrática

Respecto a la conciencia democrática, las mejoras específicas son:
 Escuchan y hablan más entre sí (87%).
 Sea más capaz de avanzar en un diálogo (86%).
Mejoras respecto a la responsabilidad
En cuanto a la responsabilidad del alumnado, las mejoras específicas son:
 Entrelace más las intervenciones construyendo conocimiento a partir de las
aportaciones anteriores (79%).
 Reafirme o rectifique más a menudo las propias opiniones (77%).
 Vea más los errores y recoja o busque nuevas alternativas (72%).
Mejoras respecto a las destrezas de convivencia
Las mejoras específicas respecto a las destrezas de convivencia, ordenadas por el
número de docentes que están de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo, son:
 Sea más tolerante con las opiniones de los demás (88%).
 Participe activamente mejor (85%).
 Dialogue e investigue de una manera más colaborativa y cooperativa (82%).
 Sea más observador/a (82%).
 Se ayude y coopere mutuamente más a menudo (81%).
 Respete los compañeros más que antes (78%).
 Piense más sus intervenciones antes de pedir la palabra (78%).
 Tenga mejor autoestima (78%).
Formación y efectos en el profesorado.
La encuesta trata de establecer si la práctica docente ha cambiado como consecuencia
de la aplicación del proyecto: los docentes hablan menos, escuchan más, preguntan, etc. Los
esfuerzos del GrupIREF en este sentido son varios: cursos de formación inicial, de
profundización, monográficos, seminarios, asesoramientos, talleres, Jornadas, conferencias
y un boletín periódico.
Formación recibida por el profesorado
Consultados sobre si la formación sobre el proyecto que han recibido y siguen
recibiendo los docentes es adecuada, un 87% —de docentes y de equipos directivos—
afirman estar de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo, mientras que alrededor de un 3 por ciento
afirma estar en desacuerdo o totalmente en desacuerdo.
En el apartado de observaciones generales del cuestionario, dos docentes han
manifestado que harían falta más sesiones de formación y dos casos más destacan
positivamente el apoyo y la capacidad motivadora de los formadores. Algunos docentes
opinan que el proyecto ha contribuido a su crecimiento personal.
Efectos de la aplicación en el profesorado
Ante las preguntas a los docentes sobre los efectos que ha tenido la aplicación del
proyecto sobre ellos mismos, su opinión se resume en la siguiente tabla:
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Docentes Equipos
directivos
Han incorporado cambios metodológicos en el aula 89% 66%
Reflexionan más sobre su práctica docente. 87% 72%
Escuchan más al alumnado. 87% 72%
Contribuciones generales a la educación.

Se ha recogido la opinión sobre los efectos que ha podido tener Filosofía para niños y
niñas sobre una serie de objetivos generales de la educación. En cuanto a los docentes, estos
efectos, ordenados en función del número de personas que está de acuerdo o totalmente de
acuerdo, son:
 Hacer el alumnado más razonable (94%).
 Contribuir a la construcción de la personalidad del alumnado (88%).
 Educar sentimentalmente del alumnado (85%).
 Contribuir a la educación de la ciudadanía y la democracia (82%).
 Tener presente la diversidad –en los contenidos, en las estrategias– (79%).
Además, cabe destacar el elevado número, tanto de docentes como de equipos
directivos, que están de acuerdo o totalmente de acuerdo en que la práctica de la filosofía en
el aula tiene un carácter globalizador o transversal (95% de los docentes y 90% de los equipos
directivos) y que es aplicable en situaciones de vida cotidiana (96% de los docentes y 97%
de los equipos directivos).
Evaluación propuesta.
Filosofía 3/18 propone distintas formas evaluativas y la más nueva es la que se
denomina figuro analógica, que se basa en el pensamiento analógico, es creativa y altamente
lúdica.
Opinión de los docentes sobre evaluación en el marco de Filosofía 3/18
De acuerdo/ Ni de acuerdo En
Totalmente ni en desacuerdo/
de acuerdo desacuerdo Totalmente en
desacuerdo
La evaluación resulta útil para mejorar 79% 18% 3%
Resulta fácil seguir las orientaciones para
evaluar las sesiones 64% 28% 8%
Se aplica la evaluación figuro analógica 61% 26% 12%
El alumnado se autoevalúa con más rigor 61% 33% 6%
Resulta fácil seguir las orientaciones para
evaluar al alumnado 57% 35% 8%
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Condiciones que afectan a la aplicación del proyecto.

Son varios los condicionantes que afectan la implementación y la aplicabilidad de la
filosofía en las aulas: a veces los espacios, a veces el tiempo y a veces las condiciones
escolares: cambios frecuentes de las plantillas, falta de formación…. El apoyo político para
su difusión efectiva y garantizar las posibilidades de una formación sólida, también son
factores clave en la aplicación del proyecto.
Ante la posibilidad de que el éxito del proyecto estuviera condicionado por algunos
factores externos al proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje, los docentes identificaron en primer
lugar el número excesivo de alumnado y la inestabilidad de los claustros docentes; con menor
grado de acuerdo, pero aún con una tercera parte de acuerdo, la falta de un espacio curricular
específico y problemas de horarios. Los equipos directivos han identificado como principales
inconvenientes a la hora de aplicar el proyecto los siguientes:
 La inestabilidad de los claustros docentes (68%).
 La falta de un espacio curricular específico (48%).
 Los problemas de horarios (39%).
 El número excesivo de alumnado (33%).
 La falta de espacios físicos adecuados ha sido un inconveniente (20%).
SEGUNDO MODELO
El segundo modelo evaluativo, realizado en 2014, por Maribel Pomar, profesora de la
UIB, es un estudio cualitativo de carácter biográfico sobre la repercusión de la escuela en la
vida de algunos ex alumnos y alumnas del CEIP Es Pont de Palma (Mallorca) (POMAR,
2014). Se trataba de averiguar lo que ha perdurado de la vida escolar con el paso del tiempo
y que ha contribuido a la construcción de sus identidades. Se constata que Filosofía 3/18 así
como el trabajo por proyectos siguen en las memorias de los actuales adultos y reconocen
como les han marcado en sus trayectorias personales y vitales.
El análisis de estas experiencias puede facilitar el ejercicio prospectivo sobre el sentido
de la escolarización primaria y sus finalidades, así como sobre las prácticas docentes que se
ponen en marcha para conseguirlas. ¿Qué queremos conseguir? ¿Hacia dónde dirigimos
nuestros esfuerzos? ¿Qué hacemos? ¿Qué da identidad a la escuela? ¿Qué queremos
mantener y qué queremos cambiar? ¿De qué nos enorgullecemos como docentes?
Son preguntas que pueden orientar la interpretación de las palabras de quienes han
pasado por la escuela y participantes en este estudio. Palabras sugerentes, llenas de
significado, que nos remiten a cuestiones sobre la educación verdaderamente relevantes. El
análisis de lo que ha significado el paso por la escuela infantil y primaria se enmarca en el
movimiento conocido con el nombre de La voz del alumnado, que considera al alumnado
como expertos valiosos que aportan ideas relevantes para la mejora de las escuelas. La
inclusión de las voces del alumnado diversifica y pluraliza las perspectivas, y amplía y
enriquece el conocimiento sobre la experiencia escolar y, en consecuencia, posibilita la
adopción de decisiones más adecuadas a las necesidades reales.
Dos eran los objetivos del proyecto evaluativo, por una parte conocer las implicaciones
de la escuela y en qué medida ha contribuido a la construcción de su identidad y por otra
incorporar las voces del antiguo alumnado a la reflexión sobre el presente y el futuro de la
escuela, con la mirada puesta en los retos que se le presentan.
La información que obtendremos puede aportar herramientas a los docentes para la
mejora de las escuelas. Como toda evaluación bien hecha ayudará a reorientar prácticas y
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actitudes. A la vista de la influencia positiva o negativa que ha tenido la escuela en el pasado

nos orienta cómo debemos posicionar en el presente.
Estudio cualitativo de carácter biográfico.
No se trata de universalizar, ni dogmatizar ni de poner la escuela Es Pont como modelo
de nada ni de nadie como dijo acertadamente Maribel Pomar en la presentación del informe.
Recogida de información: Entrevistas individuales en profundidad. Población
entrevistada: 12 jóvenes de entre 17 y 34 años que cursaron el último nivel de primaria el
CEIP Es Pont entre los cursos 2006-07 y 1992-93.
Realización entrevistas: de septiembre de 2012 a noviembre de 2013.
Aspectos destacables
1) Según se puede destilar de las entrevistas está claro de las sesiones de Filosofía
favorecían la interrogación constante y el análisis profundo de lo que se trataba en
el grupo. Reflexionar, cuestionarse, preguntarse el por qué, dice alguno
textualmente.
2) La mayoría destacan su inclinación por un pensamiento crítico y reflexivo, capaz de
formular juicios.
3) Atribuyen a la filosofía el hecho de haber facilitado la formación de un pensamiento
propio que busca respuestas a través de la razón, y haber aprendido a pensar con
más claridad y profundidad.
4) Reconocimiento de su valor en la mejora individual y en la mejora del grupo.
5) Las sesiones de filosofía también fueron útiles para plantearse cuestiones, a dudar.
6) Las emociones en marcha. ʽEn filosofía disfrutaba muchísimoʼ recuerda Marina. Se
fomentaban los lazos afectivos entre el alumnado.
7) Argumentar. La importancia de la argumentación. ʽAprendíamos a dialogar, a
respetar a las personas, a escuchar, a argumentar lo que decíamos. Recuerdo que
leíamos, veíamos una idea y empezaban a hablar. Ahora me sirve para escuchar,
respetar a los compañeros cuando nos juntamos para compartir ideas, para valorar
lo que los demás aportanʼ. (Rafel, 24 años, cocinero)
8) Pensamiento basado en la razón. La dinámica de preguntarse el porqué de las cosas
y hablar desde un criterio lógico: ʽesto lo he aprendí en la escuelaʼ. ʽTengo una
capacidad de razonar las cosas porque la he trabajado muchísimos años en la
escuela. (Marina. 17 años. Estudiante 2n de bachillerato). ʽPara ser críticos, no para
criticar sino para cuestionar, por querer mirar las cosas de otra maneraʼ. (Fátima. 25
años. Vendedora en el mercado.
9) Señalan la influencia de las sesiones de filosofía en el sentido que eran espacios para
la deliberación de argumentos, donde se justificaban las opiniones, donde se
compartían razones que sustentaban ideas y también incertidumbres. La
conversación en un clima que invita a pensar con rigor y respeto por las aportaciones
de todos, es también destacada en sus comentarios.
10) Autonomía. Esta característica se pone en evidencia cuando en las entrevistas aluden
al hecho de no que hoy día no solo tienen opinión propia sino que además capaces
de manifestarla. Al cabo de los años se dan cuenta las aulas de filosofía los ayudaban
a pensar por sí mismos, sin adoctrinamientos.
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“También aprendimos a defender nuestros derechos, unos derechos que eran sometidos
a la reflexión del grupo. El derecho a reclamar lo hemos aprendido aquí (...). En la escuela
no te inculcaban unos valores sino que te ayudaban a conocerlos. Tú los tomas o no, pero sí
que te ayudaban a conocerlos” (Rafel).
Las innovaciones educativas son habitualmente evaluadas desde la propia institución o
bien desde instancias superiores y en pocas ocasiones se cuenta con las valoraciones del
alumnado. Sumar la voz del ex alumnado en la valoración de un centro, es arriesgado pero
es también un deber democrático. Una escuela democrática es la que escucha y tiene en
cuenta las voces de todos sus miembros.
TERCER MODELO
Y el tercer modelo, en 2015, también propiciado por Consejo Superior de Evaluación
del Sistema Educativo de la Generalitat de Catalunya, quiso evaluar la contribución del
proyecto Filosofía 3/18, implementado en el año 2011, en el municipio de Argentona
(Barcelona)1.
Se trataba de analizar la materialización del programa en un municipio concreto, que
en este caso es el de Argentona, y de poder observar la contribución del programa a los retos
socioeducativos que son intrínsecos a la escuela. A partir del año 2011, las cuatro escuelas
de educación infantil y primaria de Argentona, todas de titularidad pública, habían iniciado
el proyecto de Filosofía en sus escuelas. La evaluación se ha centrado en dos de estas
escuelas, que forman el grupo de control, y en un grupo de contraste, que se ha obtenido de
una escuela de Premià de Mar. Se trata de un centro de características similares a las del
grupo de tratamiento, (dieciocho enseñantes y dieciocho familias). Se ha pasado un
cuestionario a los dos grupos de informantes: docentes y familias.
Finalidad del estudio
La finalidad del estudio es extraer conclusiones de la aplicación del proyecto en el
municipio de Argentona. Se trataba de observar si se pueden detectar mejoras en:
a) Las competencias asociadas a los objetivos del proyecto.
b) La motivación.
c) El rendimiento académico.
El instrumento de análisis es el cuestionario del punto 5.4. Las respuestas deben
permitir que se pueda llegar a definir la percepción que tienen los profesores y las familias
del alumnado que ha desarrollado el programa.
La metodología elegida es de tipo cualitativo, con una muestra intencional y razonada.
La población de referencia es el alumnado de sexto de educación primaria de Argentona de
dos de los cuatro centros de educación primaria existentes en Argentona, que tienen la
experiencia más consolidada. De las diferentes fuentes de información existentes se han
elegido las siguientes:
 Familiares del alumnado de sexto de educación primaria.
 Docentes de sexto de educación primaria.
El análisis de las posibles mejoras obtenidas por la aplicación del proyecto se centra en las
competencias. Hay que conocer cuál es la percepción que tienen el profesorado y las familias de
1
Evaluación del proyecto Filosofía 3/18 en las escuelas de Argentona. Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema
Educatiu Departament d’Ensenyament Generalitat de Catalunya Barcelona, mayo de 2015
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las competencias desarrolladas en el proyecto. La competencia cognitiva y la competencia

actitudinal son, entre otras, las que condicionan el modo de razonar y de comportarse de las
personas. Todas estas aptitudes y actitudes conforman la competencia personal.
El saber razonar forma parte de la competencia cognitiva, mientras que el saber ser y
el saber estar lo es de la competencia actitudinal.
En este análisis no se desarrollan todas las dimensiones de la competencia personal
(no se tratan muchas de las competencias cognitivas y emocionales). Lo que se ha hecho
es agrupar los ítems del cuestionario de resultados en función de las competencias
evaluadas.
La tabla siguiente muestra las competencias cognitivas y actitudinales que se trabajan
en el aula.
COMPETENCIA COGNITIVA COMPETENCIA ACTITUDINAL
Argumenta opiniones Hace aportaciones constructivas
Es radical / flexible en las opiniones Muestra respeto por las ideas de los demás
Se expresa con cuidado Sabe dialogar
Se hace comprender Busca alternativas para solucionar conflictos
Analiza el significado de los conceptos Construye ideas interactuando
Transfiere conocimientos Tiene consideración para los interlocutores

Reflexiona críticamente Pide y ofrece colaboración
Es observador
Participa activamente en el que se le pide
Ha aprendido a escuchar a los compañeros
Se esfuerza por explicarse
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¿Qué nos dice el gráfico?

Según la percepción de los informantes, las competencias cognitivas y actitudinales del
alumnado que participa en las aulas de filosofía son más altas que las los compañeros de su
misma edad y condición que no participan. Esta percepción es compartida tanto por el
profesorado como para las familias del alumnado.
De acuerdo con las percepciones del profesorado, el alumnado participante en el
proyecto Filosofía 3/18 ha adquirido las competencias cognitivas que se incluían en el
cuestionario. En todos los ítems, el porcentaje de profesores que hacen una valoración
positiva es más alto que el porcentaje de opiniones desfavorables.
Finalmente, en la percepción de las familias sobre el logro de las competencias
actitudinales también hay diferencias estadísticamente significativas entre un grupo y otro,
aunque las valoraciones siempre son muy favorables al grupo que participa en el proyecto.
Los ítems en los que las diferencias son más grandes corresponden a la participación activa
del alumnado en lo que se le pide (27,8 puntos), en el hecho de hacer aportaciones positivas
(27,8 puntos) y en la capacidad de diálogo (22,2 puntos).
Las familias de los participantes afirman que sus hijos cuentan con la mayoría de las
competencias cognitivas que se relacionaban en el cuestionario.
El profesorado cree que quienes participan en las aulas de filosofía cuentan con un buen
dominio de las competencias actitudinales que se valoraban en el cuestionario.
Conclusiones en relación con las competencias desarrolladas durante el proyecto.
Las correlaciones o asociaciones más destacadas en la competencia cognitiva del
grupo de tratamiento son:
 El hecho de transferir conocimientos y analizar el significado de los conceptos.
 El hecho de analizar el significado de los conceptos y hacerse comprender.
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 El hecho de argumentar las opiniones y reflexionar críticamente.

Las correlaciones o asociaciones más destacadas en la competencia actitudinal del
grupo de tratamiento son:
 Hacer aportaciones constructivas y saber dialogar.
 Buscar alternativas para solucionar conflictos y hacer aportaciones constructivas.
 Construir las ideas interaccionando y esforzarse para explicarse.
Los aspectos más positivos que se valoran después de la aplicación del programa son
los siguientes:
 Prácticamente la mitad del alumnado contaría con un nivel muy alto en la hora de
expresar ideas de forma oral o escrita, de hacerse comprender, de dar razones que
demuestran o justifican una idea y de desarrollar ordenadamente una idea o un
concepto.
 Destacan, especialmente, el comportamiento en el centro, el hecho de haber
aprendido a escuchar a los compañeros y tener consideración por los interlocutores.
Analizadas las percepciones de los informantes, las competencias utilizadas que se
valoran más positivamente son las siguientes:
 Participación activa del alumnado.
 El respeto a las normas de convivencia.
 El respeto al juicio de los demás.
 La reflexión crítica de las ideas.
 El apoyo a los compañeros.
 El trabajo en equipo.
 El papel dinamizador del profesorado en el proceso de aprendizaje de del alumnado,
tanto en la conducción de la reflexión filosófica como en la extracción de
conclusiones e ideas.
A grandes rasgos, se puede concluir que las competencias actitudinales y cognitivas
valoradas obtienen una valoración más alta en el grupo de participantes en el proyecto
Filosofía 3/18 que en el grupo de contraste.
La lectura detallada de este informe permite, como es lógico, perfilar muchos matices,
así como también pone en evidencia los puntos fuertes y los puntos débiles del programa. En
cualquier caso, la idea que se desprende es que vale la pena invertir recursos y esfuerzos en
iniciativas como ésta, que ayudan a pensar, a respetarse y argumentar. Los aspectos menos
positivos que se valoran después de la aplicación del programa son los siguientes:
 Hay cerca de un 20% del alumnado del grupo de participantes tiene todavía
dificultades para examinar las partes de un concepto y transferir conocimientos.
 Cerca de un 28% que no forman parte del proyecto Filosofía 3/18 tienen problemas
para pensar una idea o un concepto con detenimiento.
 Las competencias de tipo actitudinal menos adquiridas por los participantes son la
búsqueda de alternativas para solucionar conflictos y el hecho de pedir y ofrecer
colaboración.
Como se habrá visto hablamos de modelos en el sentido que son aportaciones
realizadas con distintos procedimientos y técnicas que se han adaptado a las circunstancias
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para lograr el propósito perseguido. De manera que los resultados sean indicadores de
eficacia, de eficiencia, de funcionalidad y de impacto.
Ninguno de estos estudios es definitivo ni ʽmodélicoʼ pero apuntan formas diversas de
recolectar información sobre las aulas y sobre el efecto de la práctica filosófica en ella.
REFERENCIAS
Martínez-Olmo, F, (Coord.), Grané, P. y Puig, I. de (2012): Avaluació del desenvolupament
del projecte Filosofia 3/18. Barcelona, Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema
Educatiu. Consultado el 10/10/2017 en
http://csda.gencat.cat/ca/arees_d_actuacio/publicacions/colleccio_documents/20_-
_avaluacio_filosofia_3-18/. Accesible en español en https://www.grupiref.org/filosofia-
formacion/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/informe-pdf-cast.pdf
Pomar, M.B. (2014). Què queda del que es va viure a l’escola? La contribució del CEIP Es
Pont. A IRIE (2014). Informes de recerca en educació. Illes Balears 2014. Palma: Institut
de Recerca i Innovació Educativa. Obtingut del lloc web:
http://www.recercaeducativa.org/ Consultado el 10/10/2017 en
http://irie.uib.cat/files/publicacions%20informes%20recerca/informe-11.pdf
Consell Superior d’Avaluació del Sistema Educatiu (2015). Avaluación del proyecto
Filosofía 3/18 en las escuelas de Argentona. Barcelona: Departament d’Ensenyament
Generalitat de Catalunya. Consultado el 10/10/2017 en
http://csda.gencat.cat/ca/arees_d_actuacio/publicacions/colleccio_documents/31-
Filosofia-3_18-Argentona/
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A Literature Review of Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness of

Philosophy for Children
Ourania Maria Ventista

School of Education, Durham University
o.m.ventista@durham.ac.uk
Ourania Maria Ventista is a Doctoral Researcher and a Teaching Assistant at the School of
Education at Durham University. She is also the Head of Assessment at Evidence Based
Education. Her research focuses on the impact of Philosophy for Children on thinking skills
and attainment. She publishes in the areas of Philosophy for Children, educational
assessment, differentiated instruction and school effectiveness. She holds an MSc in
Educational Assessment from Durham University and she is a reviewer for the academic
journal ‘Review of Education: An International Journal of Major Studies in Education
(BERA)’.
ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the results of a literature review of empirical research on the
effectiveness of Philosophy for Children (P4C). Particularly, it investigates the impact of
P4C on cognitive and non-cognitive skills. In this review, only experimental and quasi-
experimental studies are considered because they can support causal relationships between
the P4C intervention and its results. Also, effect sizes are calculated and presented. Existing
high-quality evidence supports the positive impact of the programme on reasoning skills.
However, the impact of the programme on other cognitive and non-cognitive skills requires
further investigation. Providing robust research evidence could contribute towards the wider
acceptance of the programme by teachers and policy makers and lead to the P4C introduction
in the school curriculum in a more systematic way. As a result, this chapter evaluates the
effectiveness of the programme based on the existing empirical evidence, highlights the
literature gaps and recommends areas for further research.
KEYWORDS
P4C, literature, experimental design, effect sizes.
RESUMEN
Este capítulo presenta los resultados de una revisión bibliográfica de la investigación
empírica sobre la eficacia de la Filosofía para niños (P4C). En particular, investiga el impacto
del P4C en las habilidades cognitivas y no cognitivas. En esta revisión, sólo se consideran
los estudios experimentales y cuasi-experimentales porque pueden apoyar las relaciones
causales entre la intervención de P4C y sus resultados. También se calculan y presentan los
tamaños de efecto. Las pruebas existentes de alta calidad apoyan el impacto positivo del
programa en las habilidades de razonamiento. Sin embargo, el impacto del programa en otras
habilidades cognitivas y no cognitivas requiere investigación adicional. Proporcionar pruebas
sólidas de la investigación podría contribuir a una aceptación más amplia del programa por
parte de los docentes y los responsables de la formulación de políticas y conducir a una
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introducción más sistemática del P4C en el currículo escolar. Como resultado, este capítulo
evalúa la efectividad del programa basándose en la evidencia empírica existente, destaca las
lagunas en la bibliografía y recomienda áreas de investigación adicionales.
PALABRAS CLAVE
FpN, bibliografía, diseño experimental, tamaño del efecto.
INTRODUCTION
The popularity of P4C across the world led to the design of various research projects to
investigate the effectiveness of the programme. This chapter focuses on the investigation of this
existing evidence concerning the effectiveness of the P4C programme. Lipman (2003) supported
that by taking part in a Community of Enquiry students develop critical, creative and caring
thinking. This systematic literature review aims to examine whether these claims are indeed real
and investigate evidence for different areas where P4C can have a positive impact.
Specifically, the research question to be answered was whether P4C has an impact on
students’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills. After discussing the evidence, this research also
highlights the literature gaps and recommends topics for further research.
Various research projects focused on P4C impact on cognitive and non-cognitive
domains by using a range of research designs and assessment tools, such as teacher
questionnaires (Meir & McCann, 2017), focus group interviews with university students
(Green & Condy, 2016), action research in classroom (Benade, 2011), and student discourse
analysis by P4C sessions (Gasparatou & Kampeza, 2012). Without underestimating the
research design of the any projects, one of the most robust ways to evaluate the effectiveness
of a programme and establish causal relationships is by adopting experimental or quasi-
experimental research design. This research design is recommended to establish the
relationship between an intervention and its impact (Cohen, Manion & Morrison, 2007).
Furthermore, Lipman (1987) recommended experimental design in projects in order to
distinguish the effective programmes from the ineffective. For these reasons, since this
review investigates the programme effectiveness, it focused only on experimental and quasi-
experimental studies.
2. Methodology
The search of studies was conducted by using Google Scholar. This is probably the
most recognised search engine for academic articles, so it was judged appropriate for the
investigation of empirical evidence for P4C. After some literature was retrieved, more
literature was pursued based on the bibliography found. The main inclusion criteria for the
studies in this systematic literature review were the research design and the purpose of the
study. For a study to be included in the literature review, it should:
 have had an experimental or quasi-experimental design with a control group
 have included the conduction of both pre-test and post-test
 have examined the P4C impact on one or more domains
 have been published in English within the last thirty-five years (1982 - 2017).
The review focused on particular evidence of the studies;
 the research design
 the country where the studies were conducted
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 the cognitive or non-cognitive skills that P4C could have an impact on

 the intervention and its length
 the existence of a follow-up
 the characteristics of the participants with main focus on age and gender
 the sample size for both groups
 the attrition from pre-test to post-test
 the pre-test equivalence of two groups
 the post-test results
 the effect size
Effect sizes were calculated particularly for the purposes of this review. Also, since
effect sizes are sometimes linked to the quality of the research, an investigation of the overall
study quality was also included. Indicators of quality of the studies are presented to explain
to what extent the calculated effect sizes can be trusted.
3. Results
3.1. Research Design
The main inclusion criterion for the studies in the review was their research design
and therefore only experimental and quasi-experimental studies were examined. The
existence of a comparison group and pre- and post-test measurements were judged
necessary indicators of the quality of the studies. More than twenty studies were finally
included in the review. However, there were only four studies considered to have a strong
research design, including a recent randomised controlled trial with randomisation on a
school level in England (Gorard, Siddiqui & See, 2015). Some of the small-scale studies
reported randomisation of participants within the groups (Hedayati & Ghaedi, 2009; Lam,
2012; Marashi, 2008; Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga et al., 2003; Topping & Trickey, 2007;
Trickey & Topping, 2006). However, these studies are not better in quality compared to
the other retrieved small-scale studies with a control group, because the number of
participants was relatively small (≤ 100). When the number of the participating units in a
study is very small, then the randomisation cannot be considered real (Gorard, 2013,
p.128).
3.2. Location of the study
Although initially the P4C studies were conducted only in the USA and in the UK,
currently there is research evidence from other countries. This is probably indicative not only
of the interest that the research community has in P4C, but also of its spread in schools across
the world. The popularity of the P4C programme is evident from the fact that is currently
practiced in approximately 60 countries (SAPERE, 2015).
3.3. Targeted skills
Across the P4C studies, the impact on a range of particular skills was addressed. Most
of the interventions investigated the impact of the programme on reasoning skills (Cooke,
2015; Fair et al., 2015a, 2015b; Fields, 1995; Gorard, Siddiqui & See, 2015; Jenkins, 1986;
Lam, 2012; Marashi, 2008; Säre, Luik, & Tulviste, 2016; Sasseville, 1994; Slade, 1989;
Sprod, 1998). This is not surprising since Lipman, who is the father of P4C, argued that
P4C fosters critical thinking (Lipman, 2003). What might be surprising is that even though
he also argued that P4C fosters creativity (Lipman, 2003), only a few studies examined its
impact on creativity (Jahani & Akbari, 2016; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014).
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This might be due to the fact that critical thinking can be more easily operationalised in
reasoning skill items, whilst creativity can be considered to be a broader concept. Another
reason which could explain this finding is the greater difficulty in developing creativity
assessments compared to reasoning assessments. Predominantly, the P4C research tradition
is associated with the New Jersey Test of Reasoning Skills. This test was created by Virginia
Shipman who worked in the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children
(IAPC) at Montclair University, where Matthew Lipman also worked. The test included 50
items evaluating general, hypothetical and causal reasoning, assuming, induction, good
reasons, syllogisms, contradiction, standardisation and conversion (Morante & Ulesky,
1984).
On the other hand, Lipman and the first P4C adherents did not develop an instrument to
measure creativity. Thus, the researchers had to decide upon an existing tool from a different
field or construct a new one for creativity assessment. For example, in one of the two
retrieved studies (Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014) the researchers used the Torrance Test
to measure creativity. Consequently, it is anticipated that P4C studies scrutinise the P4C
impact on reasoning since it appears to be more guidance on how to evaluate reasoning skills.
3.4. The intervention and its length
In all of the retrieved studies, the intervention group received P4C. Sanz de Acedo
Lizarraga et al. (2003) was an exception, since they did not focus only on P4C intervention,
but examined the combination of P4C with the Instrument Enrichment Programme and
Project Intelligence. The intervention received by the participants in this study was called
Portfolio and, therefore, the impact and the effect sizes cannot be attributed solely to P4C. It
is apparent, however, that even though in all the other studies the participants received P4C
intervention, the programme implementation varied between them.
Considering the length of the intervention, it usually lasted an academic year or less
(Table 1). This was not necessarily a reliable indicator of the quality of the studies, since the
intervention was sometimes too short for significant results to have appeared in the
assessment results.
3.5. Follow-up study
Another consideration for the programme effectiveness and quality of a research study
is the follow-up of the participants. Only a few studies (Colom et al., 2014; Sanz de Acedo
Lizarraga et al., 2003; Topping & Trickey, 2007; Youssef, Campbell & Tangen, 2016)
incorporated follow-up in their design. Without an adequate number of longitudinal studies,
there is no strong evidence of the long-term impact and the retention of the effects of the
programme.
3.6. Participants
Even though P4C, as the name suggests, focuses on children, this systematic literature
review identified studies with participants from a wide age range. There were studies with
participants in kindergarten and students younger than six years old (Giménez-Dasí, Quintanilla
& Daniel, 2013; Jo, 2001; Säre, Luik, & Tulviste, 2016; Schleifer et al., 2003) and others with
participants older than twelve who can be considered teenagers (Abaspour, Nowrosi & Latifi,
2015; Lam, 2012; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014; Sanz de Acedo Lizarraga et al., 2003). It
could be argued that P4C refers to philosophy in childhood, and adolescence cannot be included
in this age range. However, the few studies investigating P4C impact on teenagers only involve
students in the early phase of adolescence.
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In addition, the examination of the particular characteristics of participants was judged to

be crucial. This review presents the country where the research was conducted, the age and the
gender of the participants (Table 1), but these are not the only characteristics which could
influence the research results. Information such as the socioeconomic background and the type
of education that the school provides can add further information which better explains the
result of the study. For example, a study in Spain (Giménez-Dasí, Quintanilla & Daniel, 2013)
implemented a one year intervention with pre-school students who were Caucasian from
middle-class families attending a private, non-religious school near Madrid. In another
example, participants in a Hong Kong study came predominantly (90%) from middle- or
working-class families (Lam, 2012).
Despite recognising the importance of the special characteristics of the participants in
each study, it would probably be overly complex to consider all these elements at once
combined with the interpretation of P4C impact. Since the aim of this systematic review is
not to scrutinise the characteristics of the participants, there are no claims concerning
generalisation on or representation of a particular type of population. Hence, no attempt to
generalise the results of any study will be made because there is no clear statement of the
population represented by the participants of each study.
Furthermore, there were two studies with single-sex participants (Abaspour, Nowrosi &
Latifi, 2015; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014) conducted in Iran. The option of involving
only single-sex participants does not seem to be grounded upon a justified research decision
or linked to the research purposes. Instead, it probably derives from the single-sex education
in the country. This was not the case in Slade’s study (1989) where there was a targeted
choice of female students, since they are usually weaker at mathematics, and the study aimed
to investigate whether Philosophy for Children could potentially improve their mathematical
ability.
3.7. Sample size
Concerning the number of participants, there were only six studies with more than
200 participants in both groups (Colom et al., 2014; Fair et al., 2015a; Gorard, Siddiqui
& See, 2015; Sasseville, 1994; Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017; Youssef, Campbell &
Tangen, 2016). The large-scale studies probably provide more trustworthy results.
Concerning the sample, it should be noted that the arithmetical balance between the
comparison and the intervention group does not always play a central role in the
evaluation of the project quality. Gorard (2013, p.128) argued that the two groups do not
have to be arithmetically equal, but he suggested a limit with the one group being up to
three times bigger than the other, the control group usually being bigger as it increases
the power with low research cost. However, this is not the case in the P4C experimental
and quasi-experimental research studies. The control group and the intervention groups
were equal or almost equal concerning the number of participants in most of the studies
(Table 1). There were a few studies in which the intervention group was bigger than the
control group (Colom et al., 2014; Fair et al., 2015a, 2015b; Sasseville, 1994; Topping &
Trickey, 2007; Trickey & Topping, 2006) and there were only two studies with a bigger
control group than the intervention group (Lam, 2012; Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017).
3.8. Attrition
The research attrition is a central indicator of the trustworthiness of the findings.
Nevertheless, most of the research studies did not report the attrition (Table 1). There are
only three studies which reported the dropouts between the pre-test and post-test (Gorard,
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Siddiqui & See, 2015; Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017; Youssef, Campbell & Tangen,
2016). Fair et al. (2015a) did not report attrition between the pre-test and the post-test,
but they did report the attrition for the follow-up cohort of the 7th graders (Fair et al.,
2015b). Some studies implied that the sample was retained in the tables which report their
findings. The studies that retained their sample were small-scale and involved short-term
P4C intervention. This finding is in line with what Gorard (2015) has argued; the larger
the study and the longer it lasts, the more attrition it is likely to have. Therefore, it is not
surprising that the small-scale studies retained their sample (Abaspour, Nowrosi & Latifi,
2015; Jenkins, 1986; Jo, 2001; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014; Sanz de Acedo
Lizarraga et al., 2003; Slade, 1989; Sprod, 1998; Williams, 1993).
3.9. Pre-test equivalence
The pre-test measurement provides evidence about the initial performance of both
groups. If there was randomisation between the groups, then this would ensure to some extent
that the two groups are equivalent concerning all the variables which could affect their
performance in the post-test (Togerson & Togerson, 2008, p.28).
In the examined studies, there were only two randomised control trials with
randomisation on a school level (Fair et al., 2015a, Gorard, Siddiqui & See, 2015) and one
trial with a matching comparison group (Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017). As a result, an
examination of the initial balance of the groups in most of the studies was required since
there was no randomisation to ensure the equivalence of the groups at the beginning of the
study. There were small-scale studies which claimed randomisation for the groups’ allocation
(Table 1). However, when the sample is very small, the extent to which randomisation can
be considered trustworthy can be questionable (Gorard, 2013).
Therefore, the examination of the baseline assessment was judged necessary. Some
studies were found with initial group imbalance at the pre-test. For instance, Pourtaghi,
Hosseini and Hejazi (2014) and Lam (2012) conducted small-scale quasi-experimental trials
with the control group performing better than the intervention group at the pre-test. On the
other hand, studies such as Fair et al. (2015a, 2015b) found that the intervention group was
performing better than the control group in the pre-test.
3.10. Effect sizes
Having discussed characteristics of the studies and indicators to evaluate the quality
of the existing evidence, the calculation of their effect sizes of the studies will now be
considered. Effect sizes for the studies were calculated in order to create comparable sizes
to investigate whether and in what domains P4C has the bigger impact.
The calculation of the effect sizes took into consideration only the post-test
performance of the two groups. The effect size was calculated only in the studies that the
standard deviation and the post-test mean scores of both control and intervention group
were provided for. Specifically, there is the calculation of Cohen’s d, which can be
calculated when the means and standard deviations of both control and treatment
(intervention) group are known (Cohen, 1988; Thalheimer & Cook, 2002):
𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝 − 𝑃𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑀𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑙 𝑔𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑝
d= 𝑃𝑜𝑜𝑙𝑒𝑑 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝐷𝑒𝑣𝑖𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠
The way that the calculation of effect sizes took place entails that studies which did not
report sample size, means and standard deviations could not have their effect sizes calculated
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(Table 1). Furthermore, when the effect sizes are under consideration, the study’s domain of
potential improvement should be evaluated. For example, one of the studies (Abaspour,
Nowrosi & Latifi, 2015) appeared to have generally negative strong effect sizes in the areas
of disappointment and instability. This actually means a big positive impact of P4C on a
negative domain.
3.10.1. Studies with big effect sizes
According to Cohen (1988, p. 40), an effect size is considered big when d ≥ 0.80.
Accepting this ‘rule of thumb’, there were seven studies with big effect sizes (Abaspour,
Nowrosi & Latifi, 2015; Giménez-Dasí, Quintanilla & Daniel, 2013; Hedayati & Ghaedi,
2009; Jo, 2001; Marashi, 2008; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014; Säre, Luik, & Tulviste,
2016). All these big effect sizes can be attributed to research design factors and not the P4C
intervention itself. All of the studies had particularly small samples and as it has been
supported that studies with small samples usually have bigger effect sizes (Gorard & Gorard,
2016, p.483), this is likely to be the cause of the observed big effect sizes rather than the
actual P4C effectiveness.
There were also other research design factors which could influence the effect sizes.
Säre, Luik, & Tulviste (2016) used a measurement tool including elements very close to
the P4C practice. For example, they measured reasoning by the use of linking words.
Almost by definition P4C intervention places emphasis on these elements, such as the use
of justification, and therefore the intervention group expectedly performed significantly
better than the control group in the post-test. This can be considered a manipulation of
the effect size. Particularly, as Simpson (2017) argued, a focused measurement tool on
the trait of the intervention can make the intervention group outperform the control group.
Furthermore, the pre-test equivalence is required for reliable effect sizes. Pourtaghi,
Hosseini and Hejazi (2014) examined the P4C impact on creativity and the intervention
group got higher creativity scores compared to the comparison group in the pre-test. Thus,
the control group was disadvantaged even before receiving the intervention. Expectedly,
the intervention group performed better in the post-test and as a result the quality of the
effect sizes is questionable. Furthermore, Hedayati and Ghaedi (2009) did not even report
the pre-test results for the two groups. The study reports a relatively big effect size in
favour of the P4C impact on interpersonal relationships of the students. However, it could
not be assumed that there was equivalence between the groups when the study started.
To sum up, all the studies with big effect sizes were inadequately trustworthy and it is
likely that they reported big effect sizes due to research design flaws. As a result, according
to the current evidence P4C does not have big positive impact on the domains examined.
3.10.2. Studies with medium effect sizes
According to Cohen (1988) a medium effect size can be considered when d= 0.5. Three
studies were definitely included in this category (Fair et al., 2015a, 2015b; Topping &
Trickey, 2007). Two more studies (Slade,1989; Sprod, 1998) with d = 0.37 are included in
this category.
All of the studies (Fair et al., 2015a, 2015b; Slade, 1989; Sprod, 1998; Topping &
Trickey, 2007) examined the impact on reasoning skills. It is particularly interesting that Fair
et al. (2015a) was a replication of the Topping and Trickey (2007) study, which is also
included in this category. Both of the studies found medium effect sizes. Moreover, Fair et
al. (2015b) was a follow-up of the initial study (Fair et al., 2015a) including only a part of
the cohort of students. Except the Sprod (1988) and Slade (1989) studies which had a
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relatively small sample size, the other studies had sufficient sample size. These findings
present positive indicators about the impact that P4C has on reasoning skills.
However, there were two main issues with the studies. Topping and Trickey (2007) did
not report a specific attrition. They only cited that there was ‘no significant attrition’ (p.277).
The absence of reporting specific attrition rates reduces the trustworthiness of the study. On
the other hand, Fair et al. (2015a, 2015b) reported the attrition, but they had unbalanced
groups in the pre-test. The control group started out disadvantaged compared to the P4C
group in the initial study (Fair et al, 2015a) and this imbalance continued in the follow-up
(Fair et al., 2015b).
Consequently, there was some evidence demonstrating that P4C intervention - even
when it lasts for only a year - has positive impact on reasoning skills. According to the follow-
up of these studies, this positive impact on reasoning skills is retained during the following
years.
3.10.3. Studies with small effect sizes
There were a few studies with small effect sizes (Jenkins, 1986; Siddiqui, Gorard & See,
2017; Tok & Mazi, 2015; Youssef, Campbell & Tangen, 2016). Tok and Mazi (2015)
conducted a small-scale study to examine the P4C impact on listening and reading
comprehension. Despite their small sample size, the study did not report a big effect size.
The findings from the other two studies (Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017; Youssef, Campbell
& Tangen, 2016) vary between the domains. Both of the studies were large-scale studies with
reported low attrition. Thus, both of them can be considered trustworthy. Some of the effect
sizes the studies found were small. This might be explained considering that both of the
studies examined the P4C impact on non-cognitive domains, such as well-being, motivation
and interest in maths, but at the same time they were short-time interventions. Even when the
Youssef, Campbell and Tangen (2016) study claimed a follow-up of the participants, this
lasted only for six months. The non-cognitive traits might need longer time to be improved.
Hence, a short-time intervention cannot have observable positive findings on non-cognitive
skills. What is more, it might be the case that the measurement tools for non-cognitive skills
are not as sensitive as other domains to identify change.
3.10.4. Studies with zero or slightly negative effect sizes
There were a few studies which had no impact or a slightly negative impact. These
studies are approached as one category by this review because even if a study was found to
have negative impact, it was only slightly negative and thus can be considered zero.
In five studies, the calculation of the effect size led to negative results for all or some of
the examined skills (Giménez-Dasí, Quintanilla & Daniel, 2013; Gorard, Siddiqui & See,
2015; Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017; Trickey & Topping, 2007; Youssef, Campbell &
Tangen, 2016). Three of the five interventions (Gorard, Siddiqui & See, 2015; Siddiqui,
Gorard & See, 2017; Youssef, Campbell & Tangen, 2016) involved more than 200
participants. It has been previously mentioned that there were only six studies in this review
with such a big sample.
Lam (2012) did not indicate an effect of the programme on the reasoning skills of the
students. However, this study is another example demonstrating the limitations of using only
post-test scores to calculate effect sizes. The control group performed notably better than the
intervention group in the pre-test and therefore it is not valid to consider only their post-test
performance for the effect sizes.
457
The interpretation of the observed negative effect sizes is imperative. Giménez-Dasí,

Quintanilla and Daniel (2013) found big effect sizes for the 5-year-old participants, but
negative effect sizes for the 4-year-old participants. Maybe this could be an indicator about
the lower acceptable age bound at which P4C is recommended to be implemented. It is
plausible that a good starting point for the implementation of P4C can be the age of 5 instead
of 4.
Gorard, Siddiqui and See (2015) found negative effect sizes in writing, reading, maths
and reasoning skills. The effect sizes are so slightly negative that it could be claimed that the
programme has no impact on these domains. The two groups started unbalanced, with the
intervention group being significantly disadvantaged compared to the comparison group in
the Key Stage 1 exams. During the Key Stage 2 exams, which were used as a post-test, the
intervention group remained disadvantaged, but the performance of the control group was
poorer than their initial performance, and the intervention group improved.
Despite this, the intervention group remained disadvantaged, and this is why the study
reported a negative effect size. The performance of the control group is probably an example
of regression to the mean. Regression to the mean happens when one person or group scores
extremely high on the first test and is not likely to score equally high on the second test
(Shadish, Cook & Campbell, 2002, p.57). Similarly, in the reasoning skills pre-test the
intervention group was disadvantaged compared to the control group. Later, the
disadvantaged students in the intervention group outweighed the control group. Due to the
unbalanced initial groups, the study reported its findings with gain scores. In this case, there
is no negative P4C impact on the domains. The regression to the mean effect remains with
reference to the domains of maths, writing and reading.
The other three studies with negative effect sizes examined the P4C impact on non-
cognitive domains (Siddiqui, Gorard & See, 2017; Trickey & Topping, 2007; Youssef,
Campbell & Tangen, 2016). There are three possible explanations for this. The first
interpretation might be quite obvious. The non-cognitive traits might need more time to be
improved. Hence, short-time interventions cannot have observable positive findings. The
second interpretation might be that P4C made the students more aware of these non-cognitive
traits and even some difficulties in their daily life. Therefore, as a result of discussing more,
the students may appear to be more ‘negative’ in the questionnaires. Nevertheless, this could
still imply an increase in the awareness about the topics.
However, the interpretation of this finding might be more complicated. It might be the
case that these studies had a slightly positive impact on a particular type of student, but when
overall effect sizes are reported, this difference is not visible. For instance, the study of
Sasseville (1994), which examined the P4C impact on self-esteem, reported that P4C
intervention was beneficial only for a particular group of students - the students with low
self-esteem. This is in line with other studies which report that disadvantaged students benefit
from P4C intervention more than the non-disadvantaged students (Colom et al., 2014;
Gorard, Siddiqui & See, 2015; Stokell, Swift & Anderson, 2017). Thus, reported effect sizes
for a group as a whole might not reveal potential positive impact of the programme on the
non-cognitive skills of disadvantaged students.
4. Limitations
This systematic literature review does not provide any information about diffusion
between the two groups, which is a threat for the validity of the studies (Gorard, 2001). This
phenomenon could be more intense, when participants from both groups attend the same
458
school. Then, it is likely that the intervention and information about it are shared between the
control and intervention group. In simple words, the control group might not be clean of the
intervention and this can lead to a smaller effect size. Also, the use of effect sizes has
limitations. There are various ways that the effect sizes can be manipulated, such as reducing
the standard deviation (Simpson, 2017). This review aims to highlight the cases where the
effect sizes might be misleading when discussing the studies.
5. Conclusions
Although many studies adopted an experimental design, only a few were large-scale.
Moreover, the attrition and the missing data were not always reported. Hence, the quality of
some studies is open to discussion. Overall, there were only a few high quality studies that
fulfil the indicators of quality in this study to support the effectiveness of P4C. Therefore,
there is still much room for research to shed light on stronger evidence about the effectiveness
of the programme.
There are various literature gaps to be covered in P4C research. Concerning the
domains on which the programme is expected to have impact, Lipman (2003) supported that
by taking part in a Community of Enquiry students develop critical, creative and caring
thinking. Concerning these specific skills, there is more evidence to support the effectiveness
of the programme on reasoning skills (Table 2). There were only a few studies that examined
the impact of P4C on creativity (Jahani & Akbari, 2016; Pourtaghi, Hosseini & Hejazi, 2014)
and these studies had particularly weak design and poor reporting. Therefore, the claim made
by Lipman (2003), relating thinking creatively to the Community of Enquiry, is still unstable.
Concerning caring thinking, it could be considered a non-cognitive element. The studies,
which examined the effectiveness of the programme on improving non-cognitive skills, were
usually short-term. Thus, it is likely that no big impact was found because non-cognitive
skills are not easily and quickly amenable. For this reason, a long-term study would be
recommended in order to evaluate the impact of the programme on non-cognitive skills.
Some of the studies retrieved focused on the P4C impact on attainment. There is limited
and contradictory evidence about the effectiveness of the programme on this area (Table 2).
Lipman (1985) supported that proficiency in elementary reasoning skills is associated with
school performance. By saying this he meant that reasoning skills are a pre-requisite to
academic success. They do not ensure success, but they are necessarily required for the
success to be achieved. This entails that Lipman believed that there is a link between
attainment and reasoning skills, and since P4C develops the latter, then positive impact could
be expected on the former. However, it is known that P4C does not directly teach linguistics
or mathematics. As a result, it might be argued that long-term P4C impact implementation
could bring positive results on attainment. As a result, the existing evidence regarding the
P4C effect on attainment does not ensure causal links between attainment and P4C.
What can be confidently said about P4C is that based on the current studies, the
programme does not appear to have any detrimental impact on any cognitive or non-cognitive
domain. Moreover, it appears to have a positive impact on reasoning skills which can also be
retained, as follow-up studies have demonstrated. Nevertheless, there are many areas on
which the programme might demonstrate an impact if a long-term intervention is
implemented. Therefore, further investigation of these areas is recommended. Providing such
robust research evidence could contribute towards the wider acceptance of the programme
by teachers and policy makers and lead to the P4C introduction in the school curriculum in a
more systematic way to ensure that the programme is prioritised.
459
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Parecidos de familia. Family Resemblances.
Table 1. Systematic Literature Review: Characteristics of Studies and Effect Sizes
Study Research Design Mean

Sample Mean (SD)
(from (country where Length of Follow- (SD) Effect
Targeted Skills Age Size Attrition2
newest to research was study up Pre-test size3
(N)1 Post-test
oldest) conducted)
Siddiqui, Study with matched Communication skills Intervention No Students Year Final I= I=131 I=6.42 (2.81) I=6.25 (2.58) 0.10
Gorard & comparison group lasting from 4 and 5 968 C=154 C=6.03 (2.64) C=6.00(2.29)
See, 2017 (United Kingdom) December 2014-
Sociability June 2016 Final C= I=8.27 (2.62) I=7.79 (2.62) 0.05
1,469
C=7.97 (2.67) C=7.67(2.55)
Cooperation and I= 7.18 (3.19) I= 6.92(2.88) 0.11
teamwork C= 6.25 (3.48) C=6.61(2.75)
Self-confidence I= 8.05 (2.55) I= 8.25(6.05) 0.10
C= 8.02 (2.30) C=7.81(2.36)
Determination I= 7.91 (2.81) I= 7.43(2.98) -0.12
C= 7.92 (2.66) C=7.77(2.74)
Social responsibility I= 7.97 (2.87) I= 7.67(2.97) -0.02
C= 7.76 (3.11) C=7.77(2.74)
Well-being I= 7.45 (3.08) I= 7.22(2.94) -0.09
C=7.56 (2.73) C=7.46(2.59)
Empathy I= 7.63 (3.07) I= 7.60(2.73) 0.04
C= 7.19 (3.10) C=7.40(2.40)
Abbasi & Study with Emotional Twelve 30- No Second grade I=25 n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
Ajam, 2016 comparison group Intelligence minutes sessions elementary C=25
(Iran). Randomisation students
within the groups
Jahani & Study with Creativity 12 weeks n.r. Sixth grade n.r. n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
Akbari, 2016 comparison group male students
(Iran)
1 “I” stands for Intervention group and “C” stands for Control group. Similarly, “Final I” stands for the number of students in the intervention group after the attrition (dropouts) and “Final C” stands for the number of
students in the control group after the dropouts.
2 When n.r. is written in this column, it stands for ‘no reported’. This means that the attrition was not mentioned in the text retrieved.
3 When n.c. is written in this column, it stands for ‘no calculated’. This means that the study does not report all of the components to calculate the effect size (sample, standard deviation, means).
464
Säre, Luik, & Study with Verbal Reasoning 8 months No 5-6 years old I = 58 n.r. I = 2.0 (1.9) I = 5.8 (5.2) 0.91
Tulviste, comparison group Skills: Connection (weekly C = 67 C= 3.1 (2.3) C = 2.2 (2.5)
2016 (Estonia) between the words philosophical
(analogy, comparison, discussion)
contract, justification)
Verbal Reasoning I = 0.1 (0.4) I = 8.3 (4.2) 0.86

Skills: Sense-making C = 1.4 (1.4) C = 5.0 (3.6)
explanation- causal
connection,
understanding about
mental stages
Youssef, Study with Reading Six months (June 6 months Year 6 students Final I=13 I=41.96(11.67) I=47.92 -0.13
Campbell & comparison group Comprehension 2011- December (Jue 2012) (10-12 years I=117 C=5 C=47.68 (12.38)
Tangen, 2016 (Australia) 2011) old) Final (12.30) C=49.60
C=105 (13.49)
Interest in maths Final I=12 I=28.16 (7.81) I=26.57 -0.23
I=118 C=5 C=27.07(8.35) (8.39)
Final C= 28.49
C=105
(8.44)
Self-esteem Final I=12 I= 28.93 (4.24) I=28.77 -0.29
I=118 C=5 C=28.98(4.20) (4.48)
Final C= 30
C=105 (4.09)
Pro-social behaviour Final I=14 I=7.77 (1.76) I=8.06 (1.66) 0.19
I=116 C=4 C=7.53 (1.83) C=7.74(1.67)
Final
C=104
Emotional Final I=15 I= 3.53 (2.06) I= 3.06(2.44) 0.07
well-being I=115 C=4 C= 3.06 (2.24) C=2.90(2.22)
Final
C=104
Abaspour, Study with Awareness 15 sessions No Female I = 15 Sample I = 69.93 I=78.26 0.89
Nowrosi & comparison group students (12-14 C = 15 retained (10.51) (9.93)
Latifi, 2015 (Iran). years old) C= 66.80 (10) C= 68.53
(12.54)
Realistic acceptance I=20.06 (9.48) I=21 (8.8) -0.44
465
C=19.80 C= 25.01
(11.79) (10.10)
Disappointment I= 16.3 (4.82) I = 13.33 -1.06
C= 15.8 (6.8) (6.46)
C = 19.93
(6.39)
Grandiosity I= 15.8 (6.8) I =17.53(4.4) -1.37
C= 23.53(5.71) C =23.86
(5.12)
Instability I= 23.73 (3.78) I =23.26(4.7) -1.60
C= 29.2 (5.26) C =30.8
(5.03)
Impression I= 18.8 (3.58) I = 14.8 -0.53
management C= 19.8 (3.48) (7.36)
C = 17.8
(3.93)
Cooke, 2015 Study with a control Critical thinking 6-8 P4C sessions No 6th grade I=16 Sample I= 9.53(n.r.)4 I= 14.67(n.r.) n.c.
group (United States). in total students C=10 retained C = 8.00 (n.r.) C = 7.56(n.r.)
Randomisation within
the groups
Fair et al., Study with a Reasoning skills 22-26 weeks for No5 7th and 8th I = 363 n.r. I = 102.19 I= 119.38 0.46
2015a comparison group 7th graders and 4- graders (12 and C =177 (32.69) (31.74)
with randomisation of 10 weeks for 8th 13 years old) C=93.86 C= 104.23
teachers within the graders (36.99) (35.32)
same school (Texas)
Fair et al., Study with a Reasoning skills 3 years follow up Yes Only the initial Final I = I =53 I = 100.09 I = 122.53 0.62
2015b comparison group study 7th graders (but 133 C = 29 (30.41) (35.25)
(Texas) now 15-16 Final C = C= 89.60 C= 100.26
years) 50 (37.40) (39.09)
Gorard, Randomised Control Reading 1 year No Year 5 pupils I=772 Sample I= -0.08 (1.01) I= 0.02(1.01) -0.04
Siddiqui & Trial. Randomisation (December 2012- C=757 retained C=0.08 (0.98) C=0.02(0.99)
See, 2015 at a school-level. January 2014)
(England) Maths I= -0.09 (1.04) I=-0.04(1.01) -0.08
C=0.08 (0.95) C=0.04(0.99)
4 The study reports the results of each question individually and reports SD for these 5 items (construction, cogency, adaptability, metacognition- 2 items). Even though the study discusses critical thinking, it is not clear
how the items match the aspects of critical thinking. Moreover, there are two items to measure meta-cognition and they appear reported separately.
5 The study does not mention follow up. However, the same authors published and reported the post-test after three years follow-up in a different study (Fair et al., 2015b).
466
Writing I=-0.07 (1.03) I=-0.05 (1) -0.11

C=0.07 (0.96) C=0.06 (1)
Reasoning skills Final Drop-out I= 94.37 I=96.59 -0.03
I=1,366 I=184 (11.24) (12.26)
Final C=154 C=95.20 C=96.90
C=1,455 (11.19) (11.90)
Tok & Mazi, Study with a Reading One academic No 5th graders (10 I=37 Sample I= 25.89 (6.13) I= 28.08 0.05
2015 comparison group Comprehension year to 11 years old) C=37 retained C= 25.16 (5.21)
(Turkey) (6.01) C= 27.83
(4.90)
Listening I= 22.02 I=24.24 0.08
Comprehension ( 6.17) (6.38)
C=23.48 (6.50) C=23.72
(7.38)
Colom, Study with a Cognitive ability and 4 years Until the 2nd to 6th grade I =281 n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
García comparison group Personality students (8 to 12 years) C=146
Moriyón, (Spain) were 16
Magro & years old
Morilla, 2014
Pourtaghi, Study with a Creativity: fluency 5 sessions for 75 No Boys only I =16 Sample I = 15.44(3.75) I = 38.06 0.81
Hosseini & comparison group minutes (second grade C =16 retained C =18.56(4.66) (23.77)
Hejazi, 2014 (Iran) of secondary C = 23.56
school) (10.75)
Creativity: flexibility I = 12.94(3.23) I=21.13 0.53
C = 16 (4.29) (7.85)
C=17.19
(7.46)
Creativity: I = 20.81(6.23) I=47.5 0.96
innovation C = 26.19 (27.82)
(9.06) C=23.94
(22.35)
Creativity: I = 63.56 I=148.38 1.28
elaboration (22.1) (51.33)
C =69.5 C=91.31
(17.46) (40.41)
Giménez- Emotion 30 sessions (one No 4-year- old I =18 n.r. I = 4.42 (1.57) I =4.94(1.55) -0.78
Dasí, Comprehension academic year C=9 C = 4.38 (1.30) C=6.22(1.99)
467
Quintanilla & from October 5-year-old I=14 I=5.57 (1.16) I= 7.43(1.75) 0.87
Daniel, 2013 since May) C=19 C=5.56(1.20) C=6.22(1.17)
Study with a Knowledge about 4-year-old I=18 I=2.53 (1.07) I= 3.49 (1.64) 0.20
comparison group Strategies for
(Spain) C=9 C=2.94 (1.75) C=3.17(1.62)
Interaction with
Classmates 5-year-old I=14 I=2.73 (1.13) I=5.91(1.31) 2.17
C=19 C=2.83 (1.1) C=3.39(1.11)
Lam, 2012 Study with Reasoning skills Twice a week 90 No Secondary I I=14 Sample I= 27.14 (5.56) I=34.71 0.01
comparison group. minutes sessions C1=14 retained C= 30.50 (5.68)
Randomisation within for 16 weeks (6.10)
the groups (Hong C2=14 C= 34.57
Kong) (5.23)
Hedayati & Study with Interpersonal Twelve 90- 4 months 3rd to 5th I = 88 n.r. n.r. I =5.90 (3.04) 0.70
Ghaedi, 2009 comparison group. relationships minutes sessions follow-up graders C= 102
Randomisation within
the groups (Iran)
C= 0.87
(2.09)
Marashi, Study with Reasoning skills Eleven 70- No 8th grade I=30 n.r. I=31.40 (4.34) I=35.36 1.19
2008 comparison group. minutes sessions students C=30 C=30.76 (5.17) (3.93)
Randomisation within C=29.83
the groups (Iran)
(5.43)
Topping & Study with a Cognitive gains 16 months (one 2 years 10 years old I=105 n.r ‘not I=99 (13.1) I= 105 (14.1) 0.41
Trickey, comparison group. (overall) hour per week) C=72 significant C= 101.3 (12) C=99.4(13.2)
2007 Randomisation within attrition’
the groups with two (p.277)
schools participating
(United Kingdom)
Trickey & Study with a Self-esteem 7 months (one No 11-12 years old I=119 n.r. I=71.37 I=72.6 (12.5) -0.02
Topping, comparison group. hour per week) C=52 (13.50) C=72.88
2006 Randomisation within C=70.36 (14.2) (10.7)
the groups. (United
Kingdom)
Social skills (teacher I=25 n.r. n.r. n.c.
measurement) C=22
Sanz de Study with General Intelligence Portfolio 2 years 13 years old I=20 Sample I=105.1 n.r. n.c.
Acedo comparison group. intervention C=20 retained (10.92)
(Philosophy for C= 105 (5.48)
468
Lizarraga et Randomisation within Cognitive Flexibility Children is a part I=40.75 n.r. n.c.
al., 2003 groups (Spain) of this (15.06)
intervention) C=34.35
120 hours (14.15)
Metacognitive I= 39.70 n.r. n.c.
Strategies (15.56)
C=34.45
(17.20)
Academic I= 5.35 (1.22) n.r. n.c.
Achievement C=5.45 (0.75)
Schleifer et Study with Moral Autonomy Weekly No Kindergarten I =39 Sample I = 3.53 (n.r.) I = 4.03 (n.r.) n.c.
al., 2003 comparison group intervention for students (5 C =42 retained C= 3.53 (n.r.) C= 3.77 (n.r.)
(Montreal area, about an hour year old)
Canada) Judgment (from October I = 4.47 (n.r.) I = 9.10 (n.r.) n.c.
until April) C= 7.53 (n.r.) C= 9.28(n.r.)
Empathy I = 1.26 (n.r.) I = 1.77 (n.r.) n.c
C= 1.23 (n.r.) C= 1.19(n.r.)
Emotion-Recognition I = 17.39 (n.r.) I =19.33(n.r.) n.c.
C= 17.00 (n.r.) C=19.02(n.r.)
Jo, 2001 Study with Meaning Construction 24 week No Kindergarten I=27 Sample I= 2.44 (1.81) I=3.70 (1.28) 0.71
comparison group programme students(5 year C=27 retained C= 2.74 (1.52) C=2.85(1.16)
(Korea) (April-July and old)
September-
November)
Sprod, 1998 Study with Science reasoning An academic No Year 7 students I = 25 Sample I=5.28 (1.08) I=6.57 (0.82) 0.37
comparison group tasks year (weekly 70- (11-12 years C=29 retained C=5.50 (1.22) C=6.29(0.71)
(United Kingdom) minutes sessions) old)
Schleifer & Study with a Stereotypic Attitudes An academic No Second year N =26 n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
Poirier, 1996 comparison group and Respect for others year (once per classes
(Canada) week)
Fields, 1995 Study with Academic 2 years No 7-8 years old N=123 n.r n.r. n.r. n.c
comparison group achievement,
(United Kingdom) reasoning skills, self-
image, behaviour,
motivation
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Sasseville, Study with a Self-esteem and 5 months No 3rd to 6th I=124 n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
1994 comparison group logical skills graders C=96
(Canada)
Williams, Study with a Reading ability One academic No Year 7 pupils I = 15 Sample I = 91.5 (n.r) I = 94.5 (n.r) n.c.
1993 comparison group year October - (11-12 years C = 17 retained C = 89.3 (n.r.) C = 89.4 (n.r)
(United Kingdom) June (27 one old)
Intellectual hour sessions) I =14 I = 41.9 (n.r) I = 47.2 (n.r)
confidence C=14 C=44.1 (n.r) C = 44.7(n.r.)
Slade, 1989 Study with a control Reasoning skills Twelve 2-hour No Grade 7 and I = 15 Sample I = 38.95 I = 45.29 0.37
group (Australia) sessions female students C = 15 retained (8.50) (3.81)
only. C = 39.34 C = 42.33
Top Year 7 (7.05) (3.77)
Math Group
Lowest Year 7 I = 10 I = 34.10 I = 39.20 0.39
Math Group C =10 (5.42) (7.08)
C = 30.57 C = 34.29
(4.83) (4.89)
Russell, 1988 Study with a matched Verbal reasoning 40 minutes No 5th and 6th I=26 n.r. n.r. n.r. n.c.
comparison group related to defining art instruction (twice grade students C=25
(United States) per week)
Banks, 1987 Study with a control Reading, Language One academic No Primary School I = 139 Teacher n.r. n.r.8 n.c.
group (United States) Arts, Maths6 year pupils (Grades C= 133 attrition
2-5) reported7
Jenkins, 1986 Study with a Reasoning skills One academic No 12 years old I=30 Sample I=25.69(10.59) I =36 (8.61) 0.23
comparison group year pupils C=30 retained C=29.66 (9.27) C= 34.03
(United Kingdom) (8.69)
6 The programme reports only the overall gain scores for the overall California Achievement Test which involves these three areas.
7 The study does not report the student attrition. It reports only the teacher attrition. This does not enable the reader to know the number of students who dropped out, because the author reports pre-test results only
from the students who also got the post-test (N =272).
8 The pre-test and post-test means are not reported. However, gain scores are reported.
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Table 2. Frequency of skills being examined in the retrieved studies. Effect sizes in relation to the skills examined 9
Non-cognitive
skills related to
Reasoning Skills Creativity Attainment Social skills the Self (e.g. Total
self-esteem,
well-being)
‘Big’ Positive
2 1 1 1 2 7
Impact
‘Medium’
5 0 1 0 0 6
Positive Impact
‘Small’ Positive
1 0 1 2 0 4
Impact
No impact or
slightly 1 0 1 1 4 7
negative
Total 9 1 4 4 6 24
9 It has to be noted that some studies examine more than one area. Therefore, the same study might appear in more than one cell.
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¿Se puede mejorar las capacidades cognitivas?
Roberto Colom
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
roberto.colom@uam.es
CV
Catedrático de Psicología diferencial en el Departamento de Psicología Biológica y de la
Salud de la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. Ha coordinado doce libros colectivos,
escrito seis propios y publicado más de 140 artículos evaluados por especialistas. Su
investigación se ha centrado en la inteligencia humana y las capacidades cognitivas. Tal
vez el rasgo esencial de su historia como científico sea la extensa red de colaboraciones
con grupos de investigación de todo el planeta, incluyendo Europa, Norteamérica,
Sudamérica y Asia. Esa característica ha estimulado un amplio ámbito de intereses, desde
el análisis psicométrico de la inteligencia y sus fundamentos cognitivos, hasta su base
biológica (fundamentalmente mediante la aplicación de novedosas herramientas de
investigación en neuroimagen). El resultado de su investigación ha facilitado la
publicación de informes científicos en revistas como Intelligence, PAID, NeuroImage,
Brain, PNAS, Human Brain Mapping, Brain Structure and Function, Memory &
Cognition, Journal of Anatomy, SCAN, Neuropsychologia y Computers and Education,
entre otras. También ha llevado a cabo investigación aplicada en áreas como la
discapacidad intelectual, el entrenamiento cognitivo, el comportamiento delictivo, la
selección de personal (ATC) y el desarrollo de tests. A menudo, los medios de
comunicación recurren a él para recabar su opinión sobre diversos temas, aunque
generalmente se centran en la inteligencia humana.
RESUMEN
La evidencia acumulada a lo largo de décadas de investigación muestra que la
inteligencia, definida como la capacidad general para razonar, resolver problemas y
aprender, es el factor psicológico que mejor predice el éxito académico y los logros
sociales más allá de la escuela. Esa evidencia también demuestra que las capacidades
cognitivas se pueden mejorar, aunque eso supone satisfacer una serie de requisitos que
generalmente se ignoran. Es preocupante que las autoridades educativas le den la espalda
a los hechos que demuestran los beneficios sociales que podría reportar una mejora de las
capacidades cognitivas o intelectuales en la población. Filosofía para Niños contribuye a
mejorar las capacidades cognitivas porque satisface el requisito básico de los programas
eficaces: mantener la estimulación a largo plazo, durante los años que dura la enseñanza
obligatoria. Solamente los ambientes estimulantes persistentes alcanzan el objetivo de
mejorar las capacidades.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Inteligencia, habilidades cognitivas, Programas de mejora.
ABSTRACT
The evidence accumulated after decades of intensive research shows that intelligence,
defined as the general ability for reasoning, solve problems, and learn, is the best predictor
of academic performance and of a wide set of social achievements beyond formal
schooling. This evidence also demonstrates that it is possible to enhance intelligence,
although fitting this goal requires addressing usually neglected criteria. Those responsible
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of the educational policy ignore the crucial fact that enhancing intelligence at the
population level will report remarkable social benefits. Philosophy for Children
contributes to improve intelligence, and related cognitive abilities, because it follows the
basic prerequisite of efficient programs: long-term stimulation across the school years.
Only persistent stimulating environments fulfill the goal of enhancing key cognitive
abilities.
KEYWORDS
Intelligence, Cognitive abilities, Enhancing programs.
INTRODUCCIÓN
En 2008, Malcolm Gladwell publicó ‘Outliers’ (Fuera de serie. Por qué unas
personas tienen éxito y otras no) obra en la que propuso la ‘Regla de las 10.000 horas’.
Según esa regla, dedicar esa cantidad de tiempo a la práctica deliberada garantizaría el
éxito en cualquier actividad humana. Quien fracasase no lo habría intentado con
suficiente tesón.
Una visión diferente mantuvo Steven Pinker seis años antes en ‘The Blank Slate’
(La tabla rasa. La negación moderna de la naturaleza humana, 2002). Según el científico
canadiense, la evidencia contradice el mensaje de Gladwell. Al igual que sucede con la
estatura, el nivel alcanzado en una actividad depende tanto del genotipo como del medio
ambiente. Existe un rango de reacción y puesto que no hay dos genomas iguales es
materialmente imposible que el medio ambiente impacte igual en distintos individuos
(Ridley, 2003).
David Rowe resumió elocuentemente en su obra de 1994 (The limits of family
influence) las pruebas que apoyaban la perspectiva de Pinker: ʽsi existen límites a la
posibilidad de cambiar la conducta ¿por qué deberían negarlos los científicos sociales?
Actuarían igual que un físico que rechazase los principios de la termodinámica que
impiden la existencia de máquinas de movimiento perpetuoʼ.
El meta-análisis publicado por Brooke Macnamara et al. (2014) volvió a demostrar
que Rowe y Pinker estaban en lo correcto, mientras que Gladwell a pesar de su éxito
mediático— se equivocaba. La práctica deliberada explicaba el 26% de las diferencias de
desempeño en los juegos, el 21% en la música, el 18% en los deportes, el 4% en la
educación y el 1% en las ocupaciones laborales. Esa práctica posee mayor impacto cuanto
menos se requiere de la improvisación, es decir, en las actividades más mecánicas, en las
que se puede automatizar. Además, las diferencias de desempeño no explicadas por la
práctica deliberada —la mayor parte del pastel— serían consecuencia de las diferencias
en las capacidades cognitivas que separan a los individuos en un determinado momento.
De ahí que sea absolutamente crucial que los científicos comprendan cómo actúan esas
capacidades al actuar para encontrar modos de mejora (Colom, 2018).
Sabemos que esas capacidades pueden mejorar. El efecto Flynn es un ejemplo
paradigmático (Flynn, 2007, 2012, 2016). A través de las generaciones, las sociedades
occidentales y no-occidentales han experimentado mejoras en algunas de esas
capacidades, especialmente en las relacionadas con el razonamiento abstracto. Identificar
las causas de esa mejora, y su grado relativo de relevancia en la vida cotidiana, es esencial
para orientar los programas de mejora.
James Flynn propuso una analogía reveladora para ayudar a entender cuál puede
ser el impacto de las intervenciones sobre las capacidades. Cuando los físicos se
preguntan por el átomo consideran relevante entender qué mantiene unidos a sus
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componentes (protón, neutrón y electrón), pero también qué les puede separar. Con la
capacidad cognitiva sucede algo similar.
Si valorásemos, por ejemplo, la capacidad para usar el lenguaje y la capacidad
para el razonamiento abstracto de un grupo humano que representase a una población
en un determinado momento, observaríamos que quienes rinden a mayor nivel en la
primera capacidad serían quienes, con mayor probabilidad, rendirían a mayor nivel en
la segunda capacidad. Esa relación se encuentra detrás del concepto de factor g, es decir,
la capacidad cognitiva general (Colom et al., 2016, Gottfredson, 2016, Hunt, 2011,
Kovacs & Conway, 2016).
No obstante, al comparar distintas generaciones, es decir, grupos humanos
equivalentes en distintos momentos temporales —por ejemplo, individuos de veinte
años de edad en 1970 y 2010— se puede observar una mejora sustanciosa en la
capacidad de razonar y nula en el uso del lenguaje. El hecho demostraría que la mejora
no tiene por qué apreciarse en el factor g para validarse. Esa tendencia generacional
expresaría el efecto funcional de determinadas fuerzas sociales que actuarían
independientemente sobre esas dos capacidades. Aprender más matemáticas es
relevante en sí mismo, aunque esa mejora no impacte en las habilidades lingüísticas. De
hecho, ¿por qué debería hacerlo? (Flynn, 2007).
Los científicos llevan estudiando las capacidades cognitivas desde hace más de 100
años y han desarrollado modelos psicométricos, cognitivos y biológicos que han
contribuido a mejorar nuestros conocimientos al respecto (Colom, 2018). Sin embargo,
aún seguimos lejos de entender todos los pormenores relacionados con la principal
función adaptativa de la humanidad (Detterman, 2016). Pero se debe persistir porque,
como confesaba Richard Haier en su obra de 2017 (The neuroscience of intelligence) el
objetivo final, la meta última, de quienes estudian las capacidades cognitivas es averiguar
cómo se puede mejorar. Todo está al servicio de llegar a esa meta porque el impacto en
la población sería extraordinariamente positivo.
Subrayaba la socióloga Linda Gottfredson (2004) que la vida es un test de
inteligencia larguísimo. Su contundente declaración se basaba en el hecho constatado de
que ese factor psicológico no tiene rival a la hora de predecir la conducta humana, como
volvieron a demostrar Paul Sackett et al. (2017) en su revisión de 100 años de
investigación en Psicología.
La sociedad y sus representantes son conscientes de ese hecho y, probablemente, la
preocupación que suscita está detrás de programas de evaluación internacional como
PISA, al que se dedica un breve espacio en el siguiente apartado.
PISA
PISA es una evaluación estandarizada del nivel de conocimientos de los escolares
de los países de la OCDE. Los test de conocimientos suelen valorar el nivel de lectura,
así como contenidos de ciencias y matemáticas. Ocasionalmente se evalúa la resolución
de problemas cotidianos.
El resultado produce una ordenación de los países según el rendimiento de sus
escolares en los test. Los críticos de PISA sostienen que, en realidad, no se valoran
conocimientos sino capacidades. Y es probable que tengan razón, puesto que:
Lo que se pregunta en esos test debe ser comparable en países bastante dispares. Usar
contenidos demasiado anclados en las correspondientes culturas impediría una comparación
válida.
Cuando se compara el rendimiento de los países con varios años de separación, su ordenamiento
es similar (r = 0,89). Los países mejor situados en 2003 son los mejor situados en 2012, a pesar
de que, previsiblemente, en el periodo intermedio se pusieron en práctica métodos de mejora.
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El nivel de relación de los resultados valorados por los test de lectura, ciencias, matemáticas y
resolución de problemas supera el valor de 0,9. Por tanto, a nivel de país se produce algo similar
a lo observado a nivel individual: quienes presentan mayor rendimiento en lectura son los que
suelen presentar mejor rendimiento en los demás contenidos (y al revés) (Flores-Mendoza et al.,
2015).
En su exhaustivo análisis comparativo de los países de la OCDE, Heiner Rindermann (2007)
observó un poderoso factor general (g) al considerar una serie de variables relacionadas con los
conocimientos escolares. Ese g daba cuenta de un 94% de las diferencias que separaban a esos
países.
En el Seminario Internacional sobre los Avances en el Estudio de la Inteligencia
celebrado en Madrid en la primavera de 2016 (Colom, 2016), Douglas Detterman expuso
la evidencia acumulada sobre la crucial relevancia de ese factor psicológico en el contexto
escolar: “solamente un 10% de las diferencias que separan a los estudiantes pueden
atribuirse a los colegios y a los profesores. El 90% restante proviene de las características
de los estudiantes. El nivel intelectual recoge el 90% de la varianza asociada al
aprendizaje escolar” (Detterman, 2016). Un resultado sospechosamente similar al
observado en el meta-análisis descrito anteriormente sobre la práctica deliberada.
Escribía Richard Haier para la revista Times Higher Education: “las reformas
educativas que ignoran los resultados sobre la naturaleza de la inteligencia y su papel
central en el logro educativo no le hacen ningún favor a nadie” (Haier, 2017b).
No es un factor psicológico que se pueda o deba soslayar si realmente se desea
mejorar. Pero, desgraciadamente, esa es la práctica habitual, hecho que puede contribuir
a explicar por qué se sigue resistiendo el objetivo perseguido. Existe una negligencia
selectiva —como se expone en el siguiente apartado— que eleva la sospecha de que es
probable que, en realidad, no se desee llegar a la meta.
Negligencia selectiva
Demostraba Earl B. Hunt en su enciclopédica obra Human intelligence (2011) que
la inteligencia es una variable distal que influye en la educación. A su vez, las diferencias
educativas influyen en los logros sociales que pueden alcanzar los ciudadanos.
Esa es, en realidad, la filosofía que subyace a PISA: mejorar los conocimientos
escolares y la formación de los ciudadanos impactará positivamente en el desarrollo
socioeconómico de los países. No obstante, si el nivel intelectual de esos ciudadanos es
el primer eslabón de la cadena que conecta la educación con los logros, entonces ignorarlo
producirá resultados, cuando menos dudosos y en el peor de los casos engañosos.
Si, como declaraba Gottfredson (2004), la vida es un larguísimo test de inteligencia,
cabe esperar que las diferencias de rendimiento intelectual predigan una variedad de
fenómenos sociales.
Así es.
Los resultados alcanzados en un test estandarizado de inteligencia predicen el
desempeño escolar (Deary et al., 2007), ocupacional (Kuncel & Hezlett, 2010), la
delincuencia (Colom & Urruela, 2016) o la longevidad (Batty et al., 2009). El listado es
verdaderamente extenso (Colom, 2018).
El caso más llamativo puede ser el relacionado con la predicción de la longevidad
(Deary et al., 2010).
En un reciente estudio, Catherine Calvin et al. (2017) demostraron una sólida
asociación entre el nivel intelectual evaluado a los 11 años de edad y la mortalidad, por
distintas causas, valorada en un seguimiento de 68 años.
En 1947 se evaluó a la población de escolares escoceses nacidos en 1936 (75.252)
con un test de inteligencia (Moray House Test). Buceando en los registros se pudo
identificar inequívocamente a 65.765 individuos. En el seguimiento habían fallecido
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25.979, seguían vivos y residiendo en Reino Unido 30.464, y no se pudieron obtener datos
de 9.322.
Se observó que los individuos se ordenaban según su nivel intelectual evaluado a
los 11 años de edad. La tendencia correspondía a la ya observada en otras investigaciones
hechas por los epidemiólogos cognitivos en países como Australia, Suecia, Dinamarca,
Estados Unidos y Reino Unido: a mayor nivel intelectual a los 11 años, menor
probabilidad de haber fallecido a los 79 años por distintas causas.
En el caso de la mortalidad en general, una distancia de 15 puntos aumenta la
probabilidad de fallecimiento en el equivalente a d = 0,48. Una distancia de 30 puntos
duplicaría esa probabilidad. Es decir, comparado con un individuo con un CI de 90, el
individuo con un CI de 120 aumentaría su supervivencia en el equivalente a una
desviación típica (d = 1).
Moderadores como el nivel socioeconómico o el estatus sanitario apenas
modificaron las asociaciones prospectivas observadas del nivel intelectual evaluado a los
11 años con el riesgo de fallecer, casi siete décadas después, por trastornos
cardiovasculares, ictus, cánceres, trastornos respiratorios, trastornos relacionados con el
aparato digestivo, causas externas y demencia.
¿Por qué se produce esa asociación?
Una primera posibilidad señalada por ese grupo de científicos es que la inteligencia
influye a) sobre las conductas que perjudican o benefician la salud (hábito de fumar,
ejercicio), b) sobre la gestión de las enfermedades y los conocimientos sanitarios, y c)
sobre el nivel socioeconómico alcanzado (que puede relacionarse con amenazas y riesgos
en la ocupación desempeñada). La cadena causal descrita por Hunt (2011) encajaría aquí.
Una segunda posibilidad se basa en la denominada ‘integridad del sistema’. Se ha
observado una contribución genética a la asociación de la inteligencia con la longevidad.
Existiría un rasgo latente que representaría un funcionamiento corporal óptimo valorado,
tanto por el rendimiento en los test de inteligencia, como por los biomarcadores sanitarios.
La inteligencia no tiene competidor al predecir la conducta humana porque es el
principal atributo de la humanidad, esa propiedad que nos hace realmente humanos.
Fomentar una negligencia selectiva hacia ese factor psicológico carece por completo de
fundamento y ayudará a que se nos escapen elementos cruciales para entender
determinados fenómenos de enorme relevancia.
Hunt (2011) ofrecía una abundante información sobre lo que sabe la ciencia en
relación a la inteligencia humana que puede resumirse así:
 Quienes sostienen que se puede describir a los individuos mediante rasgos
cognitivos relativamente independientes –por ejemplo, la Teoría de las
Inteligencias Múltiples de Howard Gardner—se equivocan gravemente. El
hecho es que esos rasgos cognitivos correlacionan significativamente: quien
presenta un alto rendimiento en alguno de esos rasgos, propende a mostrar un
alto rendimiento en los demás (y al revés). Aunque, sin duda, se encontrarán
excepciones a nivel individual, esa será la tendencia más probable.
 La inteligencia valorada por los test estandarizados predice el nivel ocupacional
y los ingresos de una persona en mayor grado que cualquier otro rasgo humano
que se haya estudiado hasta ahora. La inteligencia facilita la educación, pero es
importante más allá de la escuela.
 Los ciudadanos varían por el grado en el que heredan los mecanismos cerebrales
que permiten conducirse en la sociedad actual no exclusivamente occidental.
Como subrayaba Hunt, usar como referencia Europa y Norteamérica es bastante
sensato porque las demás sociedades desean moverse en su dirección, no al
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revés. Tales mecanismos producen las capacidades mentales exigidas para

resolver los problemas que se incluyen en los test cognitivos, es decir, los test de
inteligencia. Esas mismas capacidades también se requieren para resolver
multitud de problemas cotidianos en nuestra sociedad postindustrial
caracterizada por una manipulación de símbolos cada vez más sofisticada. De
hecho, se pregunta el mismo Hunt en 1995 si los humanos seríamos lo
suficientemente listos para sobrellevar las exigencias del Siglo xxi (Hunt, 1995).
 Las puntuaciones en los test valoran adecuadamente la inteligencia de los
individuos. Quienes declaran que la inteligencia, como se mide en Psicología,
no es importante, ignoran los hechos acumulados durante más de cien años de
investigación.
 Los niños competentes en los test cognitivos, en los test de inteligencia, tienen
una mayor probabilidad de alcanzar más elevados logros sociales, mientras que
los menos competentes tienen una mayor probabilidad de encontrarse con
numerosas dificultades. Su propia capacidad intelectual cuenta mucho en sus
vidas. Una vez más, se debe reconocer que se encontrarán excepciones a nivel
individual, pero ese es el panorama más probable.
Ese resumen es elocuente al subrayar por qué es necesario encontrar modos
eficientes de mejora. Mirar hacia otro lado constituye una grave irresponsabilidad.
¿Por qué es necesario mejorar?
En su controvertida obra de 1994, Richard Herrnstein y Charles Murray hicieron
una simulación con la base de datos de más de 12.000 jóvenes del National Longitudinal
Study on Youth (NLSY) —patrocinado por el gobierno estadounidense— para calcular
cuáles serían los efectos sociales de lograr mejorar solamente 3 puntos de CI (Cociente
Intelectual) el nivel de la población.
Una diferencia de 3 puntos de CI en un individuo en particular no será especialmente
visible. Si Félix presenta un CI de 115, aumentar a 118 su nivel no producirá un impacto
apreciable en su vida cotidiana. Pero no es eso lo que se espera del aumento de 3 puntos a
nivel poblacional. La Figura 1 representa cuál sería el impacto de esa mejora poblacional.
El 58% de la población que experimenta la mejora (B) se situará por encima de la
población original (A). Se observará un 56% de probabilidad de que un individuo elegido
al azar de B presente un rendimiento mayor que un individuo elegido al azar de A.
Pero eso no es lo más interesante. Lo que verdaderamente persiguen los programas
de mejora es reducir el número de individuos que caen bajo un determinado punto crítico.
La proporción de individuos que presentan un rendimiento situado 2 desviaciones típicas
por debajo de la media en la población A, se reducirá en la población B.
Siguiendo esa lógica, Herrnstein & Murray observaron que, por ejemplo:
 El abandono escolar se reduciría en un 28%
 El número de jóvenes encarcelados bajaría en un 25%
 El nivel de pobreza se reduciría en un 25%
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Esos porcentajes pueden ser demasiado abstractos, pero son elocuentes al

convertirlos a números concretos. Si en la población A abandona sus estudios un 20% de
escolares y esa población incluye 2.000.000 de escolares, entonces dejarían de educarse
400.000. El aumento de 3 puntos de CI (población B) reduciría esa cifra a 280.000.
Figura 1. Movimiento hacia arriba de la distribución poblacional de inteligencia en solamente 3 puntos de CI

(equivalente a una d de Cohen de 0,2).
Los beneficios sociales no se harían esperar porque las diferencias que separan a
los ciudadanos según su nivel intelectual (g) poseen un impacto a múltiples niveles,
aunque no sea inmediatamente aparente. No solamente en la educación, sino mucho
más allá.
En un exhaustivo meta-análisis, van der Linden et al. (2017) demostraron la
presencia de un factor general de personalidad (P) que aglutinaba los rasgos básicos de
extraversión, cordialidad, responsabilidad, inestabilidad emocional y apertura a la
experiencia. Los individuos más cordiales, responsables, estables, abiertos y extravertidos
presentarían mayores niveles en P, definido por el uso de habilidades y conocimientos
para alcanzar metas sociales.
Yendo un paso más allá, indagando fuera de los límites de la ‘normalidad’, los
responsables del Estudio Longitudinal Dunedin demostraron la presencia de un factor de
propensión general a la psicopatología (p). Los numerosos supuestos trastornos
diferenciales podían resumirse en 3 (interiorización, exteriorización y desordenes del
pensamiento), pero, a su vez, esos 3 factores podían resumirse en un factor de orden
superior. Ese factor p sería responsable de la regulación y el control (Caspi et al., 2014).
La conexión de g con P y p cobra sentido dentro de la Teoría de la Red de Sistemas
(TRS) propuesta por Josep Mª Lluís-Font en 2004:
 El sistema de inhibición está a la base de la ansiedad (inestabilidad emocional o
neuroticismo). Permite evitar las situaciones amenazantes y resolverlas
apropiadamente. Inhibe la conducta y restringe los procesos cognitivos.
 El sistema de acción rápida subyace a la hostilidad (versus cordialidad). Se
activa en situaciones de emergencia y se basa en conocimientos no conscientes
e irracionales. La agresividad y la impulsividad serían consecuencia de este
sistema.
 El sistema de aproximación apoya a la extraversión. Actuaría ante las señales de
recompensa.
 El sistema auto-regulador o ejecutivo se vincula al autocontrol (responsabilidad)
y permite regular los tres sistemas temperamentales anteriores.
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 El sistema cognitivo integrador correspondería al intelecto. Integra la actividad

de los tres sistemas temperamentales y transmite información al sistema auto-
regulador.
Comprender y mejorar la inteligencia es una empresa que merece la pena porque
mayores niveles de ese factor psicológico mejorarían el uso de habilidades y
conocimientos para alcanzar las metas sociales que caracteriza a P, así como la regulación
y el control vinculados a p. Encontramos, de nuevo, una nítida cadena causal.
A la búsqueda del santo grial
Los programas de mejora de la inteligencia han sido generosamente financiados por
determinadas instituciones sensibles a la relevancia de ese factor psicológico en la vida
cotidiana de los ciudadanos (Colom, 2002).
Herrnstein & Murray (1994) fueron duramente criticados por su pesimista
conclusión con respecto a la posibilidad de mejorar la inteligencia a largo plazo.
Resumieron y discutieron la evidencia disponible en aquel momento en el capítulo 17 de
su polémica obra (“Raising cognitive ability”). Concluyeron que los programas logran
mejorar, de hecho, la inteligencia, pero el efecto se desvanecía pasado un tiempo, una vez
finalizada la aplicación del programa.
Sin embargo, su revisión de la evidencia fue claramente imparcial, como ha
demostrado más recientemente el exhaustivo meta-análisis de John Protzko (2015) sobre
el desvanecimiento de las ganancias de CI en el seguimiento practicado después de
finalizar los programas de mejora de la inteligencia. El Head Start
(https://www.acf.hhs.gov/ohs) o el Abecedarian (http://abc.fpg.unc.edu/) son ejemplos
destacados de esa clase de programas.
Protzko usó una serie de criterios para incluir el estudio en su meta-análisis:
 Los participantes provienen de la población general y no presentan síntomas
clínicos.
 El diseño es aleatorio a nivel individual.
 La variable de interés se obtiene de una medida aceptada de CI.
 La intervención incluye al menos dos medidas después de dar por terminado el
programa.
 La intervención comienza antes de que los niños vayan a la guardería, como
sucede en el caso de los programas de intervención temprana.
El meta-análisis consideró cualquier tipo de intervención (cognitiva, nutricional,
etc.), aplicando un modelo de efectos mixtos: el dato de origen para cada estudio
correspondía al momento en el que finalizaba la intervención y la variable ‘tiempo’
correspondía a los años transcurridos desde ese momento. Los cálculos permitieron
analizar cuáles son los aspectos de la intervención que producen valores más altos justo
al terminar el programa y los diferentes grados de desvanecimiento.
La pregunta a responder fue: ¿se conservan los beneficios sobre el CI derivados de
la intervención temprana?
Finalmente se incluyeron 23 estudios que consideraban 7.584 individuos.
La intervención mejoraba el CI (d = 0,37, es decir, 5,5 puntos de CI), pero la mejora
se desvanecía progresivamente. Además, las intervenciones que comenzaban más
temprano no poseían mayores efectos que las que empezaban más tarde. Tampoco era
relevante el tiempo que duraba la intervención.
Ahora bien, ¿se produce el desvanecimiento porque el grupo control alcanza al
experimental? o ¿declina el grupo experimental hasta equipararse al desarrollo normal
del grupo control? La segunda es la alternativa correcta: lo que sucede es que el grupo
experimental pierde lo que ganó, y, por tanto, existe un desvanecimiento en sentido
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estricto. El supuesto efecto de la práctica no puede explicar el fenómeno porque, de ser

así, el grupo control, cada vez más familiarizado con los test, mejoraría sus puntuaciones.
A partir de aquí, Protzko discutió el resultado según distintas posibilidades.
 ¿Se produce el desvanecimiento porque, en realidad, la ganancia nunca existió,
fue irreal? Se responde negativamente porque de ser así el grupo control debería
mejorar.
 ¿Se debe a que los participantes olvidan el conocimiento adquirido durante la
intervención? Tampoco es el caso porque los efectos positivos demostrados
sobre el rendimiento escolar no encajarían. No se mantenía la mejora intelectual,
pero sí se apreciaba un cierto efecto positivo sobre el desempeño académico.
 ¿Hay desvanecimiento porque los participantes regresan a su hábitat natural,
cognitivamente más empobrecido, al terminar la intervención? Los casos en los
que se estudian niños de ambientes sin carencias, pero que también muestran
desvanecimiento, conducen a una respuesta negativa: “aunque la mayoría de los
estudios incluidos en este meta-análisis consideran niños que provienen de
ambientes empobrecidos, resulta crítico recordar que el estudio sobre los
suplementos nutricionales (LCPUFA) no considera ese tipo de niños, pero
también se revela el efecto de desvanecimiento” (Protzko, 2015, p. 207).
 ¿Se debe a la ‘fuerza gravitatoria’ de la genética? Es decir, se puede mover el
nivel intelectual gracias a la intervención, pero, una vez termina, las aguas
vuelven a su cauce natural. Según Protzko, no es verosímil porque el
desvanecimiento tendría que ser más veloz, debería manifestarse rápidamente.
Sin embargo, el desvanecimiento es lento y progresivo. Además, se sabe que
las diferencias genéticas cobran mayor protagonismo a edades más avanzadas.
Las intervenciones que comienzan antes deberían revelar un desvanecimiento
distinto a las que comienzan más tardíamente. Pero no es eso lo que ocurre.
Entonces, ¿cómo mejora el ambiente el nivel intelectual, cuál es el mecanismo
subyacente?
El autor rechaza los modelos de interacción recíproca entre el ambiente y la
inteligencia. Usa el ejemplo del efecto positivo de los suplementos nutricionales durante
el embarazo. Cuando los niños del grupo experimental tienen cuatro años de edad,
presentan un CI mayor que el grupo control (una diferencia de cuatro puntos). Esa
intervención aumenta el CI sin influir sobre el ambiente, pero cuando los chavales llegan
a los siete años de edad, la ganancia se ha desvanecido. Por tanto, esos niños no crean o
buscan ambientes congruentes con su mayor CI, lo que, a su vez, contribuiría a mejorar
todavía más su CI. El desvanecimiento de las ganancias contradice ese modelo de
interacción recíproca. Por tanto, según Protzko, es el ambiente el que debe influir positiva
y unidireccionalmente sobre el CI.
Esa última posibilidad corresponde al ‘modelo reactivo unidireccional’: el CI
reacciona a las demandas del ambiente, desarrollándose cuando las demandas aumentan y
encogiéndose cuando esas demandas se reducen. Si se compara niños de edad muy similar,
pero que asisten a cursos escolares distintos, los del curso superior presentan mayor CI.
El desvanecimiento se produce, según Protzko, porque los niños regresan a sus
ambientes con carencias. No hay ninguna razón para pronosticar una permanencia de las
ganancias de CI una vez finaliza la intervención. Los modelos basados en correlaciones
parecen consistentes con una interacción recíproca, pero los modelos experimentales
contradicen esa perspectiva. Esos modelos experimentales apoyarían que el aumento de
las demandas en el ambiente logra mejorar el CI. Las ganancias se desvanecen porque se
reducen las demandas del ambiente al terminar el programa de intervención (adaptación
unidireccional).
480
Analógicamente, las gomas elásticas poseen un rango para aumentar su tamaño.

Algunas gomas podrán estirarse más que otras según sean sus propiedades, pero todas
recuperarán su tamaño original si deja de estirarse.
Las dosis son importantes y dejar de ingerir alimento producirá inanición.
En una investigación orientada a explorar los efectos del entrenamiento multimodal
sobre la plasticidad del cerebro, observamos que era irrelevante que se combinasen
distintos tipos de intervenciones (ejercicio físico, nutrición, videojuegos diseñados para
estimular los procesos de la memoria operativa y estimulación magnética transcraneal)
para evocar esos cambios cerebrales. El factor clave para aumentar el grosor de la corteza
fue la ‘cantidad’ de estimulación cognitiva, el número de sesiones que los participantes
habían dedicado al programa de intervención (Román et al., 2018).
Conclusión
Filosofía para Niños capturó mi atención en 1995, hace casi veinticinco años,
precisamente porque su naturaleza se adecuaba perfectamente al principio descrito de la
relevancia de la dosis: las gomas pueden estirarse y aumentar su tamaño, pero todos
sabemos qué sucede si se deja de estirar.
¿Qué sentido tiene invertir dos intensos y productivos años en mejorar las
capacidades cognitivas (o intelectuales) para abandonar los esfuerzos pasado ese tiempo?
¿No es lo más natural, lo predecible, que se pierda lo ganado? ¿Es diferente a lo que
sucede con la práctica deportiva? A mi juicio no lo es.
Herrnstein & Murray (1994) concluyeron, correctamente, que las ganancias de
inteligencia se desvanecían al finalizar el programa de intervención. Sin embargo,
excluyeron a la adopción de ese diagnóstico general:
¿Por qué se ha ignorado en los debates del congreso y en las propuestas presidenciales? ¿Por
qué se lo ponen tan difícil a los padres deseosos de adoptar? ¿Por qué se restringen tan
intensamente, llegándose a prohibir, las adopciones transraciales? Cualquiera que busque un
modo barato de hacer algo bueno por un gran número de niños desaventajados debería mirar
con atención hacia la adopción.
El diagnóstico de esos criticados autores apoyaría la sospecha que a menudo se puede
albergar sobre si, en realidad, los responsables políticos —y sus ideólogos— desean mover
las piezas necesarias para lograr aumentar las capacidades cognitivas de la población.
Las adopciones, al igual que Filosofía para Niños (García Moriyón et al., 2002),
logran su objetivo porque la dosis de estimulación cognitiva se mantiene, porque la goma
se estira y no se deja de hacerlo durante varios años. Con el tiempo, esa goma llegaría a
acostumbrarse a su nuevo estado, a su mayor tamaño, quizá gracias a la actuación de los
mecanismos epigenéticos (Roberts, 2017).
En conclusión, las capacidades cognitivas se pueden mejorar, pero hay que poner
los medios adecuados para lograrlo. En lugar de mirar con suspicacia a quienes se dedican
a desentrañar los secretos de nuestro principal atributo, se les debería apoyar con
entusiasmo.
Se puede incluso soñar con el día en el que el portavoz del gobierno de un país
como España comunique a la prensa, una vez finalizado el habitual consejo de ministros
de los viernes, que se ha aprobado la financiación de un programa a gran escala dirigido
a mejorar el nivel intelectual de la población del país.
En nuestra sociedad postindustrial, el país que primero se percate de la relevancia
de adoptar esa decisión llevará una clarísima ventaja a los demás. Pero también, y eso es
claramente más importante, contribuirá a mejorar la calidad de vida de sus ciudadanos.
Por ahora, soñar sigue siendo gratis. Y, quién sabe, quizá en algún momento ese
sueño se convierta en realidad.
481
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Research Methods in the Swedish project Education for

Participation – Philosophizing back a ‘New’ Life After
Acquired Brain Injury
Ylva Backman
Teodor Gardelli
Viktor Gardelli
Caroline Strömberg
Åsa Gardelli
Luleå University of Technology
Department of Arts, Communication and Education
asa.gardelli@ltu.se
CV
Ylva Backman is a Senior Lecturer in Education, and has a B.A. degree in Philosophy.
Teodor Gardelli is a PhD Student in Philosophy.
Viktor Gardelli is a Senior Lecturer in Education, and has a B.A. degree in Philosophy
and a M.A. degree in Practical Philosophy.
Caroline Strömberg has a Licentiate degree in Law and a B.A. degree in Philosophy.
Åsa Gardelli is an Associate Professor in Special Education and has a PhD degree in
Engineering Psychology.
Ylva, Teodor, Viktor, and Caroline have years of experience of facilitating philosophical
dialogues with different groups.
ABSTRACT
Annually, more than ten million people in all age groups in the world experience an
acquired brain injury (‘ABI’), which is a brain injury caused after birth by external forces
(e.g. motor vehicle accidents) or certain internal factors (e.g. stroke). Brain injury
survivors are often left with long-term impairments in cognitive, social, or emotional
functioning. Despite a promising outset, research on the effectiveness of philosophical
dialogues as an educational method for persons with ABI to increase their cognitive,
social, and emotional functioning has, to our knowledge, been virtually non-existent. The
present research project targets this and uses a pretest-posttest and mixed-method
triangulation design and attempts to measure effects of two small-scale interventions
carried out in the northern part of Sweden. In this text, the project’s research design, data
production, and data processing are described.
KEYWORDS
Acquired brain injury (ABI); Argumentation Rating Tool; disabilities; interviews; P4C;
philosophical dialogues; PwC; traumatic brain injury (TBI).
RESUMEN
Anualmente, más de diez millones de personas en todos los grupos de edad en el mundo
experimentan una lesión cerebral adquirida (“ABI”), que es una lesión cerebral causada
después del nacimiento por fuerzas externas (por ejemplo, accidentes automovilísticos) o
ciertos factores internos (por ejemplo, accidente cerebrovascular). Los sobrevivientes de
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lesiones cerebrales a menudo quedan con deficiencias a largo plazo en el funcionamiento

cognitivo, social o emocional. A pesar de un comienzo prometedor, la investigación sobre
la efectividad de los diálogos filosóficos como método educativo para que las personas
con ABI puedan engrasar su funcionamiento cognitivo, social y emocional ha sido, a
nuestro entender, prácticamente inexistente. El presente proyecto de investigación se
centra en este aspecto y utiliza un diseño de triangulación pretest-postest y métodos
mixtos e intenta medir los efectos de dos intervenciones a pequeña escala llevadas a cabo
en la parte norte de Suecia. En este texto, se describen el diseño de investigación del
proyecto, la producción de datos y el procesamiento de datos.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Daño cerebral adquirido (DCA); Instrumento de Valoración de la Argumentación;
discapacidades; entrevistas; P4C (FpN); diálogos filosóficos; PwC (FcN); daño cerebral
traumático (DCT).
INTRODUCTION
Worldwide, approximately ten million people annually experience a traumatic brain
injury (‘TBI’), and TBIs are estimated to be the third leading cause of the global disease
burden in 2020 (Colantonio et al., 2016). TBIs cause disabilities for all age groups in all
countries (WHO, 2004). For instance, in the US, they extend to ‘epidemic rates’ (Fabiano
& Sharrad, 2017, p. 26) with annual estimates around 80,000 – 100,000 people, and with
more than 200,000 people hospitalized because of a TBI each year (Fabiano & Sharrad,
2017; Mills & Kreutzer, 2015).
TBIs are defined by Soeker as damages to the brain which occur as results of
‘external forces caused by incidents such as assaults, motor vehicle accidents, excluding
cerebral vascular accidents and degenerative brain diseases’ (Soeker, 2016, p. 524). TBIs
are a proper subclass of acquired brain injuries (‘ABIs’), which consist of traumatic as
well as non-traumatic acquired brain injuries, and thus also include brain injuries caused
by a range of factors, e.g. strokes or infections. Effects vary depending on the
classification of the brain injury as well as socio-economic factors (Fabiano & Sharrad,
2017; Cancelliere et al., 2014), and include post-traumatic stress disorder, depression,
limited communication and linguistic skills, decreased social contacts and self-
monitoring, impatience, memory loss, attention disorder, lower self-awareness,
reductions in higher-level problem solving, decreased mental flexibility and abstract
reasoning, lower workplace productivity, and higher unemployment rates (Fabiano &
Sharrad, 2017; Sabatello, 2014).
According to Soeker (2016), the majority of the research in the field of brain injury
rehabilitation concerns medical-biological interventions and gives little attention to the
difficult endeavor of further societal reintegration. Brain injury survivors are often left
with disabilities affecting their daily lives, such as difficulties with thinking,
communication, and behavior (WHO, 2004). The long-term impairments of TBIs thus
extend beyond the initial rehabilitation period and consist in lower cognitive, social,
and/or emotional functioning (Colantonio et al., 2016; Mills & Kreutzer, 2015; Sabatello,
2014). Common and appropriate rehabilitation procedures emphasize treatment of
cognitive, psychosocial, and behavioral issues, and main cognitive components are
activities in attention, concentration, memory, language comprehension, and higher-level
problem solving (Fabiano & Sharrard, 2017).
Besides work done by members of the present research group, research on the
potential for philosophical dialogues as an effective educational method for persons with
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ABI to increase their functioning in the cognitive, social, and emotional domains has, to
our knowledge, been non-existent both nationally in Sweden and internationally, despite
a promising outset (Backman, Gardelli, Gardelli, Gardelli, & Strömberg, 2012; Gardelli,
2012). In this paper, research methods regarding both data collection and data processing
for this particular project will be presented. This might inspire further research in the
field, as well as further dialogue into methodological issues within such research.
Considerations about the overall research design
The research project attempted to measure the effects of two small-scale
interventions carried out in the northern part of Sweden. As an interdisciplinary project,
it included researchers from Philosophy, Education, Special Education and Health
Sciences. The purpose was to study the possible effectiveness of philosophical dialogues
as an educational method for persons with ABI to regain lost, and develop new, abilities
important for participating in society. The aims of the research project—which differ from
the aims of this paper, as described above—were to study:
 to what extent the communicative abilities of persons with ABI are influenced
by participating in philosophical dialogues,
 to what extent the critical thinking skills and dispositions of persons with ABI
are influenced by the philosophical dialogues, and
 why participating in philosophical dialogues influences the regaining and
development of communicative abilities and critical thinking skills and
dispositions in persons with ABI to the extent found.
Besides measuring development in communication and cognition, subjective well-
being development was also measured, which means that the research group measured
development in all three of the cognitive, social and emotional domains.
Both qualitative and quantitative data have been collected. The benefits of
collecting and analyzing both kinds of data within the research field of philosophical
dialogues are emphasized, for instance, by UNESCO (2007), and in recent exploratory
research similar in research methodology to the present study (Lam, 2012). Furthermore,
in a meta-analysis, criticism has been delivered towards common methodological
research designs in the field (García Moriyón, Rebollo, & Colom, 2005). The researchers
of this meta-analysis highly recommend ‘independent groups pretest-posttest’ (García
Moriyón et al., 2005, p. 17) designs, i.e. pretest-posttest designs combined with an
experimental group and a control group, in order to exclude bias and increase reliability.
In designing the present research project, this criticism and recommendation was taken
into consideration. However, due to the study population, the research group found the
most fitting design for this small-scale project to be a pretest-posttest and mixed-method
triangulation design, with experimental groups and control groups consisting of the same
individuals but at different times, as described in more detail below. The data collection
consisted of observations, interviews, and tests. This methodological design allows for
triangulation of the data, in order to obtain a coherent picture of the participants’ and the
group’s processes and to reach better-supported conclusions.
Participants, experimental groups and control groups
The project used a somewhat modified experimental design. Due to the small
numbers of participants in conjunction with the heterogeneity of people with acquired
brain injuries, it was concluded that it would not be viable to form control groups
consisting of individuals other than the experimental groups. Instead, the project used two
experimental groups (E1 and E2) and two control groups (C1 and C2) such that the
control groups consisted of the same persons as the experimental groups, but at different
486
times. Hence, C1 consists of the same individuals as E1, studied in another time frame,
and the same applies to C2 and E2. This methodological setup also has the ethical benefit,
from a research point of view, that all research subjects get to participate in the
philosophical dialogues.
The two control groups (C1 and C2) had ordinary education/activities during
autumn 2014, while for the two experimental groups (E1 and E2) intervention consisting
of philosophical dialogues was carried out in the spring of 2015. E1 and E2 had twelve
dialogues each during a period of fifteen weeks from January 2015 to May 2015. They
had one dialogue each week, except when that was not possible due to various factors,
e.g. holidays. Besides the participants with ABI in both of the groups, staff also
participated in the philosophical dialogues.
The participants constituting C1 and E1 were selected from an educational program
for persons with ABI, and the participants constituting C2 and E2 were selected from a
daytime activity center for persons with ABI. These two groups were located in two
different municipalities in the north of Sweden.
The participants from the educational program for persons with ABI were between
17 and 65 years old at the time of the first philosophical dialogue in that group. However,
for persons with ABI to start the educational program, it is a requirement for them to be
medically rehabilitated, in the sense that no further intensive medical treatment should be
needed. The educational program consists of courses in basic language, mathematics,
brain knowledge, arts, and something called “activities for daily life”, among other things.
The participants at the daytime activity center for persons with ABI were between
60 and 65 years old at the time of the first philosophical dialogue in that group. The
daytime activity center aims to offer social interaction and individually designed and
meaningful activities with the support of trained staff. The environment is designed so
that the individuals can participate in different activities, such as crafts and easier textile
work, various leisure activities, kitchen activities (baking, cooking, etc.), gardening, and
planned activities with a social orientation. Participants at the daytime activity center who
have ABI are required to be medically rehabilitated, just as in the educational program.
The philosophical dialogues were conducted similarly to the manner prescribed in
standard literature about Philosophy for Children (e.g. in Lipman, Sharp, & Oscanyan,
1980), first developed in the 1970s at the Institute for Advancement of Philosophy for
Children in New Jersey. However, no philosophical novels or other texts were used. In
the beginning of each of the philosophical dialogues in this research project, the
participants were informed that they were going to participate in a philosophical dialogue,
and that it included four steps: 1) thinking, 2) raising questions, 3) voting, and 4)
conducting dialogue. In step 1, the participants thought in silence (or sometimes together
with a caretaker) about what questions they wanted to ask. In step 2, the participants
raised their question(s), if they had any, and the facilitator wrote the questions down on a
whiteboard, and asked for clarifications if needed. Also other participants could ask such
clarifying questions or in other ways assist in formulating the questions. In step 3, the
participants voted for the question(s) they wanted to discuss. The facilitator told everyone
to close or cover their eyes, and as the facilitator read the questions, the participants raised
their hands when the question(s) that they wanted to vote for was read. Usually, they
could choose up to two questions to vote for. The question that got the most votes was
selected and discussed in step 4.
Two facilitators participated in each dialogue according to a specific model where
the two facilitators have different roles. The roles consisted of one leading facilitator and
one participating facilitator. This model was developed in a related project on
methodological development and implementation of philosophical dialogues (‘Young
487
thoughts – philosophical dialogues in democratic forms’, funded by the Swedish

Inheritance Fund [‘Allmänna arvsfonden’] 2010–2014), previously run by members of
the research group. According to the model, the leading facilitator acts on a meta-level of
the dialogue, leading steps 1–3 described above, and, in step 4, the leading facilitator
could, for instance, ask clarifying questions to the participants, summarize (or ask for a
summary), probe for alternative perspectives, or ask for reasons, to help make the
participants’ contributions more relevant, reasoned, and understandable for others, in line
with several methodological descriptions provided by various authors, e.g. Lipman et al.
(1980). The participating facilitator, on the other hand, acts like any other participant of
the dialogue, presenting answers, ideas, arguments, counterexamples, etc. The two
members of the research group who acted as facilitators during almost all of the dialogues
took turns in having the two different roles. They both had a university degree in
philosophy as well as experience in teaching philosophy at university and in leading
philosophical dialogues in different settings. During two of the dialogues, another
member of the research group was a facilitator. Also, members of the staff were
encouraged to (and did) participate in the dialogues.
Ethical considerations associated to research
Conducting research involving people with disabilities requires careful ethical
consideration. Since this research project involves persons with ABI, an application for
ethical vetting in accordance with the Swedish ‘Act concerning the Ethical Review of
Research Involving Humans’ was sent to the Regional Ethical Review Board in Umeå,
Sweden, which approved the study. Permission was also received from principal/manager
and staff of the educational program and the activity center. The principle of informed
consent was applied for all research participants. They were informed that they were at
all times free to terminate participation without giving any reason and that they were
guaranteed confidentiality.
Data collection
The data collection was carried out from October 2014 to June 2015. Both
qualitative and quantitative data were collected through observations, interviews, and
tests with the experimental groups, as well as interviews and tests with the control groups.
Observations
Each of the 24 philosophical dialogues was audio recorded as well as filmed with
two cameras from different angles. One researcher in the project observed and took field
notes during 21 of the philosophical dialogues. The facilitators and the observing
researcher had discussions after the dialogues, and one of the facilitators took notes after
the dialogues.
Interviews
Interviews were carried out with all of the participants with ABI. Each individual
in-depth interview lasted for approximately one hour, and interviews were audio
recorded. The interview guide focused primarily on the interviewees’ perceptions of their
communicative abilities, their critical thinking skills and dispositions, and their subjective
well-being. The interviews were semi-structured, and consisted mostly of questions
(some asking for numerical answers, some being yes-or-no-questions and some being
open-ended) that the research group had formulated, but also of a few tools created by
other researchers, such as the Cantril ladder (Cantril, 1965) (translated into Swedish by
the researchers) and the Satisfaction With Life Scale (Diener, Emmons, Larsen, & Griffin,
1985). To utilize the Cantril ladder, the research group partly adapted it for the study
population and translated it to Swedish. The recommended non-verbal ladder device
488
ranging from 0 to 10 was used, where the top was described as the best life, and the
bottom the worst life, as the interviewee defined it. Each interviewee was asked questions
about how (s)he defined the best and the worst possible future life in terms of happiness
and unhappiness, where (s)he thinks (s)he stands on the ladder today, where (s)he stood
before the ABI, and where (s)he believes (s)he will stand in the future. In the Satisfaction
With Life Scale, answers range from 1 to 7 (where ‘1’ represents “strongly disagree” and
‘7’ represents “strongly agree”) in regard to the following five statements: 1) ‘In most
ways my life is close to my ideal.’, 2) ‘The conditions of my life are excellent.’, 3) ‘I am
satisfied with my life.’, 4) ‘So far I have gotten the important things I want in life.’, and
5) ‘If I could live my life over, I would change almost nothing.’ (Diener, Emmons, Larsen,
& Griffin, 1985, p. 72). A Swedish translation of the questions was used. Also, in the last
round of interviews, some questions that specifically targeted how the interviewee
perceived the philosophical dialogues were asked.
Focus group interviews (Vaughn, Schumm, & Sinagub, 1996; Wibeck, 2000) and
individual interviews were conducted with staff. These interviews were much more
loosely structured than the interviews with the participants. The researcher who did the
focus group interviews had a number of questions that could be brought up during the
interviews, but the discussions were allowed to move quite freely from these questions,
with many follow-up questions asked by the interviewer, while not all of the prepared
questions were asked to both groups of staff. The prepared questions concerned mainly
how, in general, the staff perceived the dialogues and their effect on the participants and
on themselves. Some more specific questions regarded whether the staff had perceived
the dialogues as democratic or not and how the staff perceived the contributions of the
facilitators. These interviews were recorded and transcribed.
Tests
The persons with ABI received the New Jersey test of reasoning skills (‘NJTRS’)
in a Swedish translation made by members of the research group with authorization from
Montclair State University. In the NJTRS, participants answer 50 multiple-choice
questions, by choosing one out of three possible answers on each question. The NJTRS
can be used to test elementary logical reasoning skills. The questions are presented using
ordinary language, and there are no occurrences of specialized logical symbols, such as
‘∀’, ‘¬’, or ‘∧’. Since the answers consist of a tick in a box, one can use one’s logical
intuition and does not have to be able to provide any formal proofs.
Data processing
The interviews with the staff have been coded thematically. The results of the test
scores have been statistically analyzed in order to see whether there are any significant
differences between scores from pre to post in the experimental groups and the control
groups. To analyze the filmed material, the Argumentation Rating Tool (‘ART’) was used
(Reznitskaya, Wilkinson, Oyler, Bourdage-Reninger, & Sykes, 2016). ART is ‘an
observational rating scale designed to help teachers and researchers to evaluate the quality
of teacher facilitation and student argumentation during group discussions of texts in
elementary language arts classrooms.’ (Reznitskaya et al., 2016). Members of the
research group translated (after permission for this was granted from Montclair State
University) the ART to Swedish. Using the translated tool, five researchers made distinct
ratings for the facilitators (constituting the category ‘teachers’), participants (constituting
sub-category 1 of the category ‘students’) and staff (constituting sub-category 2 of the
category ‘students’), looking at recordings of discussions from the beginning of the
intervention as well as from towards the end of the intervention. In order to reach a shared
view of how to interpret and apply the criteria in the ART in this particular context, the
489
group of raters calibrated itself by rating and discussing their ratings of parts of other
discussions from the intervention.
Reznitskaya et al. (2016) describe the ART’s construction process. The four key
standards of quality argumentation in the instrument were identified through reviews of
previous scholarship on argumentation, logic, reasoning, and critical thinking
(Reznitskaya et al., 2016). For each such standard, the authors connected talk moves
intended to enforce the standard (Reznitskaya et al., 2016). These talk moves were based
on the Dialogic Inquiry Tool, a previously developed instrument that was constructed
with influence from a comprehensive review of more than a hundred articles about
indicators for productive classroom talk, established pedagogical dialogue models
promoting argumentation, existing observational instruments targeting classroom
interactions, and repeated use and revisions of the ART through an empirical research
program in public schools (Reznitskaya et al., 2016).
In Reznitskaya et al. (2016), validation studies of the ART are described. In one
of the studies, the authors examined the correlation between ART scores and scores
from two similar measures of classroom talk that assess general instructional quality
and promote high-level reading comprehension. The three tools were used to analyze
segments from video recorded dialogues in a 12-week dialogue intervention with
randomly assigned classrooms to two treatment conditions (regular literature
discussions and P4C); a setting which provided a variety in dialogue and
argumentation quality (Reznitskaya et al., 2016). The authors found moderate-to-high
overlaps and state that this suggests a commonality in a measured core construct
(Reznitskaya et al., 2016).
Reznitskaya et al. (2016) also compared ART scores from video-segments to a fine-
grained analysis of transcripts for the same segments, relying on Quantitative Content
Analysis, which the authors state is a ʽsystematic, replicable, code-based description of
communication contentʼ (Reznitskaya et al., 2016, p. 18). They found medium positive
correlations and concluded that the correlations were in the expected direction, reflecting
the intended differences in the instruments, where the ART allows for a more nuanced
assessment of classroom talk. The code-based analysis of transcripts was also used to
document statistically significant differences between the two treatment groups and to
compare these results to the ART scores, in order to see whether the ART is sensitive to
the experimental manipulations (Reznitskaya et al., 2016). The results from both that
study and another single group pre-test post-test study indicate that the ART is sensitive
to such manipulation (Reznitskaya et al., 2016). The authors also conducted a reliability
study using that same single group pre-test post-test design within a professional
development program at two sites (Ohio and New Jersey), where blind raters rated video-
segments. The results show ‘high inter-rater reliability and internal consistency for
composite scores (i.e., Teacher Facilitation, Student Argumentation, and Total Scores)
within and across sites.’ (Reznitskaya et al., 2016, p. 26).
Sketching some results
Without going into details about the data or results of the study, which would be
outside the scope of this text, and which will be published in separate publications by this
research group, a few findings can be sketched. From the ART scores, it can be concluded,
among other things, that the argumentation in the dialogues towards the end of the
intervention is shared, clear, and logical to a higher degree than in the beginning of the
intervention. The numerical data from the interviews with the participants show, among
other things, that the participants perceived positive changes with regard to a number of
skills related to dialogue and argumentation, and an increased ability to concentrate. If
the perceived changes represent actual changes, the development would help the persons
490
with ABI when participating in conversations in general, not only in philosophical

dialogues. The positive ART results confirm to some extent that the perceived changes
were actual. This, among some other preliminary results, suggests that philosophical
dialogues with persons with acquired brain injuries can be fruitful.
Acknowledgements
This research has been conducted with support from The Swedish Research Council
(Vetenskapsrådet) (dnr 721-2013-2161).
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Gardelli, Å. (2012). Philosophical inquiry: A tool for inclusive education for people with
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through philosophical inquiry. Models, advances and proposals for the new
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Liguori.
Lam, C. M. (2012): Continuing Lipman’s and Sharp’s pioneering work on Philosophy
for Children: Using Harry to foster critical thinking in Hong Kong students.
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vocational rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury. Journal of Occupational
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(April, 2016). Using the Argumentation Rating Tool to Support Teacher Facilitation
of Inquiry Dialogue in Elementary Language Arts Classrooms. Paper presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.
Sabatello, M. (2014). ‘If you can’t do it now, you’re out the door:’ Employees with
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Soeker, S. (2016). A pilot study on the operationalization of the Model of Occupational
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6. DIMENSIÓN POLÍTICA DEL PROGRAMA / POLITICAL

DIMENSION OF THE PROGRAM
Se suele decir que la filosofía para/con niños tiene un claro compromiso social y
político, siguiendo la antigua tradición educativa que vincula la educación con la
democracia, entendida ésta como un conjunto de valores personales y como un
tipo de sociedad basada en esos valores. Cómo entendemos la “democracia” y la
relación entre la práctica de la filosofía y la política son temas abiertos a la
discusión, siendo posibles diferentes enfoques.
We often say that Philosophy for/with Children has a clear social and political
commitment, in line with an old educational tradition that links education with
democracy, understood as a set of personal values and as a type of society based
on those values. How we understand “democracy” and the link between
philosophical practice and politics is open to discussion, and different approaches
are possible.
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Ciudadanía creativa y educación ambiental a través del proyecto

“El jardín de Juanita”
Angélica Sátiro
Asociación Crearmundos BcN.
angelica@lacasacreativa.net
Julia Montoya Cruz

CEIP. Las Lomas, Roquetas de Mar, Almería
yulialmeria@gmail.com
CV
Angélica Sátiro es doctora en Pedagogía por la Universidad de Barcelona (España).
Investigadora con estudios superiores en Filosofía Práctica por la Universidad de
Barcelona (España). Magíster en Creatividad Aplicada por la Universidad de Santiago de
Compostela (España). Posgraduada en Temas Filosóficos por la Universidad Federal de
Minas Gerais (Brasil). Especializada en Filosofía para Niños junto al IAPC - Universidad
Estatal de Montclair (EEUU). Licenciada en Pedagogía por la Universidad Estatal de
Minas Gerais (Brasil). Trabaja con el proyecto FpN desde finales de los años ochenta,
colaborando en distintos ámbitos del proyecto: formación de profesorado en variados
países, desarrollo e implementación del currículo Noria, investigación teórica conectando
FpN con las dimensiones ética y estética, además del planteamiento específico en el
campo de la creatividad social y de la ciudadanía creativa. Es autora de literatura
filosófica para niños de 3 a 11 años, así como de guías didácticas para educadores y otros
tipos de publicaciones (aforismos, teatro filosófico). Es activista del movimiento de
filosofía lúdica. Para saber más: www.angelicasatiro.net www.crearmundos.net;
www.lacasacreativa.net; www.octaedro.com/noria y las redes sociales Facebook, Twiter
y Linkedin.
Julia Montoya Cruz es profesora de Educación Infantil en el C.E.I.P. Las Lomas de Roquetas
de Mar. Máster en Intervención en Convivencia Escolar por la Universidad de Almería en
2013. Finalista en el Premio a la Excelencia e Innovación Educativa de la Asociación
Mundial de Educadores Infantiles (AMEI:WAECE) en 2015. Premio en el Concurso de
Recetario Infantil, dentro del Plan de Consumo de Frutas y Verduras en las Escuelas de la
Consejería de Educación de la Junta de Andalucía en 2017. Miembro del equipo de buenas
prácticas seleccionadas para la I Feria de la Ciencia, Tecnología y Educación de Almería por
sus prácticas innovadoras en 2016 y del EABE Andaluz de 2017.
RESUMEN
Este artículo no presenta postulados, más bien propone una problematización sobre hacer
filosofía lúdica desde la perspectiva de las infancias y con vistas a realizar una educación
ético-estética de carácter ambiental. Esto implica un cambio de mirada. No se trata de
pensar solamente sobre qué ofrece la filosofía a la educación de la infancia, sino también
en su contrario. ¿Qué es lo que aportan las infancias a la filosofía? Esta es una de las
preguntas que guían las reflexiones de este texto. En la segunda parte del texto, se
exploran, a partir de un proyecto concreto que propone una ciudadanía creativa desde las
infancias, otros interrogantes referidos a la posibilidad de desarrollar conciencia
ambiental. Son diversas las provocaciones para la reflexión para las personas lectoras,
por ejemplo, ¿Qué tipo de relaciones hay entre ciudadanía creativa, Filosofía lúdica, FpN
y ética ambiental?
494
PALABRAS CLAVE
Ciudadanía creativa, Filosofía Lúdica, ética y estética ambiental, filosofar desde las
Infancias, El Jardín de Juanita.
ABSTRACT
This article does not present postulates, rather it proposes a problematization about doing
playful philosophy from the perspective of childhood and with a view to carrying out an
ethical-esthetic education of an environmental nature. This implies a change of look. It is
not about thinking only about what philosophy offers to childhood education, but also
about its opposite. What is it that childhood contribute to philosophy? This is one of the
questions that guide the reflections of this text. In the second part of the text, we explore,
from a specific project that proposes a creative citizenship from childhood, other
questions related to the possibility of developing environmental awareness. There are
various provocations for reflection for readers, for example, what kind of relationships
are there between creative citizenship, ludic philosophy, FpN and environmental ethics?
KEYWORDS
Creative citizenship, Ludic philosophy, Ethics and environmental esthetics Philosophise
since the Infancy, The Garden of Juanita.
CARACTERÍSTICAS DE ESTE TEXTO

Este artículo está estructurado en dos partes. En el primer apartado, Angélica Sátiro, la
creadora del proyecto “El Jardín de Juanita”, explica sus bases filosóficas y comenta la
exposición de los 25 carteles de las diferentes experiencias realizadas en diversas
ciudades de 6 países (España, México, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay y Brasil) y las dos
sesiones de comunidades de investigación con alumnado de educación infantil, que
tuvieron lugar en la XVIII Conferencia del ICPIC (Madrid 2017). En la segunda parte,
Julia Montoya presenta una experiencia intergeneracional, realizada en Almería (España)
y presentada en un taller sobre el tema en la citada Conferencia, en la que también
participó en la exposición de carteles.
PARTE 1: “El Jardín de Juanita”: Una propuesta

ético-estética de filosofar lúdicamente con la naturaleza y a
partir de las infancias. Angélica Sátiro
Consideraciones preliminares : Filosofía lúdica, Ciudadanía creativa y
proyecto “El Jardín de Juanita”
La Filosofía Lúdica es un movimiento dentro del proyecto internacional Filosofía
para Niños, creado por Matthew Lipman y su colaboradora Ann Margaret Sharp. Lo que
se pretende es estimular el desarrollo autónomo de la capacidad de pensar mejor de forma
crítica, creativa y ética de los niños y las niñas, partiendo de una atenta observación de su
propio pensamiento y expresión lingüística. Para ello, se plantea la dinámica del jugar a
pensar estimulando las habilidades de pensamiento de manera dialógica, integrada y
holística. Es decir, se trabaja desde el cuerpo de los niños y las niñas, su movimiento, su
capacidad de percibir, sentir, actuar e interactuar con los demás, consigo mismos y con
su entorno cultural y natural. Por ello, se trata de una manera de Filosofar desde las
infancias. El Proyecto Noria, uno de los currículos mundiales de filosofía para niños y
niñas, es una herramienta educativa para facilitar la realización práctica del propósito de
495
la Filosofía Lúdica; además contiene un conjunto de libros de literatura filosófica para

niños y niñas y guías didácticas para profesores/as (www.octaedro.com/noria).
La Ciudadanía Creativa es una investigación-acción propuesta por la asociación
CREARMUNDOS (www.crearmundos.net) que se realiza en varios países y tiene como
base una tesis doctoral desarrollada en la Universidad de Barcelona (2012). Se trata de
una línea de creatividad social, desde la perspectiva interna de la persona (ethos creativo)
y de sus interacciones como ciudadana. Conecta pensamiento, sentimiento y acción,
colaborando con el desarrollo de sujetos que proponen proyectos micropolíticos en sus
contextos. Teniendo el diálogo como valor democrático y como método para desarrollar
la capacidad de pensar y de actuar, propone metodologías de procesos reflexivos y
creativos, que generan acción e innovación social. Parte de la investigación teórica y
práctica de esta línea se conecta con las propuestas de FpN.
El proyecto Jardín de Juanita (www.facebook.com/eljardindejuanita/) es una
propuesta educativa de Ciudadanía Creativa y de Filosofía Lúdica que se realiza desde 2016
en ocho países: España, Portugal, Italia, Brasil, Colombia, México, Uruguay y Argentina. Su
eje es una ética y una estética ambiental, que refuerza el protagonismo de la infancia en
acciones ecológicas. Dichas acciones generan conciencia respecto al papel social de la
infancia y, a la vez, respecto a la necesaria atención a los temas ambientales. Desde edades
muy tempranas, los niños y las niñas pueden pensar y actuar ecológicamente, en un entorno
que les favorezca una escucha atenta y con un método que organice una acción orientada para
ello. El Proyecto Noria tiene a “La Mariquita Juanita” como una de sus protagonistas y el
jardín es el hábitat donde nace y donde viven sus amigos, con quienes ella mantiene pequeños
diálogos filosóficos sobre su identidad y sobre su descubrimiento del mundo y de los otros.
Es un personaje que representa la espontaneidad y el imaginario de la infancia, que propone
preguntas y busca pensar a partir de ellas, asumiendo las respuestas como provisionales
dentro del proceso reflexivo. Además, busca auto conocerse, mientras conoce el mundo que
existe en el jardín. Y lo hace desde la curiosidad, el asombro, la alegría, la amistad. Es un
personaje entrañable que se deja querer y que despierta el deseo de los niños y las niñas de
pensar, de sentir y de actuar como ella, de forma creativa y reflexiva. Por esta razón, es el
personaje guía del proyecto.
Filosofar desde las infancias
¿Cuál es el punto de partida, la Filosofía o la infancia? – Notas en primera persona
En los años ochenta, cuando me inicié en FpN, mi mirada contenía una pregunta:
¿qué aporta la filosofía a la educación de la infancia? Durante años busqué dar diferentes
respuestas a esta pregunta. El Proyecto Noria, uno de los currículos de FpN, fue creado
bajo esta perspectiva. A finales de los noventa, cuando iniciamos con la investigación
práctica y teórica que da soporte a este proyecto, buscábamos ampliar y profundizar en
dos elementos: las habilidades de pensamiento y los recursos más adecuados para
desarrollarlas en la temprana infancia. El proyecto Lipman ya contenía estos dos
elementos, aunque de otra manera. Él planteaba novelas filosóficas para tratar temas que
eran presentados con otro tipo de recurso, que no el narrativo. Lo que hicimos fue utilizar
esta misma lógica. Buscamos recursos narrativos más acordes a la percepción de tiempo
de los más pequeños, de ahí los cuentos y los minicuentos. Igualmente se buscó una
narrativa con un imaginario más similar al pensamiento mágico de la infancia, de ahí las
leyendas y los mitos. La convivencia y la observación atenta de las infancias más
tempranas me hizo tener la claridad de la importancia de los juegos, juguetes y actividades
corporales y lúdicas como motivadores del filosofar. Y, desde luego, el arte y sus
múltiples lenguajes tocaban la sensibilidad y el pensamiento a la vez, facilitando el
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desarrollo del pensamiento multidimensional (crítico, creativo y ético), propuesto por M.

Lipman.
Posteriormente, con el proyecto de ética-estética ambiental El Jardín de Juanita, se
pudo averiguar cómo la realización concreta de un jardín es una manera de filosofar
lúdicamente con las infancias en la que, a la vez que piensan mejor, actúan ciudadana y
creativamente. El hecho de desarrollar el pensamiento de las infancias, conectado al
mundo sensorial, emocional y ciudadano, amplió la perspectiva de hacer FpN. Al
investigar los recursos más idóneos para filosofar con la infancia, mi mirada empezó a
buscar la profundidad. Y ésta no era solamente una mirada pedagógica, o de búsqueda de
medios/técnicas para estimular al acto de filosofar. La observación de las infancias, su
manera de aprender y de pensar, empezó a tomar forma, generando un giro en mi propia
mirada. Filosofar desde las infancias implica un replanteamiento sobre la relación entre
forma y contenido, entre medios y fines. Por ello no es sólo una cuestión del uso de
determinados recursos, aunque utilizarlos conlleva un entendimiento de qué es pensar y
de cuál es la aportación de las infancias a este concepto de pensar. La filosofía que se
hace desde estos recursos es una forma lúdica de pensar, que parte del cuerpo, asume el
poder del asombro, genera placer, reinventa conceptos, conecta sensibilidad con
percepción, imaginación y razonamiento.
La filosofía no es suficiente como punto de partida en FpN. La infancia nos obliga
a abandonar la filosofía para poder mirarla en profundidad. Este es el precio que paga la
filosofía por exponerse a la infancia. Pero éste no es un peligro, sino una dicha, que
permite nuevas auroras y regala vitalidad a esta forma tan antigua de conocimiento
humano. A cada nueva pregunta enunciada por las infancias, la filosofía vuelve a nacer
como forma necesaria de pensar el mundo y el sí mismo. Una filosofía desde la infancia
inaugura futuros originales, tanto para una, como para la otra. Esta es una de las razones
por la que prefiero hablar de orígenes y no de principios. Los principios son históricos,
es decir, ocurren en una cierta linealidad temporal. Los orígenes son acontecimientos
detonantes de originalidades, independientes de las perspectivas del tiempo lineal. De
alguna manera, la infancia es el origen de la humanidad. Como decía Hannah Arendt
(1999), “por cada nacimiento, que es en sí cada hombre”, “este comienzo es la promesa,
el único 'mensaje' que el fin no puede producir.” Esta filósofa ha tenido en casi toda su
obra la presencia de un concepto importante para esta reflexión. Se trata de la natalidad:
entrar en el mundo a través del nacimiento. La infancia es el nacimiento del mundo
humano y puede ser el renacimiento de la filosofía en las sociedades contemporáneas. Y
si hablamos de infancias, los nacimientos pueden ser múltiples…
¿Qué aportan las infancias a la filosofía?
Las infancias y sus recién llegados ofrecen a la filosofía la mirada del principiante,
cargada de sorpresa y de expectación. Como diría Hannah Arendt en La Condición
Humana (1993): “En la propia naturaleza del comienzo radica que se inicie algo nuevo
que no puede esperarse de cualquier cosa que haya ocurrido antes”.
Por lo tanto, las infancias aportan a la filosofía un cierto sobrecogimiento ante el
mundo, con sus retos y sus misterios. Por no mencionar el asombro por la palabra y una
cierta gula por los conceptos, un intenso querer saber aliado al deseo de decir el mundo.
Lo que se puede afirmar con seguridad, es que durante la realización del proyecto
El Jardín de Juanita, es posible evidenciar esta mirada de principiante que los niños y
las niñas lanzan a su entorno. Y este asombro frente a las cuestiones ecológicas, les
permite proponer una acción ciudadana a su medida y en su contexto. Sus dudas e
incomprensión, sumadas a su frescura e imaginación, les permite generar pensamiento
conjugado con acción.
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Con la experiencia del proyecto El Jardín de Juanita, presentada en el ICPIC a

través de la exposición de 25 carteles 1 y con dos comunidades de investigación
realizadas con alumnado de dos escuelas de Madrid 2, es posible averiguar que las
infancias problematizan su entorno de manera crítica, proponen salidas creativas para
el problema ambiental, mientras diseñan su jardín, disfrutan mental y corporalmente,
individual y colectivamente y cuidan de él. La apuesta del proyecto es que se crean a sí
mismos como ciudadanos y ciudadanas, durante todo el proceso de creación de sus
jardines. A la vez, ejercitan su pensamiento multidimensional cuando realizan una
acción ecológica y ciudadana en su entorno. Las realidades generacionales, culturales
y sociales de las experiencias con el proyecto son muy diversas y pueden ser vistas en
los carteles, que están colgados en la página web indicada en el inicio del artículo.
La Filosofía y los jardines
No hay una única idea de jardín. Si miramos desde los principios de las
civilizaciones, esta necesidad de crear jardines se muestra concretamente en las diferentes
culturas y desde variadas perspectivas. A lo largo de la historia, los jardines han sido
expresiones de la relación estética y ética de los humanos con la naturaleza, revelando
una idea de mundo comprometida con la buena vida y una cierta armonía. Obviamente
hay que preguntarse: ¿qué sería una buena vida?, ¿a qué llamamos armonía?, lo que
genera una interesante reflexión filosófica. Todo jardín es una construcción intelectual
que ha revelado a lo largo de los tiempos unos valores sociales, políticos, éticos, estéticos
y epistemológicos comprometidos con un mundo mejor. En general su objetivo es generar
serenidad, equilibrio, paz, placer, goce y condiciones para la contemplación, meditación,
reflexión. En las diferentes culturas es muy variada la manera de concretizar estos valores
e ideas. Por ello, la problematización de estos valores es una tarea que puede ayudar a
pensar la contemporaneidad y sus retos ambientales. Esta es una de las razones que
sostiene este proyecto. Así, se entiende que es una manera de hacer ciudadanía creativa,
mientras se filosofa lúdicamente desde las infancias. Las variadas posibilidades de
construcción de los Jardines de Juanita a lo largo de su proceso de implementación,
revela el uso del pensamiento multidimensional con sus valores, criterios críticos y
creativos, además de la evidente sensibilidad al contexto.
De alguna manera, la filosofía no se ha alejado mucho de los jardines en la
antigüedad. La escuela pitagórica ha estado marcada por este tipo de ambiente. La
Academia platónica y el Liceo aristotélico eran un tipo de parque. Y el ejemplo más
directo es el Jardín de Epicuro y de todos aquellos que le seguían, llamados los filósofos
del jardín. Como afirma Santiago Beruete en su libro Jardinosofía (2016):
(…) en sus orígenes la enseñanza de la filosofía fue una actividad practicada al aire libre que
se beneficiaba de la atmósfera campestre, casi bucólica, de los jardines arbolados. Conviene no
olvidar, por tanto, que la filosofía nació a la sombra bienhechora de los grandes plátanos y a la
1
Las experiencias presentadas son de diferentes escuelas e instituciones: ESPAÑA: CEIP Bartomeu
Ordines, CEIP Emilia Pardo Bazán, CEIP Las Lomas, CEIP La Rosella, CEIP Sol Ixent, CEIP Xesus Golmar, CEIP
El Fabriquer, Escuela de Arte de Almería, Princess Margaret School, Escuela Cooperativa La Comarcal,
Colegio Mirasur, Laude Fontenebro School, Colegio Obispo Perelló, Taller O Poder do debuxo.
ARGENTINA: Escuela Jacaranda, Escuela Xul Solar. MÉXICO: Jardín de Niños Contle Paxqui, Escuela
Primaria Delegación A. Madero, Comunidad de Filosofía de Iztapalapa/ Comunidad MIRAME, Centro
SEDESOL, COLOMBIA: MARFIL (Uniminuto/ Fundación Eudes), Grupo LISIS. URUGUAY: Jardín Público
nº249. BRASIL: Escola de Aprendizado Livre Fubá Café, Escola Municipal Dinorah Magalhaes Fabri. Mi
agradecimiento especial a todas las personas involucradas con este proyecto (2.114 niños y niñas y 357
personas adultas), sin ellas hubiera sido imposible todo lo ocurrido.
2
Las dos comunidades de investigación con la presencia de niños y niñas, fueron realizadas gracias al
apoyo de las escuelas Laude Fuentenebro y Colegio Obispo Perelló (Comunidad de Madrid).
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orilla de cantarines arroyos que serpenteaban por los prados, donde se levantaban santuarios y
templos. Antes de encerrarse entre las cuatro paredes de los edificios escolares, las ideas de los
filósofos se escuchaban entremezcladas con los trinos de los pájaros, la letanía de las cigarras
y el murmullo de las hojas sacudidas por la brisa. Es innegable que los comentarios de Platón,
Aristóteles y demás no debían sonar igual, y quizá tampoco con tanta solemnidad, en medio de
la naturaleza, bajo el cielo abierto.
Además, el jardín como ambiente reflexivo, es un reto filosófico que nos plantea
cuestiones sobre las heterotopías, que reúnen varios lugares en un solo lugar. “El jardín
es la parcela más pequeña del mundo y es por otro lado la totalidad del mundo. El jardín
es desde el fondo de la antigüedad, una especie de heterotopía feliz y universalizante;
decía Michel Foucault en su texto ʽDes espaces autresʼ (1967)”.
El Jardín de Juanita propone un método para que las niñas y los niños investiguen
su entorno, imaginando cómo pretenden crear su jardín y logrando realizarlo, para
posteriormente jugar a pensar en este espacio natural/ambiente filosófico. Así logran vivir
una experiencia similar a la de estos filósofos, fuera de las cuatro paredes de sus edificios
escolares, mientras juegan a unir varios lugares en un solo lugar. Un lugar creado por
ellos mismos en una acción, que genera un cambio en su entorno. Una manera de entender
ciudadanía creativa e infancias es desde la perspectiva de la micropolítica, que plantea
Félix Guattari y Gilles Deleuze. Las niñas y los niños son ciudadanos participativos, que
proponen cambios en su espacio y en la manera de utilizar su tiempo en las escuelas. Los
Jardines de Juanita presentados en la exposición, son oportunidades de participación
política de las infancias en su propia escala. Como se trata de una acción de micropolítica,
pueden realizarla desde sus posibilidades y contextos. Investigan, imaginan, proyectan y
realizan acciones en sus aulas/escuelas/ciudades, que conllevan un cambio en el espacio
ambiental y en el tiempo para reflexionar/filosofar lúdicamente en estos espacios.
Pero, las relaciones entre la filosofía y los jardines no se limitan a espacios
dedicados al desarrollo del pensamiento, en los cuales se produjo filosofía, como explica
Rosario Assunto en su libro Ontología y teleología del jardín (1991), la jardinería como
arte y como filosofía: “La relación del hombre con la naturaleza no es otra cosa que
filosofía, una filosofía cuyo objeto de pensamiento es, podemos decir, el paisaje, y cuya
exposición en términos no conceptuales, sino estéticamente objetualizantes, es el jardín”.
Es decir, los jardines son también estímulos para reflexionar sobre los diferentes aspectos
de la vida humana, que se reflejan en este tipo de paisaje. Por ello, el proyecto Jardín de
Juanita, propone una problematización filosófica sobre la relación entre la cultura y la
naturaleza y de cómo el pensamiento actúa en esta relación. Y cuando lo hace, apuesta
por el desarrollo de un determinado tipo de conciencia ecológica, que puede desarrollarse
desde las infancias.
Los niños y las niñas como filósofos del jardín
Epicuro, filósofo griego (siglo IV a.C.), fundó su Jardín a las afueras de Atenas.
Esta escuela filosófica estaba centrada en el amor hacía la naturaleza y su cuidado,
además de un respeto al cuerpo, a la dimensión placentera del pensar y a la amistad. Por
no mencionar sus valores democráticos e inclusivos, ya que eran los únicos en aceptar la
presencia de esclavos y de mujeres, algo muy inusual para la época. El Jardín no era un
medio para la filosofía académica, se trataba de un lugar tranquilo donde se realizaban
diálogos, charlas, comidas, celebraciones, simposios con la finalidad de encontrar el
sereno equilibrio entre mente y cuerpo. Es decir, en el Jardín había una filosofía práctica,
comprometida con un buen vivir, con una vida feliz. En palabras de Epicuro en su Carta
a Meneceo (2015): “Necesitamos del placer en los momentos en que experimentamos el
dolor debido a la ausencia de placer. Cuando no sentimos dolor es porque ya no
necesitamos placer. Por consiguiente, podemos afirmar que el placer es el principio y el
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objetivo de una vida feliz”. La filosofía lúdica es una manera de rescatar y mantener el
placer de pensar. Tratar a los niños y a las niñas como filósofos lúdicos del Jardín de
Juanita es una forma de reconocimiento de su dignidad humana y de respecto por su
capacidad de pensar, de crear, de aprender a ser personas mejores, desde sus propias
posibilidades. Es favorecer que, de manera lúdica, desarrollen su conciencia ecológica y
ciudadana, mientras piensan, construyen y habitan el jardín, en compañía de los demás.
Y, como esta es una perspectiva desde las infancias, lo que implica la posibilidad de
inaugurar nuevos mundos posibles, está bien considerar otra aportación de Epicuro
“Debemos recordar que el futuro no es ni completamente nuestro ni tampoco no nuestro,
de manera que no deberíamos esperar totalmente que sea, ni perder la esperanza, como si
no fuera ser” (ibídem).
Ética y estéteica ambiental: La reflexión ecológica conectada a la acción
ciudadana creativa de las infancias
Es indiscutible la gravedad de la situación ecológica del planeta y la necesidad de
desarrollar personas éticamente responsables con su entorno. Asimismo, es indudable
que, para afrontar los retos del siglo XXI, hace falta desarrollar la capacidad de pensar
mejor de forma crítica, creativa y ética. Como afirma Raffaele Milani (2015) en su libro
El Arte del Paisaje: ʽHay intentos, ante el desmesurado desastre contemporáneo, de
armonizar paisaje natural y paisaje industrial de manera que se restituya al mundo la
dignidad de sus formas. Su propósito, contra la explotación irracional de los recursos de
la tierra, es el de devolver a nuestro ambiente, a través de obras de conservación y
restauración, su esencia de obra de arteʼ.
Lo que pretende el proyecto Jardín de Juanita es desarrollar una conciencia ética y
estética que recupera los jardines como obra de arte, a la vez que reivindica para las
infancias su participación ciudadana. Crear jardines, como quien crea obras de arte, es su
forma de ejercer ciudadanía creativa desde las infancias. Como comenta Raffaele Milani
en su ya citado libro:
Para otros filósofos, como por ejemplo Schlegel, el Jardín no era un arte en sí; Hegel, en cambio,
lo juzgaba un arte imperfecto e híbrido, apéndice de la arquitectura; Schleiermacher, por su
parte, lo consideraba un arte autónomo relacionado con la pintura y la arquitectura. El jardín,
aquel placer que se declaró fundamento de la vida, a pesar de que a partir del siglo XIX pierde
importancia y queda relegado entre las artes menores, no puede considerarse agotado (ibídem).
Como ya se ha afirmado, la mirada de las infancias puede inaugurar nuevas
posibilidades humanas. La creación de jardines altera tanto el paisaje exterior de las
escuelas y su entorno como el paisaje interior de cada niño/a, así como la cartografía de
su pensamiento. Al realizar el proyecto de jardín, su pensamiento es estimulado en todas
sus habilidades, entendiendo la fuerza de la naturaleza, mientras se admira su belleza
orgánica. Para desarrollar conciencia ecológica, hace falta tocar la tierra, descubrir los
procesos de la vida vegetal, mineral y animal, entendiendo y respetando sus ciclos e
interacciones. Y esto se puede hacer desde una mirada filosófica, que se asombra y se
maravilla frente al ecosistema jardín y frente a todo lo que ofrece de estímulo vital. Una
mirada estética problematizadora, que convoca y provoca el pensamiento ecológico y el
deseo de actuar de manera consecuente con este pensamiento (ciudadanía creativa). Crear
los jardines, además de disfrutar del placer inmediato de los sentidos, implica desarrollar
valores estéticos como pueden ser la maravilla, el asombro, la gracia, lo sublime, la
belleza, el gusto. Pero también implica cultivar pensamiento crítico, emancipado, como
afirma Jacques Rancière (2010): ʽSi la experiencia estética entra en el terreno de la
política, es porque ella también se define como experiencia de disenso, opuesta a la
adaptación mimética o ética de las producciones artísticas con fines sociales.” (…) “La
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emancipación del espectador es entonces la afirmación de su capacidad para ver lo que

ve y para saber qué pensar y qué hacer de elloʼ.
Tanto las niñas y los niños participantes de este proyecto son tratados como
espectadores emancipados, como las personas adultas que los acompañan. Dar visibilidad
a la capacidad creativa y ciudadana de los niños y las niñas, hace que las personas adultas
de su entorno, pasen a respetarlos como ciudadanos capaces de aportar socialmente,
porque reúne lo visible, lo pensable y lo factible de un colectivo normalmente
marginalizado y considerado como “menor”, o “menos capaz”. Por ello, este proyecto se
enmarca en la línea investigativa de la Ciudadanía Creativa, conlleva reflexión ambiental
y acción micropolítica en ámbito ecológico.
Zygmunt Bauman (2007) en su texto “Arte, muerte y postmodernidad”, recuerda
que los objetos muertos son reacios a vivir y advierte: ʽ… el arte porta el mensaje de
aquello que puede durar e ir más allá de la vida de cualquier individuo, por poderoso y
brillante que sea. Y por esta razón el arte anima a hacer visible lo que de duradero pueda
tener lo pasajero (…). Gracias al arte, una y otra vez la muerte queda reducida a su
verdadera dimensión: es el fin de la vida, pero no el límite de lo humanoʼ.
Quien crece creando, cuidando y habitando un jardín, ¿cómo podrá destruir su
entorno natural sin plantearse críticamente las consecuencias de ello? ¡Crear un jardín es
crear vida! ¡Cuidar y disfrutar de un jardín es cuidar y disfrutar de la vida! Habitar un
jardín de forma placentera, reflexiva, creativa y cuidadosa es aprender a amar la vida,
respetarla y ayudar en su sostenibilidad a través de los tiempos, más allá de las vidas
individuales. ¿Acaso no es ésta la mayor tarea ecológica, que tenemos entre manos
actualmente?
PARTE 2: Diseño y construcción de jardines en educación

infantil a través de un proceso dialógico filosófico.
Julia Montoya
En el comienzo de este artículo se plantean dos cuestiones de gran relevancia: ¿Qué
es lo que aportan las infancias a la filosofía? y ¿Qué tipo de relaciones hay entre
ciudadanía creativa, filosofía lúdica, FpN y ética ambiental?
El trabajo presentado se basa en una actividad escolar en torno a la creación de un
jardín ecológico que entronca perfectamente con las preocupaciones filosóficas. Es un
proyecto intergeneracional e interdisciplinar, que une dos escuelas muy diferentes entre
sí para llevar a cabo un proyecto conjunto.
El cuento de La Mariquita Juanita, de Angélica Sátiro, que forma parte del
Proyecto Noria, y más concretamente Juanita, el simpático personaje-eje del cuento, son
culpables de muchos momentos de reflexión, del surgir de nuevas inquietudes y de
momentos mágicos de diálogo que dieron como resultado el proyecto que se detalla a
continuación. Durante el curso anterior 2015/2016, surgieron en el aula planteamientos y
reflexiones vinculadas al cuidado del medio ambiente, y que, además, identificaban la
necesidad de generar contextos socioculturales donde los niños y niñas pudieran
participar en la vida social; donde sus ideas y acciones fueran valoradas como sujetos de
pleno derecho.
Al finalizar ese curso escolar recibimos la invitación de Angélica Sátiro para
participar con ella en el Proyecto El Jardín de Juanita. Partimos de la idea de que los
jardines traducen la esencia de una época y hoy, más que nunca, la necesidad del cuidado
medioambiental se hace indispensable en nuestra escala de valores. Y todo ello empieza
a enseñarse en la escuela a través de un proceso dialógico entre niños y adultos. Como
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veremos, el trabajo desarrollado sobre el jardín ecológico en la escuela está inmerso en el

contexto histórico actual y se procede en consecuencia.
Un aspecto importante de nuestro trabajo gira en torno a la colaboración entre
centros de Educación Infantil y Primaria (C.E.I.P. Las Lomas) y la Escuela de Arte de la
ciudad de Almería, coordinado por Pura Delgado Hernández. Las escuelas primarias
históricamente han estado aisladas de otros centros de saber y el hecho de realizar parte
de nuestra empresa en colaboración con la Escuela de Arte de Almería nos reportó tanto
una gran riqueza metodológica como gran diversidad de producciones elaboradas. Si
como decíamos anteriormente, una de las prioridades de nuestro tiempo es conseguir un
desarrollo sostenible del planeta implicando trabajar en múltiples ámbitos y de manera
multidisciplinar sobre la temática, esta es una tarea colectiva y multidisciplinar. Los
centros de saber no pueden trabajar de manera aislada; es necesaria la coordinación de
sus esfuerzos en este empeño. De esta manera dos centros sin ninguna vinculación se
unen y diseñan un proyecto común donde abordan la creación, exposición y difusión de
una sencilla actividad escolar. Para ello trabajamos en la generación colectiva e individual
de una conciencia ecológica a través de la experiencia de diseñar, construir y cuidar un
jardín. La realización del proyecto nos lleva a generar significados sobre la realidad y
negociarlos. Como afirma Gert J. Biesta (2017), la educación es en el fondo un proceso
dialógico. El proceso dialógico nacido en el seno de la filosofía se muestra como una
estrategia idónea para conseguir nuestros fines. Todo lo cual implica salir de los muros
de las aulas, involucrar a las familias, a la comunidad y al entorno, así como a diversos
organismos e instituciones públicas y privadas. De esta manera se crean vínculos de
trabajo conjunto, estableciendo comunidades de diálogo y fortaleciendo las relaciones de
toda índole con el fin de alcanzar el objetivo planteado.
En este proyecto, los protagonistas fueron los niños y niñas, pero sin excluir el
trabajo conjunto entre las dos escuelas, con dos realidades y contextos diferentes que se
unieron porque entendieron que la intervención artística desarrolla el pensamiento
creativo y crítico. Hay que señalar que el C.E.I.P. Las Lomas se caracteriza por un
alumnado en su mayoría inmigrante y en situación de privación social, lo que condicionó
en parte nuestra intervención.
Los ámbitos de actuación han sido diversos: en el aula, en el jardín y salidas al
entorno cercano y lejano a la escuela. A nivel de aula y dentro del centro se creó el Jardín.
La protagonista del cuento eje (Juanita) nos trasladó sus sentimientos de tristeza
vinculados al maltrato del entorno natural invitándonos a crear vida a través de la
naturaleza. Esto suscitó en el grupo diversas cuestiones que fue necesario organizar y
pautar para su desarrollo realizadas a través del proceso dialógico como estrategia de
aprendizaje. Dentro del aula se reflexionó sobre qué y cómo podíamos ayudar Juanita con
el cuidado del medio ambiente. Se plantearon diversas cuestiones previas:
 ¿Por qué está triste Juanita?
 ¿Qué podemos hacer para ayudarla?
 ¿Qué es el medio ambiente?
 ¿Qué es reciclar?
 ¿Podemos hacerlo nosotros?
 ¿A qué se refería Juanita con lo de crear vida?
 ¿Qué es un jardín?
 ¿Cómo queremos que sea el nuestro?
 ¿Podemos hacer nuestro jardín con material reciclado?
 ¿Qué necesitaremos?
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 ¿Podemos hacerlo solos?

 ¿Quién puede ayudarnos?
Cuestiones que, en definitiva, ayudaron a establecer pautas de trabajo dentro y fuera
del aula, favoreciendo el inicio de un proceso de análisis para la toma de decisiones. Así,
se fue fomentando en el alumnado, a través del proceso dialógico, valores y actitudes en
sintonía con una ética ecológica y de ciudadanía responsable y participativa.
La construcción del jardín se estructuró en cinco fases de desarrollo (1ª fase: evaluación
y diagnóstico de las necesidades del jardín; 2ª fase: Comienzo talleres para crear; 3ª fase:
proceso de siembra y trasplante de plantas; 4ª fase: cuidados y mantenimiento,
organización de horarios, responsabilidades y días de visita y uso del espacio; 5ª fase:
evaluación y propuestas de mejora). Se realizaron diversos talleres y actividades
precedidos de asambleas, a veces en el aula o a veces en el entorno donde teníamos
intención de ubicar nuestro jardín. En ellas se reflexionaba, discutía y decidía sobre
cuestiones vinculadas al diseño del jardín, los materiales necesarios, el cómo, el cuándo
y el dónde podíamos hacerlo, la indumentaria y las herramientas de trabajo, las semillas
y las plantas, sus necesidades y cuidado, el tratamiento de enfermedades, los ecosistemas
de insectos a su alrededor, etc. Evidentemente es pronto para explicarles a los niños y
niñas la relación de los jardines con su período histórico, pero sí que es importante que
sientan que los adultos se preocupan de los mismos. Por ello, la implicación y el trabajo
conjunto con las familias y el entorno se hace indispensable.
Una vez relatados el trabajo en el aula y el jardín vamos a abordar las salidas que
realizamos al entorno.
La primera salida que realizamos fue vinculada a conocer más de cerca lo que es
un jardín y por ello visitamos un jardín botánico cercano, La Almunya del Sur, que no
solo fue un gran modelo a seguir, sino que fueron nuestros padrinos y orientadores en el
proceso.
Con la Escuela de Arte de Almería y con Pura Delgado Hernández, como
propulsora, guía y enlace en su centro, se desarrolló un trabajo conjunto a través de la
dramatización y puesta en escena del cuento. Ésta era la forma de trasladar nuestro
trabajo y el mensaje que se escondía en él al entorno. El departamento con el que más
trabajamos fue con el suyo, el de vestuario e indumentaria, donde reflexionaron sobre
la indumentaria más adecuada para la dramatización del cuento. Tenían que hacer un
traje, no un disfraz, ajustado a la edad de los infantes que les permitiera movilidad, a
ser posible ecológico o reciclado dando continuidad al mensaje inicial del proyecto.
Para ello necesitaron venir en varias ocasiones al centro, conocer al alumnado, tomar
de medidas, pruebas, etc. Para la puesta en escena también se vieron implicados varios
departamentos, a saber: Escultura aplicada al espectáculo, Fotografía artística y
Modelismo de indumentaria, como reflejamos anteriormente. A través de la
metodología de aprendizaje servicio el alumnado adulto trabajó un aprendizaje
innovador a su disciplina: aprender prestando un servicio a la comunidad. La acción ha
generado una obra plástica que completa el Jardín y lo traslada al entorno a través de la
creación de los personajes del cuento en diferentes formatos: fotografía escenificada,
escultura aplicada al espectáculo y vestuario escénico.
Unificar los objetivos del proyecto de trabajo entre dos instituciones tan distintas
supuso un proceso que necesitó de diversas reuniones para delimitar los conceptos que
definirían una estrategia de trabajo común. Había que aunar el proyecto iniciado en la
etapa infantil del C.E.I.P. Las Lomas de Roquetas de Mar, con las propuestas y las
opiniones de los infantes, con tres departamentos de la escuela de Arte de Almería, donde
no solo el alumnado era distinto sino también las disciplinas trabajadas. Esto supuso el
esfuerzo de unificar criterios de acción que visibilizaran el respeto al medioambiente, las
503
características de la etapa educativa infantil y la libertad de expresión artística de los

diferentes departamentos de la Escuela de Arte.
El fruto del trabajo conjunto entre ambas escuelas se plasmó a través de
exposiciones y dramatizaciones en el entorno local y provincial.3 El objetivo era dar a
conocer el proyecto y trasmitir la importancia de su mensaje: la necesidad de cuidar el
medio ambiente para un desarrollo sostenible del planeta. Cronológicamente se desarrolló
una primera dramatización en la Escuela de Arte de Almería, donde ambas instituciones
por primera vez se unían y trabajaban en conjunto cara al público. Posteriormente, se
expuso y dramatizó en el Castillo de Santa de Ana Roquetas de Mar y en el Museo
Arqueológico de Almería, la obra plástica elaborada en la Escuela de Arte, así como
videos explicativos del trabajo desarrollado en el C.E.I.P. Las Lomas de Roquetas de Mar.
El proyecto El Jardín Ecológico de la Mariquita Juanita ha tenido gran difusión en
redes sociales, televisión y prensa local, y a través del Congreso Family resemblances,
ICPIC 2017, donde se presentó un taller teórico-práctico del proyecto explicando el
contenido del mismo.
Todo lo acontecido en el proceso de desarrollo del proyecto nos invita a su
continuidad, tanto a nivel de aula-centro como a nivel externo, ya que seguiremos
trabajando en conjunto con la Escuela de Arte y Pura Delgado Hernández, y abriremos
nuevas líneas de trabajo e investigación, con temáticas vinculadas a diversos proyectos
de colaboración.
REFERENCIAS
Arendt, H. (1999). Los orígenes del totalitarismo. 2ª ed., Madrid: Taurus.
Arendt, H. (1993). La condición humana. Barcelona: Paidós.
Assunto, R. (1991). Ontología y teleología del jardín, la jardinería como arte y como
filosofía. Madrid: Metropolis.
Bauman, Z. Arte, ¿líquido? (2007). Madrid: Sequitur.
Bauman, Z. (2017). Retrotopía. Barcelona. Paidós.
Beruete, S. (2016). Jardinosofía: una historia filosófica de los jardines. Madrid: Turner.
Biesta, G. (2017). El bello riesgo de educar: SM.
Epicuro (2015). Cartas y Sentencias. Barcelona. J.J de Olañeta Editor.
Foucault, M. (1967). “Des espaces autres. En Architecture”, Mouvement, Cotinuite, nº5,
oct.1984.
Han, B.-C. (2015). La salvación de lo bello. Barcelona: Herder.
3
Es importante agradecer el apoyo de diversas entidades, tanto institucionales como empresariales y
particulares, que nos han ayudado en el proceso: el Ayuntamiento de Roquetas de Mar, la Diputación, la
Consejería de Cultura y la de Educación de Almería, Agrobio, Unigenia, La Almunya del Sur, Almeriplat,
Arte polvo, Txano, Leroy Merlin y Jose Manuel Roldán (profesor y compositor de la música). Fotos: Cristina
García Craviotto, Julia KochetKova, Pepa Cobo Romero, Rosa Cid Rebolledeo, Fernando Ortiz Fernández,
José Luis Martínez Clarés.
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Han, B.-C. (2016). El aroma del tiempo.Un ensayo filosófico sobre el arte de demorarse.
Barcelona: Herder.
Huizinga, J. (1972). Homo Ludens. Madrid: Alianza.
Huizinga, J. (2014). De lo lúdico y lo serio. Madrid: Casimiro.
Lipman, M. (1997). Pensamiento complejo y Educación. Madrid: De la Torre.
Lledó, E. (2014). El Epicureísmo. Madrid: Taurus.
Merleau-Ponty, M. (1993). Fenomenología de la percepción. Barcelona: Planeta –De
Agostini.
Milani, R. (2015). El arte del paisaje. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.
Pardo, J. L. (2003) Breve historia de la micropolítica. El País, 22/10/2003. Recuperado
el 22/10/2017. .
https://elpais.com/diario/2003/09/06/babelia/1062803168_850215.html.
Rancière, J. (2010). El espectador emancipado. Pontevedra: Ellago.
Sátiro, A. (2008). La Mariquita Juanita. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Sátiro, A. (2016). Filosofía Mínima. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Sátiro, A. (2016). El jardín de Juanita. Unespacio ambiental ético-estético para ser
creado con los/as niños/as. Boletín monográfico. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Sátiro, A. (2017). El Jardín de Juanita. Barcelona: Octaedro.
REFERENCIAS WEB DEL PROYECTO ESCOLAR

DE JULIA MONTOYA CRUZ
Ayuntamiento de Roquetas de Mar. (2017). Exposición ʽEl Jardín ecológico de la
Mariquita Juanitaʼ Recuperado el 19/05/2017 de
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuCixUZ3x9w
Montoya Cruz, J. (27 de Junio de 2017). Filosofando con la Infancia. ʽEl jardín ecológico
de la Mariquita Juanitaʼ. Prezi Business. Recuperado de
https://prezi.com/view/2GaGzgzul5nFjg9xjrgZ/
Montoya Cruz, Julia. (1 de Junio de 2017). ʽEl jardín ecológico de la Mariquita Juanitaʼ
Recuperado el 29/03/2017 de https://youtu.be/M6UIxyZWND4). Martínez, D.(29 de
Marzo de 2017). ʽEl jardín ecológico de la Mariquita Juanitaʼ llega a la Escuela de
Arte. Diario de Almería, pp. 14-16. Recuperado de
http://www.diariodealmeria.es/ocio/Jardin-Mariquita-Juanita-Escuela-
Arte_0_1121888052.html
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Philosophy with Children and Socio-philosophical Sensitivity
Arie Kizel, Ph.D.

Head, Department of Learning, Instruction and Teacher Education
University of Haifa, Israel
President, ICPIC
ak@akizel.net
CV
Dr. Arie Kizel is the head of the department of learning, instruction and teacher education
at the Faculty of Education, University of Haifa, Israel. From 2017 he is the president of
The International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children (ICPIC). His research
areas are: philosophy of education, philosophy with (and for) children, research of
curriculum and textbooks and study of social groups’ narrative. He was the head of the
Israeli-German commission for textbooks research (2010 – 2015). His publications
include the books: Subservient History: A Critical Analysis of History Curricula and
Textbooks in Israel, 1948–2006 (Hebrew), The New Mizrahi Narrative in Israel (Hebrew)
and articles on textbooks, curricula, and Philosophy of Education/Philosophy with
Children.
ABSTRACT
A philosophy with children community of inquiry encourages children to develop a
philosophical sensitivity that entails awareness of abstract questions about human
existence. This article seeks to offer an additional dimension, the development of a
socio-philosophical sensitivity. The first section presents the philosophical framework
for such discussions with children, and the historical background of this field as a
method employed worldwide. The second section examines selected transcripts from
philosophical encounters where children discuss social and economic themes. The third
section offers a narrative analysis of philosophical discourse seeking to broaden the
discussion of the link between philosophy with children and the way in which children
themselves construct philosophical sensitivities that can develop into socio-
philosophical sensitivities. The children’s ability to address these issues allowed a
discussion that also led them to develop caring thinking, based on a social sensitivity
founded on both empathy and on raising logical arguments.
KEYWORDS
Philosophy with Children, Community of Inquiry, Philosophical Sensitivity, Socio-
philosophical Sensitivity, Pedagogy of Fear.
RESUMEN
Una filosofía con la comunidad de investigación infantil alienta a los niños a desarrollar
una sensibilidad filosófica que implica la conciencia de preguntas abstractas sobre la
existencia humana. Este artículo busca ofrecer una dimensión adicional, el desarrollo de
una sensibilidad socio-filosófica. La primera sección presenta el marco filosófico para
tales discusiones con niños; y los antecedentes históricos de este campo como un método
empleado en todo el mundo.
La segunda sección examina transcripciones seleccionadas de encuentros filosóficos
donde los niños discuten temas sociales y económicos. La tercera sección ofrece un
análisis narrativo del discurso filosófico que busca ampliar la discusión sobre el vínculo
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entre la filosofía con los niños y la forma en que los niños mismos construyen
sensibilidades filosóficas que pueden convertirse en sensibilidades socio-filosóficas. La
capacidad de los niños para abordar estos problemas permitió una discusión que también
los llevó a desarrollar un pensamiento cuidadoso, basado en una sensibilidad social
basada tanto en la empatía como en plantear argumentos lógicos.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Filosofía con niños, comunidad de investigación, sensibilidad filosófica, sensibilidad
socio-filosófica, pedagogía del miedo.
INTRODUCTION
The Philosophy with Children approach, argue Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan
(1980) involves the view that children’s questions tend to be extraordinarily sweeping in
scope and grandeur. According to the three, ‘The fact that children can raise such
questions indicates that they begin with thirst for holistic explanations, and it is
patronizing to say the least not to try to help them develop concepts equal in generality
to the questions they ask’ (Lipman, Sharp & Oscanyan, 1980, p. 29).
A Community of Inquiry providing a framework in which children can think and
talk about problematic issues with support from adults and children is vital. Haynes and
Murris (2012) have argued that ʽThe Community of Inquiry pedagogy is not about a
return to child-centredness: neither teacher nor pupil is at the centre. The search for better
understanding and justified beliefs through collaborative reasoning and dialogue are at
the centre” (Haynes & Murris, 2012, p. 4). Splitter and Sharp have suggested a different
concept by arguing: ʽA community of Inquiry is at once immanent and transcendent: it
provides a framework which pervades the everyday life of its participants and it serves as
an ideal to strive forʼ (Splitter & Sharp, 1995, pp.17-18).
Rather than focusing on acquaintance with philosophy as a field of knowledge to
be mastered (Mohr Lone, 2012a), philosophy with children revolves around questions
relating to the pupils’ existence in the world. It thus develops their philosophical
sensitivity (Mohr Lone, 2012b), presenting questions to them as a living, breathing,
vigorous space that fosters creativity, caring, and concern (Wartenberg, 2009).
In this article, I would like to suggest that young children can develop socio-
philosophical sensitivities within a community of philosophical inquiry devoted to
addressing issues related to poverty, the poverty line, and the status of weak sectors of
society. The first section presents the philosophical framework within which discussions
of this type are conducted with children and the historical background of this field as a
method employed across the globe. The second section examines selected transcripts
from philosophical encounters in which children discuss social and economic themes
(Kizel, 2015). The third section engages in a narrative analysis of philosophical discourse
that seeks to broaden the discussion of the link between philosophy with children and the
way in which children themselves construct philosophical sensitivities that can develop
into socio-philosophical sensitivities.
Philosophical sensitivity in a community of inquiry
In a world in which existential fear (of physical threats) is so omnipresent, the
ability to allow children to be themselves—even on a metaphorical/philosophical level—
has become virtually extinct. Gareth Matthews (1994), notes that parents and teachers are
often so impressed with the burdens they bear in having to nurture, instruct, reassure, and
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inspire their children that they fail to appreciate that children have to offer adults a new
philosophical perspective.
Contacts with parents, educators, and teachers who seek to give children an
enriching and enabling educational space—especially in a multi-narratival world—
constantly confirm that most adults have inherited a fear from their predecessors which
they have turned into an ideology and pedagogy, not to speak of a way of life, thereby
preventing the flow of philosophical questions that acts as existential oxygen for young
life. This strangulation does not merely ‘normalize’ children but also contains elements
that threaten the very possibility of human spirituality (Kizel, 2017).
In the current celebration of technological progress, such behaviour reduces human
contact and the potential for any enterprises that do not affirm natural human ability.
Turning them into banalities and self-evident entities, it thereby compartmentalizes and
categorizes them as improper, ‘pompous,’ and ‘badgering.’ In a world of currencies and
commodities, the capacity to think pure thoughts irrelevant to instrumental reality has
become a luxury. It is therefore rejected as not possessing real economic value.
Adults have invented the theory of the ‘little person,’ according to which young
children develop in order to become citizens of society, not fully belonging to it as
children. Over the years, this candidacy has cast serious doubt on their philosophical
capabilities, delegitimizing any attempts to allow them to ask philosophical questions.
This trend has been exacerbated by virtually unanimous educational subscription to
Piaget’s (1972) psychological theory of child development. Under the patronage of
educational psychologists, a complete theory, supported by a professional ‘lexicon,’ has
emerged that denies not only the possibility of but also the very basis for the use of
philosophical questions as a learning method amongst young children. The educational
system has thus promoted multiple systems for drilling disciplines of knowledge into
children, in a deliberate endeavour to avert the asking of existential questions. The only
legitimate questions currently recognized therefore relate to learning achievements in
areas of knowledge determined as important by adults.
Delimited, hierarchical educational practices in the form of educational institutions
(the Ministry of Education, supervisory districts), educational programmes (narrow and
constricted age-appropriate learning curricula anchored in defined fields of knowledge),
and strict regulations regarding the status and authority of the subject studied (assessment
tests, certificates that affirm the authority of those granting them)—all create a circular
practice (that thereby possesses intrinsic force) of the exclusion of engagement in
philosophy from the educational world. This phenomenon is characteristic not only of
elementary schools but also of high schools.
Philosophy with children educators across the globe have discovered that young
children are far less bound by premises that impair their ability to ask philosophical
questions than is commonly assumed (Lewis & Chandley, 2012; Haynes & Murris, 2012;
Chesters, 2012). The problems attendant upon discouraging children from engaging in
philosophical thought are manifest in the fact that first-year philosophy students in
university are already subservient to the conformity that functions as a national or
ideological—and frequently even an educational—home known for its ‘scientific’ and
‘professional’ terminology. Young—even very young—children naturally perform the
Cartesian move of ‘beginning from the beginning.’ This allows authentic—albeit naïve—
statements regarding things (in our case, questions) that have not yet been ‘contaminated’
(‘normalized’) by the thinking environment. Such moves also reflect their (undefined)
philosophical sensitivity (Mohr Lone, 2012b). This is the natural tendency most children
exhibit to ponder basic and conventional experiences and behaviours and ask innocent
but profound philosophical questions (Matthews, 1994).
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Philosophical sensitivity relates to the Aristotelian concept of a natural instinct that,

through practice, can be developed over time. According to Aristotle, development of the
tools associated with the ethical view we hold ultimately leads to an intuitive grasp of
complex ethical problems. As our thinking abilities grow through experience, we develop
a unique capacity to look at ethical issues simply and calmly via our life experience. The
more we hone such ethical awareness, the better we understand ethical dilemmas.
Philosophical sensitivity is embedded in alertness to the abstract questions relating to
human existence. When such an awareness emerges, it allows us to discern significant
philosophical aspects within diverse situations by focusing on specific elements and
creating a philosophical form for things we do not understand. Development of
philosophical sensitivity is thus one of the natural outcomes of a philosophical
community of inquiry whose members practice the skills of logical and critical thinking,
conceptualization, and reasoning.
Dependent upon our philosophical sensitivity, our philosophical self cannot
develop if we neglect philosophical thinking and, most importantly, the conditions of
existence necessary for philosophical thought. These capacities rest on the degree to
which we are interested in inquiring into philosophical questions and the practice and
education we have received. In her book The Philosophical Child (2012a), Jana Mohr
Lone argues that, in most cases, we exhibit a tendency to develop abilities that appear to
be naturally human capacities. It is thus reasonable to assume that those of us who are
drawn to the philosophical approach will be those who develop their philosophical
thinking skills. Philosophical sensitivity begins in an interest in unresolved questions
relating to all areas of life. Thinking about such questions makes us aware that the way
in which we understand things is not necessarily commensurate with what they actually
are. This awareness leads to further questions. The more we examine the nature of our
existence, the more questions we ask. Cultivation of this philosophical identity
strengthens our ability to pay attention to the complexity that lies below the surface of
life. Just as Aristotle’s ethical notion links learning with identification of the ethical
aspects in events and experience, so the development of philosophical sensitivity
enhances our ability to more easily and simply discern and distinguish the philosophical
aspects of the situations we encounter.
Children’s discourse on poverty and economic depression
This section of the article is based on a philosophical community of inquiry I
conducted for two years with a group of year four and five students. Having gained
consent for participation in the study from their parents under a guarantee of anonymity,
we held philosophy sessions every couple of weeks. The community engaged with texts
the children brought from media channels relating to poverty issues—stories of
impoverished children, poverty in society, and the consequences of poverty. The children
were asked to read the texts they brought to the sessions and discuss them philosophically.
All Jewish and from well-established neighbourhoods in the centre of Israel, the
participants were divided equally with respect to gender. They presented the texts they
brought in detail, asked questions, and listened to the views of others, engaging in open
dialogue with one another about the philosophical ideas raised and then summing up the
discussion with several central notions in line with the methods used in communities of
inquiry across the globe.
One of the questions discussed was ‘What is poverty?’ The answers fell into various
categories, one of which related to poverty in the eye of the beholder. Following is the
dialogue that ensued:
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Boy: ‘I think a person is poor only when he decides that he is—in other words, that
it’s his idea of himself and his situation. I can have very little but decide that I’m
not poor. In other words, I control my definition of myself.’
Girl: ‘Do you think that a person can decide his self-identity for himself in isolation
from his society?’
Boy: ‘Yes, of course. I’m sure he can. A person cannot just decide that he decides
about himself and decides how to define himself but, in my opinion, he has to
decide about himself. Precisely because we live in a society in which we’re always
comparing ourselves with others means that a person has to do so—has to take that
decision.’
Girl then asked: ‘How can a person even do such a thing if he lives in society? For
example, he’s always seeing people who can do more because they have more.’
Boy: ‘I take what you say and add another step to it: a person who surrenders to the
pressures of his environment is a person who in effect is not himself. At that
moment, he becomes what his surroundings dictate him to be. He loses his self. If
I already don’t think about myself what I think about myself but change what I
think about myself because of my environment, I’m in effect the environment and
not myself.’
Opposite this view another opinion was voiced arguing that poverty is relative. One
of the children asserted that ‘Poverty is something that is measured and can be measured
all the time. You have to look at what everyone has—property, salaries, for example—
and then make a table. The person who has more is rich, the person who has less is poor.’
Boy: ‘But if the little a person has is sufficient for him why should he be called
poor?’
Girl: ‘It can’t be enough for him because he lives in society and if most people have
more than him that means that they get to better places economically or possibility-
wise. That means that he’ll never get to where they get to. There’s no equality at all
in this situation.’
Boy: ‘So you don’t take a person’s ability to determine for himself into
consideration at all but say that a person is part of society, perhaps a product of
society. But I don’t think that a person has to be a product of society. I want a person
to be a product of himself.’
Girl: ‘But what is ʽa product of himselfʼ? He doesn’t live on an island. He lives in
a society. Of course he’s part of society. Of course he compares himself with
society. Poverty is something comparative by very definition. The very word ʽpoorʼ
means that something’s relative—poverty in relation to something. In other words,
in relation to others and to the rich person.’
The second issue discussed was the treatment of poor people. The first view touched
on the question of equality. One of the girls stated: ‘I think that equality is more important
than the right to own property. If there was equality in society we could achieve the idea
that people would love one another—or at least not hate each other. If there’s equality,
there’s less war, for whatever reason. The central thing that divides people in society
today is property, which gives rich people greater rights than poor people. I also think
that poor people naturally want more and thus they have to steal more often.’
Boy: ‘So you think the poor aren’t responsible for their poverty? But there may be
some who don’t try hard enough.’
Girl: ‘You can’t just “do more”. When one person has a lot and another has nothing,
that’s not a similar starting point. I think that equal opportunities start from true
equality. Lots of times people speak about equal opportunities and it’s mostly just
510
words. Some people don’t want, don’t have any interest in, everyone having the
same. They earn more than the poverty of others.’
Against this view, some of the children supported the idea that a person’s right to
acquire property and be rich is more important than the right to equality. ‘I don’t think
that if a person is more talented than someone else that he’s bound to give some of his
property and money for the benefit of general equality. That infringes on his own right to
succeed more. Competition between people is one of the greatest incentives for human
progress. If everyone possesses the same amount, mediocrity would immediately flourish.
People don’t need to make more effort.’
Another girl: ‘So you’re claiming that what motivates a person to look out for
himself and society is precisely competition—not what’s called ʽthe good of society.ʼ I
think that’s wrong. Competition doesn’t produce good things. It creates what we read in
the press and see on television—social inequality. I think that that’s the gravest mistake.’
The third issue the children discussed pertained to the importance of money and
economic possibilities in society. One of them said: ‘Money is very important. When a
person has money he’s more regarded in society and that’s only natural.’
Girl: ‘Who decides what’s “natural”? Society has to decide that. We call these
ʽnormsʼ and they can change. I don’t determine who’s better or who’s less good on
the basis of money.’
Boy: ‘You might not, but I do, and it is “natural.” Why is it natural? Because
everyone knows that the person who has more money is more successful—not just
in relation to what he can do but also in relation to what he’s made. He made this
money—in other words, he’s succeeded, and society judges him on the basis of
money.’
Another girl: ‘So you’re judged according to what society determines. If you have
more money you’re better?’
Boy: ‘Not better as a person but better in terms of success.’
Girl: ‘What does “better in terms of success” mean? Obviously, you can make more
from the money, but I think that it is the person who determines if he is successful.
If he decides to live modestly, for example, does that mean he’s not successful? In
my opinion, he’s only successful then. He succeeds in overcoming the ʽnormsʼ of
society. I often feel that society dictates how we should behave and thus how to
make money and how much to make. That’s very problematic. Then I’m like a
puppet on a string.’
The philosophical-narratival process of the discourse on poverty
During the community of inquiry sessions various philosophical-narratival moves
were also performed. These undoubtedly confirm Lipman’s and his colleagues’ assertion
that philosophy prompts people to search out conceptualizations of various types that can
effectively represent their experience of life (Lipman, 1980, p. 90). In many respects,
communities of inquiry afford young people the opportunity to create philosophically-
based narratival conceptualizations through which they can observe their reality.
Two types of narratives emerged during the community of inquiry: narrative as a
foundation for personal construction and narrative as a socio-cultural product. In some
examples of the first type, the children organised their statements on the basis of their life
experience, giving this meaning through a narratival process during which they frequently
adduced examples from other children in the neighbourhood or school. This process
enabled them to select certain aspects and order them into explanations. This form of
narrative thus allowed them to organise and construct their mutual relationship with
society and locate themselves within its economic power games (White & Epston, 1990).
511
Narrative as the foundation for personal construction also contains a dimension in

which the narrative and the self are not separate. As McAdams (1985) observes, self-
sense as narrative allows people to play an active role in forming their identity. The
children filtered the events about which they had read and discussed through a process of
thematisation in accordance with their self-image. In this case, a narrative analysis allows
us a peak into the significance of the narrator’s personal identity. This helps us examine
the implicit and explicit contextual meanings in the text. Rather than looking for narratival
coherence, we can focus on identity and discerning its multiple voices.
Narrative as a socio-cultural product enables children in a philosophical community
of inquiry to live their culture and undergo a process of re-experiencing during which,
according to Bruner (1986), they revise and refashion the history of their lives. Hereby,
patterns of behaviour, views and tenets about life are reflected upon, established, and
changed. Meta-cultural codes are transmitted without the individual or group’s ability to
decipher the inner and outer manipulations performed or adopted, sometimes with good
intentions and self-conviction, sometimes without any critical capacity. These meta-
cultural codes containing diverse alternative narratives, this narrative type not only allows
their decipherment but also lets the narrator evaluate him/herself and shape his/her
behaviour. Thanks to the engagement in questions and the raising of alternative
possibilities, a narrative process is conducted in the framework of which the members of
the community of inquiry can examine the social-cultural construct of which they are the
product.
During the discussions, the children adduced numerous examples regarding the way
in which they were accustomed to thinking about the poor. ‘Until this discussion, I had
no empathy for the poor person because I didn’t see him in such a way as to ask the
question ʽWhy is he poor?ʼ. Just the reality, the surrounding society, made me think about
him negatively,’ said one of boys.
Another girl: ‘I admit that for me the poor are simple, uneducated people who don’t
make an effort. But right here I’ve started to understand that they’re people. Suddenly,
through the questions I asked myself and you’ve asked, I’ve been prompted to think. I’ve
understood that first and foremost they’re members of my society.’
The philosophical community of inquiry frequently enables the creation of a new
philosophical narrative as a construction of inter-personal interaction in the midst of
social discourse. This narrative is influenced not only by personal psychological features
but also by the social constructs of the interpersonal situation. In particular, it is the
outcome of placing questions at the centre. In contrast to discourse relating to the
economic depression—which suffers from an analysis of data or judgementalism—a
community of inquiry discourse seeks to gain distance from the concrete and focus on the
meta-philosophical questions that arise from texts dealing with poverty and difficult
economic situations, discussing these issues by legitimising any and every question and
questioning accepted norms. The community of inquiry thus created an entity that was
not exclusive to the narrator or storyteller but was shared by all, the part played by the
listener in shaping the narrative being overt rather than covert. Even when the listener
sought to reduce the narrator’s direct influence, the situation itself—face to face, for
example—generates an inter-subjective process (Corradi, 1991).
The philosophical community of inquiry also enhanced the students’ philosophical
sensitivities, principally by promoting multiple identities and meanings. In Truth and
Method (1998), Gadamer argues that all textual understanding is hermeneutic in nature,
constituting a dialogue between the reader and his/her world and the text. Understanding
is thus always that based on a particular reading of a specific text. We may develop this
thought and contend that the philosophical community of inquiry conducted an
512
interpretive reading of the text via a three-voiced dialogue: the narrator’s voice as heard
through the written (or filmed) text, those of the children, and that of the community of
inquiry, whose philosophical investigative process possessed the capacity to change
initial views via the discourse. ‘I never thought that there were questions here of equality,
of the decision of the poor how to define themselves—in other words, of how a person
sees himself, questions of comparison between economics and personal decisions and
other issues. For me, it was always money, money, money.’
The philosophical sensitivity exemplified in the community of inquiry was
fashioned on the basis of the narratival premise that people are natural storytellers,
‘creatures’ who produce meaning. The personal story is a universal type of human
discourse that seeks to convey a message. This model can be deciphered by the audience
(listener, reader) via well-known means—a selected sequence of events relevant to the
subject at hand organised on the basis of a linear plot. This relates to a certain entity,
developing through cause-and-effect links (Gergen, 2001). Personal experiences are
always embedded in a coherent and meaningful context in a biographical structure that
comes to expression in the activity of a group. The association between the various events
chosen by the narrator in order to represent his story is not chronological but personal-
phenomenological. The community of inquiry thus also allows an examination of how
meaning is given to diverse events in the present, in particular in regard to their
implications for the future—for example, in the development of social sensitivities
(Connelly & Clandinin, 1990).
While the events receive meaning from the story as a whole, the whole is only
constructed from the parts. The ‘hermeneutical circle’ in which stories are embedded
turns them into a subject that can be interpreted in numerous ways rather than bearing a
single, unambiguous meaning/truth. This space, which foregoes striving for a
ʽconclusion,ʼ permits flexible thought, the answers given being open to being questioned
(the Socratic method of answering a question with a question). The community of inquiry
discourse allows social content to be poured into life circumstances, even harsh ones. It
also enables children to cope maturely with questions that arise, primarily because the
discussion is distant or removed to a certain extent—i.e., philosophical. As Dinesen
observes, ‘All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them’
(quoted in Arendt, 1958, p. 175).
In the case of discussions relating to the issue of poverty, the children raised basic
questions relating to the core of philosophy. Unsurprisingly, they did not make exclusive
use of examples. Their ability to address these issues allowed a discussion that also led
them to develop caring thinking, which is based on friendship thinking. This is based on
a social sensitivity founded on both empathy and the raising of logical arguments. As
Rorty notes, this process involves a detailed description of unfamiliar people and a
revision of one’s own self-image:
In my liberal utopia, this replacement would receive a kind of recognition which it still lacks.
That recognition would be part of a general turn against theory and toward narrative. Such a
turn would be emblematic of our having given up the attempt to hold all the sides of our life in
a single version, to describe them with a single vocabulary … A historicist and nominalist
culture of the sort I envisage would settle instead for narratives which connect the past with the
present, on the one hand, and with utopian futures, on the other. (Rorty, 2006, p. xvi)
The ability to ask questions regarding complex social issues in the field of
economics and to ask oneself personal questions about oneself is thus also exemplified in
the deconstruction of the ‘great narratives’ and their transformation into more accessible,
human dimensions. One of the children noted: ‘Through this discussion I’m coming to
understand that sometimes I accuse the poor of being what they are. I also thought that
513
they didn’t make enough effort. But today I understand that perhaps I should ask myself
why I blamed them without understanding their circumstances. I never asked myself such
fundamental questions such as “Why are some people rich and some people poor?” and
in particular, “What can I do to make someone else not be poor?” I think that it’s my
responsibility that there shouldn’t be any poor people if I’m there.’
Another girl commented: ‘I think I’ve been quite blind towards the poor person
who lives not far from me. I’ve passed him by. Why have I never asked myself: “What
can I do so that he’ll have more?”
The social narrative within which these affluent children existed formed part of a
phenomenology that takes an active stance in regard to human consciousness: when we
understand, we organise our surroundings narrativally in order to synthesise present and
past (Sturrock, 1986). Narratives thus also contain a universality of knowledge and its
expression and an unstacitity that allows active thinking. At the same time, they also serve
as a tool for transmitting false and processed information. They are therefore more vague
and blurred than illuminatory and clarificatory. In the narratival circumstances described
above, the children had all operated on assumptions and premises about which they had
never thought or which they had never questioned. The philosophical discussion allowed
them to develop labile perceptions and subjective interpretations that reflect a willingness
to abandon unequivocality and objectivism.
During the community of inquiry, several moves occur that provide its members
with the mental tools necessary for asking questions about their social reality, examining
their multiple identities, and asking fundamental questions that are not always concrete.
In this respect, the community of inquiry was not an economics class in the normal
educational sense of the term but enabled the members to ask themselves questions on
two levels—the theoretical and the emotico-philosophico-cultural-personal. One of the
girls commented: ‘I now link the great ideas to what’s happening in my neighbourhood.’
Another boy added: ‘These dry statistics in the poverty report—only now do I understand
that they’re people. They’re my neighbours. They might even be my friends at school. I
never made the link.’
The philosophical discourse helped the children recognise the immense complexity
of all the aspects that must be taken into consideration—intellectual, theoretical, practical,
metaphysical, aesthetic, emotional, and cultural. Only when a philosophical discourse of
ethics includes a wide-ranging scope of issues and perspective can it avoid being
superficial and stereotypical and afford a deeper and better understanding of the subject
at hand.
This engagement must be free from what I call the ‘pedagogy of fear’—a
hierarchical structure that operates on the basis of intimidation (Kizel, 2016). Quenching
all curiosity and imagination, it thus prevents the development of the philosophical
sensitivity that stems from the natural instinct found in most children to ponder
experience and basic, ethical conduct. The pedagogy of fear seeks to protect and
safeguard children against themselves, the world around them, and the Other.
Undervaluing children’s abilities, it stops them from playing with ideas and examining
and developing things. Despite demonstrating such thought, adults sometimes refuse to
believe that children are capable of abstract thinking. Their shadow thus delineates the
only space in which children are allowed to operate, the closed answers they are given
locking them into a world of fixed and rigid ideas. Buying into this scheme, some
education systems have adopted standard, tidily-packed, one-dimensional, monolithic
curricula that exclude all multiplicity and plurality. The same closedness also pervades
the assessment and evaluation system to which some education systems have became
addicted.
514
One of the pillars of the pedagogy of fear is the need to protect children against the
logic espoused by many educators—namely, ‘We don’t need to confuse them from a
young age.’ The fear that engaging with issues such as economic distress or family
difficulties attendant upon employment will make children anxious is highly exaggerated,
however. One of the children commented: ‘I’ve always been afraid of economics because
I didn’t understand it. Now I’m much more relaxed. I understand that it’s just about things
that relate to all of us. Adults always try to tell us that these are things we don’t
understand.’ Another girl added: ‘These are means that we must know how to share. I
don’t see that the adults are so good at these subjects. Perhaps we should be allowed to
discuss them a bit more. Why have they hidden them from us for so long? These are key
parts of our lives. All said and done, it’s only money.’ As Lipman observes, ‘the capacity
of philosophy, when properly reconstructed and properly taught [can] bring about a
significant improvement of thinking in education’ (2003, p. 3 [original italics]).
REFERENCES
Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
Bruner, E. (1986). Ethnography as narrative. In: V. W. Turner & E. M. Bruner (Eds.),
The anthropology of experience (pp. 139-155) Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Chesters, S. D. (2012). The Socratic classroom: Reflective thinking through collaborative
inquiry. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Connelly, F. M. & Clandinin, D. J. (1990). Stories of experience and narrative inquiry.
Educational Researcher, 19(5), 2-14.
Corradi, C. (1991). Text, context and individual meaning: Rethinking life stories in a
hermeneutic frame. Discourse and Society, 2(1), 105-111.
Gadamer, H. G. (1998). Truth and method. New York: Continuum.
Gergen, K. J. (2001). Social construction in context. London: Sage.
Haynes, J. & Murris, K. (2012). Picturebooks, pedagogy and philosophy. New
York: Routledge.
Kizel, A. (2015). “Philosophy with Children, the Poverty Line, and Socio-philosophic
Sensitivity”. Childhood and Philosophy, Vol. 11, Number 21, pp. 139 – 162.
Kizel, A. (2016). “Pedagogy out of Fear of Philosophy as a Way of Pathologizing
Children”. Journal of Unschooling and Alternative Learning, Vol. 10, Number 20, pp.
28 – 47.
Kizel, A. (2017). “Existing in the world: but whose world—and why not change it?”
Childhood and Philosophy, Vol. 13, Number 28, pp. 567 – 577.
Lewis, L., & Chandley, N. (Eds.) (2012). Philosophy for children through the secondary
curriculum. London: Continuum.
Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A. M., & Oscanyan, F. S. (1980). Philosophy in the classroom.
Matthews, G. (1994). The philosophy of childhood. Cambridge: Harvard University
Press.
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McAdams, D. P. (1985). Power, intimacy and the life story: Personological inquiries into
identity. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
Mohr Lone, J. (2012a). The philosophical child. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.
Mohr Lone, J. (2012b). Teaching pre-college philosophy: The cultivation of
philosophical sensitivity. In: J. Mohr Lone & R. Israrloff (Eds.), Philosophy and
education: Introducing philosophy to young people (pp. 12-22). Newcastle upon
Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Piaget, J. (1972). The psychology of the child. New York: John Wiley.
Rorty, R. (2006). Contingency, irony, and solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Splitter, L., & Sharp, A. M. (1995). Teaching for better thinking: The classroom
community of enquiry. Melbourne: Acer.
Sturrock, J. (1986). Structuralism. London: Paladin.
Wartenberg, T. E. (2009). Big ideas for little kids: teaching philosophy through children’s
literature. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Education.
White, M., & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative means to therapeutic ends. New York: W.W.
Norton.
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¿Por qué la democracia necesita FpN?
Carla Carreras Planas

Universitat de Girona
carla.carreras@udg.edu
CV
Carla Carreras Planas es doctora en Filosofía por la Universidad de Girona y profesora
titular de esta misma universidad. Sus temas de investigación son el proyecto Filosofía
3/18 – FpN – P4C, la didáctica de la filosofía y el pragmatismo norteamericano. Sobre
estas materias ha publicado en revistas nacionales e internacionales y ha participado en
diferentes proyectos de investigación. Fue Visitor Student en Montclair State University.
Ha sido profesora invitada en la Universidad de La Habana (Cuba) y la Universidad
Iberoamericana (Puebla, México). Es vicepresidenta del GrupIREF y directora del Máster
en Filosofía 3/18-FpN (UdG-GrupIREF).
RESUMEN
Martha C. Nussbaum es una de las autoras que, en la actualidad, más insiste en la
necesidad de una educación democrática como antídoto a la educación para el beneficio
que preside los planes de estudio de las sociedades occidentales. ¿En qué consiste una
“educación democrática”? Para Matthew Lipman, el proceso de investigación en
comunidad es el único que ayudará a los seres humanos a ser plenamente personas,
capaces de una acción autónoma, de creatividad y de autoconocimiento. Es el único que
puede ayudar a concebir los medios para lograr los fines que, individualmente y también
como sociedad, pensamos que son significativos y útiles. En un contexto así, filosofía,
educación y democracia se interrelacionan inevitablemente. La comunidad de
investigación filosófica se convierte en comunidad educativa en tanto que ayuda a
potenciar el crecimiento de las personas y el enriquecimiento de su experiencia personal
y colectiva a la luz de los valores democráticos.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Democracia, Filosofía para Niños, Nussbaum, empatía.
ABSTRACT
Martha C. Nussbaum insists on the need for a democratic education as an antidote to
education for the benefit that permeates the educational curricula of Western societies.
What is a ʽdemocratic educationʼ? For Matthew Lipman, research in community is the
only way to help human beings to be fully human, capable of autonomous action,
creativity and self-knowledge. It is the only way to conceive the means to achieve the
ends that, individually and also as a society, we think they are meaningful and useful. In
such a context, philosophy, education and democracy interrelate in an inevitable way.
The philosophical community of inquiry becomes an educational community if it
promotes the enrichment of personal and collective experience in the light of democratic
values.
KEYWORDS
Democracy, Philosophy for Children, Nussbaum, empathy.
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Educación y ciudadanía
La socialización del individuo y la incorporación e integración del individuo en la
comunidad ha ido siempre vinculada a la educación. Sin embargo, esto no significa que
el proceso educativo se haya entendido siempre como un proceso para “convertirse en
ciudadano”. En una educación que podríamos calificar de “tribal”1, el proceso de
socialización pasa por el aprendizaje y aceptación de los valores de la comunidad, de la
“tribu”; la educación, por lo tanto, tiene como objetivos fundamentales la conservación y
transmisión de estos valores. En estas comunidades, las nociones de “ciudadano” y
“ciudadanía” no existen de manera natural. En nuestras sociedades occidentales, en
cambio, la educación no puede entenderse desligada del concepto de “ciudadanía”2. En
una sociedad como la actual, en la que la comunidad ya no es homogénea, hay conflictos
de valores; no está nada claro qué hay que conservar ni que hay que transmitir. Las
sociedades llamadas democráticas necesitan “ciudadanos” que participen, crítica y
creativamente, en la construcción y gestión de la comunidad, lo cual permite, a su vez,
exigir más espacios de participación en esta construcción y gestión. En este contexto, la
educación debe convertirse, en palabras de Matthew Lipman3, en una educación “para
pensar”.
La educación para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía es pues una exigencia, una
característica esencial que debería tener la educación actual. A pesar de todo, esa
exigencia no es nueva; ya en un texto de 1960, Célestin Freinet intentaba justificar la
necesidad de una educación moral y cívica, argumentando que este tipo de educación
había quedado relegada primero por el espíritu cientifista y, después, por el desengaño y
la desconfianza en la razón, a partir del desencanto que provocaron las dos grandes
guerras:
A principios de siglo [s. XX] se creyó que los avances técnicos y el crecimiento de los
conocimientos harían el hombre automáticamente mejor. Enséñesele a leer y a escribir,
mejoremos las condiciones técnicas de su trabajo, aportemos cada vez más elementos de
civilización a través de los medios de comunicación, periódicos, cine, discos, radio, televisión...
y el hombre dejará de ser un lobo para el hombre. Démosle una cultura y, de inmediato, mejorará
su potencialidad moral. (...) Se nos había asegurado que la instrucción convertía el hombre que la
disfrutaba en un ser más moral y mejor ciudadano. (...) No; el conocimiento, la falsa cultura, la
ciencia y todos los descubrimientos técnicos que ella ha posibilitado no son factores automáticos
de progreso humano, moral, social y cívico. No son más que simples instrumentos que, bien
utilizados, pueden sin duda servir a la humanidad, pero que pueden también, utilizados por manos
perversas, ser irremediablemente nefastos. Nuestra función es hacer el hombre dueño y no esclavo
de sus conocimientos y técnicas, para dominarlas y apropiarselas. Desde el punto de vista cívico
nos falta forjar, de la cabeza a los pies, al ciudadano consciente de sus derechos y de sus deberes,
que sepa jugar su papel esencial como miembro activo de una sociedad democrática. Todo está
por hacer o por rehacer. (Freinet, 1979, 7)
Este análisis de Freinet no ha perdido vigencia sino todo lo contrario. Así lo
demuestra el hecho de que, ya entrado el siglo XXI, Martha C. Nussbaum haya denunciado
1
Los conceptos “tribal” y “tribu” no tienen, ni en ellos mismos ni en el uso que hacemos aquí, ningún
matiz peyorativo. El Diccionario de la Real Academia Española define “tribu” como una “agrupación de
familias o clanes que ocupan un territorio propio y constituye una entidad autónoma desde el punto de
vista social y político”. (DRAE, 2014)
2
Nos centraremos en el concepto de ciudadanía, heredado de la Revolución Francesa, que utilizamos en
nuestras sociedades occidentales. Damos por supuesto que ha habido otras épocas en las que el concepto
de ciudadanía no era el mismo que usamos hoy, pero no es el lugar ni el momento de hacer una genealogía
del concepto.
3
Véase su artículo “La utilidad de la filosofía en la educación de la juventud”, 1985.
518
con vehemencia la situación de desprestigio de las humanidades y las consecuencias que

ello puede tener para la democracia:
Se están produciendo cambios drásticos en aquello que las sociedades democráticas enseñan a
sus jóvenes, pero se trata de cambios que aún no se sometieron a un análisis profundo. Sedientos
de dinero, los estados nacionales y sus sistemas de educación están descartando sin advertirlo
ciertas aptitudes que son necesarias para mantener viva a la democracia. Si esta tendencia se
prolonga, las naciones de todo el mundo en breve producirán generaciones enteras de máquinas
utilitarias, en lugar de ciudadanos cabales con la capacidad de pensar por sí mismos, poseer una
mirada crítica sobre las tradiciones y comprender la importancia de los logros y los sufrimientos
ajenos. El futuro de las democracias a escala mundial pende de un hilo. (Nussbaum, 2010, 20)
Las transformaciones operadas en el mundo por los acontecimientos políticos,
sociales y científico-técnicos han comportado el “desprestigio creciente de todo pretendido
saber que no pueda ser sometido al control de la verificación y de la experimentación y que
no tenga una aplicabilidad inmediata” (Santiuste, 1984, 15); es lo que Nussbaum ha
llamado “la crisis silenciosa” de las humanidades (Nussbaum, 2011, 15).
La educación democrática
Nussbaum es una de las autoras que, en la actualidad, más insiste en la necesidad
de una educación democrática como antídoto a la educación para el beneficio que preside
los planes de estudio de las sociedades occidentales. Desde su punto de vista, las artes y
las humanidades son imprescindibles para recuperar esa educación democrática y
defiende que Sócrates “es un ejemplo central para la teoría y la práctica de la educación
humanística en la tradición occidental” (Nussbaum, 2010, 75). En el capítulo IV de su
libro Sin ánimo de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita las humanidades (2010),
Nussbaum cita a Matthew Lipman y pone a su proyecto Philosophy for Children como
ejemplo de “guía práctica” para lograr una “pedagogía socrática” en las aulas.
Parece claro que la verdadera educación debe ser una educación para la
democracia, para el ejercicio de la ciudadanía. Sin embargo, esta educación no puede ser
un recetario, ni un solucionario, ni un rosario de doctrinas. No puede ser tampoco -o no
solamente- una asignatura del currículo formal junto a las matemáticas, la lengua y las
ciencias naturales. Debe ser más bien un espacio de reflexión, de búsqueda de razones.
Es evidente la necesidad de practicar, más que aprender, la ciudadanía. La educación, en
este contexto, tiene como finalidad principal no ofrecer sólo contenidos sino sobre todo
herramientas para usar los conocimientos elaborados y aprendidos. Sólo una educación
fundamentada en principios procedimentales -en contraste con aquella basada en
principios substantivos- puede ayudar a moverse hacia una visión del mundo compartida
e imparcial permanentemente sometida y expuesta a la investigación pública.
En muchos de los textos de Matthew Lipman puede hallarse más o menos
explícitamente la relación entre educación y democracia y el papel que el proyecto
Philosophy for Children tiene en esa relación, como una opción para conseguir esos
ciudadanos competentes y rigurosos que garanticen una democracia “real”. En este
sentido, pues, más allá de la pedagogía y de la dimensión educativa del proyecto de
Lipman, se hace evidente su dimensión política, que es indiscutible, inevitable e
intrínseca.
Esta vinculación educación-democracia no es nueva; Lipman la recoge de John
Dewey, que había dedicado a ella un libro entero titulado precisamente Democracia y
educación (1916). Dewey insiste en que “democracia” no es un concepto acabado o
fijado, sino que está en permanente transformación. Distingue dos sentidos del término
democracia: un sentido político y un sentido social. En una primera acepción restringida
o política, “democracia” designa una forma de gobierno o un sistema de instituciones
políticas cuya finalidad es regular la vida en común. Esta forma de gobierno se basa en la
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equidad: en una democracia todos los individuos o grupos sociales son (o deberían ser)
tratados equitativamente y el interés está (o debería estar) puesto en el bienestar de la
totalidad de las personas que la conforman, sin privilegiar individuos o clases en
particular. Dewey, sin embargo, hace hincapié sobre todo en el segundo sentido del
concepto (aunque admite que no pueden desligarse completamente): en su acepción
social, concibe la democracia como una forma de vida (way of life), como una relación
determinada entre los miembros de una comunidad. En este sentido, una comunidad sólo
será una verdadera comunidad si es verdaderamente democrática. La noción de
democracia, en su acepción social, exige la máxima interrelación entre los miembros de
la comunidad; esta interrelación ofrece una pluralidad de puntos de vista y de alternativas
que funcionan como estímulos para la acción. Por otra parte, también se afirma el cambio
como un valor social: una sociedad democrática es una sociedad que cambia, que se
autocorrige, que se renueva, que se reajusta continuamente. La democracia en sentido
moral parece pues, condición de la democracia política; la democracia política, en
cambio, no garantiza una democracia moral (ni real).
La noción de democracia es también, en Dewey, una idea regulativa: la función y
sentido del ideal de democracia es medir y evaluar las instituciones y formas de vida
existentes, ver en qué medida se apartan del ideal y considerar proyectos o caminos
alternativos que acerquen a los modos de vida existentes a este ideal.
Lo innovador en el planteamiento de Lipman es haber añadido a la justificación
teórica deweyana una propuesta práctica para conseguir efectivamente que la educación
sea el lugar de la reflexión y de la puesta en práctica de los valores democráticos. Como
señala Nussbaum:
Dewey jamás trata de manera sistemática el modo de impartir el pensamiento crítico de corte
socrático a los niños y a las niñas de distintas edades. Así, sus propuestas se quedan en un plano
general (…). Para encontrar recomendaciones útiles sobre pedagogía socrática presentadas sin
autoritarismo, [los maestros] pueden recurrir a una serie de libros que produjo el filósofo
Matthew Lipman. (Nussbaum, 2010, 106)
La comunidad de investigación como pilar de la educación democrática.

Sin embargo, Philosophy for Children no es sólo unos materiales a utilizar sino
sobre todo un modo de entender la educación y de llevarla a la práctica. Dos de los
aspectos innovadores de la propuesta de Lipman son: por un lado, el convencimiento de
que la filosofía es la única disciplina que puede dirigir con éxito la búsqueda individual
y colectiva de sentido, el enriquecimiento de la experiencia, y el desarrollo de un
pensamiento multidimensional (y para ello no vale cualquier tipo de diálogo); y por otro
lado, la idea de que no se debe esperar que los individuos sean personas maduras para
empezar a incidir en todos estos aspectos puesto que si queremos ciudadanos razonables
necesitamos niños razonables: “no es realista esperar que un niño que ha crecido en
instituciones irracionales se comporte de forma racional” (Lipman, 1988, 19).
Si la democracia exige participación es evidente y necesario también que los
individuos dispongan de un tiempo y lugar donde poder tener una cierta práctica en este
campo; no se puede participar sin información, pero tampoco sin la búsqueda crítica y
creativa de las razones que fundamentan nuestras opiniones, o de las consecuencias que
tienen -o pueden tener- nuestras acciones.
Coherente con la idea de acercar la filosofía a los niños, Lipman habla, sobre todo,
de la necesidad de convertir las aulas en comunidades de investigación –como una de las
exigencias fundamentales de la actividad filosófica. Sin embargo, el mismo trasfondo
filosófico del currículo sugiere que de ninguna manera la comunidad de investigación
puede quedar reducida a una mera metodología. Los rasgos de la comunidad de
investigación trascienden el aula, y aquélla debería estar presente en todas partes por su
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papel democrático, en su interacción con la sociedad en la que está integrada. La

comunidad de investigación4 lejos de ser sólo un método, es un pilar fundamental de la
deliberación democrática.
Lipman presenta la comunidad de investigación como forma de vida, lo que
recuerda a la comunidad democrática deweyana tanto en lo que se refiere a los modos de
interrelación entre los individuos que la integran como al compromiso de estos individuos
con la investigación y con los objetivos de la comunidad. Pero esta “forma de vida”
recuerda, además, a algunos de los rasgos de la comunidad y el diálogo socráticos. En
este sentido, las novelas filosóficas del currículo muestran el modo socrático de vivir y
practicar la filosofía no sólo en la escuela sino también en todos los ámbitos de la
experiencia personal.
Para Lipman, el proceso de investigación en comunidad es el único que ayudará
a los seres humanos a ser plenamente personas, capaces de una acción autónoma, de
creatividad y de autoconocimiento. Es el único que puede ayudar a concebir los medios
para lograr los fines que, individualmente y también como sociedad, pensamos que son
significativos y útiles. El diálogo y la investigación, pues, no son simples elementos de
una “metodología educativa” sino ejes vertebradores de la comunidad democrática. Así,
la deliberación democrática es —debe ser— un ejercicio permanente de investigación
en diálogo; es decir, una comunidad de investigación en la que los individuos llegan a
juicios efectivos en la acción. En este punto, el diálogo filosófico incide finalmente en
la práctica social.
En un contexto así, filosofía, educación y democracia se interrelacionan
inevitablemente. La comunidad de investigación y el diálogo filosóficos se convierten en
pilares de la educación democrática en tanto que ayudan a potenciar el crecimiento de las
personas y el enriquecimiento de su experiencia personal y colectiva.
El cultivo de la empatía y el pensamiento cuidadoso a través del diálogo
filosófico.
Martha Nussbaum habla de otro elemento clave en la educación democrática: el
cultivo de la comprensión del otro, la empatía, que ella relaciona estrechamente con el
cultivo de las humanidades y las artes y que ha denominado la “imaginación narrativa”:
“las escuelas, e incluso las universidades] deben adjudicar un rol protagónico a las artes
y a las humanidades en el programa curricular, cultivando un tipo de formación
participativa que active y mejore la capacidad de ver el mundo a través de los ojos de otro
ser humano” (Nussbaum, 2010, 132). Nussbaum no remite específicamente a la filosofía
en este párrafo porque pone el énfasis en la necesidad de no abandonar las humanidades
en favor de una educación o de un currículo excesivamente científico-técnico y al servicio
de la productividad y del mercado. Sin embargo, podemos fácilmente extrapolar sus
palabras al papel que puede y debe jugar la filosofía en el conjunto de la “pedagogía
socrática”. De hecho, si mal lo tienen las humanidades en general, peor lo tiene la filosofía
en ese escenario de competitividad.
Nussbaum habla de “educación participativa” y de “ver el mundo a través de los
ojos de otro ser humano”. En el proyecto Philosophy for Children esto puede traducirse
por “diálogo filosófico” en el contexto de una “comunidad de investigación” y por
4
La comunidad de investigación de Lipman es una versión de la democracia deweyana. Aunque Dewey
no utiliza el término «comunidad de investigación”, propiamente, parece que las características de una
comunidad de investigación como la que define Lipman coincidirían globalmente con las características
que podría haber propuesto Dewey, ya que la comunidad de investigación de Lipman tiene muchos
puntos de contacto con el ideal de democracia y con la noción de búsqueda o investigación de Dewey.
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“pensamiento cuidadoso”. Lipman añadiría quizás que “educación participativa” es un

pleonasmo (redundancia), ya que una educación que no sea participativa no es realmente
educación. Por lo que se refiere a “ver el mundo con los ojos de otro ser humano”, ello
señala directamente al pensamiento cuidadoso y al uso de la imaginación. Como subraya
Nussbaum, “no se debe enseñar que la imaginación sólo es pertinente en la esfera de la
fantasía y de lo irreal. Por el contrario, el niño debe aprender a captar una dimensión
imaginativa en todas sus interacciones. (...) En una buena escuela, el niño aprenderá que
la imaginación es necesaria para toda clase de cosas que están “más allá del alcance de la
respuesta física directa” (Nussbaum, 2010, 140-141). En este sentido, la empatía requiere
imaginación: ʽRalph Ellison [el autor de El hombre invisible] nos da a entender que
mediante la imaginación desarrollamos la capacidad plena de percibir el carácter humano
en todas las personas con quienes nuestros encuentros en la vida cotidiana son más
propensos a resultar, como mucho, superficiales, o incluso a estar infectados de
estereotipos denigrantes)ʼ (Nussbaum, 2010, 145).
Lipman se ha referido en ocasiones al papel de la imaginación en el desarrollo de
las habilidades de pensamiento. Es un aspecto imprescindible en la caracterización del
pensamiento creativo. La discusión imaginativa y creativa de las ideas filosóficas es muy
importante para el crecimiento de los individuos en la autonomía intelectual y para
ayudarles no sólo a hacerse suya la tradición sino a reconstruir imaginativamente una
versión más significativa y coherente -una versión que tenga sentido para ellos.
El diálogo filosófico imaginativo, creativo, capacita a los individuos para
convertirse en conscientes de ellos mismos en relación a los demás y, al mismo tiempo,
conscientes de las ideas y la cultura de la que ellos forman parte. Además, la discusión
filosófica, precisamente, “favorece el conocimiento de la gran diversidad de puntos de
vista y del abanico de diferencias igualmente amplio entre opiniones y creencias”
(Lipman, Sharp y Oscanyan, 1992, 233-34), al tiempo que capacita a los individuos
para hacer el esfuerzo de entender perspectivas diferentes a las propias, incluso si
disienten de ellas.
El razonamiento filosófico es abierto: apunta a nuevas maneras de mirar el mundo,
nuevas maneras de percibir y comprender. También constituye una vía para hacer realidad
estas nuevas visiones y versiones si son consideradas importantes y útiles. La
imaginación, pues, juega un papel muy importante no solamente en el proceso de
crecimiento del individuo y en el desarrollo de la habilidad de reconstruir la propia
experiencia sino que además es un elemento crucial en el crecimiento del razonamiento
filosófico en la comunidad. Es un acto mental que se expresa en todas las dimensiones de
la propia experiencia, individual y colectiva.
La imaginación no sólo incide en el pensamiento creativo, en la capacidad para
pensar alternativas, establecer hipótesis o evaluar consecuencias, sino que es también un
elemento imprescindible para el desarrollo del pensamiento cuidadoso y de la empatía.
Nussbaum define la imaginación narrativa como “la capacidad de pensar cómo
sería estar en el lugar de otra persona, de interpretar con inteligencia el relato de esa
persona y de entender los sentimientos, los deseos y las expectativas que podría tener esa
persona” (Nussbaum, 2010, 132). Constituye un elemento clave en las sociedades
heterogéneas actuales. La democracia —en su acepción moral— exige que los ciudadanos
sean no solamente respetuosos con los demás sino que sepan ponerse en su lugar. Sin
embargo, como señala Nussbaum, para ello “hace falta cierto grado de competencia
práctica” (Nussbaum, 2010, 133). Y Nussbaum defiende que dicha competencia práctica
se alcanza a través de la literatura, que nos pone en contacto con maneras de pensar y
realidades más o menos lejanas distintas a las nuestras.
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Como resulta evidente, la “imaginación narrativa” de Nussbaum se relaciona

directamente con la noción de empatía, en la medida en que “ponerse en el lugar de”
facilita la comprensión y el respeto de sus ideas, valores y costumbres. Lipman sitúa la
empatía (o “imaginación moral”) en el ámbito del pensamiento cuidadoso: “a veces se
considera la imaginación moral como un simple juego con ficciones. Por el contrario, es
su procedimiento lo que hace posible la seriedad moral. Cuando no nos ponemos en el
lugar de otra persona solo aparentamos ser éticos” (Lipman, 2016, 106). El pensamiento
empático, pues, no es opcional sino condición necesaria para una vida en comunidad
verdaderamente ética, especialmente en nuestras sociedades pluriculturales y receptoras
de inmigración, en las que “la necesidad de desarrollar, aprender y practicar el arte de
vivir con extranjeros y sus diferencias de forma “permanente” y “cotidiana” es ineludible”
(Bauman, 2013, 11).
Nussbaum reivindica el papel de las artes y de la literatura en las escuelas ya que “las
artes otorgan al niño nuevas capacidades para comprender su propia persona y la de los
demás” (Nussbaum, 2010, 139). Como ya hemos señalado, no habla específicamente de
filosofía, pero algunos de sus análisis en relación con la literatura tienen relevancia e interés
para Philosophy for Children. Nussbaum insiste en que para el desarrollo adecuado de la
empatía no vale cualquier obra: “la imaginación empática puede resultar caprichosa e
irregular si no se la vincula con la idea de igualdad en la dignidad humana (…) Por lo tanto,
el elemento imaginativo de la educación para la democracia requiere de una capacidad de
selección cuidadosa” (Nussbaum, 2010, 147-148). De un modo similar, las novelas de
Lipman están en esa misma línea del “no todo vale”. Lipman defendió siempre que los textos
de un currículo de filosofía para niños no podían ser “solamente cuentos ordinarios para
niños, es decir, cuentos escritos por adultos que arrastran consigo en la voz impersonal del
narrador, la omnisciencia que los adultos adoptan cuando hablan con niños. En lugar de este
tipo de cuentos, los que proponemos deben brotar, al menos aparentemente, de la misma
infancia, del descubrimiento infantil de lo que existe, para promover conversaciones
lógicamente articuladas sobre la verdad y la falsedad, lo justo y lo injusto, la realidad y la
apariencia, las personas y las cosas” (Lipman, 1985, 8). Es decir, Lipman no seleccionó
cuentos o historias ya existentes sino que escribió novelas filosóficas que plantearan las
grandes preguntas que se hacen los niños y, al mismo tiempo, mostraran un amplio abanico
de respuestas y de estilos de pensamiento.
Quizás podría objetarse, con cierta razón, que las novelas de Lipman no muestran
mucha de la diversidad existente en nuestro mundo globalizado (relaciones de raza,
dinámicas de género, la emigración, las luchas de nuevos grupos por obtener
reconocimiento e igualdad…). En cierto sentido pueden ser consideradas como
eurocéntricas, puesto que, a pesar de haber cierta heterogeneidad en las aulas que
muestran, no están presentes otras realidades; como señala Nussbaum, “esta serie de
libros [del currículo de FpN] está destinada a los estudiantes de los Estados Unidos.
Parte de su encanto proviene de la familiaridad de las situaciones y del humor sutil que
predomina en los textos. Por lo tanto, será necesario reescribirlo y elaborar versiones
diferentes de acuerdo con la cultura de llegada”“ (Nussbaum, 2010, 110). Sin embargo,
el diálogo posterior sí que está abierto a todas las realidades. Las novelas son el estímulo
para las preguntas, que pueden tener, en virtud de la diversidad presente en la
comunidad de investigación, múltiples respuestas y, en el caso de comunidades
relativamente homogéneas, pueden apelar a la “investigación” para descubrir respuestas
distintas.
En cualquier caso, sí parece que Philosophy for Children, como pedagogía
socrática, puede ser de gran ayuda en el necesario y urgente desarrollo de las habilidades
de pensamiento que requiere la democracia.
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Una revolución necesaria y urgente.

Zygmunt Bauman, otro gran analista de la situación actual y el padre del concepto
de “modernidad líquida”, insiste en que la democracia está en la cuerda floja:
Nos hallamos en una situación en la que, de modo constante, se nos incentiva y predispone a
actuar de manera egocéntrica y materialista. Porque esta clase de comportamiento resulta
indispensable para conservar la buena marcha de nuestro tipo de economía, la economía
consumista (…) Y a menos que esto sufra un cambio radical, las oportunidades de una
disidencia efectiva y de una liberación de la dictadura del mercado son mínimas. Los obstáculos
que tenemos en frente son abrumadores. Nada, excepto alguna clase de genuina “revolución
cultural”, servirá a tal efecto. Y por muy limitado que parezca el poder del sistema educativo
actual -que se halla él mismo sujeto, cada vez más, al juego del consumismo-, tiene aún
suficiente poder de transformación para que se pueda contar entre los factores prometedores
para esta revolución. (Bauman, 2013, 39)
En nuestra opinión, Philosophy for Children tiene un papel primordial en relación
con esta revolución, con el poder transformador de la educación porque a partir del
diálogo filosófico y de la comunidad de investigación (entendidos como pilares
fundamentales de una educación democrática y no sólo como simples recursos
metodológicos), y parafraseando de nuevo a Martha Nussbaum, “produce un diálogo
duradero e incluso atractivo con los prejuicios del pasado, en lugar de un diálogo cargado
de temor y resistencia defensiva” (Nussbaum, 2010, 149)5.
Tal como afirma Bauman, “en nuestro mundo globalizado, interconectado e
interdependiente, lo que hagamos en las calles, en las escuelas primarias y secundarias,
en los lugares públicos en los que nos reunimos con otras personas, tiene una importancia
extrema, no sólo para el futuro del lugar en el que vivimos, sino para el futuro del mundo
entero” (Bauman, 2013, 10).
REFERENCIAS
Bauman, Z. (2013). Sobre la educación en un mundo líquido: Conversaciones con
Ricardo Mazzeo. Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Freinet, C. (1979). La educación moral y cívica. Barcelona: Laia.
Lipman, M. (1985). “La utilidad de la filosofía en la educación de la juventud”. Revista
de filosofía y de didáctica de la filosofía. Actas del congreso Filosofía y Juventud (pp.
7-12). Año III, nº 3. Madrid.
Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy goes to School, Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lipman, M. (2016). El lugar del pensamiento en la educación. Barcelona: Octaedro.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A. M. y Oscanyan, F. S. (1992). La filosofía en el aula, Madrid: De
la Torre.
Nussbaum, Martha C. (2010). Sin fines de lucro. Por qué la democracia necesita de las
humanidades. Buenos Aires: Katz.
Santiuste, V. y Gómez de Velasco, F. (1984). Didáctica de la filosofía. Teoría.
Métodos. Programas, Evaluación. Madrid: Narcea.
5
Nussbaum se refiere en este fragmento al papel de las artes en relación a esta revolución: “al causar
placer en relación con actos de subversión y reflexión cultural, las artes producen un diálogo duradero e
incluso atractivo con los prejuicios del pasado, en lugar de un diálogo cargado de temor y resistencia
defensiva”.
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Social and Political Aspects of Democracy in the Community of

Inquiry: Connections Between Lipman and Freire
Darcisio Natal Muraro

State University of Londrina / Brazil - UEL
murarodnm@gmail.com
CV
Graduated in Philosophy from the Catholic University of Paraná (1986), Darcisio Natal
Muraro holds a degree in Theology from the Theological Institute São Paulo (1990), a
Masters in History and Philosophy of Education from the Catholic University of São
Paulo (1998), a PhD from the Faculty of Education of the University of Sao Paulo (2008)
and a specialization in Foundations of Education for Thinking from the Pontifical
Catholic University of São Paulo (2006). Muraro is a teacher trainer in Philosophy for
Children, and is also Assistant Professor at the Department of Education, Philosophy and
Education in the State University of Londrina. He teaches in the Masters’ Education
program. He has authored books on philosophy for children –Filosofia, pensar os
caminhos do conceito, Dadedidodúvida!, Surpresas da Filosofia and Filosofar, tecer
conceitos– and has also published several book chapters and scientific articles. He works
in research and teaching, specializing mainly in the following areas: Philosophy of
Education, Philosophy for Children, Education for Thinking, Ethics, Democracy,
Pragmatism, John Dewey and Paulo Freire.
ABSTRACT
The objective is to identify possible connections as regards the social and political aspects
of democracy in the community of inquiry as conceived in the philosophical thought of
Lipman and Freire. The study analyzes the anthropological, epistemological, ethical,
political and educational aspects of democracy in the referenced authors. The procedure
of this study uses the philosophical methodology of analysis of concepts, focusing on the
common features that can be brought to light. This search is supported by a literature
review of the main written work of both authors.
KEYWORDS
Democracy, Education, Community of Inquiry, Matthew Lipman. Paulo Freire.
RESUMEN
El objetivo de este artículo es identificar las posibles relaciones entre los aspectos sociales
y políticos de la democracia en la comunidad de investigación desde la perspectiva del
pensamiento filosófico de Lipman y Freire. El estudio analiza los aspectos
antropológicos, epistemológicos, éticos, políticos y educativos de la metodología
filosófica del análisis de conceptos, focalizándolo en características comunes que pueden
sacarse a la vez. Esta investigación se apoya en la revisión de los principales artículos
escritos por ambos autores.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Democracia, educación, comunidad de investigación, Matthew Lipman, Paulo Freire.
It is important to start by clarifying that Matthew Lipman and Paulo Freire share a
common theoretical framework in the thought of John Dewey. Lipman (1923-2010) is a
philosopher who gives continuity to the tradition of the Philosophy of Education that was
525
initiated in a more systematic way by John Dewey. Paulo Freire (1921-1997) is a

philosopher who developed his Philosophy of Education having as one of his references
John Dewey’s concepts as presented in Brazil, especially by Anísio Teixeira. Teixeira
was a pupil of Dewey, and translated some of his works into Portuguese, as well as writing
books and articles on Philosophy of Education in Brazil, based on the Deweyan theory.
Paulo Freire stated that Anísio Teixeira was a ‘master’ for him (Muraro, 2012). To
confine our analysis in this paper, we will focus on some framework issues that are similar
in both these authors.
The first aspect to be approached is the concept of ‘human being’, as developed by
Lipman and Freire. The reference of Lipman’s anthropological point of view is Dewey's
conception of ‘immature’, which implies the human potential for growth. In this sense,
as historical and social beings, human beings are therefore dependent and at the same
time equipped with a plastic capability that allows them to learn continuously through
experiences. Lipman emphasizes that the human experience is pervaded by philosophical
concepts traditionally discussed in the fields of logic, ethics, politics and art, among
others. These concepts are references that guide our way of thinking, speaking and acting.
The philosophical tradition entails an extensive and thorough investigation of thinking,
in which Lipman also emphasizes thinking skills. When philosophy is brought into the
classroom it contributes to the development of students’ thinking skills by investigating
philosophical themes linked to their problematic experience of wonderment with the
world, and therefore it can enhance a child's own ability to learn in all areas. Philosophy
offers a rich toolbox of meanings and skills to empower children's ability to think for
themselves.
In Freire’s view, man and woman are also social, historical and political beings that
are in a ‘permanent process of becoming’ (Freire, 1987, p. 47) He conceives human
beings as being unconcluded or unfinished, and programmed to learn and to grow. The
human being is conditioned –genetically, culturally, socially and economically– but not
determined. He understands that human history is a space-time situation of limitations
and possibilities. Freire developed a situational reading of man from which he developed
all his philosophy and education. He says:
Since men are beings in “situation”, they are rooted in the time-space conditions that mark them
and to which they also mark. They tend to reflect on their own situatedness, in that, unsupported
by it, they act on it. This reflection implies, for this very reason, something more than being in
situationality, which is its fundamental position. Men are because they are in situation. And
they will be so much more if they not only think critically about their way of being, but critically
act on the situation they are in. (Freire 1987, p. 58)
To him, the anthropological character of the human existence of our time is
demarcated by the imposition of situations-limits by the oppressive interests of the
dominant classes, which try to kill in man his condition of admirer of the world,
perceiving it as problematic. In this way, they mythify the world by presenting it as
something static that represents the maintenance of the status quo. These myths are
imposed by propaganda in the mass media, as an antidialogical action of manipulation
that communicates a totalizing version of the world. It means a cultural invasion, as a
culture of domination that mutes other ways of living, as a culture of necrophilic power.
The human being is reduced to a mass, his consciousness is dominated, and so, his
thinking of the world is fatalistic, static, alienated, and that of a spectator. Reduced to this
condition of being a thing, the obvious consequence is the adaptation of man. And this
means a condition of ‘violence’ against oneself, practiced by man as a result of naive
thinking. In this condition, men live a duality of beings ‘hosts’ of the oppressor, which
generates an insecure attitude, given that while they are trying to reject the oppressor,
526
they are also attracted by the culture of the oppressor. Freire emphasizes the value of
men’s thinking to problematize the world. The critical analysis of a significant existential
dimension of man’s reality allows him a new approach as an experience of liberation,
also critical in the face of the ‘situations-limits’ in which they are immersed. This thinking
movement can problematize the situation in a dialogical practice and break with the
condition of immersion as one naive being to another, objectifying the oppressor and
critically recognizing the contradiction. Man begins to change his reading of the world
perceiving himself as ‘a being for oneself’. The men involved in this thinking movement,
having overcome a life-totalizing way of thinking, can create and build through a
dialogical-problematic cultural action, or a cultural revolution, new elements to conceive
human life in society in a radically democratic and liberating manner. In this perspective,
Freire understands that this thinking movement as an action, derived from the ontological
vocation of the human being to be more, enables one to glimpse the untested feasibility
of the emergence and insertion of man in the transformation of the world, in opposition
to the dehumanizing oppression that keeps denying man. This is also an invitation to all
who wish to participate in the reconstruction of society in a new practice of power. In this
process man assumes himself as a subject of history, overcoming his status as an object
and as dominated. In Freire’s view, human beings have dreams that feed their hope of
transforming history.
For the authors – Dewey, Lipman and Freire – communication or dialogue is the
condition of possibility for the construction of the personal and social identity from the
social and cultural differences. For them, dialogue is the very historic nature of human
beings. Lipman emphasizes the lack of reflective thinking in the adult’s life, caused by
the traditional educational paradigm that favors memorization over thinking, blocking the
capacity for questioning and investigation, thereby corroborating the routine that blocks
them from understanding the child as being curious, active, inquisitive and experimental.
There is a vicious circle of no reflection and routine in society that contaminates
childhood. Freire emphasizes the social dimension and the political oppression that are
historically and socially constructed in Brazil, and maintained through a traditional
banking education that prevents subjects from questioning and transforming their world.
In this case, education is to transmit the content of the oppressive class to the oppressed,
making it impossible to release it. These are challenges to be faced critically and
creatively by a conception of education in and for democracy.
The second aspect on which this study focuses in its search for connections, is the
epistemological dimension of democracy. In Lipman’s view, thinking arises from
problem situations that children face in their experience in the search for meaning.
Children begin thinking when they ask about the meaning of words. For Freire, problems
arise from experience that is crossed by large common problems in the historical,
economic and cultural life of society. Therefore, thinking must start from problematic
experiences to transform this situation. For both Lipman and Freire, reflective thinking in
the community requires dialogical dispositions, especially self-correction, criticality,
creativity and ethical conduct based on respect for others in the thinking process to search
for solutions to the problems. In Freire’s view, this transformation will take place in that
dialogue-guided action for common problems historically created by men themselves.
Freire does not rely on philosophy as a basis to develop reflective and dialogical thinking,
but he considers necessary the contribution of accumulated cultural knowledge to this
task. Freire is insistent on defending education as a ‘gnoseological situation’ (Freire,
2000, p. 31), explained as follows: ‘[...] teaching, learning, and research deal with these
two moments of the gnoseological cycle: the one in which we teach and learn the existing
knowledge and the one in which we work on the production of knowledge that does not
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yet exist’. Seen this way, education produces the new which has not yet been thought.
Education produces the novelty in the world. It is a growth process, as stated by Freire
(1997, p. 81): ‘the process of knowing implies that of growing. It is not possible to know
without a certain form of growth. It is not possible to grow without a certain form of
wisdom.’ Freire emphasizes that the term growth, as a human activity, implies action
upon oneself: ‘Growing up between us is a process upon which we can intervene’ (Freire,
1997, p. 81). Thus, growing means the invention of human existence itself.
Lipman highlights the importance of knowledge of the philosophical tradition and
emphasizes that philosophical activity is dialogic: ‘Philosophy can never be separated
from dialogue because philosophy inherently involves questioning, and questioning is an
aspect of dialogue.’ (Lipman, Sharp and Oscanyan, 1977, p. 158). Philosophy offers a
wide range of meanings for concepts that children use, as well as an instrumental skill
needed to improve thinking. For both, social inquiry occurs when there is a focus on a
problematic issue of mutual interest, a self-regulatory or self-correcting mechanism
between members that participate in the process, the egalitarian structure that values
differences and the transformation of the situation. We could infer that for Freire and
Lipman, authentic education produces a new knowledge, a new subjectivity, a new
historical, social, and ethical situation of the world.
Lipman (1977) understands the social dimension of the epistemological process and
the difference of learning in a community of inquiry:
[...] philosophical discussion, by making children aware of one another's beliefs and points
of view, [...] leads children to become conscious of one another as thinking and feeling
individuals. Without such dialogue, children may sit side by side in classrooms for years
without encountering one another as individuals who are, like themselves, striving to make
sense of their own experience. [...] In contrast, philosophical dialogue leads children to realize
that the acquisition of understanding is more often than not a cooperative achievement.
(Lipman, 1977, p. 159)
Freire emphasizes the unbreakable relationship between dialogue and knowledge,
that is, the epistemological dimension of knowing that presupposes subjects in
communicative interaction, as a practice of values. To him, dialogue allows to bring to
consciousness the knowledge accumulated in human experience, both in tradition and in
existence. The dialogue is the bridge that leads the human being from his condition of
being unfinished to the condition of being more, seeking a horizon of humanization
overcoming oppression. It is through dialogue that we learn to ask, a condition to learn to
think. In reference to the importance of dialogue for this process, Freire states: ʽThe
thinking Subject cannot think alone. In the act of thinking about the object s/he cannot
think without the co-participation of another Subjects. [...] This co-participation of the
Subjects in the act of thinking occurs in communication. [...] What characterizes
communication […] is that it is dialogue, just as dialogue is communicativeʼ. (Freire
2000, p. 66-67).
Freire conceives of thinking as an eminently social action. In this case, thinking
takes place in human relations articulated with the reality: ʽI cannot investigate the
thinking of others about the world if I do not thing. But do not genuinely think unless
others think. Simply put, I cannot think on behalf of others, for others or without others.
The investigation of people’s thinking cannot be done without the people, but with them
as the subjects of their own thinking. And if one’s thinking is magical or naive, it will be
by thinking of one’s thinking in action, that one will overcome oneself. And this
overcoming is not achieved by consuming ideas, but by producing them and transforming
them in action and in communicationʼ. (Freire, 1987, p. 58).
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Lipman (2003, p. 83) understands the thinking that the form of investigation is a social
process: ‘inquiry is generally social or communal in nature because it rests on a
foundation of language, of scientific operations, of symbolic systems, of measurements
and so on, all of which are uncompromisingly social.’ In this sense, the experience of
thinking is an experience that the other participates in, and the learning takes place
through this sharing of experiences. The community of inquiry makes concrete this
shared-thinking experience in practice:
The community of inquiry is in one sense a learning together, and is therefore an example of
value of shared experience. But in another sense it represents a magnification of the efficiency
of the learning process, since students who thought that all learning had to be learning by
oneself come to discover that they can also use and profit the learning experience of others.
(Lipman 2003, p. 93)
The community of inquiry is an experience of reflected life. It is a space for
questioning, research, speech and dialogue about the meanings that direct life. The
practice is not authoritarian, since authority is shared and centered on the dialogical
process. The child is valued as the subject of his/her ideas. In this sense, the careful
teacher acts to give vent to the variety of his/her students' ways of thinking: ‘The teacher
must be prepared to nurture and cultivate a rich profusion of thinking styles’ (Lipman,
Sharp & Oscanyan, 1977, p. 69).
Freire understands the human being as a being of speech, thought and action. The
dialogue is made through the authentic pronunciations of the word, which represents the
dialectical relationship between creative-critical thinking and acting in the face of
problems. There is another dimension implicit in this dialogical-inquiring relationship
that is action, since they are entangled in a given situation. The word dialogue is the
generator of the reflection and action movement of the criticality and interactive process
in growth. '
Critical human existence is woven into the dialogical-dialectical relationship, that
is, man is made in the pronunciation of the authentic, true word, word-action, word-work
that transforms the world; in turn, this transformation of the world means a transformation
of man himself. To pronounce the word is an act of criticism. In this sense, man becomes
man in the pronunciation of the word by the practical, historical and cultural
consequences. The pronunciation of the word does not close the process, but it engenders
and renews it permanently, insofar as what is problematic does not run out. To say the
word as an act of thinking is everyone’s right, and for this reason, no one can say the true
word alone, nor can anyone steal it from others. The dialogic and problematizing
education therefore implies a pedagogy of questioning, which is one of searching for the
authentic word, in interaction with reality to understand it and transform it into a new
humanized situationality. In this perspective, dialogue is a practice that does not become
embroiled in authoritarianism or licentiousness. In this understanding, the critical
pronunciation of the word consists of a philosophical activity because it questions the
concepts – words – that are used to understand reality. As such concepts – which generate
themes – are constructed historically, a reflexive and critical treatment of them is
necessary to create the conditions for an authentic and autonomous use of the language
itself, or as Freire says (2000, p. 82) ‘[...] the understanding of the significant signs of
meanings [...].’ The subjects of dialogue, in critical practice, problematize signs,
signifiers, and meanings. The problematization leads us to analyze the epistemological
dimension in Freire's thinking. This author uses the expression ʽepistemic curiosityʼ
which refers to the passage from the condition of naive thinking to critical thinking. The
epistemological process implies the search for 'the radical intelligence of the concept'
(Freire, 1997, p. 83, translated from the original Portuguese), thus expressing the
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wholeness of the activity of philosophizing. In this sense, for both Freire and Dewey,
philosophizing is related to the process of criticizing concepts permeated by ideologies
and creating new meanings that promote liberation.
This process deals with the development of the intelligence of signs, according to
Freire (2000, p. 82, translated from the original Portuguese): ‘This intelligence of the
signs is given in the dialogicity that, this way, makes possible the exact understanding of
the terms, through which the subjects express the critical analysis of the problem to which
they are committed’. In the Freirean perspective, philosophical activity – essentially
critical-dialogical –, dialectically articulates the reflexive movement of understanding the
signs with the concrete ‘analysis of the problems’ of the existential experience of the
subjects.
Freire's critique is a strong questioning of the practice of school problematization
that becomes an intellectualist entertainment, a mere game of questions and answers
that serves for the authoritarian control of the teacher. In this line, the problematization
is alienated and alienating, an escape from action, a negation of the real existence.
For Freire, there is dialecticity in the problematization so that it necessarily implies
committing oneself to the reflective process relative to existence. He states: ‘No one, in
fact, problematizes something to anyone and remains, at the same time, merely a
spectator of problematization’ (Freire, 2000, p. 82, translated from the original
Portuguese). We are talking about process, that is, a progressive movement of
understanding and questioning that does not increase with the response of the teacher
or a student. Nor does the teacher answer: ‘All questions deserve an answer, and we
may never have the answer, but possibly one of the answers. We must avoid dogmatism
and disrespect.’ (Freire 1986, p. 110, translated from the original Portuguese). Rather,
the answer raises new questions, feeding the dialogical process indefinitely. Thus, while
the learners ‘ad-miram’ the problematized object, the educator ‘re-ad-mira’ through
problematization. In the words of Freire: ‘[...] in the literacy stage, problematizing and
communication education seeks and investigates the ʽgenerating wordʼ in post-literacy,
seeks and investigates the generating theme’ (Freire, 1987, p. 59, translated from the
original Portuguese)
According to Lipman (1995, p. 151), the activity of philosophy is closely related to
the process of enlightenment of concepts, not merely as an intellectual activity, but in
terms of thinking about the consequences for people's lives, as he considers: ʽphilosophy
is concerned with clarifying meanings, discovering assumptions and presuppositions,
analyzing concepts, considering the validity of reasoning processes, and investigating the
implications of ideas and the consequences for human life of sustaining certain ideas
rather than othersʼ.
For Lipman, philosophical activity deals with concepts that are central, common
and controversial in human experience, which is permeated by ethical, epistemic,
aesthetic, political, and other perspectives. Without the work of philosophy, concepts can
become disjointed and unexpressed in people's lives.
Philosophy contains, along with many other things, a core of concepts. These concepts are
embodied or illustrated in all of the humanities, but it is in philosophy that they are analyzed,
discussed, interpreted, and clarified. Many of these concepts represent profoundly important
and profoundly general human values, such as truth and meaning and community. In fact, it
can be argued that philosophy is the conceptualizable, teachable aspect of human values
generally, just as craft is the conceptualizable, teachable aspect of art. Without philosophy,
there is a tendency for the behaviors these concepts represent to remain unarticulated and
mute. […] Only a philosophical discussion can provide the process of dialogical inquiry that
properly deals with this question. (Lipman, 2003, p. 277-278)
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Lipman (1994, 152-153) values the child's experience as the origin of

philosophizing and, in the same way, values the action of the teacher that amplifies this
movement:
Philosophical discussions can develop from children's questions about the meaning
of some idea. It is up to the teacher to seize these opportunities and use them as a starting
point for philosophical exploration. If a child wants to know the meaning of the word
authority, or the word culture, or the word world, or the word respect, or the word rights,
the teacher can use any of them as a starting point to get as many points of view as there
are children in the class, offering students additional points of view that have been
developed by philosophers, examining the consequences of maintaining one or another
point of view and clarifying the meaning of presumptions from different points of view.
The process of questioning concepts and problems involves the meaning of the
common experience. The teacher does not ask to pretend, disguise or artificialize the
investigation as if s/he were doing it for the students, but genuinely asks why the questions
vitally affect their experience as well. Lipman understands that this philosophical
behavior is essentially antidogmatic and anti-indoctrinating and cannot be mechanized or
artificial. As Lipman (1994, p. 173) explains: ‘A good philosophy teacher never reaches
a point where there seems to be no further questioning. The world is inextricably
disconcerting. (...) Wonder cannot be feigned; you have to grow from your own
experience.’
In the third aspect to explore here, the social point of view, dialogue implies a practice
of ethical values for both Lipman and Freire. In this sense, dialogue allows the humanizing
experience. For Lipman, dialogue has its own rules that must be investigated and adopted by
the participants. For Freire, there is a set of values that underlie dialogical practice: love, faith,
hope, humility, recognizing the other and themselves in it, commitment to building a common
world. ‘[...] If I do not love the world—if I do not love life—if I do not love people—I cannot
enter into dialogue’ (Freire, 1987, p. 94). For both, education is a social practice that should
transform social condition.
The ethical sense of dialogue implies an act, including especially the educational
practice, guided by values, as Freire points out (2000, p. 115):
And what is dialogue? It is a horizontal relation of A with B. It is born of a critical matrix and
generates criticality. It is nourished by love, by humility of hope, by faith, by trust. Therefore,
only the dialogue communicates. And when the two poles of dialogue are linked in this way,
with love, with hope, with faith in the other, they become critical in the search for something.
A relationship of sympathy between the two is then established.
Lipman highlights the ethical aspect of dialogue taking as reference Buber's
understanding of genuine dialogue as one where each of the participants ʽreally has in mind
the other or others in their present and particular being, and turns to them with the intention
of establishing a living mutual relationship between himself and themʼ (Buber as quoted in
Lipman, 1995, p. 25). The dialogical communication needs to be direct and attentive between
the child, the teacher and all participants, creating a community relationship based on respect
and learning. Respecting an opinion is not just listening to it, but engaging in careful
examination of its meanings. This is what will ensure a quality dialogue.
As regards the fourth aspect, the political point of view, thinking and dialogue are
the conditions for the possibility of a democratic way of life. This way of life must
pervade all the experiences of the individual and his social environment, all his relations
with what is different. For Lipman, it means to continue and deepen the democratic
dialogic experience, whereas for Freire the challenge is to overcome the historically
inherited democratic inexperience and to be liberated from oppression through a
dialogue that brings awareness. Freire conceives of democracy as follows: ‘The
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530,democracy that, before being a political form, is a form of life, characterized mainly
by a strong dose of transitivity of consciousness in human behavior. Transitivity that is
not born or developed unless under certain conditions in which man is thrown into the
debate, into the examination of his problems and of common problems, in which man
participates’ (Freire, 2000, p. 80). It is important to emphasize that the conscience is
not a definitive entity, finished with the learning of content. It is built; it is being
‘transitivated’ through the process of problematization, dialogue and participation in
the struggle for liberation. Consciousness is an achievement, and democracy as a way
of life is similar. Freire poses the problem of democratic experience in Brazil and finds
that it does not exist: the patriarchal family, traditional school, dogmatic religion,
oppressive politics, economic exclusion, unions with scabs, society as a major division
of classes, semi-slave labor. Given this scenario, his hopeful perspective is for liberation
through education for conscientization (dialogue and reflection), as a condition for the
possibility of a democratic life. Only the oppressed can liberate themselves and society.
Thus, we have a journey of struggle from the pedagogy of the oppressed to the pedagogy
of autonomy. Lipman’s reference for democracy is Dewey, who conceives it as follows:
‘A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated
living, of conjoint communicated experience.’ (Dewey, 1966, p. 87). For him,
democracy is the intelligent public discussion about common problems. Voting as a
political instrument is an effect; by itself it does not produce democracy. The democratic
society is based on communication, cooperation and free interacting among all
individuals involved in the common problems, and not by the use of force to resolve
conflicts. Democracy should be practiced from the bottom to the top of society and not
the reverse. For Lipman, community of inquiry is the locus to develop a democratic life
based on the reasonable and the dialogical, and on complex, critical, creative and ethical
thinking. From this perspective, he finds in philosophy the support for improving the
epistemological, ethical, political, and aesthetic aspects of thinking. In his view, the
notion of democracy implies the process of investigation in which two dimensions are
observed: procedures (values of conduct and logical aspects of thinking) and predictable
results or consequences. In this sense it is a deliberative community as the basis for
judgment and action. In this perspective, the community of inquiry is a practice of
participatory democracy that represents and anticipates a society composed of
participatory communities. In this way, with the concept of community of inquiry,
Lipman proposes an organic and fruitful articulation between education, inquiry and
democracy: ‘When education is transformed into education as inquiry and education for
inquiry, the social product of this institutional change will be democracy as inquiry and
not merely democracy.’ (Lipman, 1995, p. 355).
Regarding the fifth aspect, the educational point of view, Lipman and Freire both
criticize of traditional education just because it is monological in character – a unilinear
and unilateral transmission of knowledge. However, Lipman created the pedagogy of the
community of inquiry as an environment to develop dialogical habits and attitudes where
differences ‘make a difference’. From an ethical, epistemic and political perspective,
Freire assumes that the process of being in the world as historical and social subjects only
occurs in the exercise of the right to say the authentic word that transforms the world. The
authentic word, generated in the reflection and action transformation process, creates the
conditions for the existential dialogue that gives life to the community. Thus, both
proposals recognize the importance of the degree of horizontality in the relationship
between student and teacher in a dialogic educational practice. In this sense, education
has the characteristics of a democratic practice permeated by the values of ethics, by the
epistemological quest and by the exercise of politics.
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From these considerations it can be hypothesized that the social and political
dimensions can converge between the two thinkers in the following ideas: human beings
are an open social and historical construction; they can learn to think; dialogue and
thinking are the means that we have to permanently construct the personal and social
consciousness and identity; the need to transform routine and oppressive relations;
culture and especially philosophy should contribute to building a more humane and
democratic world.
REFERENCES
Dewey, J.(1966). Democracy and Education. New York: The Macmillan Company.
Freire, P. (2000). Educação como prática da liberdade. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e
Terra.(1986) Medo e Ousadia. O cotidiano do professor. Editora Paz e Terra.(1987).
Pedagogia do oprimido. 48ª ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra.
(2006). Pedagogia da Autonomia: Saberes necessários à prática educativa. São Paulo:
Paz e Terra.(1997). Pedagogia da Esperança: um reencontro com a pedagogia do
oprimido. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra.
(1997) Professora sim Tia não: cartas a quem ensina. São Paulo: Olho dágua.
Lipman, M; Oscanyan, F; Sharp, A. (1977). Philosophy in the Classroom. Philadelphia,
PA: Temple University Press.
Lipman, M. (1995). O pensar na educação. Translated by Ann Mary Fighiera Perpétuo.
Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Lipman, M. (1995). Thinking in education. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Muraro, D.. “Democracy and education: approaches between the ideas of John Dewey
and Paulo Freire”. Cognitio-Estudos: Revista Eletrônica de Filosofia, ISSN 1809-
8428, São Paulo: CEP/PUC-SP, vol. 9, nº. 2, julho-dezembro, 2012, p. 205-226.
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Democratic Education and Educating for Democracy:

Perspectives on Philosophy with Children Practice in Irish
Classrooms
Gillen Motherway
Hibernia College Dublin Research Node, Plymouth University Institute of Education
gillenm@outlook.ie
CV
Gillen Motherway is a philosophy graduate from Dublin, Ireland. After living overseas
teaching English in Japanese public schools for several years, he became interested in the
educational possibilities of philosophy in Irish classrooms. In 2014, he was awarded a
three-year funded PhD scholarship by Hibernia College Dublin to undertake full-time
doctoral studies in the Hibernia College Research Node which is part of the Institute of
Education in Plymouth University. Now in his fourth and final year he is writing up his
research into a doctoral dissertation. His research focuses on Philosophy for Children
(P4C) practice through a lived enquiry into his own critically reflective practice of P4C
and through dialogues and conversations with teachers in Irish Educate Together schools.
Dewey’s social dimension of enquiry is emphasised throughout the research, and deep
perspectives are offered by means of interviews, conversations and exchanges with fellow
P4C practitioners. He is a regular P4C practitioner and a founding member of Philosophy
Ireland, a volunteer network which aims to promote and support philosophical discourse
and collaborative enquiry across Irish society. He is an advocate of philosophical
dialogue across broad spectrums of society and seeks to establish stronger links and
mutual dialogues between teachers, educators, P4C practitioners and philosophy
graduates. His professional interests lie with philosophy of education, P4C, democratic
and ethical education, and philosophical approaches to pedagogy and practice.
ABSTRACT
The author presents a discussion about democratic education and educating for
democracy in an attempt to locate his own democratic values and educational outlook. In
so doing, he considers Dewey’s interrelated concepts of democracy and education
exposing distinctions between democratic education and educating for democracy with
reference to Irish educational contexts. The discussion leads to an end point which
contextualises the author’s research which has been concerned with individual schools
and teachers’ P4C practice within the Irish context and the interpretation and expression
of democratic practices, and offers an entry point of sorts into his doctoral studies.
KEYWORDS
Democratic education, educating for democracy, Ireland, philosophy for children, P4C,
democratic schools, enquiry learning, John Dewey.
RESUMEN
El autor presenta una discusión en torno a la educación democrática y a la educación para
la democracia, en un intento por ubicar sus propios valores democráticos y visión
educativa. Al hacerlo, considera los conceptos interrelacionados de democracia y
educación en Dewey, revelando distinciones entre educación democrática y educación
para la democracia en contextos educativos irlandeses. Esta discusión concluye con una
contextualización de la investigación del autor, que se ha centrado en escuelas concretas
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y prácticas de Filosofía para Niños de profesores dentro del contexto irlandés y en la

interpretación y expresión de prácticas democráticas, ofreciendo al mismo tiempo un
punto de entrada para sus estudios de doctorado.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Educación democrática, educación para la democracia, Irlanda, filosofía para niños, FpN,
escuelas democráticas, aprendizaje indagatorio, John Dewey.
INTRODUCTION
In framing a discussion about philosophy, education and democracy around an
exploration of the limitations and differences between democratic education and
education for democracy, I attempt to find my philosophical bearings to expose the ideals
I value in terms of a democratic society. I am drawn to Dewey’s functionalist
understanding of ideals as tools in the service of human living – tools that resist the
tendency of previous political philosophers to elevate ideals beyond the realm of the
human to the status of idol, beyond analysis aimed at the improvement of problems and
closed off to enquiry rather than expansive of it.
The guiding ideals of a society should help to shape its conduct, directing and
charting a course to actualise its striving. They are not merely accomplishments and,
instead, embody a society’s ongoing efforts, however incomplete or flawed that
embodiment might be. No society embodies its ideals entirely, being either guided or
manifest, and although a society may aim to be democratic it can to some extent fail to
meet those standards in practice. According to Kelly, democracy is an ideal construct in
that it has never existed in its ideal form and almost certainly never will (Kelly, 1995).
Sabia suggests the idea that democracy is a utopian ideal, on one hand as “a way of
organizing collective activities and decision-making which is fair or just”, and on the
other as a ʽcomplex ideal which can be approximated only by making quite radical
changes in individual and collective lifeʼ (Sabia, 2006, p. 82). Ideals encapsulate moral
principles, which, as a central feature of an ideal, needs to be recognised in any attempt
to implement or act upon them. The adoption of a society’s guiding ideals differs
according to the various political and social arrangements that are present. For some
societies the adoption of a guiding ideal lies within the domain of elders, religious leaders
and, in the case of totalitarianism, oligarchs and dictators. Democratic societies, insofar
as they are indeed democratic, have a more dispersed arrangement that does not rely upon
the orders laid down by a religious or political elite and emphasise the deliberations and
decisions of individuals with unrestricted access to the exchange of information and the
freedom of expression (Cam, 2009).
For the sake of clarity, I will briefly outline what I understand by the term
ʽdemocracyʼ. On a very basic level, I take democracy to mean a representative
government with regular free elections through which citizens can progress their interests.
Politics — understood in terms of a competition among private interests — designates
the process of aggregating the preferences of citizens in choosing public officials and
policies (Dryzek, Honig and Phillips, eds., 2008). This rather loose interpretation I
consider to be characteristic of representative democracy. Other interpretations aim to
achieve more democracy rather than less by either deepening existing democratic
societies or at least democratising systems that do not yet correspond to such an
understanding. These more radical perspectives can be regarded as belonging to two
similar but distinct traditions – those who see active and enduring participation by citizens
in public decision-making as the central tenet of democratic legitimacy, known as
535
participatory democracy, and those who view democracy as a domain of public discussion
and where democratic legitimacy is defined by the reasoned agreement by all individuals,
known as deliberative democracy. In many discussions and understandings, here being
no exception, the aims and theories of both participatory and deliberative conceptions of
democracy, both of which I consider to point towards the more radical spectrum of
democratic interpretation, can be seen to interlink. On the whole, I adopt Dewey’s vision
of democracy, one which is tied to community, that of a strong democracy: a process of
community formation founded on communication (Burgh, 2014).
Democracy and education are closely interconnected. Proponents of participatory
conceptions of democracy maintain that a democracy can only be taught by practicing it
rather than studying it. Barber asserts it is only through ʽdirect political participationʼ that can
we have a completely successful form of civic education for democracy (Barber, 2003, p.
235). By this account, it seems as though teaching democracy in schools could be seen as a
pointless exercise. However, even if we take this as true, there is still much insight to be
gained by considering what exactly it is that a citizen might learn by participating in
democracy in the expectation that it might inform democratic conceptions of education.
Education is a powerful political tool, as leaders of authoritarian regimes know only
too well, capable of being used to support democratic forms of society as well as to
undermine them (Kelly, 1995). In order to gain a better understanding of what is at stake
between education and democracy, I adopt what Dewey maintains to be essential criteria
for a society’s democratic aims. In Democracy and Education, Dewey forwards two
definitive criteria that frame the guiding ideals of any society with democratic intentions,
namely ʽshared common interestsʼ and ʽfreer interaction between social groupsʼ – these
two traits ʽare precisely what characterise the democratically constituted societyʼ (Dewey,
2004 (1916), p. 93). Democracy can be seen to be the fairest way in which all people
might achieve their individual interests, with ʽshared common interestsʼ referring to the
ways in which citizens recognise and come together through their mutuality of interests,
respecting one another’s interests and tending towards the maximising of satisfaction of
these interests. Both ideals of shared common interests and freer interaction between
social groups intertwine for Dewey – mutual interests produce broader and freer
interactions amongst people, and relations based on equal terms can be expected through
respecting mutual interests. As he explains:
A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of
conjoint communicated experience. The extension in space of the number of individuals who
participate in an interest so that each has to refer his own action to that of others, and to consider
the action of others to give point and direction to his own, is equivalent to the breaking down
of those barriers of class, race, and national territory which kept men from perceiving the full
import of their activity. (ibid., p. 93)
Dewey’s view on what a democratic society entails, the intertwined ideals of mutual
interests and freedom of interaction, rings familiar with Kelly’s assertion that democracy
is not merely a political concept, but a moral and social one as well:
If democratic theory starts from the conviction that social living is natural for human beings,
that ‘man’ is a social animal, and that what makes it natural is the opportunities it offers for
collaboration in the interests of all, then it must follow that its prime purpose is to promote such
collaboration and not merely protect the individual in the pursuit of his or her private ambitions.
For it is the availability of others for collaborative enterprise, economic, artistic, cultural or
social, which is the essence of that enrichment which a properly organised society can provide.
(Kelly. 1995, p. 48)
536
If Dewey’s democracy is seen as a way of life rather than just a form of government,
that is, as a pluralistic form of society where free and open collaboration and reciprocal
relationships amongst people increase opportunities for participation in matters of interest
for all people, then what place does education have within this understanding? As noted,
education plays a ʽcrucial role in the maintenance and development of any kind of
political systemʼ (ibid., p.102). In Democracy and Education, Dewey makes it clear that
a democratic way of life is dependent upon the relations people hold with each other and
how prepared they are to engage with each other that embody democratic ideals. Dewey
was aware that as a form of community life democracy is not stagnant or unmoving; it is
constantly changing. In Problems of Men, Dewey reiterates the ʽreciprocal relationshipʼ
between democracy and education, making the point that democracy itself is an
ʽeducational principleʼ and that ʽdemocracy cannot endure, much less develop, without
education in that narrower sense in which we ordinarily think of it, the education that is
given in the family, and especially as we think of it in the schoolʼ (Dewey, 1946, p. 37).
Democracy and Education presents Dewey’s theory of education rather than practical
methods for educational development, a philosophical understanding of education when
democracy is seen as a way of life. It was through education that he saw the change and
growth essential to democracy finding expression theoretically and practically.
Considering this reciprocal relationship between democracy and education and how
much we know about democracy generally, what it is and where it should be going, raises
the question of how well our educational institutions are working to progress those aims. If
we contrast Dewey’s ideas and the question of the institutions of a state substantiating
democratic values to the Irish context, I believe it to be found wanting. Historically, given
the bloody birth of Irish democracy some 97 years ago, the creation of stable democratic
institutions has been somewhat of a success story, especially when we consider that in the
early twentieth century the democratic model was not the predominant form of government
in the West (Garvin, 1996). However, from a democratic ideal perspective in which
democracy is both the ends and the means of education, Dewey’s belief in development of
a community consciousness with overarching elements of inclusion, diversity,
transformation, and communication are conspicuous in their absence. Prager attributes the
stability achieved by Irish institutions to the creation of a cultural consensus through forging
a sense of identity that was initially disparate (Prager, 1986). In an effort to secure this
cultural consensus, the cultural disparateness that existed in the early years of the founding
of the state was absorbed into a more homogenous perspective of viewing Irish identity,
one which was inextricably linked to Catholicism (ibid, p.40). Ferriter characterises the
Irish political and cultural arena as being intellectually barren and its politicians as lacking
in vision – ʽThere was not enough debate about policy, ideology or the consequences of a
ruthless centralisation and authoritarianismʼ (Ferriter, 2012, para. 6). Culturally speaking,
such a culture of consensus and lack of debate and deliberation can be seen as contributory
towards what Barber (2003) has described as ʽthin democracyʼ:
Oblivious to that essential human interdependency that underlies all political life thin democratic
politics is at best a politics of static interest, never a politics of transformation; a politics of
bargaining and exchange, never a politics of invention and creation; and a politics that conceives
of women and men at their worst (in order to protect them from themselves), never at their
potential best. (to help them become better than they are) (Barber, 2003, p.24-25)
In Deweyan terms, such a situation shows no clear commitment to democratic
ideals as conjoint living, rather it shows a vision of democracy that slots in seamlessly
with a Catholic ideology and where the school in particular becomes the vessel for
doctrine. Interestingly, as Hogan (1995) notes, such a nominally democratic situation in
Irish education results in an ʽapologistʼ role for philosophy:
537
Where established custom and routine hold an abiding sway, philosophy is rarely given any
task in the public arena other than supplying a justification for existing practices. Such a task
tends to give to philosophy the office of apologist, as distinct from that of a questioner of
fundamentals, or a self-critical monitor of practice. (Hogan, 1995, p.1)
If education is not serving the aims of a democratic way of life, a reordering of
some kind is surely required. As Shook points outs, Dewey believed that it makes little
sense to define democracy and its aims as one exercise, whilst leaving ʽthe definition and
design of education to some other department of thoughtʼ (Shook, 2004, p. 4). Kelly
identifies four key principles that reflect ideals of social and democratic living, which if
not explicitly expressed in all of our social institutions our society cannot be truly
democratic (Kelly, 1995). They include natural rights, equality, freedom and popular
sovereignty, all which I shall now briefly explain. The idea of natural rights is more than
a little confusing when encountered in a discussion of democracy. Kelly does not propose
that natural rights are given by nature, mystically bound up in some kind of essence of
man, nor are they in any sense a priori or metaphysical. The concept of natural rights is
crucial to an understanding of democratic forms of social living where the interests of the
individual citizen are on a par with that of the collective, providing a criterion by which
particular decisions can be made and a humanitarian model against which actual laws can
be assessed (Kelly, 1995, p.32). Equality is also considered a vital component for a
democratic society insofar as attempts to achieve social justice must be a central feature
of that society, and a fundamental principle of such attempts must be the requirement that
justification must be provided wherever differences of treatment are planned or practiced
(ibid., p.37). The notion of freedom as a principle of democracy marks the point at which
it should be noted that conflict is likely to emerge between other fundamental principles,
since to acknowledge democracy’s moral force means accepting a commitment to a view
of legislation as justified if it can be shown to be in the best interests of the community
as a whole, even if it involves interference with individual liberty beyond the minimum
level of protectionism (ibid., p.43). Finally, when taken simply as a question about who
should rule in a democratic society, the issue of popular sovereignty is fairly
straightforward – rule should come from the people alone. Kelly however, makes the
point that in recognising that the fundamental principles of democratic living may be in
conflict with one another, the real problem lies with reconciling the demands of each with
those of the rest. This means that, to use an example related to education, considerations
of a child’s freedom of speech in a classroom may be at odds with concerns about
discipline during class time. For democracy to survive, sovereignty must lie with the
people, which can only happen if the people collectively maintain and protect their
possession of it – apathy, which can be induced and persuaded in different ways, is a
serious threat to democratic forms of living (Kelly, 1995, p. 46-47). After considering the
complexities of these four fundamental principles of a democratic society, Kelly
highlights the social institution we call education more than anywhere else where it is
vital for those democratic principles to pervade ʽin order that those principles be clearly
communicated to the rising generation of future citizensʼ (ibid., p. 102).
So far, in following Dewey’s ideas, we have found that democracy is far more than
a form of government defined by elected representatives; it is comprised of moral ideals
which, if the society who values such ideals is to truly be democratic, must educate its
citizens both in principle and in practice. Using this platform we might now be able to
consider the difference between democratic education and education for democracy. It is
wise to note at this juncture that nowhere in Dewey’s Democracy and Education is there
specific mention of the term ʽdemocratic educationʼ, adding to the impression that much
of the literature regarding democratic education runs the risk of making certain
538
assumptions about Dewey’s ideas relating to democracy and education. For instance,
Shook says that education for democracy may not be the best place to begin, given that
thinkers with divergent agendas for democracy start from that point and ʽgo on to use
education as a battleground to advance their different expectations for citizenshipʼ
(Shook, 2014, p.3). Hursh and Seneway highlight a consideration central to democratic
education, that of democracy in the domain of schools themselves. Schools and
classrooms are not politically neutral spaces but rather ʽplaces in which students learn
what aspects of their lives they can democratically influence and how to act
democraticallyʼ (Hursh & Seneway, 1998, p. 259). But what kind of democratic influence
is to be understood here? One might ask whether it is possible to enable genuine
democracy in schools and classrooms that is more than merely ʽskin deepʼ; that the
democratic decisions children get to have a say in are not merely ʽpre-packagedʼ,
presented to students already complete after discourse that didn’t involve them, and
usually relegated to after-school activities and during break times Hursh and Seneway
make the point that democracy should be ʽlivedʼ rather than ʽpracticedʼ in schools, where
children learn how to think in ways that nurture good judgement in order to ʽexercise
power and responsibility in a democratic societyʼ (ibid., p. 259).
In attempting to answer how democracy might be lived in schools and classrooms,
some light begins to emerge between democratic education and education for democracy
where Dewey again is central. Essential to education within a democratic society is a
commitment towards the maintenance and expansion of democracy itself (Jenlink, 2009).
The ʽarea of shared concerns, and the liberation of a greater diversity of personal
capacities which characterize a democracyʼ (Dewey, 1916, p. 94) can only be achieved
and retained through education. In fact, in Dewey’s eyes, the entire educational endeavour
makes little sense unless it is viewed through the lens of a community consciousness:
ʽThe conception of education as a social process and function has no definite meaning
until we define the kind of society we have in mindʼ. (ibid., p. 104).
Education, then, is crucial to Dewey’s democracy, since democracy is constantly
moving towards creating more and more opportunities for freer experience in which we
can all share and play a part:
An undesirable society, in other words, is one which internally and externally sets up barriers
to free intercourse and communication of experience. A society which makes provision for
participation in its good of all its members on equal terms and which secures flexible
readjustment of its institutions through interaction of the different forms of associated life is
in so far democratic. Such a society must have a type of education which gives individuals a
personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure
social changes without introducing disorder. (ibid., p. 106)
Dewey’s vision of a democratic society is extensively diverse, consisting of various
groups with differing interests all interacting and exchanging freely with one another.
Citizens, then, must be capable of understanding their active role in reconciling the
challenges and differences within their community, and extending and enriching this
democratic perspective. In the Irish context, there is some debate regarding whether a
society characterised by cultural uniformity and a lack of open discourse is necessarily
conducive to democracy. I believe Ferriter’s critique of the modern Irish state as ʽmorally
bankruptʼ (Ferriter 2012, heading) with a ʽdysfunctional governing cultureʼ (2014, para.
12) that placed a premium on ʽself-protecting hierarchiesʼ (ibid.) provides some
justification for putting modern Irish democracy under a critical microscope. Michael D.
Higgins, the current president of Ireland but writing as a Labour party minister in 1991,
highlighted serious deficiencies in what should be a ʽmodel of Irish societyʼ – the state’s
education system (Higgins, 1991, p. 5), identifying it as having been authoritarian,
539
passive rather than active, conservative before critical, orientated towards the individual
rather than the social and isolated rather than dialectical. Ryan points out that what
Higgins means by this is that a democratic society and democratic education are mutually
reliant on one another (Ryan, 2014), something which echoes strongly Dewey’s idea that
democratic societies are concerned with the growth of all of its members and their
participation therein. What this implies, I believe, is that Dewey’s understanding of
democracy has not been realised in the Irish education system through its maintaining of
exclusivity and obedience to the status quo and shows that even today, Ireland has some
way to go before democratic ideals are reflected in the Irish education system, and most
certainly Irish primary schools (Ryan, 2014).
In nurturing democratic principles in students for citizenship, education becomes
part of a wider social responsibility, where schools as institutions and teachers as
practitioners undertake discourses of moral and ethical import. These discourses and
dialogues work in preparing citizens, spread through classroom practices in conjoint
communities working together toward the fostering of a strong democracy through
education:
… democracy … becomes a referent for understanding how public life organizes differences
and what this means for the ways in which schools, teachers, and students define themselves as
political subjects, as citizens who operate within particular configurations of power… the
language of radical democracy provides the basis for educators not only to understand how
differences are organized but also how the ground for such difference might be constructed
within a political identity rooted in a respect for democratic public life. (Giroux,1988b, cited in
Giroux, 1997, p. 153)
This leads us towards a discussion of the practical concerns regarding what such
practices might entail. In order to make his philosophy of education more palatable for
educationalists, Dewey brought coherence to his philosophical understanding of
democracy as an ideal expressed through the principle of education by emphasising a
philosophy of experience. Quay believes that at the heart of Dewey’s intellectual
enterprise is a philosophy of experience, as it is only experience that offers such deep
insight into the relation between theory and practice (Quay, 2016). This is where
enquiry and experiential learning come into the discussion of classroom practices.
Through perspectives gained from this discussion, I believe differences between
democratic education and education for democracy revolve around the democratic
character of schools themselves and how the subject matter in their classrooms is taught
i.e. teachers’ pedagogy, dispositions and enquiry. Learning how to enquire in some
discipline or other means that students learn how to use certain methods and procedures
that have been effective at making some kind of headway with the problem. Of course,
the learning of facts and other propositional type knowledge is important for students
to accomplish this, but the point is that a subject should not be reduced to only learning
facts. The study of chemistry, for example, is not merely a case of memorising the
periodic table and knowledge of chemical formulae (even though this is undoubtedly
an important aspect) – the facts are used to test, hypothesise and reason about chemical
reactions also (Cam, 2014).
Why is it that enquiry learning should be so essential for democratic education and
educating for democracy? According to Menthe, developing skills of enquiry and
approach is foundational in education for democratic citizenship (Menthe, 2013, p. 73).
Learning to enquire in any subject in the curriculum means learning how to think within
that particular domain. Thus, the thinking that is core to the disciplines that underlie the
curriculum is enquiry, in some shape or form, and a curriculum based upon enquiry we
may say is one which is based upon learning how to think. People who are not inclined
540
to think for themselves or unable to take responsibility for their decisions and actions are
less able to take an active part in solving the problems that affect their interests, and as
Dewey considered, unable to enjoy the benefits of a democratic way of life. An enquiring
citizenry as opposed to an unquestioning one is a necessary condition for a strong
democracy – a citizenry taught how to think rather than told what to think. The contrary
otherwise entails the society becoming one in which people allow their thinking to be
done for them by others, and judgements and opinions are decided based on power and
authority: ʽThe vacuum that is left by an abandonment of inquiry into the aims of education
is all too readily filled by the imposition of extraneous ends by various interested partiesʼ.
(Barrow, 2002: 20)ʼ.
If a disposition towards enquiry is seen as vital in educating for a strong democracy
then what might we say about the social inclinations that foster a democratic way of life?
An educational standpoint must be combined with an understanding of what is required
for democratic citizenship if a strong democracy is sought. This includes alongside a
disposition for enquiry, social dispositions such as a willingness to see things from the
perspective of others, openness towards the ideas and interests of others, reasonableness
in discussing issues of conflicting interests with others and a willingness to take part in
community life. The combination of intellectual and social dispositions for a democratic
outlook fostered through education presents a unique understanding of what educating
for democracy can and should necessitate. Cam believes that although long gone are the
traditional classrooms where any kind of inter-student talk was punished, it is not unfair
to say that in today’s classrooms in many cases if a student is going to talk at all it is
expected that is should be to the teacher who has expert knowledge of the area which the
students must learn (Cam, 2009). If we assume an enquiry-based approach to education
and move beyond the traditional settled knowledge acquisition classroom, the dynamic
of the teacher-student relationship is fundamentally changed. The teacher’s role shifts
from transmitting the contents and results of previous enquiries contained in textbooks
towards one where they facilitate students learning to think about the subject being taught.
When this shift occurs, it becomes clear that students communicating and discussing with
each other is educationally desirable.
Enquiry functions and thrives through the perspective of others. In attempting to
explain phenomena that has been observed, we must consider the possibility that there is
an alternative possible explanation. This is not just the case for scientific enquiries, the
same is true for moral and personal enquiries also. In all cases dialogue and discussion
between people is needed for a satisfactory resolution of the problem being enquired into
– one person may offer an explanation that another person might suggest an alternative
to, thus bringing into focus something that may not have occurred to the first person.
Explanations need to be justified and subject to each other’s misgivings and criticisms in
order for explanations to be tested, alternative perspectives and possibilities explored and
previous explanations improved. This pertains equally to the classroom setting in
developing open and enquiring minds to the problems that life presents. If equipping
students with the social dispositions needed to support and maintain a democratic way of
life is desired, surely the to-and-fro of reasoning with peers is an ideal means of doing
this. Educationally, if it is hoped that students do not to jump to conclusions in their
thinking, to consider multiple possibilities in their judgments and to be keen to explore
alternative explanations, it seems there is little better way to fulfil the function of
supporting a democratic way of life other than collaborative classroom enquiry. In terms
of educating for values, Lipman fervently believed that collaborative enquiry supersedes
traditional instruction by virtue of the fact that cooperative learning stresses non-
competitive discussion while collaborative enquiry stresses shared deliberation through a
541
community of enquiry (Lipman, 2003, p. 119). Behrenbruch recounts a research

participant’s metaphor of choreography to emphasise the different relationships involved
in enquiry learning regarding what to learn, who learns and who teaches:
I think teachers are like choreographers. They look for interesting, provocative and important
ideas to explore that excite and challenge the dancers. They plan the steps and organise the
rehearsals. They recognise when a performance is finally ready – when the dancers understand
the message and can communicate it fluently. But choreographers don’t exist without the
dancers. Dancers bring unique talents, interests and ideas. They change and improvise the steps.
They challenge the choreographers’ own understandings and skills. As they rehearse together
the dance becomes different and richer than the choreographer imagined. But in the end, at that
culminating performance, the choreographer stands behind the curtain in darkness, watching
the dancing in the light. (Behrenbruch, 2012, p. xix)
Students can learn to talk and listen to those with whom they might not agree
through collaborative classroom enquiry, becoming more and more accustomed to taking
on board other people’s interests, points of view and concerns in forming their judgements
as they grow, broadening their thinking in deciding what course of action to take and
becoming more reasonable when dealing with differences of value and disagreements on
conduct. By enquiring collaboratively with one another students may be more prepared
and willing to participate in community life. People unwilling or unable to think for
themselves and a reluctance to engage in active citizenship pose significant challenges to
the building of a strong democracy, however it is by no means unreasonable to assert that
to develop social and intellectual dispositions in following generations we could do little
better than the provision of collaborative classroom enquiry in their education (Cam,
2009). If we accept this assertion about enquiry-based learning in schools working
towards the development of democratic dispositions as citizens, we are left with the
question of where philosophy with children might enter into the equation. Lipman
understood thinking as a process of enquiry and conceived the classroom as a community
of enquiry where the focus is on good thinking and its improvement (Lipman, 1988). For
Lipman, philosophy provides an effective model for the educational process as a whole.
On a basic level, what this means is that an education that includes philosophical enquiry,
and more specifically his Philosophy for Children programme, can make a fundamental
and much needed contribution to the school curriculum. However, on a deeper level,
Lipman had a much broader vision in which he sees philosophical enquiry representative
of a paradigm for ʽthe education of the future as a form of life that has not yet been
realized and as a kind of praxisʼ (Lipman, 1988, p. 17). He makes it very clear that for
him the community of enquiry constitutes ʽthe social dimension of democracy in practice,
for it both paves the way for the implementation of such practice and is emblematic of
what such practice has the potential to becomeʼ (Lipman, 2003, p. 204). This broad vision
relates directly to Cam’s belief that engaging in this type of collaborative enquiry
encourages the social communication and mutual recognition of interests that Dewey
identifies with a democratic way of life:
Such an engagement develops the social and intellectual dispositions and capacities needed for
active citizenship, while liberating the powers of the individual. That is to say, in learning to
think together in these ways, students acquire the forms of regard and the practices of social
exchange that help to sustain an open society at the same time as they learn to think for
themselves. (Cam, 2006, p. 8)
Thus, the community of enquiry provides a model of democracy as enquiry as well
as being an educative process in and of itself. It is this aspect of enquiry, the connection
between education and democracy, that Burgh implores us to pay urgent attention to lest
542
we suffer from a dearth of civic literacy (Burgh, 2003). We ignore this connection at our
peril since it is the role of education to develop in students the habits, attitude and
dispositions necessary for autonomous, active democratic citizenship (Burgh and Davey,
2004). This I believe brings us round to our original question regarding democratic
education and educating for democracy. The community of enquiry serves as an exemplar
of deliberative democracy in action where students learn about and build a capacity to
make decisions on issues that concern and affect them as citizens in a democracy
(Lipman, 2003). Burgh and Davey favour a model of democratic education over
education for democracy insofar as learning becomes a ʽstudent-centred activity where
students exercise control together with teachers, parents and the wider community in what
and how they learnʼ (Burgh and Davey, 2004, p. 328). Classrooms should not merely
imitate democratic processes but rather, in order to be effective, they must function
democratically and have an impact on the wider democratic community, opening the
discussion up to notions of the democratic school and what it means for a school to
operate democratically, as an expression of democratic values.
The end of our discussion on democratic education and education for democracy
has brought us firmly to the school gates, by which I mean our attention shifts from the
theoretical towards issues surrounding individual schools and their democratic practices
and aspirations, along with notions of teaching practice, school leadership and
community. However, this is only the end in one sense, providing a clear and solid ground
from which we can explore the practice of democracy in schools. Such an exploration
requires the exquisiteness of context, a contextual depth and delicacy in which the
reverberations of the echo chamber may ring true for wider discussion and understanding.
What is meant by a democratic school? What might a democratic school look like? What
might it entail and what goes on in the classrooms, hallways and staff rooms? It is not
feasible here to undergo a detailed exposition of how democracy may be represented or
incorporated by the Irish education system. However, it is at this juncture, where
democracy and education meet in practice within individual schools by individual
teachers, that I believe a fuller understanding of democratic education may be achieved
through the contextual lens of such teachers and schools, drawing us towards Fielding
and Moss’ characterisation of what we mean by a democratic school as a ʽdemocratic
learning communityʼ, where democracy is both the end and the means, the purpose and
the practice, of education (Fielding and Moss, 2001). As such, my doctoral research is
focused on this contextuality where Dewey, again, becomes pivotal through discourses
that aim to make the public school system a key part of a more participatory, democratic
and humane society (Benson, Harkavy and Puckett, 2007). In this way, it is hoped an
enquiry into philosophy for children practices in Irish Educate Together schools can
widen existing discourses and provide opportunities for fresh dialogue between teachers,
educators and philosophy graduates, and supporting affective discourses amongst social
and educational movements and conventions.
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Freire y Lipman: La necesidad del diálogo en el proceso

educativo para la afirmación de la sociedad democrática
Maria A. Lima Piai

Universidade de São Paulo
maria-piai@usp.br
Darcísio Natal Muraro

Universidade Estadual de Londrina
murarodnm@gmail.com
CV
María A. Lima Pai está graduada en Filosofía por la Universidad Estadual de Londrina
(2002) y posee el grado en Educación artística por la Universidad de Araras (2010).
Concluyó la maestría en Filosofía de la Educación por la Universidad Estadual de
Londrina (2012) con una investigación sobre la enseñanza de filosofía para niños, el
pensamiento crítico y el concepto de infancia. Es doctoranda en Educación en la
Universidad de São Paulo (USP) en la especialidad de Psicología de la Educación, con
una investigación sobre la violencia en la escuela. Es profesora de educación básica del
estado del Paraná en la red pública y privada. Docente en el Centro de Ciencias Humanas
y de Educación de la Universidad Estadual del Paraná (UNESPAR).
Darsicio Natal Muraro está graduado en Filosofía por la Pontificia Universidad Católica
do Paraná (1986), con un grado en Teología por el Instituto Teológico São Paulo (1990),
maestría en Historia y Filosofía de la Educación por la Pontificia Universidad Católica
de São Paulo (1998), doctorado por la Universidad de São Paulo (Facultad de Educación,
en la especialidad de Filosofía de la Educación / 2008) y especialización en Fundamentos
de una Educación para el Pensar por la Pontificia Universidad Católica de São Paulo.
Ejerció como profesor formador de educadores en Filosofía para Niños. Actualmente es
profesor Adjunto de la Universidad Estadual de Londrina (UEL). Temas de investigación:
didáctica de la filosofía, experiencia, diálogo, pensamiento, democracia.
RESUMEN
El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar la función que tiene el diálogo en el proceso
educativo tal y como lo conciben Matthew Lipman, filósofo estadounidense, y Paulo
Freire, filósofo brasileño. Para ello identificaremos las semejanzas que estos dos
pensadores tienen en el desarrollo de su concepción de la educación y del diálogo como
condición esencial para el desarrollo de la democracia. El diálogo es un término clave
para entender la propuesta educativa de estos dos autores, ya que lo consideran
imprescindible en el proceso reflexivo del aprendizaje. Según Freire, a través del
lenguaje, los seres humanos dan significado al mundo y crean su propia lectura e
interpretación de las cosas. Para Lipman, por otra parte, el diálogo es el medio y el fin de
una educación para el pensamiento; a través del diálogo los niños y todas las personas
que participen en él, aprenden a ser razonables. Para ambos autores, dentro del marco
escolar y más allá de él, el diálogo es condición para la instauración de una sociedad
democrática.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Democracia; Diálogo; Paulo Freire; Matthew Lipman.
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ABSTRACT
The objective of this paper is to present the dialogue in the educational process proposed
by Matthew Lipman, American philosopher and Paulo Freire, Brazilian philosopher.
Dialogue is a key term to understand the educational proposal of those authors who
consider it essential in the reflective process of learning. For Freire, by the pronunciation
of the word, human beings give meaning to the world and create their way of doing their
reading of the world. For Lipman, dialogue is the means and the end of an education for
thinking, it is through dialogue that children and, consequently, any human being, learn
to be reasonable. For both authors dialogue in the school environment and beyond that
environment is a condition for the establishment of democratic society.
KEYWORDS
Democracy; Dialogue; Paulo Freire; Matthew Lipman.
INTRODUCCIÓN
Paulo Freire fue un importante pensador y educador que denunció en sus obras un
sistema de opresión instaurado ideológicamente en las sociedades a lo largo de la historia,
principalmente en la sociedad brasileña. Su crítica social nos lleva a reflexionar sobre los
condicionamientos impuestos históricamente a los seres humanos dentro de una
estructura social opresiva.
Matthew Lipman, pensador y educador estadounidense, según su concepción de
educación articulada en el programa de Filosofía para Niños, se opone críticamente a la
enseñanza entendida como simple transmisión de conocimiento, porque favorece la
acumulación de conocimiento en la memoria, pero no desarrolla la capacidad reflexiva.
Para este pensador de la educación, el niño (o el ser humano) es constructor de su propio
saber y esa construcción debe realizarse a través de las relaciones sociales,
específicamente a través del diálogo.
El objetivo de este trabajo es mostrar cómo Matthew Lipman (1922-2010) y Paulo
Freire (1921-1997), conciben el diálogo y su función tanto en el proceso educativo como
en el proceso de constitución de una sociedad democrática.
Matthew Lipman: el diálogo y la construcción del pensamiento
La construcción del conocimiento, según la filosofía de Lipman, no se realiza de
forma individual, sino de forma social en una relación comunicativa significativa, que
permite la formación de conceptos y el desarrollo lingüístico del niño y de cualquier ser
humano. El conocimiento y la capacidad de seguir conociendo se adquieren entonces a
través del diálogo.
Lipman enfatiza la necesidad de desarrollar la racionalidad, así como la creatividad
y la moralidad, puesto que el desarrollo de estas tres dimensiones del pensamiento da
como resultado personas razonables. Según esta concepción de la educación para el
pensamiento, aprender no consiste en acumular una gran cantidad de información en el
cerebro, sino en saber cómo apreciar y usar esa información con cuidado y sensibilidad.
El conocimiento es una construcción a lo largo de la vida. Así, para Lipman, la
construcción de un conocimiento erudito no es suficiente para justificar el proceso
educativo o la construcción de una sociedad justa y democrática porque:
Las sociedades justas y libres son aquellas cuyas instituciones son equitativas, que estimulan la
participación de los ciudadanos y en las que éstos deliberan de forma crítica y creativa. Así, el
juicio y el raciocinio son indispensables, y tratar de resolver esos elementos sin la filosofía sería
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lo mismo que representar Hamlet suprimiendo el papel del príncipe de Dinamarca. (Lipman,
2008b, p. 18)
La intención de Lipman es básicamente contribuir al desarrollo del aprendizaje de
los niños mejorando su modo de pensar; para conseguirlo, propone la enseñanza de la
filosofía a partir de la creación de la comunidad de investigación filosófica. Con la
mediación del profesor, la clase se transforma en una comunidad de investigación, en la
que las clases de filosofía se desarrollan indagando e interactuando a través del diálogo.
El diálogo proporciona la ocasión para poner en práctica una multiplicidad de actos
mentales, verbales y sociales. Según Lipman, al involucrarse en un diálogo, las personas:
[...] son llevados a reflexionar, a concentrarse, a tener en cuenta las alternativas, a escuchar
cuidadosamente, a prestar mucha atención a las definiciones y a los significados, a reconocer
alternativas en las que no había pensado anteriormente y, en general, a realizar un gran número
de actividades mentales en las que no se hubiera involucrado si la conversación no hubiera
ocurrido. (Lipman, Oscanyan y Sharp, 1994, p. 44)
La propuesta de Lipman es transformar las clases en comunidades generadoras de
experiencias de pensamiento a través del diálogo de investigación, en el que los niños
puedan aprender unos con otros y con el profesor mediador sobre los temas de interés
para ellos, que van surgiendo a partir de las novelas filosóficas. La filosofía es
presentada por Lipman como un juego, como una diversión cognitiva donde el niño se
involucra en la discusión de modo riguroso, fomentando la curiosidad, el
descubrimiento y la imaginación, y desarrollando habilidades de pensamiento y
sentimientos personales y sociales.
No se trata de enseñar a los niños filosofía en el sentido académico, sino de buscar
en la filosofía los instrumentos que esta disciplina aporta para construir una educación
que ensañe a pensar. Para lograrlo es necesario que las clases se desarrollen en un nuevo
contexto educativo, y este contexto es lo que Lipman llamó comunidad de investigación.
En la comunidad de investigación el profesor pasa a ser co-investigador y a guiar el
proceso de búsqueda abierto por las preguntas filosóficas que los miembros de la
comunidad plantean a partir de su propia experiencia. En el marco de la comunidad de
investigación, el diálogo es entendido por Lipman como el medio posibilitador de la
investigación filosófica. El diálogo es la base para el desarrollo de la autonomía, de la
construcción del pensamiento crítico y de las experiencias democráticas desde infancia.
Lipman parte del principio de que la verdadera democracia exige como condición
de posibilidad la participación de todos los miembros de la sociedad en términos de
igualdad y del bien común. Para que esta participación sea posible, es necesario formar a
los ciudadanos para ello desde la infancia. Lipman propone como parte de esa formación
una práctica pedagógica que permite a todas las personas apropiarse de las habilidades
filosóficas que inciden directamente en la calidad de la vida democrática. De hecho,
Lipman presenta un modelo de democracia fundamentado en la capacidad de juzgar y de
actuar racionalmente. De ahí surge la importancia de la educación en la construcción de
la democracia.
Esta transformación social, que es el objetivo último de la propuesta pedagógica de
Lipman, ha de tener lugar sin violencia. De hecho, es la formación de personas razonables
con capacidad deliberativa lo que permite la transformación social sin ocasionar
desórdenes sociales que impedirían, a su vez, el crecimiento personal y del grupo. En esta
misma línea Dewey expone en Democracia y educación: ʽla sociedad debe adoptar un
tipo de educación que proporcione a los individuos un interés personal en las relaciones
y dirección sociales, y hábitos de espíritu que permitan cambios sociales sin ocasionar
desórdenesʼ (Dewey, 1979, p.106).
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La comunidad de investigación y educación para el pensamiento crítico se

convierten, por tanto, en sinónimos de educación para la democracia. Los debates
abiertos, la libertad para expresarse y la necesidad de ponderación en el diálogo son
condiciones necesarias también para el desarrollo de una sociedad comprometida con un
funcionamiento genuinamente democrático. Ese compromiso constituye el significado
político de la comunidad de investigación. La experiencia del diálogo tiene entonces,
según Lipman, un papel activo y fundamental en la formación de la sociedad democrática.
La filosofía es entonces, para Lipman, un ejercicio de escuchar y ser escuchado, de
construcción y expresión del pensamiento. Escuchar el pensamiento de los otros y
expresar el propio se configura en la propuesta de Lipman como una disposición de niños
y adultos que, cuando se desarrolla, permite construir y reconstruir conocimientos y
aplicarlos en las prácticas cotidianas.
Para Lipman el diálogo es el recurso que motiva a los niños a hacer preguntas, a
exponer sus hipótesis y a sacar sus propias conclusiones. El diálogo fomenta que los
participantes definan términos, se inspiren en las ideas expuestas por otros, hagan
clasificaciones e identifiquen y analicen ambigüedades (Lipman, 2008b, 19).
Los niños demuestran fácilmente capacidad para dialogar; sin embargo, es preciso
que el contexto social ofrezca condiciones para el diálogo, pues de lo contrario puede
sofocar esa habilidad. El hecho de que los niños hagan preguntas demuestra su
predisposición al diálogo. Y si hacen preguntas es porque quieren respuestas, quieren
comprender el mundo que les rodea y su relación con él.
Para Lipman uno de los principales objetivos de la escuela debe ser el desarrollo
del lenguaje, puesto que el lenguaje es el principal medio de articulación y desarrollo de
la inteligencia; es expresión de la propia inteligencia. El lenguaje es parte del
razonamiento, de forma que estimular el lenguaje oral (y escrito) es también estimular el
razonamiento, es estimular la capacidad de pensar bien. Para ser motivador y cumplir con
la función de desarrollar la inteligencia, es necesario que el lenguaje tenga sentido y
significado, sobre todo para quien está en la condición de oyente. Lipman se preocupa
por el rigor lógico, por la coherencia, las definiciones conceptuales, y por las habilidades
del pensamiento (Lipman, Oscanyan y Sharp, 1994).
Desde este enfoque el profesor tiene un papel importante en el proceso educativo y
sus habilidades deben ir más allá de la adquisición de contenidos académicos, pues su
competencia en una determinada área del saber no garantiza su formación como profesor
de una comunidad de investigación. Por supuesto, tampoco se trata de lo contrario, pues
no es posible que un profesor prescinda del conocimiento de lo que se propone enseñar.
Según Lipman, un buen profesor debe cuidar y desarrollar por igual las habilidades que
tienen que ver con los aspectos metodológicos y la adquisición de los contenidos que va
a tratar con los niños.
La propuesta pedagógica de Filosofía para Niños se fundamenta en una concepción
del diálogo que se diferencia de la mera conversación. La conversación es “un proceso
donde el tono personal es acentuado, pero el hilo lógico es tenue, mientras que en el
diálogo ocurre exactamente lo contrario” (Lipman, 2008a, p. 335). El diálogo tiene reglas
propias que se establecen a partir de la lógica del pensamiento: lógica formal, lógica
informal, lógica de buenas razones, lógica dialéctica, según exige la argumentación.
Desde esta perspectiva la intervención del profesor es más exigente, puesto que debe
ayudar a los estudiantes a que dirijan y controlen su propio proceso de investigación,
evitando huir del asunto, caer en falacias, ambigüedades, etc. La comunidad de
investigación tiene entre sus objetivos la introducción de diálogo en el ámbito escolar. Lo
que está detrás de la propuesta de Filosofía para Niños de Lipman es la necesidad de
instaurar el diálogo, es decir, una conversación estructurada que implica el uso correcto
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y riguroso de la lógica. El diálogo se configura, por tanto, en la propuesta educativa de

Lipman, como contenido y como metodología.
La estructura de la comunidad de investigación es igualitaria, todos sus miembros
tienen el mismo derecho a tomar la palabra y a ser escuchados, lo cual presupone que
cada participante tenga un buen concepto de sí mismo y de su interlocutor, así como que
valore la diversidad de opiniones como un factor enriquecedor en el proceso de
aprendizaje. De esta forma, el diálogo implica la autocorrección y la auto-regulación de
los que participan en él. El objetivo común de los miembros comprometidos en el diálogo
es la investigación sobre el tema que les ocupa y la búsqueda de la verdad sin pretensiones
absolutistas, es decir, de una verdad siempre abierta y en proceso de construcción. La
intención de quienes participan en un diálogo filosófico no es vencer al interlocutor, pues
él no es un oponente, sino alguien que ayuda en el proceso de alcanzar una verdad. Por
ello es necesaria una apertura consciente, que permita a los participantes desprenderse de
sus prejuicios y dogmas.
El diálogo presupone condición de igualdad para que los miembros que participan
en él tengan la capacidad de autocorregirse, de forma que facilita, a su vez, el intercambio
de puntos de vista de los individuos y la apertura necesaria para crear una genuina
comunidad. Por esta razón, el diálogo tiene también una dimensión ética al fundamentarse
nuestras relaciones con las otras personas en la reciprocidad. También, debe tenerse en
cuenta el proceso educativo cualitativamente, puesto que “una cultura construida en torno
a valores democráticos permite incorporar elementos (costumbres, actitudes, habilidades,
capacidades, etcétera) menos jerarquizantes y clasistas que la cultura académica actual”
(Santana, 2014, p. 109).
Los objetivos educativos deben estar relacionados con la formación para la
ciudadanía, y han de apuntar a la formación de personas críticas y reflexivas que puedan
participar en la sociedad de manera significativa, con el fin de transformarla en un
ambiente que permita el desarrollo de las capacidades y habilidades humanas. De esta
forma, el diálogo se convierte en una condición para alcanzar estos objetivos. Sin diálogo
no hay democracia. Concebir una propuesta pedagógica que aspire a preparar a los niños
para vivir en una sociedad democrática como ciudadanos críticos es, según Lipman,
concebir una educación fundamentada en la investigación.
Paulo Freire: el diálogo y la construcción del sujeto
En la propuesta pedagógica de Paulo Freire el diálogo es un concepto central e
imprescindible, porque Freire considera que a través de la palabra el ser humano se
construye y reconstruye como sujeto del conocimiento. Según su filosofía de la educación
las palabras dan significado al mundo, y dialogar es hacer uso de esas palabras,
permitiendo que cada persona encuentre su propio significado.
De este modo, como el ser humano es un ser social y no vive aislado, su
pensamiento también es social. Según Freire (2011a, p. 87) “El sujeto pensante no puede
pensar solo; no puede pensar sin la coparticipación de otros sujetos en el acto de pensar
sobre el objeto. No hay un 'pienso', sino un 'pensamos'“. La propuesta educativa de Freire
considera que el diálogo constituye la ocasión para construir el conocimiento, tanto en un
contexto escolar como en todos los ámbitos de la vida social, siempre que los
interlocutores se sitúen al mismo nivel de competencia, en tanto que seres que actúan.
El diálogo, por tanto, favorece el perfeccionamiento de las relaciones humanas y
contribuye al desarrollo de la concientización y del pensamiento crítico, condiciones
necesarias para que tengan lugar transformaciones significativas de la estructura social.
En este sentido, el diálogo es un término clave para entender la propuesta educativa de
Freire que lo considera imprescindible en el proceso educativo pues a través del diálogo
el ser humano se construye y reconstruye como sujeto cultural. A partir de la concepción
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de Freire según la cual las palabras dan significado al mundo, dialogar se define como
hacer uso de esas palabras y acceder a que el otro también lo haga, haciendo posible que
cada ser humano encuentre su propio significado en tanto que ser humano. De esta
manera, el diálogo se convierte en una necesidad existencial.
En el contexto escolar el diálogo es para Freire el punto central del proceso de
enseñanza y aprendizaje; permite al profesor demostrar respeto por los conocimientos del
educando, conocimientos que puede utilizar como punto de partida. De este modo, Freire
critica el modelo tradicional de escuela en el que predomina el autoritarismo del profesor
y del sistema sobre el educando, al que se exige que se adapte al sistema en lugar de
desarrollar su pensamiento crítico creativo y autónomo, capaz de transformar el mundo
según sus deseos.
Los conceptos de diálogo y de educación en la perspectiva del pensamiento
freireano están estrechamente relacionados con su concepción de ser humano y de mundo.
Como el propio Freire explica, no existe “posibilidad de dicotomizar al hombre del
mundo, puesto que no existe el uno sin el otro” (2011b, p. 31). El hombre es un ser que
existe en medio de innumerables relaciones con el mundo, fuera de las cuales él no puede
ser comprendido, por lo que también es concebido como un ser en situación. Ante ese
contexto existencial, el ser humano “Actuando, transforma; transformando, crea una
realidad que, a su vez, 'envolviendo', condiciona su forma de actuar” (Freire, 2011b, p.
31). De esta forma, el pensador brasileño argumenta que “En estas relaciones con el
mundo, a través de su acción sobre él, el ser humano se encuentra marcado por los
resultados de su propia acción” y, por lo tanto, “el ser humano es un ser de la ‘praxis`; de
la acción y de la reflexión” (Freire, 2011b, p. 30).
La praxis es un elemento central del pensamiento de Freire, puesto que es lo que
define al ser humano y lo diferencia de los otros animales. La praxis es posible gracias a
la capacidad que tiene el ser humano de reflexionar sobre sí mismo y sobre sus
actividades, capacidad que tiene como objetivo último la transformación del ambiente y
del propio mundo. Asimismo, es importante destacar que la capacidad reflexiva coloca al
ser humano en una condición de observador del mundo, ya que para reflexionar necesita
“alejarse” del mundo y de su actividad, como una especie de “desligamiento” para
observarlo, permaneciendo en él y con él. A partir de la observación del mundo, el ser
humano se sitúa críticamente en la realidad, pues más que parte del mundo, el ser humano
es un ser transformador del mundo.
A su vez la realidad es el medio en el que se desarrollan las relaciones de los seres
humanos por medio de la comunicación; ya que para sobrevivir y principalmente para
transformar el mundo, necesitan actuar, pensar y hablar de la realidad en la que viven
juntos. De esta manera desde la concepción de la realidad como ambiente social, las cosas
se transforman en objetos de pensamiento para los sujetos que piensan, de modo que los
individuos influyen en esos objetos a través de los signos lingüísticos que utilizan para
comunicarse. Por lo tanto, para Freire, “El mundo humano es, de esta forma, un mundo
de comunicación” (Lipman, 2011b, p. 86).
De este modo, como el hombre es un ser social que no vive aislado, su pensamiento
tampoco está aislado. Según Freire (ibidem, p. 87), “El sujeto pensante no puede pensar
solo; no puede pensar sin la coparticipación de otros sujetos en el acto de pensar sobre el
objeto. No hay un 'pienso', sino un 'pensamos'. Es el 'pensamos' que establece el 'pienso'
y no al contrario”. En este sentido, Freire destaca el origen social del pensamiento, que
debe estar orientado a intervenir y transformar el medio social.
De todo lo dicho hasta aquí se sigue que, dado que los significados de las cosas
están construidos por los seres humanos a lo largo de la historia, la comunicación entre
ellos debe ser una comunicación clara y crítica, ya que no implica sólo transmisión de
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informaciones y conocimientos, sino sobre todo, comprensión compartida de

significados. Asimismo, es necesario señalar que los niveles de conciencia y los
conocimientos que los seres humanos construyen son conocimientos condicionados por
la estructura social, las experiencias históricas y existenciales. Freire evidencia la
importancia de considerar este hecho, ya que puede generar serias dificultades en el
diálogo “el proceso de comunicación humana no puede estar exento de los
condicionamientos socioculturales” (ibidem, p. 97).
Es la percepción del mundo y la percepción que el ser humano tiene de sí mismo
como ser histórico lo que le permite adquirir la conciencia de su propia identidad como
“seres más allá de sí mismos, como 'proyectos' [...] como seres que se conocen
inconclusos” (Freire, 2011c, p. 103). El ser humano se construye sin acabarse, teniendo
en cuenta el proceso histórico que tiene como punto de partida el propio yo. De esta
forma, “como no hay ser humano sin mundo, sin realidad, el movimiento parte de las
relaciones hombre-mundo” (ibidem), el punto de partida de ese movimiento está siempre
en el ser humano, en el sujeto, que está en el mundo y que percibe el mundo, que considera
su realidad como un desafío y no como fatalidad.
La percepción de los condicionamientos socioculturales de los significados de las
cosas implica una concepción de la realidad como totalidad histórica. Cuando el sujeto
no percibe la realidad como totalidad, las posibilidades de una acción auténtica
desaparecen.
La concientización “permite a los individuos apropiarse críticamente de la posición
que ocupan con los demás en el mundo” (2011b, p. 43). En este sentido, el diálogo es la
forma de expresar esa relación del ser humano con el mundo, que anima al otro a
percibirse a sí mismo y a transformar su interacción también, motivo por el cual Freire
concibe el diálogo como un instrumento de liberación y humanización, pues cuando el
ser humano es sujeto de su vida, el mundo “no es algo sobre lo que se habla con falsas
palabras, sino el mediador de los sujetos de la educación” (Freire, 2011c, p. 105). De esta
forma, es necesaria una educación que permita esa relación ser humano/mundo, que para
Freire se articula a través de la palabra, de la capacidad comunicativa, del diálogo.
Esta propuesta educativa convierte al ser humano en sujeto de la acción y eso solo
es posible concibiendo la realidad como un producto histórico-cultural, “la lectura crítica
del mundo que des-oculta la verdad, objetivándola, tomando como producto histórico-
social de los hombres para desencadenar una praxis auténtica de reconstrucción de la
propia historia” (Muraro, 2015, p. 62). A través de la palabra el ser humano se convierte
en sujeto de su realidad y ejerce su libertad y su espíritu democrático.
La adaptación del ser humano a los condicionamientos socioculturales no es, por
tanto, algo natural sino el resultado de un proceso que puede convertirse en algo alienante
o liberador dependiendo de la ausencia o presencia de la experiencia dialógica.
El hombre es un ser que se encuentra en un estado de permanente aprendizaje. El
conocimiento es el resultado de la relación que él establece con el mundo transformándolo
a través de su trabajo. Hay siempre algo que conocer y aprender. De este modo, Freire
aclara que “no hay absolutización de la ignorancia ni absolutización del saber. Nadie lo
sabe todo, como nadie ignora todo”. (2011b, p. 57-58). El ser humano se encuentra en un
proceso permanente de búsqueda, que posibilita tanto nuevos aprendizajes como, sobre
todo, la acción transformadora de sí mismo y del mundo, condiciones éstas, que lo
convierten en un ser histórico. Asimismo, Freire concibe al ser humano como un ser
inconcluso, inacabado y, “el inacabado del ser o su inconclusión es propia de la
experiencia vital. Donde hay vida hay inacabado. Pero sólo entre mujeres y hombres el
inacabamiento se hizo consciente” (Freire, 1996, p. 50).
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La consciencia de ser un ser inconcluso e inacabado permite a hombres y mujeres

modificar su modo de estar en el mundo, pasando a formar parte de él y cambiando la
calidad de la experiencia humana en comparación con la vida animal (Freire, 2011a, p.
58). El hecho de ser un ser cultural exige al ser humano un tiempo mayor de adaptación
al mundo y de dependencia de los adultos. “Cuanta más cultura hay, mayor es la infancia
de un ser, su dependencia de cuidados especiales” (Freire, 1996, p. 50). El lenguaje
conceptual, la inteligibilidad, la maravilla ante la vida y la ética son características del ser
humano que con su postura erguida ha liberado las manos para la acción.
La relación entre las manos y la mente fue cada vez más intensa en el ser humano
y gracias a eso el mundo fue perdiendo la condición de mero soporte. El soporte se
transformó en mundo para el ser humano y la vida pasó a ser existencia. “El soporte se
vino haciéndose mundo y la vida, existencia, en la proporción que el cuerpo humano se
convierte en cuerpo consciente, captador, perceptor, transformador, creador de belleza y
no 'espacio' vacío a ser llenado por contenidos”. (Freire, 1996, p. 51).
La existencia es, entonces, un nivel más profundo y complejo de la vida. Se
constituye a través de la capacidad expresiva del lenguaje hablado y escrito, de la cultura,
de la comunicación, de la percepción estética y ética (ibidem, p. 51-52). De esta forma,
“la existencia, porque humana, no puede ser muda, silenciosa, ni tampoco puede nutrirse
de falsas palabras, sino de palabras verdaderas, con que los hombres transforman el
mundo” (Freire, 2011c, p. 108). La existencia se constituye entonces a través de la
palabra, del diálogo, de la interacción del ser humano con el mundo, “pues existir es
“pronunciar” el mundo, es modificarlo. El ge de ellos que se pronuncien nuevamente”.
(ibidem, p. 108).
De este modo, la práctica del diálogo se configura como un camino a través del cual
puede descubrirse la ignorancia, ya que a través de la relación comunicativa el sujeto
puede percibir con los demás que los objetos del mundo y las condiciones de las personas
no se restringen a un solo punto de vista. En ese sentido, el diálogo también puede ser
entendido como un método de problematización del conocimiento: ʽLo que se pretende
con el diálogo, en cualquier hipótesis (sea en torno a un conocimiento científico y técnico,
sea de un conocimiento “experiencial”), es la problematización del propio conocimiento
en su indiscutible relación con la realidad concreta en la que se genera y, sobre la cual
incide, para comprenderla, explicarla, transformarlaʼ. (Freire, 2011b, p. 65).
De esta forma, a través del genuino diálogo, los sujetos desarrollan el pensamiento
crítico, ya que el diálogo “[...] problematizando y criticando, inserta al hombre en su
realidad como verdadero sujeto de la transformación” (ibidem, p. 63-64). Los seres
humanos se hacen “en la palabra, en el trabajo, en la acción reflexión” (Freire, 2011c, p.
108) y la palabra no puede ser privilegio de algunos seres humanos, sino derecho de todos,
pues nadie puede decir la palabra verdadera solo o imponerla a los demás. “El diálogo es
este encuentro de los hombres, mediatizados por el mundo, para pronunciarlo, no
agotándose, por lo tanto, en la relación yo-tú”. (ibidem, p. 108).
No es posible, entonces, el diálogo entre los opresores y oprimidos. Para que haya
diálogo es preciso que los oprimidos reencuentren la palabra, reconquisten el derecho de
decirla, pronuncien el mundo y reconquisten su humanización. El diálogo se constituye
desde esta perspectiva como una exigencia existencial.
Es indispensable que alumnos y profesores perciban el sentido del saber como una
búsqueda permanente en el marco de la práctica educativa. Siguiendo esta concepción del
saber es deseable que los contenidos surjan en el diálogo durante el proceso de enseñanza-
aprendizaje para que, gracias a la problematización del objeto de estudio, tenga lugar la
reflexión y la construcción de conocimientos auténticos y críticos. De esta forma, cualquier
contenido u objeto de estudio: “todo puede ser problematizado”. (Freire, 2011b, p. 68).
553
Sin embargo, desde esta perspectiva, el alumno no será un “dócil” receptor de

contenidos que acepta todo lo que es dicho por los profesores. “Cuanto más simple y dócil
es el receptor de los contenidos con los que, en nombre del saber, es “llenado” por sus
profesores, tanto menos puede pensar y apenas repite” (ibidem, p. 68). El desarrollo del
pensamiento crítico de los alumnos en el marco del diálogo comunicativo posibilita la
construcción de conocimientos para ambos: para los alumnos y para el profesor.
El diálogo y la problematización no adormecen a nadie. Conscientes en la dialogicidad, en la
problematización, educador-educando y educando-educador van ambos desarrollando una
postura crítica de la cual resulta la percepción de que este conjunto de saber se encuentra en
interacción. Saber que refleja el mundo y los hombres, en el mundo y con él, explicando el
mundo, pero sobre todo, teniendo que justificarse en su transformación. (ibidem, p. 70-71)
Una sociedad democrática exige una educación que anime al ser humano a tomar
cada vez más la palabra, a ser consciente de su transitoriedad y capacidad crítica
alejándolo del mutismo y de la adaptación que siempre observaron los brasileños en su
historia de opresores y oprimidos.
El diálogo consiste en una mirada esperanzadora hacia la humanidad y la vida,
proporcionando disposición para la búsqueda de nuevos saberes, que contribuyan a la
liberación humana a través de la concientización. La postura antidialógica, por el
contrario, implica la permanencia de una palabra inauténtica, de un “falso saber” limitado
que se fija en el pesimismo. La escuela, por tanto, debe ser un espacio de diálogo que
amplía la relación entre el ser humano y el mundo.
Teoría y práctica van unidas, por eso es importante ser conscientes de nuestros
supuestos y reflexionar sobre nuestras acciones para saber si están guiadas o no por lo
que Freire llama la palabra auténtica. Es importante la reflexión filosófica sobre nuestras
propias acciones, ya que a través de ella podemos alcanzar los beneficios que nos
proporciona una comprensión más clara de las acciones mismas.
El diálogo para Freire permite la construcción de la conciencia crítica que apunta,
según su pensamiento, a la pertenencia al mundo, a la capacidad de transformarlo, de ahí la
importancia de incluirlo en el contexto de la educación formal. Sin el diálogo no hay
educación problematizadora, no hay igualdad entre los sujetos en el proceso educativo y el
educando acaba por perder su condición de sujeto. La educación para Freire debe ser,
entonces, comunicativa, y debe tener como base el diálogo, con el objetivo de humanizar
al ser humano, de hacerlo consciente de sí mismo y del mundo, responsable y sujeto moral.
Consideraciones
Tanto Lipman como Freire perciben la necesidad de cambiar los modelos
educativos de sus respectivos países. Aunque la escuela está siempre modificando y
aplicando nuevos métodos y nuevas maneras de enseñar, está claro que es una tarea ardua
y que da pocos frutos, ya que las desigualdades sociales evidencian la ausencia de
criticidad y de autonomía intelectual. El mayor desafío de la educación en la actualidad
es formar ciudadanos, personas críticas, conscientes de sí mismos y de los otros, capaces
de promover una sociedad de oportunidades que acoja a todos.
La tarea fundamental de la educación según Lipman y Freire es desarrollar el
pensamiento crítico y la sensibilidad social de los estudiantes, con el fin de construir una
sociedad genuinamente democrática. De hecho, ambos apuestan por el diálogo, no
limitándolo solamente a los adultos, sino extendiéndolo a todo ser humano que se
comunica, que establece vínculos sociales, como posibilidad de construcción y
reconstrucción constante de una organización política coherente: la democracia.
Educación formal y política están indisolublemente unidas, puesto que el desarrollo
de la capacidad de dialogar implica una mayor efectividad democrática. Y “la existencia
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de una democracia representativa de baja calidad dificulta las posibilidades de

participación, lo que provoca a su vez repercusiones en el sistema educativo” (Santana,
2014, p. 108). Si dialogamos poco, y la democracia presupone apertura al diálogo, es
importante aprender, interiorizar todas las habilidades necesarias para el diálogo.
Lipman habla de una educación para el pensamiento, Freire de la necesidad de
concientización. Lipman propone la investigación filosófica a partir del diálogo, Freire
propone una educación problematizada a partir del diálogo, una educación
transformadora, como práctica de libertad y de criticidad. Una educación que aspire a
formar personas reflexivas no puede, para estos dos autores, prescindir del diálogo.
El camino para la democracia es, según Lipman, el de preparar al ciudadano para
tal ejercicio y, desde esta perspectiva la comunidad de investigación se convierte en la
condición para alcanzar una sociedad verdaderamente democrática. Para él es necesario
“aprender a enseñar a los niños a pensar por sí mismos si deseamos tener una democracia
que valga la pena tener” (Lipman, 2008a, p. 159). Aprender a dialogar a través del
ejercicio del propio diálogo es condición necesaria para la instauración de una sociedad
democrática.
Pretender formar ciudadanos sin el ejercicio de la ciudadanía es una pretensión vana
y contradictoria. La escuela es un lugar de construcción de significados, de construcción
de los ideales democráticos, de reflexión, de crítica, sin embargo, sin el diálogo esos
objetivos se quedan en la teoría, en los proyectos y en las leyes sin alcanzar su instancia
principal que es la sociedad. La escuela, para Lipman y Freire, necesita ser un ambiente
permeado por el diálogo para alcanzar sus objetivos. Sus propuestas apuntan, en último
término, a fomentar el diálogo en el contexto escolar y, en consecuencia, en la sociedad.
REFERENCIAS
Dewey, J. (1979). Democracia e Educação. Trad. De Godofredo Rangel e Anísio
Teixeira. São Paulo. Companhia Editora nacional.
Freire, P. (2011a). Educação como prática da liberdade. 14 ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e
Terra.
— (2011b). Extensão ou Comunicação? Trad. Rosiska Darcy de Oliveira. 15 ed. São
Paulo: Paz e Terra.
— (1996). Pedagogia da Autonomia: saberes necessários à prática educativa. 39 ed. São
Paulo: Paz e Terra.
— (2011c). Pedagogia do oprimido. 50 ed. Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra.
Lipman, M. (2008a) O pensar na educação. Trad. Ann Mary Fighiera Perpétuo. 4 ed.
Petrópolis: Vozes.
— (2008b). Reforçar o raciocínio e o Julgamento pela filosofia. In: LELEUX, Claudine
(Org.) Filosofia para crianças: o modelo de Lipman em discussão. Trad. Fatima
Muhad. Porto Alegre: Artmed.
Lipman, M., Sharp, A. M; Oscanyan, F. S. (1994). A filosofia na sala de aula. Trad. Ana
Luiza Falcone. São Paulo: Nova Alexandria.
Muraro, D. N. (2015). Criticidade e educação filosófica: a formação humana pelo diálogo
e problematização. EccoS, São Paulo, n. 38, p. 59-73, set./dez.
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Does it Matter How Freedom is Conceptualised in the

Community of Philosophical Inquiry in the Lipman Tradition?
Dr Patricia Hannam
County Inspector Adviser for Religious Education, History and Philosophy.
Hampshire County Council, Hampshire, UK.
Visiting Research Fellow, Winchester University. UK.
patricia.hannam@winchester.ac.uk
thinkingworlds@yahoo.co.uk
CV
Dr Patricia Hannam works for Hampshire County Council (UK) as County
Inspector/Adviser Religious Education, History & Philosophy, working with a team
developing local education policy. Pat holds a Visiting Fellowship at the University of
Winchester. Her work is focussed around post qualification professional education for
teachers as well as working with school leaders in whole school improvement. She has a
BA in Philosophy from University of London, and a Post Graduate Certificate (PGCE)
and Masters (MA) in Education from UCL/IoE. Her PhD in Education, from University
of Stirling, Scotland, focused on the responsibilities of education in the public
sphere. She has been a teacher educator in P4C with SAPERE (Society for the
Advancement of Philosophical Enquiry and Reflection with Children) for over 15 years,
working with teachers at all levels of SAPERE training. She is the author of several
published articles and book chapters on P4C and education and of the book Philosophy
with Teenagers, co-authored with Eugenio Echeverria (Bloomsbury, 2009). Her
forthcoming book on non-denominational religious education in the public sphere will
be published by Routledge in 2018.
ABSTRACT
This paper outlines a new proposal regarding how freedom should be conceptualised in
the community of philosophical inquiry in the Lipman tradition. Building on work begun
by Ann Sharp, the author asserts that the community of philosophical inquiry in
educational contexts should be considered as a space where freedom, as conceptualised
by Arendt, comes to exist in the world. The community of philosophical inquiry cannot
be understood only as a space for autonomous individuals to advance their reasoning. The
author proposes that Arendt’s conceptualisation, whereby freedom existing in the world
is dependent upon action in plurality, enables a new articulation of the significance of the
community itself. The community of philosophical inquiry can then be best understood
as a place where people are able to speak and act with others under a condition of plurality.
This paper concludes by explaining why this matters a great deal for the world at the
present time.
KEYWORDS
Freedom, community of philosophical inquiry, education, public sphere.
RESUMEN
Este artículo esboza una nueva propuesta sobre cómo debe conceptualizarse la libertad
en la comunidad de investigación filosófica en la tradición de Lipman. Basándose en el
trabajo iniciado por Ann Sharp, la autora sostiene que la comunidad de investigación
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filosófica en contextos educativos debe considerarse como un espacio en el que la

libertad, tal y como la conceptualiza Arendt, llega a existir en el mundo. La comunidad
de investigación filosófica no puede entenderse únicamente como un espacio para que los
individuos autónomos avancen su razonamiento. La autora propone que la
conceptualización de Arendt, según la cual la libertad existente en el mundo depende de
la acción en pluralidad, permite una nueva articulación del significado de la propia
comunidad. La comunidad de investigación filosófica puede entenderse como un lugar
donde la gente es capaz de hablar y actuar bajo una condición de pluralidad. Este artículo
concluye explicando por qué esto es muy importante para el mundo en la actualidad.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Libertad, comunidad de investigación filosófica, educación, esfera pública.
INTRODUCTION
That public education has an interested position in relation to human freedom is
rarely contested. But how the term is conceptualised and perhaps more importantly what
it is that is significant about this politically, that is, in the ‘public sphere’, is not always
agreed upon precisely. The problem regarding freedom in relation to education can be
expressed most simply as ‘how is it possible for the teacher to cultivate freedom under
the circumstances of coercion?’; since it is rarely the case that children have a choice
about whether to go to school or not. Different proposals for resolving this paradox
emerged during the 20th century (see for example Peters, Scheffler and Dewey). Peters
and Scheffler critiqued what they saw as the prevailing educational focus in parts of
Europe and in the United States during the first half of the 20th century. For example,
Dewey’s proposals for education were considered by some as being too ‘child-centered’
(Peters, 1968, p.35) and by others as being too focused on ‘personal and motivational’
aspects of education (Scheffler, 1993, p.59). Peter’s proposal for navigating the difficult
problems regarding questions of freedom in education was in general to propose that
education should be understood as bringing the child to reason. Freedom in this case is
understood in relation to the autonomous individual: it is the child who is free to choose.
Freedom and reason in the community of philosophical inquiry
A focus on reasoning can be seen as a central aspect of several different approaches
to philosophising with children, including that of The Philosophy Shop (see, e.g., Worley,
2010, p.12) and Brenifier (see, e.g., Brenifier, 2009, pp. 553-557). Of course, it is also
important in the approach to philosophy with children as advanced by Lipman and Sharp.
John Dewey’s work is also influential on the Lipman approach to the community of
philosophical inquiry. Dewey understands of freedom in relation to particular kinds of
thinking and, in individual terms and for the working of democratic living, has come into
this tradition too. Indeed, Dewey valued freedom as an outcome of education (see, e.g.,
Dewey, 1925) and the way by which it is to be achieved, for Dewey, is not solely located
in the cultivation of reason. The educational position of the Lipman tradition is therefore
closely aligned to Dewey’s idea of inquiry and also ensures there is an interested position
regarding purposes of education in relation to freedom and democracy.
Although there is already some consideration of the fact that freedom is important
in the literature of the community of philosophical inquiry, there has been less
consideration of the way in which freedom is actually conceptualised. This has led to
assumptions remaining underexposed, with freedom being most commonly understood
in relation to the rational autonomous individual. The point I want to make in this paper
557
is that how freedom is understood will make a difference to what the community of
philosophical inquiry is able to do in the public sphere. Thus, I seek to expose some of
these assumptions in this paper. I will explore the difference that conceptualising
freedom with Arendt, rather than in relation to individual autonomy and reason alone,
might make to an approach to the community of philosophical inquiry which is
committed to a vision of democracy. I conclude by considering the implications this
might have for how the professional responsibilities of the teacher, who is ‘facilitating’
the dialogue with the children and young people in the inquiry, are to be understood and
why this might matter.
Dewey’s work (e.g. Dewey, 2004) extensively, and early on, informed the
development of theory and practice of the community of philosophical inquiry in the
Lipman tradition. Therefore, most writers, with Dewey, have argued against a normative
position regarding democracy itself. Instead there has been a strong assertion of a position
located and existing in time. This is a position which also emphasises a pragmatic
philosophical perspective in relation to falliblism and contingency. All of this together
leads to a temporal understanding of education identified by Dewey, such as when he says
that education has aims which ‘must be an outgrowth of existing conditions’ (p.100).
Dewey places confidence in ‘education as a correlate of intelligence’ holding that
intelligence has to be ‘animated by the democratic spirit’ (Dewey, 1939). My point is that
for this to actually be the case, freedom cannot be conceptualised only in relation to
individual autonomy in an abstraction; attention must also be given to the significance of
the relationships between those involved in the community of philosophical inquiry. In
what follows I develop an argument for this from Arendt.
Freedom as personal autonomy and reason
Before moving to Arendt, it is important to look briefly at the work of Richard
Peters (e.g. Peters, 1968). Peters, as an analytic philosopher who moved into theorising
the area of the philosophy of education, represents a strand of philosophy in education
that was also influential as Lipman and Sharp were formulating the community of
philosophical inquiry. Peters, in his very early work, begins to ask questions such as ‘what
makes education educative?’. He thus seeks to make a clear distinction between education
and other kinds of things such as instruction, coercion or indoctrination. Peters recognises
there is a tension in relation to freedom in education, and this matters since freedom is a
democratic value in the public sphere. The tension is that children are not always being
educated freely, nor are they engaging freely with particular aspects of their education.
This is a concern for those of us who work with children and young people in the
community of philosophical inquiry. We would certainly want to assume that children
are present with us freely in the circle of the inquiry. Nevertheless, there persists the
question as to how to escape the charge of coercion or indoctrination. Put briefly, Peters’
seeks to find his way out of this conundrum regarding freedom in relation to education
through understanding freedom as closely aligned to reason and personal autonomy.
Peters, ‘through an argument which conceptualises personal autonomy and personal
freedom in relation to knowledge, frames a position for education where its purpose is
articulated, in broad terms, as to develop the capacity for reason and choice’ (see Hannam,
forthcoming in 2018).
Peters’ conceptualisation of freedom in relation to knowledge and personal
autonomy is frequently assumed as underlying the way freedom is conceptualised in the
community of philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, and frequently, from this comes a
close alignment with the cultivation of reason as being the main thing that the community
of philosophical inquiry should do for children. Indeed, forming children who are more
reasonable and more able to reason is frequently proposed and Lipman (e.g. Lipman,
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2003) himself asserted this. However, I find reason for concern when in debates about
what the community of philosophical inquiry should seek to do, attention is often diverted
away from significant educational questions and often further, leading to an overemphasis
on the development of reason and the giving of good reasons alone.
To be sure, it is important that we do not see giving good reasons, or reasoning well
about concepts, for example, as the only thing to be done. Indeed it matters, and perhaps
more so, that we emphasise the importance of the fact that we are reasoning with others
in community. Furthermore, that we recognise that giving attention to the plurality of that
community, and to the uniqueness of each one present in the community, is perhaps the
most important aspect of our work. If we don’t do this then the teacher becomes a mere
‘facilitator’ of the children’s reasoning. If prior interrogation of educational questions is
limited, teachers also remain vulnerable to the consequences of an onslaught of
authoritarian demands. Indeed, it is because I want to make sure the prior educational
questions about what it is that the community of philosophical inquiry can seek to achieve
in the public sphere stay to the fore, that my next step is to bring a challenge to Peters’
conception of freedom from Arendt (see, e.g., Arendt, 1998 and 2006). I go onto show
how and why this might matter for the community of philosophical inquiry and what
teachers are understood to seek to achieve in the public sphere.
Freedom as action in plurality
In turning now to consider Arendt’s conceptualisation of freedom (Arendt, 1960), I
note the dangers she identifies when freedom is linked solely to individual autonomy,
something she terms as ‘sovereignty’ (ibid). Building my argument in relation to freedom
in the community of philosophical inquiry, especially with Sharp (see, e.g., Sharp, 2009),
I take a moment to reconsider the old paradox and so propose a new way of understanding
freedom. Arendt challenges the idea of individual freedom which she sees has grown
especially since biblical times and has led to the idea of an inward space into which men
may escape from external coercion and feel free (see Hannam, 2018, for further
discussion of this point). Arendt (1960) suggests that the western European philosophical
tradition has taken the idea of freedom away from the polis, the public space, and into
reason; emphasising the idea of ‘free-will’. Freedom has therefore during recent centuries
come to be increasingly and predominantly associated with the inner life and with
personal sovereignty. Citing Thomas Paine in this respect, Arendt concludes that it is the
‘identification of freedom with sovereignty (that) is perhaps the most pernicious and
dangerous consequence of the philosophical equation of freedom and free-will’ (ibid.,
p.40). The alternative she proposes, for ‘men who wish to be free’ (ibid. p.41) is a
renunciation of interpreting freedom as sovereignty; proposing ‘another kind of freedom
which is not an attribute of the will, but an accessory of doing and acting’ (ibid., p.41).
Such freedom can come to exist in the world and where the plurality of public space will
be taken seriously.
Arendt describes three fundamental human activities, ‘labor, work and action’
(Arendt, 1998, p.7) but it is action, under the condition of plurality, that is the means by
which freedom can emerge into the world (ibid, p. 200). In this chapter, I go on to argue,
that the community of philosophical inquiry as in the Lipman tradition should be
understood as a place of action. That is, as a place where freedom can come to exist in
the world under the condition of plurality, which is the dialogue in the community of
unique children, young people and/or adults.
But before proceeding further I should first explain a little more about what Arendt
means by the human activities of ‘labor, work and action’. She defines labor as being the
human activity that most readily corresponds to the kinds of things she calls ‘bodily
processes’. Work, on the other hand, is the kind of thing that corresponds to the more
559
artificial world of the kinds of things we do such as the making of tables, chairs and so
on. Indeed, she says, ‘the human condition of work is worldliness’ (Arendt, 1998, p.7).
Work, then, is the activity that corresponds to the unnaturalness of human existence.
Whereas action, she explains, and in contrast also to labor, ‘is the only activity that goes
on directly between men (that is human beings) without the intermediary of things or
matter’ (ibid.). Action ‘corresponds to the human condition of plurality, to the fact that
men, not Man, live on earth and inhabit the earth’ (ibid.). Significantly she insists it is this
plurality which is ‘the condition … of all political life’ (ibid.). All three are concerned
with human existence, ‘birth and death, natality and mortality’ (Arendt 1998, p. 8),
however it is action since it is the ‘political activity par excellence’ (ibid., p.9) that is
concerned with natality and not mortality, and so is likely to be ‘the central category’
(ibid.) of life in the public sphere and as contrasted to the private sphere of the home.
It is in the condition of plurality, that is to say, in the action between people, where
freedom can begin; freedom is therefore understood directly in relation to action. It is
in the condition of plurality that it is possible for freedom to emerge into the world and
this is also a condition of power as opposed to strength and force (Arendt, 1998, p.200).
What is also important to note here is Arendt’s association of action with natality, and
the way in which this is understood politically. Natality for Arendt is to be understood
ontologically and not metaphysically, it is the ‘miracle that can save the world’ (ibid.,
p.246) and is related to speech. Arendt explains the link clearly, ‘(i)f action as beginning
corresponds to the fact of birth, if it is actualization of the human condition of natality,
then speech corresponds to the fact of distinctiveness and is the actualization of the
human condition of plurality, that is, as living as distinct and unique being among
equals’ (ibid., p.178).
Arendt and freedom in relation to education
Nevertheless, at this point it is important to acknowledge that Arendt herself
(Arendt, 2006) saw that education was in ‘crisis’ and so discussed how in her view
education should be understood as belonging to the private sphere and not as part of the
public sphere at all. The cause of her concern, and the evidence she brings to her
discussion on this point, lies in the extent to which she considers that countries have,
during the 20th century, ‘sought ‘to equalize’ or even erase ‘the differences between
young and old, between the gifted and the ungifted, between children and adults and
particularly between pupils and teachers’ (ibid.). In particular she notes that this attempt
at erasing difference has not brought about the much anticipated freedom for all. Rather,
something like the opposite has happened, and the consequence she observes of this
attitude to equality has been that adults have either left children to their own devices or,
in totalitarian situations, allowed a few to exert a grave amount of control over others (see
Hannam, 2018, for more detail on this argument).
So it is that Arendt, like Peters, criticizes child centred education, but for a slightly
different reason. She suggests where adults have loosened their responsibility for children
but also treat them as if they were all the same, this can be taken as a sign that
responsibility has also been loosened for the world. Arendt therefore draws us instead to
be acutely aware of, and to take seriously, the plurality and uniqueness of all people, and
further, to also recognise the dis-equity of relationships between people. This leads Arendt
to formulate particular conclusions about the relationship between education and political
life and of what will happen ultimately when ‘an authority’ becomes dominant and uses
its strength to dominate another group. In her view, this leads inevitably to totalitarianism.
It is out of this concern that she comes to the view that children should be in some way
protected from the public sphere lest it overwhelms them.
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A key theme then, in Arendt’s writings is to articulate the steps necessary to avoid
the spectre of totalitarianism. She looks instead for situations where the opposite, that is,
human freedom, can appear in the world. Arendt conceptualises freedom in relation to
action, and an explicit condition of its beginning is through human action in plurality.
Since action is only possible in a condition of plurality, action as distinct from work,
action ‘as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation’ (Arendt 1998, p.
188). This is because ‘to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act’ (ibid.). This
dependence upon each other ‘is the price that human beings pay for freedom’ (Arendt
1998, p. 244), the price paid in fact for ‘the joy inhabiting together with others a world
whose reality is guaranteed for each by the presence of all’ (ibid.). Education that
understands freedom in the way Arendt invites us to, does not place the problem of
constraint at its heart, but asks questions in relation to what would happen if education
ceased to be open to human action in plurality. The central question becomes not one of
the problem of conflicting authority but one of the natality of the child in Arendt’s
political sense. The question is an existential one, concerned with how it is possible for
the unique child to come into presence in the world of adults.
Nevertheless, Arendt concludes that the arrival of the child into the world of adults
is a fragile process and so risky for the child, that it is necessary to separate the school
from the public sphere. Her concern is that as well as the risk of children being let loose
in the world insufficiently guided; there is another risk for the child. This is that if
political life and education were brought together, the existing order of things would
overwhelm the arrival of the child into the world. She wants to resist the idea that
education could either become ‘an instrument of politics’ (Arendt, 2006), or another
equally dangerous likelihood as she sees it, that political activity itself could be
‘conceived as a form of education’ (ibid.). I would say, with Arendt, that the frequent
assertion that the community of philosophical inquiry should be primarily focused on
the cultivation of reason is based on a set of assumptions about what education can and
should do, and that this needs exposing.
Discussion and a new proposal
I want to open for discussion now my assertion that Arendt’s conceptualisation of
freedom is important to bring to what the community of philosophical inquiry in the Lipman
tradition is understood to be able to achieve in the public sphere. I assert that if freedom is
only conceptualised in relation to reason in the community of philosophical inquiry, what
can be claimed about its significance at this point in history is limited. As I have discussed
elsewhere (see, e.g., Echeverria and Hannam, 2016), towards the end of her life, Ann Sharp
(Sharp, 2007 and 2009) began to weave another thread of understanding about the
importance of the plurality of a classroom (or other) community itself from Hannah Arendt.
I want, therefore, to pick up Sharp’s work and take it forward, asserting that this will be
significant in educative terms. Of course I want to emphasise that what is especially
important here is the way Arendt understands freedom in relation to plurality, rather than in
relation to sovereignty. To recap, Arendt conceptualises freedom not as something to be
possessed, but as something that can exist in the world under certain circumstances. From
here I propose that it is essential that those of us working with the community of
philosophical inquiry come to appreciate what it is that Arendt’s understanding of freedom
can bring. In particular, this enables us to better appreciate the uniqueness and
irreplaceability of each child in our communities of philosophical inquiry and to see this as
being what is of particular importance in ensuring the necessary conditions for freedom to
come into the world. In other words, our communities of philosophical inquiry are where
the condition of plurality can be secured.
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56Arendt insists that speech and action in plurality is the condition under which
freedom can come into the world (Arendt, 1998). Therefore, the way each individual child
or young person is understood in the community of philosophical inquiry is particularly
significant. The child does not exist in abstraction; each child is a ‘who’ and each child’s
contribution as coming uniquely from each unique child but in community with her peers,
heard by other unique children, matters uniquely. We are heard by another and in this way
can exist as human in the world. From here things change and it would not be possible to
understand the community of philosophical inquiry in terms of outcomes which have a
justification entirely separate from the inquiry itself. For this would be to promote another
understanding of individualism (see Dewey, 1999) or autonomy in relation to reason
alone. The community of philosophical inquiry can now be understood in terms of unique
human beings who, in the company of their peers, are able to come newly into the world
of others. What is being proposed here is that this approach to philosophical inquiry in
classroom, and other contexts, has a significant part to play in ensuring that education
contributes towards creating the conditions under which humanity can live well in the
public sphere, at this point in the history of the world.
Conclusion
This chapter has sought to outline a new proposal regarding the conceptualisation
of freedom in the community of philosophical inquiry in the Lipman tradition. Aiming to
build on work begun by Ann Sharp (see Sharp, 2007 & 2009), I assert that the community
of philosophical inquiry in educative contexts can and indeed should be considered as a
space where freedom, as conceptualised by Arendt, comes to exist in the world. The
proposal is that this is possible precisely because the unique child, young person and/or
adult, is able, under a condition of plurality, to speak and act with others. This chapter
concludes, drawing additional work from Arendt into the discussion, that this will matter
a great deal in the world at the present time in history. Further, that this will make a
difference to how we understand what it is that, as teachers, we are doing with children
and young people in the community of philosophical inquiry.
REFERENCES
Arendt, H. (1960). Freedom and Politics: a Lecture. Chicago Review. Vol 14. No. 1
(Spring 1960), pp. 28-46.
Arendt, H. (1968). Between Past and Future: eight exercises in political thought. London:
Penguin Books.
Arendt, H. (1998). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
Brenifier, O. (2009). La philosophie a l’ecole primarie in Marsal, E., Dobashi, T. and
Weber, B. eds., Children philosophize worldwide: Theoretical and practical concepts.
Peter Lang.
Dewey, J. (1925). Experience and education, freedom and culture, theory of valuation,
and essays. Dewey J. The Later Works of John Dewey, 1953.
Dewey, J. (1939). Creative Democracy. The Task Before Us. in John Dewey and the
Promise of America Progressive Education Booklet No. 14. Columbus: Ohio:
American Education Press.
Dewey, J. (1999). Individualism Old and New. New York: Prometheus Books.
Dewey, J. (2004). Democracy and Education. Dover Publications.
562
Echeverria, E. & Hannam, P., (2017). The Community of Philosophical Inquiry (P4C): a
pedagogical proposal for advancing democracy. In The Routledge International
Handbook of Philosophy for Children. Ed. M. Gregory, J. Haynes, K, Murris. London:
Routledge.
Hannam, P., (forthcoming, 2018). Religious Education and the Public Sphere. London:
Routledge.
Lipman, M., (2003). Thinking in Education (second edition). New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Peters, R.S. (1968). Ethics and Education. London: George Allen and Unwin Ltd.
Scheffler, I. (1993). Reason and Teaching. Indianapolis: Hacket Publishing Company.
Sharp, A.M. (2007). Let's Go Visiting: Learning Judgment-Making in a Classroom
Community of Inquiry. Gifted Education International, 23(3), pp.301-312.
Sharp, A. (2009). In the foreword to P. Hannam, & E. Echeverria, Philosophy with
teenagers: Nurturing a moral imagination for the 21st Century. London: Continuum.
Worley, P. (2010). The if machine: Philosophical enquiry in the classroom. London:
Bloomsbury Publishing.
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7. EL CURRÍCULO / THE CURRICULUM
Al comienzo del proyecto IAPC, la elaboración de un currículo completo tuvo
una alta prioridad, dado que se necesitaba una herramienta básica para convencer
a los maestros para que incorporasen el diálogo filosófico en su enseñanza, así
como para guiarlos en la difícil tarea de conducir un diálogo filosófico. Desde
entonces, otros currículos se han elaborado en diferentes lugares del mundo. Por
otra parte, hay muchos recursos didácticos que no forman parte de ningún
currículo, ni tienen la intención de formar parte. De ahí que nos preguntemos
¿Necesitamos un currículo? Si la respuesta es sí, ¿cuáles son los requisitos básicos
de ese currículo? Si no es así, ¿qué estamos ofreciendo a los profesores y
estudiantes?
At the beginning of the IAPC project, building an entire curriculum was a top
priority, given that a basic tool was needed to convince teachers to implement
philosophical dialogue in their teaching, as well as to guide them in the
challenging task of facilitating a philosophical dialogue. Since then, other
curricula have been put together in different places around the world. Moreover,
there are many more didactic resources that are not part of any curriculum, nor do
they intend to be. Do we need a curriculum? If the answer is yes, what are the
basic requirements of that curriculum? If not, what are we offering to teachers and
students?
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Biografía narrada de FpN
Eugenio Echeverría
Centro Latinoamericano de Filosofía para Niños
jecer@yahoo.com
CV
Eugenio Echeverría estudió la licenciatura en Administración Educativa en la Universidad
Anáhuac de la ciudad de México. Después, realizó un posgrado en la Universidad de Aston,
Birmingham, Inglaterra, donde trabajó con adolescentes de alto riesgo.
La maestría en Filosofía para Niños la hizo en la Universidad de Montclair, EUA, con
Matthew Lipman y Ann Sharp. Cursó los estudios de doctorado en formación de docentes
en la Universidad del estado de Michigan. Asimismo, hizo un trabajo de investigación en
la Universidad de Hawai trabajando con niños y adolescentes de la isla de Oahu en varios
contextos educativos. Ha asistido a más de cuarenta cursos en New Jersey y como parte
de staff de Marthew Lipman como formador de docentes y ha trabajado Filosofía para
Niños desde 1982 con niños y adolescentes desde preescolar hasta universitarios.
Actualmente es director del Centro Latinoamericano de Filosofía para Niños en San
Cristóbal de Las Casas, Chiapas.
RESUMEN
Este artículo describe el surgimiento de Filosofía para Niños desde sus inicios a finales
de los años sesenta hasta nuestros días en donde se trabaja en más de 60 países. Presento
una breve descripción de la biografía de sus creadores, Mathew Lipman y Ann M. Sharp
y los primeros pasos de su trabajo en la creación del programa o propuesta pedagógica de
Filosofía para Niños: una propuesta pedagógica que va mucho más allá de un programa
de desarrollo de habilidades de pensamiento. Sus creadores principales, Matthew Lipman
y Ann Sharp, tenían una visión clara de la sociedad que deseaban y del tipo de persona
necesaria para lograrla, dentro del contexto de una democracia deliberativa.
Describo a continuación las transiciones históricas fundamentales de Filosofía para Niños
hasta llegar a estar presente en más de sesenta países. Abordo también el desarrollo de
materiales; novelas y manuales, las estrategias fundamentales para la formación de
docentes, los sólidos fundamentos teóricos con los que cuenta y las funciones del ICPIC
a través de los años, siendo esa asociación internacional la que reúne las distintas
propuestas que existen en el movimiento general de promoción de la práctica filosófica
en la infancia y en los años posteriores.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Educación, Filosofía, Democracia, Razonamiento, Comunidad de Indagación Filosófica.
ABSTRACT
This article describes the emergence of Philosophy for Children from its beginnings in
the late 1960s to the present day, working in more than 60 countries. I present a brief
description of the biography of its creators, Mathew Lipman and Ann M. Sharp and the
first steps of their work in creating the program or pedagogical proposal of Philosophy
for Children: a pedagogical proposal that goes far beyond a program of development of
thinking skills. Its principal creators, Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp, had a clear vision
of the society they wanted, and the kind of person needed to achieve it, within the context
of deliberative democracy.
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I describe below the fundamental historical transitions of Philosophy for Children to the
point of being present in more than sixty countries. I also deal with the development of
materials, novels and manuals, the fundamental strategies for teacher training, the solid
theoretical foundations on which it relies and the functions of the ICPIC over the years,
and it is this international association that brings together the various proposals that exist
in the general movement to promote philosophical practice in childhood and beyond.
KEYWORDS
Education, Philosophy, Democracy, Reasoning, Community of Philosophical Inquiry.
INTRODUCCIÓN
¿Cómo surge la filosofía en los niños?
De dónde viene Lipman, su interés en una educación para pensar y la influencia
determinante de Dewey.
A finales de los años sesenta Matthew Lipman comienza a reflexionar acerca de
qué es lo que se puede hacer a través del sistema educativo para reconstruir la educación.
Fue a través de sus lecturas y desarrollo de teorías durante los años cincuenta lo que lo
incitó a pensar en la comunidad de diálogo filosófico como una estrategia posible.
Comienza a escribir sobre esto y a pensar cómo se vería una comunidad de indagación
filosófica en la escuela, con los niños, las características que tendría y lo que se podría ir
haciendo y desarrollando en las aulas al trabajar con los niños.
Así se va dando cuenta de algunas cosas, como del riesgo de que las mentes de
los niños fueran manipuladas y de la importancia de poder reforzar las capacidades
de los niños para defenderse intelectualmente. Pudo además ver de primera mano
algunas de las carencias en ese tipo de educación porque sus hijos ya iban a la
escuela pública.
Llegó a una conclusión clara: se necesita una educación que contenga los elementos
para hacer a los niños más razonables y capaces de hacer mejores juicios. Pero de lo que
se daba cuenta era que la información y la memorización de datos era lo que prevalecía.
Mat Lipman llegó a Estados Unidos porque su abuela paterna se vino al continente
americano trayendo a su padre de Rusia. La abuela trajo a su familia a través de Alemania,
donde nació el padre de Lipman, luego a Siberia y de allí a los Estados Unidos. Su padre
era Wolf Lipman.
En 1943, el ejército lo llamó. Había un programa especial que les permitía ir a la
Universidad mientras estaban en el ejército. Estudió dos semestres en Stanford y allí su
profesor Carl Thomas le regaló dos libros de Irwin Edman. Los dos hablaban acerca de
Dewey y también acerca de la importancia del arte y la estética. En esto coincidían tanto
Edman, como Dewey y Lipman. Para él la dimensión estética de la propia experiencia
agregaba significado (meaning) a nuestra visión del mundo y de las cosas. El ejército
instaló dos universidades americanas en Europa y Mat decidió estudiar dos semestres en
la de Shrivenham, en Inglaterra, a sesenta millas de Londres. Siempre le atrajeron las
artes y entre otras cosas, allí estudió poesía y música.
Regresó a Estados Unidos y entró en Columbia a estudiar Filosofía en 1946. Allí
tomó varios cursos de Psicología pero el enfoque era experimental y no le atrajo, hasta
que encontró en la biblioteca de Columbia y en la del campus principal del Teachers
College a autores que representan algunos aspectos neo-freudianos: Harry Sullivan, Erick
Fromm y Karen Horney en particular. Explorando otras fuentes, pero dentro de la misma
área, descubre a Vygotsky. Le fascinó desde un principio pues combinaba aspectos de
filosofía, sicología, lenguaje, estudios sociales y otras áreas del conocimiento.
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Leyendo a Dewey también se interesó por la combinación que hacía de
referencias psicológicas y filosóficas. Le interesó especialmente su libro Cómo
Pensamos, en donde describe su forma de entender el proceso de solución de
problemas y cita también a otros pragmatistas. Fue en los escritos de Dewey donde le
quedó claro que la educación para el pensamiento tiene que involucrar cuando menos
a la Psicología y a la Filosofía. En su autobiografía indica que “si la educación ha de
ser entendida como la entendía Dewey -una educación para el pensar-, entonces un
entendimiento fresco de las bases teóricas de la filosofía y la psicología es
indispensables para el desarrollo de una teoría y práctica modernas dentro del ámbito
de la educación.” (2008: 53).
Después se fue a Francia para cursar un post doctorado. Ya en la Universidad asiste
a un curso de Merleau-Ponty, quien había sido director de la Facultad de Psicología y de
Pedagogía en la Sorbona de París antes de ser profesor de Filosofía en el Collège de
France donde estaba estudiando Lipman. El hecho de que un filósofo haya tenido
experiencia amplia en pedagogía y psicología infantil influyó en Lipman al despertar su
interés por las implicaciones filosóficas de la experiencia infantil. Conoce también a
Yvon Belaval, filósofo francés, con el que comparte el interés por la poesía, psicología y
filosofía, quién le da la noticia de la muerte de Dewey y le recomienda que explore el
concepto de juicio (judgment). Éste y el concepto de significado (meaning) van a ser de
fundamental importancia para Lipman en el desarrollo de sus trabajos posteriores y de
filosofía para niños.
El nacimiento de la primera novela de Filosofía para Niños: Harry
Stottlemeier.
Después de dos años en Europa regresa a Nueva York a buscar una cátedra en la
universidad de Columbia. En 1959 nació su hija Karen y al año siguiente Will. Lipman
cree que algo influyó el hecho de tener a los hijos en despertar su interés por filosofía
para niños. Pero le quedaba claro que había sido principalmente sus lecturas y las teorías
que fue desarrollando en los años cincuenta. Piensa entonces en la necesidad de un texto
que sirviera como detonante para las preguntas y posterior discusión de los niños. Así
nace Harry Stottlemeir, un nombre que, al leerlo, sonaba un poco como Aristóteles. “Lo
escribe en unas 17 semanas, en el sótano de su casa y en una mesa para jugar cartas,
dándose o no cuenta de que lo que estaba escribiendo como un libro para niños estaba
compuesto de los principales elementos de su clase de filosofía 101 que había estado
enseñando por años a alumnos de licenciatura” (Kennedy, 2008). Con cada capítulo de
Harry trató de desarrollar una dimensión diferente de la filosofía.
La historia salió más o menos rápido, y se dio cuenta después que concordaba con
el paradigma de la comunidad de indagación de Peirce y Dewey. Lo que inventó sobre la
mesa de cartas en el sótano de su casa, fue un tipo de novela filosófica escrita con un
lenguaje de doble función: podía ser entendido por los adultos a un nivel, y por los niños
a otro muy diferente.
Era consciente de que con esto no solo se beneficiarían las habilidades del
pensamiento, sino que también era una estrategia para el desarrollo moral dentro del
contexto democrático de la comunidad de indagación. La razonabilidad y la democracia
se convierten en ideas reguladoras de la estructura del carácter y también parte de la
estructura de la comunidad de diálogo.
La solidaridad social también sería una parte importante de los aspectos a enfatizar
en el trabajo en comunidad de diálogo. Se necesita para esto promover relaciones cara a
cara. De aquí la necesidad de sentarse en círculo, y no en filas como tradicionalmente
sucede en las escuelas.
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En 1972, ya en Montclair, se le asigna la dirección del Instituto para el Estudio del
Pensamiento Filosófico de los Niños; Después se llamará Instituto para el Desarrollo de
Filosofía para Niños (IAPC).
La llegada de Ann M. Sharp y su invaluable influencia para la
internacionalización de Filosofía para Niños.
Aquí es donde aparece Ann M. Sharp. Lipman menciona que la llegada de Ann fue
una bendición para él y para el Instituto. Su formación había sido en Historia Intelectual,
había leído Harry. Entró en la oficina, se sentó frente a la computadora de Mat y le
preguntó: “¿En qué puedo ayudar?”. Desde entonces se involucró a tiempo completo “en
la planeación, la correspondencia, y todo lo demás que era necesario hacer en esta
aventura extraña que fue filosofía para niños” (Lipman, 2008, p.125).
Ann nació en 1942 en Brooklyn, Nueva York. Su madre llegó de la ciudad de Cork
en Irlanda a vivir a Estados Unidos. Su padre era de Brooklyn pero en la Segunda Guerra
Mundial lo mandaron a un destacamento militar estadounidense en Irlanda, Allí conoció
a la madre de Ann con quien vino a Estados unidos.
Estudió Historia y Filosofía en la Universidad de New Rochelle, después una
maestría en la historia intelectual de las Américas en 1966. Su doctorado fue en Filosofía
de la Educación y su tesis, que defendió en 1973, fue sobre Nietzsche. Después de esto
comenzó a trabajar con Matthew Lipman en el IAPC.
Su influencia para la apertura de la maestría en Filosofía para Niños en Montclair
State College fue determinante. Durante muchos años estuvieron llegando personas de
diversas partes del mundo para formarse y después llevar Filosofía para Niños a sus
respectivos países. Pero fue realmente en Mendham en donde cientos de personas de todo
el mundo llegan a conocer esta propuesta y muchos de ellos le dieron y siguen dando
continuidad y desarrollo en sus respectivos países. Ann y Mat eran, por supuesto, los
principales instructores allí, aunque en los últimos años Mat iba cada vez menos.
Ann también fue una persona clave para la gestación de un doctorado internacional
en Filosofía para Niños que se implementó en la Universidad Iberoamericana en México
durante dos promociones. La mediación de Teresa de la Garza para este proyecto también
fue determinante.
Para cada novela que Mat iba escribiendo, consideraron que sería importante la
creación de manuales para apoyar a los docentes que fueran a trabajar con ellas. Tras
discusiones con varios amigos académicos, decidieron que estarían constituidos por ideas
principales enfocadas a orientar al docente sobre los conceptos filosóficos a ser
explorados, especialmente para los que apenas tenían con conocimientos de filosofía, y
con ejercicios y planes de discusión para trabajar con los estudiantes mediante preguntas
que promovieran la reflexión y el diálogo.
Ann Sharp siempre fue una fuerza indispensable para la paulatina creación de los
manuales que son una fuente de riqueza invaluable para la diseminación de Filosofía para
Niños con congruencia e integridad en el mundo.
La formación de docentes
Otro reto fue la formación de formadores de docentes para que pudieran transmitir
la información y metodología necesarias para la aplicación de Filosofía para Niños en sus
salones de clase. Para esto Ann y Mat consiguieron el apoyo de varias fundaciones como
la Rockefeller, la Schumann y también la NEH (National Endowment for the
Humanities).
Se consiguió impartir en un principio cuatro talleres en diversas universidades con
equipos de profesores tanto de la Facultad de Filosofía como de la de pedagogía. Ann
demostró ser una formidable formadora de docentes por su carisma, su conocimiento de
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los temas y su capacidad de relacionarse con los profesores de una forma cercana y
auténtica. Mat menciona en su autobiografía que aprendió muchísimo de ella en estos
contextos.
En 1973 en Montclair se convoca a una conferencia de filosofía pre-universitaria
donde asistieron más de 250 educadores de escuelas primarias, secundarias y
universidades.
Mendham
A principios de los años ochenta descubren Mendham. El edificio de Mendhan era
anteriormente una escuela femenina, y frente a él, atravesando una rotonda muy amplia
cubierta de hierba, estaba el convento de las monjas que coordinaban la escuela. En
Mendham habrían de llevarse a cabo más de cien talleres de formación para personas
interesadas en filosofía para niños en todo el mundo.
Durante los primeros diez años del IAPC, la labor fue seguir creando materiales,
buscar fondos para difundir el programa y tratar de llevarlo cada vez a más escuelas. Para
esto se necesitaba difusión. Un primer cambio importante fue cuando Mat Lipman fue
entrevistado en un programa nacional bastante conocido en Estados Unidos llamado
Good Morning América (Buenos Días América). Esto hizo que se conociera en todo el
país y que llamara también la atención del Departamento de Educación. También ayudo
mucho el hecho de que el Departamento de Educación decidiera incluirlo en la Red de
Difusión Nacional.
El Departamento de Educación tenía varias divisiones; una era la de la Red de
Difusión Nacional, que apoyaba la difusión de propuestas que fueran educativamente
excelentes y meritorias. Presentaron allí Filosofía para Niños y, para su sorpresa, el
programa fue aprobado e incluido.
Se tenía que promover un perfil de docente que encajara con la visión de filosofía
que se manejaba y que estaba lejos del concepto tradicional que tenía que ver (y tiene)
con el aprendizaje de la historia de la filosofía. Idealmente, el maestro y estudiantes que
se involucran en educación cívica tienen oportunidades para hacer preguntas
significativas y explorar problemas sobre la democracia que son relevantes a su
comunidad.
Para lograr esto es necesario poner en práctica algunas de las características de un
perfil deseable del docente y de los estudiantes involucrados en una comunidad de diálogo
filosófico. Está son algunas de las más importantes:
 Leer y analizar fuentes de información que representen puntos de vista y
contextos culturales diversos.
 Pensar acerca de temas complejos y participar en un diálogo deliberativo con
grupos diversos de personas.
 Escuchar con empatía.
 Tratar a otros con respeto y ser un miembro valioso de su comunidad.
 Reflexionar, escribir y razonar por sí mismos.
 Tomar acciones informadas y responsables. (Hannam & Echeverría 2017, p.20)
Por otra parte, Lipman menciona que el docente que trabaja con la comunidad de
diálogo tiene que tener criterios para evaluar las respuestas o resoluciones que se van
dando en la comunidad de diálogo teniendo en cuenta estándares como imparcialidad,
comprehensividad, consistencia, precisión, relevancia, aceptabilidad y suficiencia.
En el ámbito de la formación de docentes, no es fácil y lleva tiempo conseguir que
los docentes que van a coordinar y facilitar la comunidad de diálogo puedan ir
desarrollando esas características.
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También es importante tener la capacidad para mantener al grupo centrado en el
tema. Pero esto implica un equilibrio. Si se fija el tema y no se permite que haya
intervenciones tangenciales, entonces el docente es quien lleva la comunidad. Si se
permiten demasiados cambios de dirección en los temas de diálogo, entonces la
comunidad no llega a nada pues se queda en un tratamiento superficial de los conceptos.
Es deseable profundizar dentro del tema elegido por los estudiantes, pero dándoles
también la libertad de variar el tema si se ve que esto es del mayor interés de la mayoría.
El equilibro no siempre es sencillo.
No siempre se llega a agotar un tema, pero sí se debe percibir progreso en el diálogo
y en la identificación de puntos relevantes dentro de la discusión y conocimiento de los
conceptos que se están discutiendo. Es dentro del proceso del diálogo donde se van
logrando los objetivos de P4C. La práctica y desarrollo de habilidades de pensamiento, la
construcción, clarificación y definición de conceptos y la exploración de valores para
poder en un momento dado tenerlos claros y llevarlos a la práctica. Durante los años
ochenta y noventa siguió la expansión de Filosofía para Niños no sólo en Estados Unidos
sino en el resto del mundo. Fue Ann Sharp quién particularmente lideró los esfuerzos
globales para llevar Filosofía para Niños al mundo durante todos esos años hasta su
muerte en 2010 en San Cristóbal de las Casas, Chiapas, México. Ella realizó talleres en
Nigeria, Chile, Costa Rica, Singapur, Zimbabue, Taiwan, Australia, Austria, Rusia,
Brasil, México, Argentina, Canadá, Bulgaria, España, Islandia, Yugoslavia, Portugal,
Lituania, Chequia, Singapur, Italia y Sudáfrica, entre otros.
Otro tema importante dentro de la formación de docentes siempre ha sido el de
cuanta filosofía deben saber para poder manejar la comunidad de diálogo. A veces se
olvida la importancia de tener docentes aptos dentro de lo pedagógico y lo psicológico
para percibir las necesidades del grupo. Y se queda la preocupación por la filosofía como
elemento principal. E incluso ésta en muchos casos es bastante deficiente.
El docente además debe ser una persona razonable. Esto implica ser abiertos,
considerados hacia otros, llegar a compromisos que preserven la integridad de los
participantes, aceptar diferencias de opinión que no siempre le favorecen, y tener
“humildad epistémica”. Todo esto tiene que ver con aspectos cognitivos, pero siempre
también con aspectos emocionales.
A partir de su formación en Mendham, los representantes de los diversos países
interesados en llevar Filosofía para Niños a sus respectivos contextos, se encargan de
diseñar los esquemas para la formación de docentes.
Cada país determina las características de la formación de los docentes que van a
implementar filosofía para niños en sus escuelas.
La visita de Mat y Ann a Paulo Freire en Brasil.
En 1988 en un viaje a Brasil conocen a Paulo Freire. Fue Catherine Young Silva
quien consiguió una invitación a la casa de Freire. Catherine había estado durante un año
en Monclair, en el IAPC, formándose en los lineamientos de Filosofía para Niños y con
un ávido interés para llevarlo a su país. Allí platican y comparan algunas de las
experiencias y metas de lo que piensan acerca de la educación. Catherine y su familia
tenían las escuelas Yáziggi, una cadena de escuelas para aprender inglés y a partir de las
cuáles se publican los materiales y se llega con Filosofía para Niños a muchas escuelas
en Brasil.
El documental de la BBC de Londres y su influencia para el conocimiento
de Filosofía para Niños en el mundo.
Otro hito importante fue cuando la BBC de Londres grabó el documental Socrates
for six year olds (Sócrates para niños de seis años). Fue parte de una serie llamada “Los
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Transformadores”. El equipo de la BBC fue a varias escuelas a observar, especialmente
en Newark; también filmaron parte de lo que se trabajaba en los cursos de formación de
Mendham.
Regresaron seis meses después para documentar el avance de los estudiantes que
habían filmado anteriormente en Newark. El documental se va transmitiendo por el
mundo y hay una explosión de interés por Filosofía para Niños. A los talleres de
Mendham comienzan a llegar personas de los cinco continentes para conocer, formarse y
llevarlo a sus respectivos países. La expansión de filosofía para niños por el mundo se
vuelve cada vez más importante y acelerada.
El reconocimiento de la UNESCO a Filosofía para Niños propicia el
comienzo de su aceptación en círculos filosóficos donde antes no se tenía
en consideración como algo serio
A finales de 1997, la UNESCO reconoce Filosofía para Niños como un elemento
importante especialmente por la relación que establece entre la educación, la filosofía y
la promoción de valores democráticos. Ya en el Congreso Mundial de Filosofía de 1998
en Boston, Filosofía para Niños cuenta con un reconocimiento formal dentro de su
“Federación Internacional de Sociedades de Filosofía”.
En 1999 Matthew Lipman se retira como director del IAPC y queda Maughn
Gregory, una elección excelente según el propio Mat, quien siguió apoyando de manera
continua al Instituto.
Mat menciona que el acercamiento a la filosofía que promueve FpN es
principalmente de procesos, no de contenidos. No promueve UNA filosofía para los
niños, sino que los alienta a desarrollar su propia filosofía, su propia forma de pensar
acerca del mundo. Proporciona a los niños y jóvenes un espacio donde se sientan seguros
para expresar sus ideas con confianza.
Finalmente menciona que es su deseo que Filosofía para Niños sea aceptada en todo
el mundo, no sólo como algo más en un currículo saturado de materias, sino como una
pedagogía que construirá un mundo mejor y más razonable donde habiten nuestros niños
y sus niños. “Un mundo que se vea tan hermoso desde la otra acera, así como de la
distancia del espacio” (Lipman, M. 2008).
Otras propuestas pedagógicas con aires de familia
A partir de entonces han surgido una serie de propuestas pedagógicas y programas
que tienen que ver con la filosofía y el desarrollo del pensamiento. Sin embargo éste
campo no está unificado. Desde los años setenta ha habido diferentes enfoques y
planteamientos. Per Jespersen en Dinamarca, que se apoya en la tradición de
cuentacuentos en ese país; Catherine Mc Call en Escocia y su COPI (Community of
Philosophical Enquiry), donde enfatiza la importancia de la argumentación lógica; el
modelo de Eckhart Martens de los cinco dedos, en Alemania, en donde incorpora
fenomenología, hermenéutica, análisis, dialéctica y especulación como fases de la
indagación filosófica; el enfoque que desarrollaron Karel Van der Leeuw y Pieter
Mostert, combinando algunos aspectos de Nelson, Lipman y la filosofía china; el Método
Democrático Filosófico de Michel Tozzi en Francia, donde a los estudiantes se les asignan
funciones específicas dentro de un contexto parlamentario de discusión; también el
método de la mayéutica socrática de Oscar Brenifier en Francia, que se basa en la auto-
confrontación y la disciplina de nuestros propios pensamientos y lenguaje. Además, el
ensayo de Gareth Mattews en 1976 inauguró el estudio de la filosofía en la literatura
infantil, y era el tema de la sección “Thinking in Stories” que escribió desde 1979 hasta
el 2006 en la revista Thinking.
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Este trabajo abrió el camino para la literatura infantil y los libros ilustrados como
recursos curriculares importantes alternativos al currículo del IAPC. (Haynes and
Murris, 2017).
Angélica Sátiro e Irene de Puig con el “Proyecto Noria”, y “Jugar a Pensar con
Cuentos”, en Barcelona; Angélica Sátiro ha desarrollado por su parte el proyecto
Crearmundos en Brasil, además de otros países a donde son invitadas a dar a conocer su
proyecto. En México se ha aplicado el modelo de la comunidad de diálogo filosófico para
abordar los problemas de niños y adolescentes migrantes, niños jornaleros y ha elaborado
materiales de filosofía para niños en lenguas indígenas.
Aunque diversos en materiales, métodos y objetivos, todos estos proyectos tienen
en común el tratar de involucrar a los niños en alguna forma de diálogo filosófico. En
ocasiones, para distinguirse del programa de Lipman, se dan nombres como Filosofía con
Niños, Filosofía con Niños y Adolescentes, Filosofía en las Escuelas y Filosofía con
Jóvenes, entre otros.
La propuesta inicial de Filosofía para Niños ha ido creciendo de manera estable y
constante desde finales de los años setenta del siglo pasado hasta la actualidad, pasando
de estar presente en una docena de países a cerca de 70.
Décadas de desarrollo de Filosofía para Niños en todo el mundo pueden constituir
un reto para aquéllos que comienzan a explorar este campo. La caracterización de
Filosofía para Niños como un movimiento especial, único y diferente a los que van
surgiendo, o solo como un ´programa’, ha sido mal entendida. Esta percepción de
Filosofía para Niños se ve reflejada en algunos, dentro y fuera del movimiento, que
parecen no reconocer el rango y la amplitud de la erudición en este campo. Algunos
críticos se han involucrado con el trabajo de Lipman o con la filosofía educativa que
sustenta al proyecto.
Sin embargo, otros han emitido juicios acerca de Filosofía para Niños por lo que
pasa en una escuela y algunos salones de clase, o también por lo que encuentran sobre el
tema en internet. Las definiciones esencialistas de esta propuesta educativa no le hacen
justicia a la diversidad de enfoques e implementaciones que existen a su alrededor.
Algunos incluyen discrepancias incluso en cuanto a las bases teóricas y también pueden
incorporar y transmitir percepciones erróneas acerca de esta propuesta educativa,
principalmente por falta de una información adecuada.
El sólido sustento teórica de filosofía para niños y su visión del mundo
Lipman fue precisando y poniendo en orden una base teórica firme como sustento
cada vez más sólido para Filosofía para Niños. En su segunda edición de Thinking in
Education, consolida mucho de lo que fue pensando y trabajando a lo largo de varias
décadas en cuanto a las bases teórico-prácticas que hacen de Filosofía para Niños una
propuesta pedagógica seria y con sentido.
Una de las preguntas y discusiones a lo largo del desarrollo de Filosofía para Niños
ha sido si con esta intervención en las escuelas estamos favoreciendo una serie de valores
más o menos específicos y, por consiguiente, estamos en desacuerdo con otros y nos
oponemos a ellos.
Desde el momento en que los que trabajamos Filosofía para Niños planteamos un
perfil deseable de persona y de sociedad, estamos asumiendo implícita y explícitamente
que es un objetivo valioso avanzar hacia una sociedad con una democracia deliberativa y
con ciudadanos que son críticos y razonables al forjar un proyecto de vida y tomar
decisiones. Por lo tanto está claro que estamos promoviendo ciertos valores como mejores
que otros.
Esto es importante mencionarlo porque cuando los formadores de docentes vamos
a trabajar en escuelas donde se aplica FpN, a menudo nos encontramos que mencionan
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que en esa clase no hay correcto o incorrecto, ni bueno ni malo, cada quién puede expresar
lo que quiera con libertad y se va a respetar.
Mattew Lipman y Ann Sharp tenían clara una dirección hacia donde caminar con
Filosofía para Niños, y una serie de materiales, estrategias y pilares teóricos para ir
lográndolo.
Aquel que escoge su plan de vida por sí mismo, necesita usar todas sus facultades.
Necesita del uso de la observación para ver, del razonamiento y el juicio para prever;
necesita además actuar para recolectar los materiales necesarios para decidir, capacidad
de discriminación para decidir, y una vez que ha decidido, firmeza y autocontrol para
ceñirse a su propia decisión.
Personas autónomas, razonables y cooperativas
Filosofía para Niños quiere formar personas que escojan su plan de vida por sí
mismos y que piensen de forma razonable. Nuestras habilidades mentales, afectivas y
cognitivas, y el grado de independencia que tengamos van a determinar el grado de
autonomía con el que nos podemos manejar en el mundo y lo adecuado de nuestras
opciones. Apreciar la autonomía tiene que ver con respetar las ideas de otros y sopesar
las ventajas y desventajas de los planes que ellos hacen para sus propias vidas. Sin
embargo, los niños, aunque ya tienen algunas ideas propias, no las tienes suficientemente
claras ni bien argumentadas o carecen del conocimiento para decidir lo que hay que hacer;
por eso en educación sí debemos transmitir valores a partir de los cuales los niños y
adolescentes puedan ir construyendo los suyos propios.
Claro que van a existir diferencias de valores, pero estas tienen que ser resueltas a
partir del diálogo razonado. El conflicto es bienvenido cuando hay multiculturalismo. Las
normas culturales se construyen no sólo a partir de lo que afirman y aceptan, sino también
con base en lo que excluyen, rechazan y ridiculizan.
Hay un efecto homogeneizador de los medios de comunicación y cultura de masas
que atenta contra la autenticidad y criticidad de las diversas posturas culturales.
El mayor problema es la efectividad con la que estos medios de comunicación
masiva están al servicio de los esquemas de las empresas transnacionales y del
capitalismo neoliberal. La creación de necesidades superfluas es exitosa en la ausencia
de intervenciones que fomenten el pensamiento crítico. La comunidad de diálogo
filosófico proporciona un espacio en donde los niños y adolescentes pueden ir
adquiriendo una serie de herramientas para identificar las falacias de razonamiento
implícitas en mucho de la publicidad manipuladora de la que echan mano los medios para
lograr un consumo irresponsable e innecesario.
Uno de los procesos positivos tiene que ver con la visión de la necesidad de respeto
hacia todos los seres humanos, simplemente por el hecho de ser humanos. Esto lleva a la
habilidad de ver las similitudes donde otros sólo veían diferencias. Esta sabiduría ganada
poco a poco debe ser defendida indefinidamente.
Los pasos que damos al tomar decisiones que nos acercan a nuestras metas deben
estar iluminados por la luz de la razón. Sin embargo, como todos sabemos, esto no
siempre es el caso. La capacidad para razonar está en la base de la justificación para dirigir
nuestras propias vidas. Y esa capacidad puede ejercerse adecuadamente cuando se cuenta
con la información relevante para tomar buenas decisiones. Nos dice Lipman que la
razonabilidad es una condición para poder actuar como agentes de nuestras decisiones y
está en la base de nuestra libertad.
La educación debe ir preparando al niño para que lleve una existencia autónoma, al
tiempo que una existencia en comunidad y cooperación con el resto de las personas.
También para que sea un ciudadano crítico dentro de un contexto democrático. Para que
esto pueda darse la razonabilidad es un pre requisito.
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Nos interesa formar personas que no nada más se conformen con ser buenas
ciudadanas, sino que se preocupen por dejar la comunidad donde les toca situarse y crecer,
mejor de como la encontraron. Deben desarrollar cierto sentido de responsabilidad por su
comunidad.
Cada vez estamos más interconectados y se habla de la “aldea global” y ser
“ciudadanos del mundo”. Sin embargo, un cosmopolitismo, que tiene raíces, implica
formar personas que tienen un grado alto de tolerancia, apertura mental y modestia
epistémica. Que son capaces de preocuparse por otros que no son parte del mismo orden
político, otros que pueden tener compromisos y creencias diferentes a las nuestras. Y que
tienen la capacidad para comunicarse con ellos. De aquí la importancia del diálogo
razonado como medio de comunicación e intercambio de ideas.
También se necesita partir de una base de consideraciones éticas que den sentido a
las acciones y los proyectos que tenemos como personas individuales y también como
personas dentro de un contexto social. La persona tiene una dimensión moral y como ser
humano tiene obligaciones hacia sí mismo, hacia otros seres humanos y hacia la
naturaleza. Esto tiene que ver con una preocupación por la justicia social, y para esto se
necesita una sociedad ordenada, un estado justo y un ideal de gobernabilidad dentro de
una democracia deliberativa. Y tiene que ver igualmente con una relación respetuosa con
la naturaleza.
Debemos desarrollar la capacidad para poder escuchar a personas cuyos
compromisos, creencias y proyectos pueden parecer diferentes a los nuestros. La
capacidad humana que nos va a permitir que haya comunicación entre diversas
perspectivas de ver las cosas es la razón y apertura y escucha atenta al otro. El discurso
del occidente con lo “no occidental” debe tener como eje la razón y como nos dice Rorty,
no se trata de probar que mi sistema ha descubierto y probado más verdades y una mejor
manera de vivir. Sino de entender que entre nuestras creencias compartidas y deseos
podemos encontrar suficientes recursos para llegar a acuerdos en cuanto a como co-existir
sin violencia. El diálogo razonado tiene que ser una forma compartida de búsqueda hacia
la verdad y la justicia.
Sobre los valores que promueve Filosofía para niños. Filosofía para Niños
y los derechos humanos
Filosofía para niños está a favor de los derechos humanos. ¿Si? Y ¿Cuáles son estos
derechos? ¿Son realmente universales? El discurso de los derechos humanos es
importante entre otras cosas porque es el único que valida el reclamo de niños y mujeres
contra la opresión y abusos que experimentan en algunas de las sociedades tribales y
patriarcales de donde provienen. La declaración de los derechos humanos les da una voz
para convertirse en agentes morales contra prácticas como los matrimonios arreglados, la
mutilación genital, la esclavitud doméstica y muchas otras prácticas que están permitidas
en las culturas donde les tocó nacer, y contra las prácticas de opresión, explotación y
exclusión de muchas personas y de pueblos enteros. Los contenidos de los derechos
humanos pueden ser interpretados e incluso criticados, esto no deja de hacerlos un
lenguaje para la deliberación y conversación acerca de su necesidad.
El involucrarnos en diálogo razonado, como ciudadanos en diferentes partes del
mundo acerca de los problemas que nos conciernen y de los proyectos que queremos
impulsar para hacer de éste un mundo más justo y más humano es parte de lo que
trabajamos con filosofía para niños.
Filosofía para niños promueve una visión cosmopolita del mundo, dentro de una
democracia deliberativa y dentro de un esquema donde las políticas del capitalismo
neoliberal, el consumismo irresponsable y la falta de preocupación por la justicia social
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574,y el respeto al medio ambiente se convierten en causas comunes sobre las que
podemos seguir dialogando.
Lipman recomienda las novelas porque propician por sus contenidos y por la forma
en que están presentados la formación de un ambiente de cuestionamiento, con muchos
conceptos que son difíciles de definir, controversiales pero importantes, y porque
propician el uso de habilidades cognitivas como los actos mentales, habilidades de
razonamiento, preguntas de inicio y de seguimiento y juicios, además de propiciar el
pensamiento distributivo. Es por esto por lo que facilitan la práctica y desarrollo del
pensamiento a los estudiantes que las trabajan. Otros recursos didácticos elaborado por
otras personas que practican Filosofía para Niños buscan propiciar los mismos objetivos.
Esto a su vez favorece la comprensión lectora, pues ésta se ve favorecida cuando
los estudiantes practican en la comunidad de diálogo el razonamiento deductivo, hacen
inferencias y usan razonamiento analógico. Estas habilidades llevan a la comprensión de
significados y a darle importancia a la distinción a veces sutil entre un concepto y otro.
El conocimiento y la práctica con el uso de algunas habilidades lógicas también les ayuda
a darse cuenta de que ser racional es posible, y que la lógica puede ser una herramienta
para ayudarlos a construir mejores argumentos y a distinguir entre un buen y un mal
argumento.
También se favorece la comprensión y desarrollo de labilidades afectivas como la
humildad epistémica, la escucha atenta, la capacidad de cooperar y la cordialidad, la
empatía y la imaginación moral.
Las diferentes propuestas que han ido apareciendo a lo largo del tiempo en
ámbitos sociales y culturales distintos, retoman algunas de estas habilidades cognitivas
y afectivas para propiciar su desarrollo. Esto es lo que les da un aire de familia con
Filosofía para Niños.
Conclusión
Filosofía para niños surge después de un largo proceso de gestación y desarrollo
por parte de sus creadores, se va consolidando poco a poco teniendo en cuenta lo que al
mismo tiempo predica, la capacidad para ir corrigiendo, enriqueciendo y mejorando a
partir de las críticas constructivas y retroalimentación recibidas.
En una segunda etapa comienzan a surgir propuestas, programas, iniciativas y
prácticas que tienen un “aire de familia” con Filosofía para niños.
Esto tiene que ver con lo que se expone en la parte final del capítulo, y con el hecho
de que la filosofía ha ido encontrando espacios versátiles donde ir incidiendo de manera
constructiva en ámbitos antes no previstos. Para dejar este mundo un poco mejor de cómo
lo encontramos, como bien decían Matthew Lipman y Ann Margaret Sharp.
REFERENCIAS
Echeverria, E. and Hannam, P. (2017): The Community of Philosophical Inquiry: A
Pedagogical Proposal for Advancing Democracy. In Gregory, M.R., Haynes, J. and
Murris, K. (Ed.) (2017). The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for
Children. London: Routledge
Lipman, M. (2008). A Life Teaching Thinking. Montclair, N.J.: Institute for the
Advancement of Philosophy for Children. Montclair State University.
Gregory, M.R., Haynes, J. and Murris, K. (Ed.) (2017). The Routledge International
Handbook of Philosophy for Children. London: Routledge.
576
Haynes, J. and Murris, K. (2017). Readings and Readers of Texts in Philosophy for
Children-In Gregory, M.R., Haynes, J. and Murris, K. (Ed.) (2017). The Routledge
International Handbook of Philosophy for Children. London: Routledge.
Kennedy, D (2011). “From Outer Space and Across the Street Mathew Lipman’s Double
Vision”. Childhood & Philosophy Vol. 7, n. 13.
Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education (2nd. Ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Sharp, A.M. (1987) What is a community of inquiry? Journal of Moral Education. Vol.
16 N. 1. Pp. 37-45e.
Hannam & Echeverría (2009) Philosophy with Teenagers: Nurturing a Moral
Imagination for the 21st century. Continuum. New York, Network Continuum.
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Meeting the Needs of 21st Century Learners:
Critical Thinking and Game- Based Philosophical inquiry
George Ghanotakis
Director, Institut Philos / International Center of Education for Philosophy and
Citizenship
Montreal, Canada
www.institutphilos.com
g_ghanosophia@hotmail.com
CV
Dr. George Ghanotakis holds a law degree from the University of Quebec, and both
education and philosophy degrees from the University of Toronto (B.Ed., M.A., Ph.D.).
He has followed training with Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp at IAPC, Montclair State
College, and taught at the University of Ottawa, the University of Toronto (OISE), the
University of Alberta, and the University of Victoria, both at the graduate and
undergraduate levels in the department of Philosophy and Education. He is the creator
of the award-winning curriculum based The Game of Wisdom: For Thinkers of All Ages,
Play Wise Tool Kit (2017 Game of The Year), the tools for critical thinking, dialogue
inquiry and argument process map PHILOS /WRATEC, adapted and used as the Good
Thinker’s Kit in Hawaii ad WRAITEC used in Vanilla Plan Inquiry and in Europe since
1990, and more than 30 educational resources in several languages. He was the founder
of the Canadian Institute of Philosophy for Children, president of the Canadian
Association of Philosophy for Children and first secretary general of ICPIC (the
International Council of Philosophical Inquiry with Children). He is presently director
of Institut Philos of Learning Resources and founder of the International Center of
Education for Philosophy and Citizenship in collaboration with the Philosophy
department of Applied Ethics at the University of Sherbrooke Canada, for conducting
research, implementing curriculum and teacher education programs including hosting the
Play Wise philosophical Olympiads.
ABSTRACT
In the first part of this paper, I will show that two of preeminent needs of today’s students lie
in a) providing a game-based learning and b) acquiring the 21st century competencies to
prepare them for the future. I will argue that designing a curriculum to simulate the
characteristics of collaborative games provides a powerful vehicle for reaching students in
their world on their terms, in the spirit of the child centered approach of the philosophy for
children program. Critical thinking and collaborative philosophical inquiry skills are central
to the 21st century competencies. In the second part of the paper, I will show how such an
approach can be effectively implemented across the curriculum through the game Play Wise
and its lesson plans. The similarities and differences of this game-based pedagogy and
Lipman’s method of philosophical inquiry will be discussed. The exciting initiative of Play
Wise Olympiads, in -class, as part of PHILOS Clubs, and their family resemblance to other
philosophy for children tournaments, such as NHSEB and Philosothon will be noted.
KEYWORDS
Critical Thinking, 21st Century Competencies, Games-Based Learning, Democracy,
Collaborative Inquiry, Curriculum Design, Teaching Philosophy Olympiads , Argument
literacy, Dialogue, Wisdom Skills, Education, Generation G.
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RESUMEN
En la primera parte de este artículo, mostraré que dos de las necesidades preeminentes de
los estudiantes de hoy día radican en: a) proporcionar un aprendizaje basado en juegos y
b) adquirir las competencias del siglo XXI para prepararlos para el futuro. Argumentaré
que el diseño de un plan de estudios para simular las características de los juegos
colaborativos proporciona una herramienta poderosa para acercarse a los estudiantes en
su mundo y en sus términos, dentro del espíritu del enfoque centrado en el niño del
programa de Filosofía para Niños. El pensamiento crítico y las habilidades de
investigación filosófica colaborativa son fundamentales para las competencias del siglo
XXI. En la segunda parte mostraré cómo este enfoque se puede implementar de manera
efectiva en todo el plan de estudios a través del juego Play Wise y sus unidades didácticas.
Se discutirán las similitudes y diferencias de esta pedagogía basada en juegos y el método
de investigación filosófica de Lipman. Se destacará la emocionante iniciativa de las
Olimpiadas de Play Wise, en una clase, como parte de PHILOS Clubs, y su aire de familia
con otros torneos de Filosofía para Niños, como NHSEB y Philosothon.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Pensamiento crítico, competencias del siglo XXI, aprendizaje basado en el juego,
democracia, indagación colaborativa, diseño curricular, enseñanza de olimpiadas
filosóficas, competencias en argumentación, diálogo, destrezas para la sabiduría,
Educación, Generación G.
INTRODUCTION
‘Does a dog know it is a dog?’ ‘Can a computer understand itself?’ ‘You are told
the greatest secret in the world. Would you keep it to yourself?’ ‘Should we free all the
animals from the zoo?’ ‘Can you be right if no one agreed with you?’ ‘Hmm…’
There is no single answer, and everyone can respond by providing good reasons.
But is there a most reasonable best answer?
These questions drawn from the new collaborative game Play Wise used in
classrooms call for critical thinking, creativity and good judgment in entertaining together
several hypotheses to produce a collective intelligence in co-constructing meaning. These
skills of philosophical inquiry are amongst the essential 21st century competencies today’s
learners need to develop.
Creativity is associated with innovation in contributing solutions to complex
problems through the pursuit of new concepts and ideas to find useful applications in an
ethical manner to fulfill social responsibilities as global citizens. The term competency
here is distinguished from mere skill or knowledge to execute a task. It encompasses
transferable foundational skills, abilities and attitudes to apply learning outcomes.
Competencies are foundational transferable life skills that stretch across three domains:
a) the cognitive (critical and creative thinking), b) the interpersonal (collaboration,
empathy in perspective taking) and c) intrapersonal (the intellectual interest, flexibility in
reflection and cultural appreciation) (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, 2).
Engaging in collaborative philosophical inquiry with children is centrally aligned
with 21st century transferable skills and competencies. According to the cognitive
psychologist Robert Sternberg (Sternberg, 1984, 48) ʽno program teaches durable and
transferable skills as Philosophy for Children.ʼ The philosophical skill of Wisdom is
given preeminence in Sternberg’s recent WICS model of intelligence (Wisdom,
579
Intelligence and Creativity Synthesized) (Sternberg, 2009), 1 which comprises reflective,
dialogical and dialectical skills that enable us to critically evaluate and use knowledge
appropriately for the common good. The survival of the planet depends on infusing
Wisdom-based thinking skills in education (Sternberg, 2003). 2
In The Global Achievement Gap 3 Tony Wagner (Wagner, 2008), co-director of the
Change Leadership Group at the Harvard Graduate School of Education echoes the same
concern for teaching students philosophical skills: ʽAll of today’s students,ʼ he advocates,
ʽwill need to master the skills that Socrates taught.ʼ 4 It is important to note, that
philosophical skills comprise the new predictor of success EF or executive function
(Herbert, 2008). EF covers the essential brain boosting cognitive skills of attention,
mindfulness, flexibility in entertaining several perspectives, problem solving, logical
thinking and processing speed (Ghanotakis, 1989). Common Core State Standards also
stress the importance of developing ʽargument literacyʼ, the ability to comprehend,
produce and evaluate reasoned arguments by engaging the students in collaborative
inquiry dialogue (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017, 7). 5
But as has been noted by Reznitskaya and Wilkinson, these commendable goals
require new pedagogical approaches especially as instructional materials made for
elementary students are sadly lacking (Reznitskaya & Wilkinson, 2017, p). Another
important challenge teachers face is how best to motivate and engage today’s digital
students in this philosophical inquiry dialogue. In Philosophy in Education, Questioning
and Dialogue in Schools, the authors make the point that the pedagogical approach that
best supports philosophical practice is a learner- centered ʽcommunity of philosophical
inquiry where the facilitator will need to use age appropriate discussion prompts including
but not limited to children’s literature, art work, songs and child- friendly games.ʼ (Mohr
& Burroughs, 2016, 11). The initiative to engage children’s interests in critical and
creative collaborative reasoning through games has been welcomed by philosophy for
children practitioners, as an ideal vehicle for inviting young people to develop reasoning
skills (Howard, 2015).6 This use of a variety of tools includes games, picture books, films,
visual stimuli for philosophical dialogue and body mind maps. (Murris, 2016. 7 These
alternatives modes of inquiry and stimuli to the classical Philosophy for Children
curriculum developed by Lipman, with its methodology centered on texts and
1
See also R. Sternberg (ed. 2009) Wisdom: Its Origins and Development. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
2
ʽIf there is anything the world needs, it is wisdom. Without it, I exaggerate not at all in saying that very
soon there may be no world or at least none with humans…ʼ (Sternberg 2003, Preface).
3
Wagner presents the seven survival skills for success: critical thinking, collaboration and leadership,
agility and adaptability, initiative and entrepreneurialism, effective oral and written communication,
accessing and analyzing information and curiosity and imagination.
4
Ibid, p. 257.
5
For example the Guide for Common Core State Standards for Language Arts for Grade 5 expects students
to: ʽengage effectively in a range of collaborative discussion with diverse positions …building on each
other’s ideas and expressing them clearly; summarize the points the speaker makes and explain how each
claim is supported by reasons and evidence.ʼ National Governors Association Center for Best Practices:
The Council of Chief State school officers, Common Core State standards: Appendix A, Research
Supporting Elements of Standards (Washington, DC, 2010) p.24.
6
Here’s the appreciation of Maughn Gregory, director of the Institute of Philosophy for Children at
Montclair State University: ʽIt is remarkable how many capacities the game calls on – from imagination
and critical thinking, to collaborative dialogue–all in the service of robust, first hand philosophical inquiry.ʼ
(Review comments, back cover).
7
See also the Visual Philosophy for Children series by Ellen Duthie and Daniela Martagón, at the
crossroads of art, philosophy and literature that presents a boxed set of thought-provoking visuals to
stimulate philosophical inquiry and foster deep playful thinking: www.wonderponderonline.com.
580
philosophical novels, have created a rich tapestry of approaches for implementing
philosophy in today’s schools (Gregory, Haynes and Murris 2017, xxvi).8
In the first part of this paper, I will show that two of the preeminent needs of today’s
students lie in a) a games-based learning and b) acquiring the 21st century competencies
required to prepare them for the future. I will argue that designing a curriculum to
simulate the characteristics of collaborative games provides a powerful vehicle for
reaching students in their world on their terms, in the spirit of the child-centered approach
of the Philosophy for Children program. In the second part of the paper, I will show how
such an approach can be effectively implemented across the curriculum through the game
Play Wise and its lesson plans that combine phases of the Lipman method of
philosophical inquiry. The exciting initiative of promoting game-based critical thinking
Play Wise Olympiads, in -class, as part of PHILOS Clubs and interschool philosophy for
children tournaments, will be noted.
PART 1. Today’s learners and the importance of game-based

approaches
The positive role that games increasingly play in learning for the development of
higher order thinking skills, socialization and children’s talents is not a new notion. Plato
already advised to keep children to their studies by play to ʽdiscern the natural capacities
of each.ʼ (Plato, 536 e). Games help to enhance memory, cognitive skills and
neuroplasticity, strengthening the mind in the same way that physical exercise makes the
body strong and youthful. E. F. Fisher’s summary of over forty studies shows links
between games and problem solving and logical thinking demonstrating that play
significantly increases intelligent quotient (IQ) and test scores, as well as improving
relations between children and peers (Fisher, 1992, p.151)9.
Play is deemed so essential that the United Nations has recognized it as a specific
right for all children.10 In the document The Framework for 21st Century Learning by the
Partnership for 21rst Century Skills, playful rule-based learning is shown to be an
important social and emotional context for peer interaction and collaboration for children
to develop perspective taking by building on what they observe, while acquiring self-
regulation (Scott, 2017, p.4). The importance of a gamed-based learning in engaging the
interest of learners can no longer be overlooked, especially when the games are designed
for collaborative inquiry and for stimulating students to reflect on their co-learning (Sauvé
& Kaufman, 2010, p.2).
The book Super Better (McGonigal, 2015) 11 reveals a decade’s worth of scientific
research that looks into the ways the ʽgamer spiritʼ—an attitude of fun, dedication, and
collective collaborative problem-solving—is our greatest asset. Although her research is
8
The authors observe: ʽPhilosophy for Children has never been a unified field. Since the early 1970s there
have been numerous and divergent approaches. Notable of these are Catherine McCall’s approach
(Scotland) to the community of philosophical inquiry that encompasses rigorous logical argumentation.
Eckhart Martin’s five finger model (Germany) of incorporating philosophy, hermeneutics, analysis,
dialectics and speculation as phases of philosophical inquiry, Michel Tozzi’s “democratic-philosophical
method” (France) in which students are assigned specific functions in the context of parliamentary
discussion.ʼ, p. xxvi.
9
For play as a leading source of development in terms of emotional, social, physical, language and skills,
see (Ghanotakis, 1999) and (Ghanotakis, 2014, 1-2).
10
ʽFact sheet: A Summary of the Rights under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.’ Art 31, Retrieved
on August 11, 2014 www.unicef.org/crc/filrd/Rights_overview.pdf.
11
See also McGonigal (2011). McGonigal’s website contains interesting information on current research:
http/www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a better_world.
581
largely focused on teens playing video games, it shows that 97% of males and 92% of
females engage in gaming for a minimum of 12 hours a week (McGonigal, 2015, p.24).
Fantasy role playing games are being used to motivate students for engaging in critical
thinking, creative reasoning and cooperative problem-solving (Howard, 2015).
Considering that by the time children reach 21 years old they would have spent
10.000 hours playing games, almost the same number of hours they attended school, the
implementation of game-based learning in education has seen quite a boom in recent
years. For example, games like Minecraft and Classcraft are being implemented into 58%
of classrooms in the US, with tie ups to the curriculum12. As compared with the Baby-
Boomers (41-60 years), the X (29-40 years) and Y (18-28 years) generations, today’s
teens (10-17 years) are the Generation G (G standing for games). The generation G
learners have benefited from the Flynn effect, the documented IQ increase across cultures
video games have contributed because of the thousands of hours of rapidly analyzing new
situations, solving problems, interacting with characters and collaborating that today's
learners have amassed (Van Eck, 2017).
There are four principles of good learning operational in games (Van Eck, 2017):
1) Engagement: Play requires interaction and immersive participation.
2) Problem based: Problem solving in games promotes the highest level of learning
with multi-tasking and transfer.
3) Situated cognition: All learning in games is situated, goal driven, relevant and
applied.
4) Questioning, prompting cognitive disequilibrium and scaffolding. Question
asking in games improves learning by effecting cycles of cognitive
disequilibrium and resolution.
The notion of scaffolding is an application of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal
Development (ZPD) (Vygotsky, 1978). It is a process through which students are
challenged through hints and peers to boost their learning. Games keep players in the
ZDP through challenges, questions and interactions.13
It is important here to distinguish the buzz word ʽgamificationʼ from game-based
learning. ʽGamificationʼ relates to the idea of adding game elements to a non-game
situation, such as a corporate reward for making a purchase, by giving stars, experience
points or badges to encourage the expected behavior. In contrast, game-based learning
consists in the use of games to motivate, engage and enhance the learning experience
by promoting critical thinking and problem solving in digital or non-digital ways
(Isaacs, 2015).
Designing game-based curricula
An innovative initiative to better engage the interest of today’s students is to design
curriculum and instruction that simulate the characteristics of a videogame environment.
The International Education Advisory Board (IEAB) article Learning in the 21st Century:
Teaching Today’s Students on their Terms provides the following eight characteristics
of well-designed games that engage media saturated Millennial students in analytical,
12
http://www.classcraft.com/fr.ludification.
13
This notion of ZPD is defined by the late Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) as ʽthe difference
between the actual developmental levels determined by independent problem solving and the level of
problem solving through adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers.ʼ (Vygotsky, 1978,
p.86).
582
team-building, multi-tasking and problem-solving skills employers need and in a format
in which they can identify:14
1) Well defined goals: learning goals and objectives must be clear with multiple
examples (video games provide players a clear explanation of the desired
outcome and how to play);
2) Patience: give students opportunities to correct work and resubmit, to allow
them to learn from their mistakes (in games one can always restart and try again);
3) Team play: Physically arrange classrooms to allow collaboration and idea
sharing (as online games offer players opportunities to work together);
4) Tracking: Students need to know where they are at any given pathway towards
their goal (video games are organized by levels);
5) Change: keep experiences moving, varied with new different areas of challenge;
6) Immediate consequences: provide immediate useful feedback helping students
see the value of learning and how it is relevant (as video games allow players to
see the impact of their actions instantly);
7) Personalization: Students must be encouraged to work in different roles to
discover their strengths, giving them opportunities to move out of their comfort
zones (in videogames players perform as different characters allowing them
varying levels of expertise);
8) Patterns: help students identify patterns and cultivate higher order thinking
skills (video games are designed for players to recognize patterns to solve
problems.);15
The six most prominent 21st Century Competencies
Fullan and Scott (Fullan & Scott, 2014, p.6) identify six essential competencies (the
6 Cs): 1) Character 2) Citizenship 3) Communication, 4) Critical Thinking 5)
Collaboration and 6) Creativity.16 The Ontario Ministry of Education study of
international frameworks with respect to the most prominent competencies to yield
measurable results states: ʽThe most prominent 21st Century competencies found in
international frameworks that have been shown to offer measurable benefits in multiple
areas of life are associated with critical thinking, communication, collaboration, and
creativity and innovation.ʼ17
The six essential competencies can be defined as follows:
1) Character, the disposition of a growth mind set (as opposed to affixed or closed
one, perseverance and resilience in achieving tasks in collaborative ethical
caring manner;
2) Citizenship, the competency to solve problems that impact human and
environmental sustainability, both locally and globally;
14
www.certiport.com p10
15
Learning in the 21st Century: Teaching Today’s Students on their Terms (2014), pp.10-
11.http:www.certiport.com/Portal/.IEAB_Whitepaper0408.pd
16
See also M. Fullan (2013) Great to Excellent: Launching the next stage of Ontario's education agenda,
Toronto, Ontario Ministry of Education www.edu.gov.on.ca; C21 Canada (Canadians for 21st Century:
Learning and Innovation www.c21Canada.org); M. Fullan and M. Langworthy (2014) A Rich Seam, London,
Pearson.
17
21st Century Competencies, Ontario Ministry of Education, 2016, p.22. Most recently, on September 6,
2017 the Ontario Ministry of Education announced that beginning September 2018 the report cards
would be changed to evaluate students on these transferable 21st Century competencies.
583
3) Communication, the mastery of the three fluencies of speaking, writing and the
digital for effective dialogue;
4) Critical Thinking, the disposition to analyze knowledge, evaluate information
in order to arrive at valid conclusions through reasoned arguments in
constructing meaning;
5) Collaboration, the capacity and willingness to work in teams interdependently
and synergistically, negotiating and building on each other ideas for resolving
conflicts towards win-win solutions;
6) Creativity, the disposition of asking the right questions to generate novel ideas
and innovate. (Fullan & Scott, 2014, p.6-7).
PART 2. Play Wise: An example of successful game-based

philosophical inquiry
It is clear, from what has been argued above, that to ensure the engagement and
enjoyment particularly of today’s students a game-based learning approach seems the
most fitting pedagogy for motivating students in developing 21st century
competencies.
These principles of a game-based learning and of the 21st century competencies
have inspired the creation of the Play Wise game and Tool Kits (Ghanotakis, 2016). Play
Wise is the new enriched edition of the curriculum approved critical thinking tool kit The
Game of Wisdom: For Thinkers of all Ages (Ghanotakis 1987). The new edition adds
pictures and collaborative argument tools to make play more interactive, communicative
and creative with lesson plans aligned with the prominent 21st Century competencies.
Play Wise was awarded 2017 Game of the Year by Creative Child magazine.18
The reflective elements and questions built into this dialogue inquiry game are
based on years of research conducted by the Canadian Institute of Philosophy for
Children. It was successfully field-tested and assessed by thousands of schools, with
students with differing range of learning abilities. The research spanned home,
alternative and traditional school environments. The game was used in afterschool
programs, summer camps, wisdom family clubs and even intergenerational play
programs (Ghanotakis 2017a). 19 Because of its parlor format the game facilitated the
infusing of philosophical inquiry in the curriculum in a fun and engaging manner. It is
implemented in Language Arts (for Reading Comprehension and Writing Skills),
Mathematics (for interpreting, evaluating and solving problems, ranking and
recognizing subsets), Science/ STEM (scientific inquiry, formulating and verifying
hypothesis), Ethics, Citizenship, ESL, Social Studies, and Special Education (LDs and
Gifted) programs (Kennedy, 1989).
18
www. creativeawards. com.
19
Note that The Game of Wisdom was first field tested for remediating areas of thinking skill deficiency
and developing confidence and positive mind sets at the Ottawa Child Study centre of the University of
Ottawa, in 1987. It was recommended as approved curriculum by the Ministry of Education of Quebec for
its transferable competencies and its efficacy to contribute ʼ… to the development of basic skills in
language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies.ʼ —Vie Pédagogique, Quebec Ministry of
Education. ʽThe built in debating aspects of the game provided fun to all players, ...Would no doubt
enlarge the student’s understanding of self and others in various life situations, teach students to be
analytical and evaluative in judgment making, decision and problem solving skills in the learning
process. These evaluators all made strong recommendations for their institutions to purchase the
game.ʼ —Professor Louis K. Ho, Librarian, Visiting professor (University of Lethbridge) and Fellow,
Canadian College of Teachers.
584
Here’s how the six 21st Century competencies are developed in the game:
Character and Citizenship. Play Wise fosters qualities required for citizenship:
mindfulness, curiosity, confidence in expressing an alternative view point, resilience to
extremism, ethics in caring and respecting others’ perspectives and leadership in
assuming the judge’s role in deciding about the reasonableness of answers. 20 Learning
from and with diverse persons’ ideas and arguments contributes to global citizenship.
Communication. The game develops listening skills and good argument tools for
collaborative deliberation and media literacy. A digital version in progress will provide
digital tools for effective blogs.
Collaboration. The collaborative classroom adaptations of Play Wise involve the ability
to work in teams, where one learns from and contributes to the learning of others by
building on each other’s insights with self-correction opportunities. Team members
assume various roles and co-construct meaning and content to present the best argument
or most reasonable answer by thinking together (Reniztskaya and Wilkinson, 2017.
Creativity and innovation. Creativity is not merely the ability to think differently or out
of the box but the ability to pursue innovative ideas and experiences with situations in
which there is no known answer and where there maybe multiple solutions. Moreover,
the exercises in the lessons plan of the game provide scaffolding for students to create
their own questions. One of the objectives of the game is to prompt students to innovate
by pursuing their own ideas and creating questions.
Critical Thinking. Play Wise fosters the dispositions of critical thinking in two ways:
a) Through the questions and the criteria of reasoned arguments, as players are stimulated
to hone more than thirty-three higher order thinking skills found to effect transfer to
basic skills achievement, correlating highly with language and mathematics (Lipman,
1980, 217-224);21
b) Through the inquiry process and the thinking tools for defining, analyzing information,
testing various hypotheses, considering alternatives and formulating solutions for
acting, using the PHILOS argument model. PHILOS is an acronym for the following
tools:
 P (Point of view): Have relevant proposals or suggestions been made?
 H (Hypothesis): Have valid reasons been given for opinions/hypotheses?
 I (Inference): Has any inference or consequence been made?
 L (Light of Truth): Has there been any evidence/ examples provided?
 O (Omission): Have any objections/disagreement or counter-examples been made?
 S (Synthesis): Has any synthesis or self-correction been made? 22
The first 3 inquiry dialogue tools (PHI) are used at the primary school level.23
20
According to Boston-based Center for Curriculum Design (CCRD) these character traits have emerged
as essential in preparing global citizens (See supra, note 1, 21st Century Competencies, p.14s) Resilience
to extremism involves helping children to become critical thinkers in a non-aggressive way and in handling
differences of opinion.
21
Appendix 1 of Philosophy in the Classroom, pp.217-224 provides the list of the critical thinking skills that
have been proven effective in improving student achievement. An assessment measure of these skills is
contained in the Play Wise Teacher Guide (Ghanotakis 2017 a).
22
The PHILOS model used in critical thinking dialogue and philosophical inquiry puts into practice all the
key competencies required for well-reasoned productive dialogue in a collaborative context. For the
effectiveness of PHILOS model, see the transcript of a class using the six thinking tools of the model
(Ghanotakis, 2005).
23
The PHILOS tools are also presented in set of illustrated cards fun to play used in the extended discussion
of the student’s questions following the playing of the game. The class will be divided in 8 teams of 3-4
585
The definition of critical thinking operative in the game and the collaborative inquiry
in discussing questions is in line with that agreed upon by experts in the Delphi Study, where
critical thinking is characterized as comprising analysis, interpretation, explanation,
inference, evaluation and self-regulation (Faccione, 1991). The specific skills developed by
the questions of the game are explained with follow up exercises to apply and assess progress.
Play Wise in the Classroom: A Three-Part Lesson Plan
A three-part lesson plan is suggested for forty minutes class periods:
 Game play (25 minutes)
 Observers and note-takers’ comments (10 minutes)
 Exercises and creation of students’ questions (10 minutes) to be contributed for
class discussion. (Meetings alternate between game play and extended discussion of
questions raised by students).
Objective: To work collaboratively in groups of 3-4 students for accumulating 5 different
question-category cards [one from each of the five domains: Discovery (scientific inquiry
and epistemic), Imagination (creative reasoning and predicting), Thinking (feelings,
ethics and values), Logic (critical thinking) and Varia (life skills)]. The teams must also
obtain 16 laurels by thinking together and providing reasoned answers during the 25
minutes of play (a cluster of selected questions by themes, curriculum areas and critical
thinking skills for planning sessions is suggested in the teacher’s Guide).
Distribution of roles for Team Play:
 Four teams of 3-4 student players
(Teams of student players rotate in assuming the role of the judge. The teacher may
act at the beginning as independent judge particularly with younger players or assist
students when assuming that role).
 A team of 3-4 students act as observers /note-takers, checking if dialogue rules are
being followed (i.e. everyone is being respectful, actively listening without
interruptions, etc.) and asking questions about the relevance of viewpoints and
arguments made, at the end of game play.
The following cards assist in fulfilling the different Roles:
Judge’s card:
Accept answers to questions if:
 Clear/concise.
 Relevant/ justified with good reason.
 Coherent/logical.
Apply the rules of Dialogue:
 One person speaks at a time.
 30 seconds for each to answer.
 Respect different opinions.
players. Six teams will receive one of the PHILOS cards. A seventh team acts as the observer team and an
eighth team will fill the role of the judge (which may be assisted by the teacher). The PHILOS cards
represent different characters of the inquiry critical thinking argument process: Mrs. Proposition, Dr.
Hypothesis, Mister Infero, The angel Light of Truth, Mr. Objection and Mr. Synthesis. A dramatization of
the PHILOS discussion game is available as a novel to be read in class under the title The PHILOS Game,
which students read and enact as a philosophical story following the five phases of the Lipman and Sharp
method. The novel demonstrates the process in action facilitated by a teacher (Ghanotakis, 2017b).
586
Team of Players’ card:
 Select the best matching picture (Version with Funny pictures).
 Or position card (Yes/No/Depends) to answer the question.
 In turn, a different player proposes an answer, to give a chance for everyone to have
their ideas and insights considered by the team.
 Teammates help each other improve and justify their responses according to the 3
criteria of good answers.
Observers’ card to report:
 Were the rules of dialogue followed?
 Have players justified their answers (using the criteria of good answers or PHILOS
tools; observers may ask questions for clarification of assertions made).
 Have players engaged in collaborative inquiry?24
PHILOS inquiry/argument process card (This card is also used by Observers in
extended discussion with the whole class and in Play Wise Olympiads).
Part b of the lesson plan: Observers’ comments and Players’ replies (10 minutes)
 The student Observers Team will report on how the student Players Teams did on the
three criteria on the Observers’ card, thus providing a summary of the quality of the
collaborative inquiry (5 min).
 Finally, Players Teams reply/self-correct (3 minutes). This is an opportunity for
Players Teams to react to Observers’ comments by clarifying or self-correcting certain
points.
Part c of the lesson plan: PHILOS Notebook/Portfolio: Writing Exercises (10
minutes)
 Each student must write out in their PHILOS Notebook the question that his/her team
received and summarize the discussion using a template of PHILOS thought map.
 Then they must find a practical application in their life, locally or globally (suggested
answers are found in Exercises to that effect, provided in the Teacher’s Guide Play
Wise Tool Kit, Part 2). Students from the Observers Team choose their favorite
question.
 Finally each student must formulate a new question of their own using the same or
different theme. The new questions will be contributed to a question box to form the
discussion agenda of next class.
Play Wise Olympiads (PWO)
An initiative using the Play Wise game and the PHILOS model of collaborative
inquiry is the establishment of Play Wise Olympiads (PWO). These critical thinking
philosophical tournaments for primary and secondary schools have been launched by the
International Center for Education, Philosophy and Citizenship (ICEPC), a non-profit
organization with an advisory board of leading educators from around the world.25 PWO
tournaments tap into the interests and questions of young people by looking into life’s
bigger questions, rewarding individual teams for developing strong arguments.
PWO use questions created by students from PHILOS clubs or labs (school based
dialogue / debating learning centers). These competitions involve two teams playing two
24
These three criteria are also used in evaluating teams during in-Class or interschool Olympiads.
25
For details on the ICEPC and videos on students playing the game see www.institutphilos.com
587
rounds, using the PHILOS model to help construct together the strongest or best
culminating argument. Team A first presents a position using the tools PHI, then Team B
comments using LO tools, finally Team A responds for self-correction and to make a
synthesis (tool S). For round 2, the roles are reversed with team B presenting and Team A
commenting. These tournaments are intended to promote collaborative inquiry akin to the
popular National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB) in the US and Philosothon
competitions in Australia, New Zealand and the UK.26 The In-class version of PWO bears
resemblance to Tozzi’s philosophical democratic discussion (Discussion à visée
démocratique et philosophique ) DVDP). Tozzi’s method consists of organizing discussion
with the roles of president, secretary and philosophers discussing questions. Tozzi’s method
is implemented by the new UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Youth in Paris.27
Conclusion
Practicing the skill of Good Judgment
I have tried to argue in this paper that a games-based learning is an important
vehicle to engage children’s interest and motivate them to develop the 21st Century
competencies in a framework of collaborative inquiry. I have shown how the four
principles of good learning and eight characteristics of the game-based approach were
applied in the design of Play Wise to provide a motivating environment for today’s
students to engage in critical thinking through collaborative inquiry. What is most
important, for developing critical thinking in a context of careful examination of alternate
view points and arguments is the development of good judgment.
Play Wise’s unique contribution in this regard is to provide a playful environment
where the exercise of the skill of good judgment is produced and acquired, as each
player / team learns to question and dialogue, and assesses the relevance of arguments.
The development of the art of good judgment (Lipman, 1978, 358ff) is greatly
facilitated through game-based learning.
I have shown how the new pedagogy of game-based learning adapted to classroom
use with the PHILOS argument tool kit is not incompatible with the Lipman approach for
conducting collaborative philosophical inquiry. 28 While there is a difference in taking as
stimulus philosophical questions of the game chosen by students, instead of an offering
of a text and proceeding to the construction of an agenda, the objective is the same: to
engage in a philosophical collaborative discussion by applying the criteria of critical
thinking and good judgment. It is also important to stress that the other phases of
Lipman’s method of the community of inquiry with respect to using exercises and
encouraging further responses are preserved in the lesson plan I exposed.
A final note on the collaborative nature of the Play Wise Olympiads is in order.
Like NHSEB and Philosothon, Play Wise Olympiads are competitive meets, yet
26
An Ethics Bowl is ʽan activity that combines a valuable and distinctive educational experience for
students with the excitement and fun of a competitive game.ʼ (Ladenson, 2001, 63). See the website
www.nhseb.unc.edu . Philosothon started in October 2007 at the Hale school in Perth, Western Australia
http://fapsa.org.au/philoosthon.
27
See www.philotozzi.com. Conducting a philosophical discussion must move questioning along three
levels ʽconceptualization, problem setting and argumentation (la conceptualisation, la problématisation,
l’argumentation)ʼ. For the UNESCO Philosophy Chair in Paris which Tozzi presides, see
www.chaireunescophiloenfants.uni.nantes.fr.
28The importance of providing students with a tool kit for inquiry and discussion maps to track, review
and record their reasoning is also recommended by Dr. Phil Cam (Cam, 2006, 6ff). Like the first two
building blocks (PH) of the PHILOS model, the first tools must engage learners in making
suggestions/propositions and inquiring into reasons for views expressed.
588
collaborative in intent. They are not contradictory debates where students take opposing
views. One of the criteria of evaluation is the extent to which a team has collaborated in
improving the position or argument put forward by the other team. As all ranking in
criteria, the reward is for the best effort and excellence of thought in co-producing the
best argument. In this regard, the evidence indicates that students forget they are involved
in a competition and enjoy the challenge of thinking together in a caring civil manner.
The aim of the collaborative inquiry in the Philosophy for Children Program is to
arrive at the well informed, well-reasoned, culminating meaningful ʽbest judgment that
can be made with available resources,ʼ (Gregory, 2009, p.339). It is also the purpose of
the methodology of philosophical inquiry with children for teaching critical thinking. As
Lipman expresses it (Lipman, 2003, p.3): ʽThe pedagogy of the community should be a
methodology for the teaching of critical thinking and it is no accident that critical thinking
is associated with such cognate terms as ʽcriticismʼ, ʽcriteriaʼ. We have to create a society
in which excellence flourishes in diversity and abundance. Upgrading the reflective
element in education is a reasonable place to begin.ʼ
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The Storytelling Curriculum and Philosophy
for Children Aged 3-5
Dr. Susan Lyle

University of Wales, Trinity St David
sue.marilyn.lyle@gmail.com
CV
Dr. Susan Lyle has been an educator for 44 years and involved with Philosophy for
Children since 1994. She has been a teacher, teacher advisor, curriculum developer,
teacher educator and since 2012, an educational consultant. A senior trainer for SAPERE,
the charity that manages P4C in the UK, she works with teachers and children in schools
in P4C and storytelling. Most recently she has combined her passion for storytelling with
P4C for the Early Years and has developed and led a training programme the Storytelling
Curriculum for early years practitioners in Wales and Palestine. She continues to work in
the university as a part-time PhD supervisor.
ABSTRACT
Our understanding of the young child has been the subject of great discoveries in the past
decade. Work by cognitive scientists using empirical methods offer us a child who is
steeped in imaginative possibilities, who has a theory of mind, who is able to imagine
‘what if?’, who understands cause and effect and is able to explore the world of ideas and
things in ways those early pioneers of child development, following in the footsteps of
Piaget, could not themselves have imagined. Philosophers too have been re-imagining the
child and the relationship between child and adult. This paper considers what impact this
new knowledge from science and philosophy might have on the practice of P4C for the
3-5 year-old child through an innovative approach: The Storytelling Curriculum.
KEYWORDS
Early years; storytelling; Imagination; metaphor; narrative understanding.
RESUMEN
Nuestra comprensión del niño pequeño ha sido objeto de grandes descubrimientos en la
última década. El trabajo de los científicos cognitivos usando métodos empíricos nos
ofrece un niño que está lleno de posibilidades imaginativas, que tiene una teoría de la
mente, que es capaz de imaginar cuestiones del tipo “¿qué sucedería si?”, que entiende la
relación de causa y efecto y es capaz de explorar el mundo de las ideas y las cosas de la
manera en que los pioneros del desarrollo infantil, siguiendo los pasos de Piaget, no
podían haberse imaginado. Los filósofos también han estado reimaginando al niño y la
relación entre el niño y el adulto. Este artículo considera el impacto que este nuevo
conocimiento de la ciencia y la filosofía podría tener en la práctica de FpN para el niño
de 3 a 5 años a través de un enfoque innovador: el currículo del Storytelling.
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INTRODUCTION
Philosophers love metaphors and we begin by exploring new metaphors of child
emerging from science and philosophy. Following Deleuze and Guattari (1980) we use the
metaphor of rhizome to think about the young child as a learner. Like ginger which is
constructed as non-hierarchical, without a root, trunk and branches, but something that ‘shoots’
in all directions with no beginning and no end, always in between, and with openings towards
other directions and places. The rhyzomic metaphor of ginger when applied to child is
something to marvel at, it reflects the complexity and unpredictability that is a human being.
Compare this with a different metaphor that fits better with current curricula (see,
for example in the UK, (DfE, 2014) that emphasizes learning goals and measurable
assessments – the child as carrot. The carrot starts as a seed that is planted in soil and is
expected to grow in a pre-determined, linear, incremental and hierarchical way. The
‘carrot’ child is planted in school as a seed where the job of the educator is to fatten them
up. A biological model, it assumes minds grow and develop like a physical thing in the
world. It influences how we perceive children as thinkers and how we regard the purpose
of play. It leads to prescriptive teaching that is not justifiable from either a scientific or
philosophical position. The metaphor reflects a view of child as not fully formed where
the goal of education is growth toward the end goal of maturity.
These metaphors are powerful, they can help us unpick common developmental
assumptions about child and offer an alternative model of child development that has
enormous implications for both our relationship with the child and the educational
provision offered to children.
These metaphors have implications for the kind of adult who cares for the child: it
matters which metaphor carers assume, do they see the child in front of them as ‘ginger’
or ‘carrot’? Leading cognitive scientist, Alison Gopnik (2016) gives us a further two
metaphors to help us think about the adult caring for the child, that of the gardener and
the carpenter. A gardener creates a protected and nurturing space for plants to flourish
and doesn’t expect uniform outcomes, in contrast the carpenter’s job is to shape the
material into a final product that will fit the outcomes that have been decided in advance.
The rhizomic child needs a gardener to allow children of many unpredictable kinds to
flourish, not a carpenter with a pre-conceived idea of the outcomes, which is much more
suited to the child as ‘carrot’. These metaphors provide us with a shorthand way of
thinking about these new understandings of child and of those that care for children.
Support for thinking about children and adult carers/educators in these metaphoric
ways comes from educational research, in particular research influenced by socio-cultural
theory where a key message is that we have to pull back on teaching as transmission and
allow children to do what they do best – learn and unlearn. In this paper, the work of
socio-cultural theorists (see, for example Egan, 2014) and practitioners (Paley, 2005;
Stanley, 2008) informs the argument that those working with young children should,
above all, create opportunities for the child’s imagination and creativity to flourish.
Building on a quarter of a century's experience working in an early years’ classroom
(Stanley, 2008; 2011) the concept of ‘Philosophy by Children with adults’ has been
introduced (Stanley & Lyle, 2017). In Sara Stanley’s classroom her 3-5 year olds are
given the chance to create their own imaginary worlds through play. The work of these
pioneering practitioners has inspired the work reported on here. Let us begin by looking
at the work of the cognitive scientists.
Science’s child
Empirical research carried out by Alison Gopnik and her team of cognitive
scientists (Gopnik, 2012) tells us that by the age of 2-3, much of the child’s waking hours
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is spent in a world of imagination, as they create possible universes and assume different
identities and become super-heroes, fairies, witches, knights and princesses. These young
children are also able to consider alternative scenarios put forward by other children and
imagine their consequences, ‘if…then’. Gopnik’s research shows that causal knowledge
about the world and counterfactuals go together: they allow children to use their
imaginations to explore alternative possibilities and then use this knowledge to make
predictions about the future, to explain the past and to imagine other possible worlds.
It is worth considering these causal maps of the physical world in more detail. By
three years-old, a young child’s brain has constructed a kind of unconscious causal map,
an accurate picture of how the physical world works. A map, Gopnik (2012) tells us, is a
very efficient device for constructing different cognitive blueprints, pictures of what will
happen as you move yourself through space. Together with counterfactuals these causal
maps give imagination its power – it is what makes creativity possible. When we know
how events are connected we can imagine altering those connections and creating new
ones. It’s because we know about ‘our world’ that we can create other ‘possible worlds’
(Bruner, 1996). The three year-old pretending to be a fairy princess or Spiderman is
therefore demonstrating a uniquely human kind of intelligence.
At the same time as they are developing their understanding of the physical world
necessary for causal maps, these very young children are developing theories of mind –
the psychological causal maps. Knowing how people’s minds work, imagining what they
might do, is essential for pretend play. Psychological counterfactuals reflect the way
people might be and how they might act.
Counter-factual thinking is absolutely pervasive in our everyday life and deeply
affects our judgments, our decisions and our emotions. (Gopnik, 2012, p. 21).
Gopnik’s (2012; 2016) research shows that children between 2-6 years old are
developing understanding of human desires and beliefs, emotions and actions, and realise
that different people have different beliefs and behave differently because they have
different kinds of minds. By the time they are four, the young child can understand that
people can have false beliefs. It is this understanding of the minds of others (psychological
causality), that allows us to maintain complex social networks and to develop culture (Lyle,
2012, p.19).
In her most recent book presenting the implications of her research findings,
Gopnik (2016, p.15) tells us that children from the age of six months can pretend and by
the age of two live in their own imaginations and in fantasy worlds: ʽ…one of the great
discoveries of the past few years has been that even very young children can imagine
new possibilities and consider new ways they themselves, or the world around them,
could beʼ.
Gopnik goes further to claim that children’s lives depend on their imaginations and
that play is the time they need to exercise this because it is play that has most to contribute
to their learning.
In fact, the capacity for imagination is part of the human condition, not just
something engaged in by the child. All human beings are constantly imagining, ‘what
would happen if…?’ We all create counterfactuals about possible futures because we can
imagine how we would and would not like it to be and choose to act accordingly by
drawing on our social imaginations.
As philosopher Fricker (2009) has argued, the social imagination is a mighty
resource for social change and has the capacity to inform our thinking directly; children
need opportunities to engage their social imaginations and the most powerful vehicle for
this is the story (Egan, 2014). In our teaching we need to give children the opportunity to
explore counterfactuals, and the story is a very powerful vehicle for doing this. It is
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important because, as Gopnik (2012) argues, humans are beings who can hope for the
future and make plans to get the kind of future we want, as well as regret or be
disappointed about the past and imagine how life would be different if the past had been
different. This is part of the human condition. Even if we wanted to, we couldn’t escape
considering possible pasts and futures. And so the world of play and imagination is vital
for children as it gives them opportunities to think about counterfactuals and thus has
much to contribute to their learning.
Despite this research from cognitive science, Murris and Kell (2016) note that
imagination as a meaning-making faculty receives remarkably little attention in education
writing. Even though the importance of imaginary play has been summarised by
Goswami for the Cambridge Primary Review (2015, p.14): ʽShared socio-dramatic play
provides a large number of opportunities for reflecting upon one’s own and others’
desires, beliefs and emotions – sharing mental statesʼ.
The subject of emotions has been central to many of the great philosophers
including Aristotle, Hobbes, Rousseau, Mill and Rawls. A call for the education of the
emotions has come from Martha Nussbaum (2001) who argues for the inclusion of the
storytelling arts in moral philosophy and argues that storytelling and narrative play are
essential in cultivating a child’s inner world. Although intuitively we may think that
talking about human emotions requires experience of human life, which the small child
is lacking, in our practice we have found young children who have had extensive
experience of story can engage in talk about the emotions (Lyle, 2017a). Stanley’s
classroom has highlighted the connection between story, socio-dramatic play and
imagination (Stanley & Lyle, 2017). Following this, we argue that story and socio-
dramatic play should be at the heart of the early years’ curriculum.
Summary
Research from cognitive science tells us that children’s development is incoherent
and discontinuous, rather than orderly and predictable. The young child has a powerful
imagination and can access the abstract world and human emotion through fantasy and
metaphor (Gopnik, 2012; 2016). From the cognitive scientist’s point of view, young
children demonstrate their ability to think about things that aren’t actually there, to think
about things that might happen and to try them out by asking ‘What if?’ This
‘counterfactual thinking’ (Gopnik, 2012) is central to the thinking of the young child.
And of course, ‘What if?’ is grist to the philosopher’s mill.
The philosopher’s child
Gareth Matthews’ view that children younger than six can philosophize (Matthews,
1992; 1996) has had a profound impact on the development of a philosophy of childhood
that seeks to challenge many established believes about the ‘C’ in P4C (Lyle, 2017b).
The work of Reggio Emilia has given us the rich child with a ‘100 languages’ (Cagliari
et al, 2016), whilst the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989)
proposes a relational approach to rights embedded in human experiences (Hartas, 2008).
At the heart of the lives of young children is imagination, theoretical support for its
importance to the child comes from the work of Kieran Egan (2004) who, in a critique of
our progressive inheritance from Herbert Spencer, John Dewey and Jean Piaget, argues
we are ʽgetting it wrong from the beginningʼ. Egan argues that imagination is a necessary
and neglected component of rational, cognitive activity and claims narrative
understanding is the primary form of understanding: ʽWe are a storying animal; we make
sense of things commonly in story forms; ours is a largely story-shaped worldʼ (Egan
2014, pp. 96-97) and that this has implications for curriculum planning. My own research
has similarly argued for the centrality of narrative understanding as our primary meaning-
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making tool (Lyle, 2000) that led to the creation of the Storytelling Curriculum which is
heavily informed by Egan’s work.
Egan provides some useful guidelines for those who wish to develop P4C with
young children. He asks practitioners to think of the curriculum as a story-to-be-heard
and a story-to-be-told (Egan 1989). He reminds us that good stories are always
emotionally engaging – an essential prerequisite to provoke imaginative thinking. Having
identified how the curriculum can be told through story he asks us to identify what binary
opposites best capture the meaning and emotion of the topic. Next Egan asks us to develop
images, metaphors and other forms of creative depiction to promote affective
engagement, arguing that without the affective there is no cognitive. We are asked to
think about what activities can help children experience rhythm, rhyme and pattern, and
finally to consider how drama and role-play can enhance children’s experience. The
pedagogy of philosophy for children offers strategies for supporting children’s
exploration of abstract concepts through questioning, making choices, giving reasons for
choices and making connections between ideas which can support children’s imaginative
thinking. In sum, Egan’s guidelines and the pedagogy of P4C together offer an important
planning tool for the Early Years’ practitioner.
Implications for P4C: Philosophy by Children
The practice, which we have conceptualized as Philosophy by Children with
adults (Stanley & Lyle, 2017) takes into account that children, like adults, are often
playing with unfamiliar concepts with an invisible underlying sense of puzzlement.
The philosophy is present, but needs a skilled facilitator to recognise it and make it
visible to the thinkers.
Important to our work is the inspiration of award-winning kindergarten teacher of
38 years, Vivian Gussin-Paley, who made fantasy play the foundation of her early
childhood classroom. Paley recounts how fantasy play enables children to move from one
strong emotion to the next, ʽfrom pleasure to jealousy, from power to abandonment to
recoveryʼ (Paley, 2005,13). An environment where philosophy is driven by children
needs to be saturated with story to stimulate philosophical play and requires adults with
the capacity for emergent listening to young children (Davies, 2014; Haynes, 2007).
Through their play stimulated by story, children experience in an embodied way
concepts that are recognized as philosophical problems. In Stanley’s (2008; 2011)
classrooms they play these struggles out in the stories they create and in their interactions
with each other. Story and play is at the heart of the process as children project into the
consciousnesses of characters to create and co-experience events with them and at the
same time, they judge those characters’ actions as right or wrong. Through playing a
story, young children engage with the age-old question: what is it to learn to live a good
life in a world where bad also exists? Philosophical play can challenge the striated space
where learning outcomes are decided in advance and open up a smooth space to allow
lines of flight (Lenz Taguchi, 2011).
Inspired by the research of Gopnik, the socio-cultural theory of Egan, and the
practitioner work of Paley (1987; 2005) and Stanley (2008; 2011), the storytelling
curriculum for 3-6 year olds draws on traditional stories as starting points for children’s
imaginative play and philosophical enquiry.
The Storytelling Curriculum in the Early Years.
As Matthew Lipman (1988) knew only too well, telling stories is part of our
collective human identity (Booker, 2005). Stories are fun and tap into a raw human desire
for narratives that we can connect with. A good story well told is a powerful way to share
information as well as explore ideas, concepts and emotions. This is as true for adults as
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it is for children; stories therefore provide important cultural tools for those working in
early childhood settings.
Starting from the premise that children in the early years’ classroom should be
immersed in story and fantasy play, role-play and dialogue to promote intellectual growth
and emotional intelligence, this approach draws on traditional stories with their binary
opposites mediating abstract concepts to provide a wealth of imaginative stimulus and
emotional engagement for the young child, where children’s ability to engage with
metaphor is encouraged and celebrated.
The story-telling curriculum has been developed in partnership with schools and
nursery settings and the rest of this paper draws on observation of children and visits to
teachers who are putting the curriculum into practice (Lyle, 2017c). A starting point for
this approach is oral storytelling. Oral storytelling to young children gathered on the
carpet enables eye-contact between the story-teller and the children and allows the story-
teller to emphasise the rhythm, rhyme and pattern in stories which Egan (1992) argues
will engage the very young and enable the practitioner to respond to the children in front
of them. Experience has suggested this may be hard for many practitioners working in
the early years that often lack confidence to tell an oral story and this has implications for
staff training. Preparation to implement the Storytelling Curriculum should include
training for staff to gain the skills necessary for oral storytelling. Oral storytelling is a
dance of listening and responding that unfolds between teacher and children and is an art
that can be learned (Lyle, 2017c).
Although it is necessary, it is by no means sufficient for children to listen to stories.
Young children need time to play with the stories they hear. The storytelling classroom
therefore has an important material aspect and should contain fantasy role-play areas
containing props and artefacts to promote imaginative play. This might include puppets,
various types of fabric that can be used to represent a river or forest or, when worn,
transform the wearer into someone else. Artefacts such as crowns and magic wands,
cloaks and fairy wings and an ample supply of materials to build castles and palaces, ships
and caves should be readily accessible. Designated spaces for acting out and playing with
story are therefore essential and create opportunities for shared, pretend play that makes
high demands for imaginary and cooperative interaction between children.
The teacher of the storytelling curriculum has an important part to play in creating
this imaginative learning environment and should also plan activities arising from the
stories introduced and from children’s observed responses to the stories. Problems the
fictional characters experience can be presented to the children to solve. When observing
children in play the adult needs to be philosophically alert to children’s puzzlements and
able to support children’s philosophical enquires as well as provoke puzzlement in the
children by raising questions about the abstract concepts that are embedded in the
traditional stories and by planning specific activities to enable the children to explore such
concepts in their play (Stanley & Lyle, 2017).
Using Traditional Stories with 3-5 year olds: some guidelines
Learning how to choose stories and tell them well is an important skill for those
wishing to work with young children, but whilst necessary, this is not sufficient. Stories
are powerful vehicles for exploring abstract concepts and whilst young children are
capable of thinking and talking about the concepts embedded in stories, facilitation of
such talk is not easy for those starting out on their work with young children and training
in P4C can help practitioners gain the skills needed to do it well.
We begin by emphasizing the power of story to generate thinking in young children.
Following training in oral storytelling, practitioners work with a set of traditional stories
that have been shown to engage the children’s interest and stimulate their imaginations
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(2017b). As well as provoking wondering and thinking about the abstract concepts and
moral problems embedded in the stories, the adults taking part in the research have
noticed how the use of stories has supported children’s language acquisition and
articulation, a key aim of early years’ education across the globe.
Paley’s argument that traditional stories are always emotionally engaging and
appealing to children aided the selection of stories: ʽFairy tales stimulate the child’s
imagination in a way that enlarges the vocabulary, extends narrative skills, and
encourages new ideas. Paleyʼ. (1987, p. 128).
Good stories have rhythm, pattern and repetition that the young brain thrives on
(Egan, 2005). They are clearly set in physical and psychological worlds and provoke an
imaginative and reasoned response; they promote empathy, the selection and justification
of ideas, as well as inviting the ‘what if’ questions that Gopnik (2012) claims the young
child can engage with. Such stories are conceptually rich and because children enjoy
hearing them over and over again they have the power to promote language assimilation
and articulation as well as philosophical wondering and are therefore a strong stimulus
for imaginative play.
Working with the stories
To help with curriculum planning, the work of Booker (2005) guided the choice of
stories. Booker put forward the thesis that all narratives draw on one or more of seven
basic plots that form the archetypal themes which recur throughout every kind of
storytelling, not only for children, but for adults, not only orally or through books, but in
film and TV, and in the media. In selecting stories that encapsulate these basic plots
children are introduced to the entire repertoire of stories that exist in the world. By
introducing these plots in the early years we can be sure that children will be familiar with
all seven and be well prepared for story-creation in the primary classroom (Lyle, 2014).
All stories introduce children to narrative structure – they have beginnings, middles
and endings. For a story to work it needs characters and settings, plot, rift and resolution,
the fundamentals for story-telling. We begin by introducing ‘Overcoming the Monster’
stories. They begin with a main character who is immature and somewhat naïve but who
is basically good. In the middle of the story the character meets a dark power whose
presence threatens them. The ending of the story provides the resolution when the dark
power is overthrown and our hero or heroine wins the day. The listening child can identify
with these heroes. There are many stories of this kind including such favourites as ‘The
Three Little Pigs’, ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ or ‘Little Red Riding Hood’ where
children see that it is possible to escape from danger and get home safe and sound.
To illustrate the planning process and provide examples from the classroom the
story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ will be used. In the story three hungry goat siblings
wish to cross a river guarded by an evil troll to get to the grass on the other side. The
smallest goat is the first to face the troll who wants to eat him and tricks him by promising
a much bigger and more satisfying meal if he waits for his big brother. The second goat
uses the same subterfuge to persuade the troll to wait for the ‘biggest Billy goat gruff’
who challenges the troll and defeats him by using his horns to toss him into the air. The
story is told orally every day for 2-4 weeks with the support of puppets and props and the
children then have the opportunity to act out the story in the classroom as it is re-told. A
role-play area with props from the story is set up and children can chose to go and play
with the story whenever they like. The adults observe the play and identify the conceptual
issues arising. Video evidence of the ‘Billy Goats Gruff’ role-plays commonly shows
conflict emerging between the ‘goats’ and the ‘ugly, horrible Troll’. Noticeable is the way
children use their voices to identify the role they are playing in the story. Often a child
took on the authoritative role of story narrator to admonish ‘characters’ when they were
598
behaving badly (e.g. breaking the bridge). They also used their bodies differently
depending on which character they were playing; thus showing their understanding of the
attitudes and values of the characters as well as the narrative. They recalled and used the
repetitive phrases from the story, ʽWho’s that trip-trapping over my bridge?ʼ or ʽI’m a
troll-foldy-roll and I’m going to eat you for my supperʼ as they played out the actions
with puppets or their bodies. And so they develop the ‘100 languages of children’ (Cagliari
et al, 2016) as they use space and time, movement and sound, pattern and rhythm, props
and artefacts to physically enact the stories and gain confidence as story-tellers.
Once children have embodied the story through their play it can be extended
philosophically through examining the story’s abstract concepts. Following Egan (1989)
we look for the binary opposites contained in the story. In the ‘Billy Goats Gruff’ we
identified strong/weak; brave/cowardly; clever/naïve.
We begin enquiry by focusing on the binary of strong/weak and dialogue is initiated
either with the whole class or with smaller groups of children. In one classroom, the
teacher asked, ʽWas the Little Billy Goat strong?ʼ and the children chorused, ʽNoʼ. ʽSo
how did he get over the bridge away from the Troll?ʼ This led to a discussion about what
it means to be strong. ʽCould the small Billy goat be strong in his mind but not in his
body?ʼ ʽIs that how he tricked the Troll?ʼ The children offered an alternative to strong
and suggested the goat was ʽcleverʼ. They recognized that the smallest goat, although not
strong, was able to trick the troll in a clever way. The biggest goat, although smaller than
the troll, was able to use his horns to defeat the troll, thus raising the question of what it
means to be strong. The children recognize that ‘stronger than’ doesn’t always mean
‘bigger than’.
Here the ability of the adult to ask philosophical questions is important, for
example, do you have to be bigger to be stronger? Can you be small and strong? Can you
have a strong mind and a weak body? It leads to speculation about whether the biggest is
always the strongest and whether or not someone small can be strong. Children are
encouraged to ‘look strong’, and the adult (pretending to be afraid) asks, ʽIf you look
strong, does that mean you are strong?ʼ Time is spent thinking about how the little Billy
goat gruff wasn’t big or strong, but had managed to trick the troll.
Later on after children have had a chance to play with the concepts of clever and
strong, a concept line1 is introduced and the children are asked: would you rather be clever
or strong? We thus move outside the story to apply the concepts to their own lives.
Children choose where to stand to indicate their preference and are encouraged to give
reasons. They learn that not everyone thinks the same, but need to support their choices
with reasons using the form, ʽI would rather be [strong/clever] because…ʼ Children are
asked to agree and disagree with each other and give reasons to support their thinking and
are also encouraged to change their minds if they are persuaded by someone else’s
reasons.
Each day storyplay continues in the role-play area and often results in the ‘bridge’
getting broken. This provides an opportunity for the children to do some problem-solving,
and to facilitate this, a ‘letter’ arrives from the goats asking the children for their help.
They have eaten all the grass on their side of the river and wish to return to the other side,
unfortunately the bridge has broken – can the children help them build a strong bridge?
Thus the concept of strong is extended as the children come up with suggestions and try
out ideas for building a strong bridge and consider the consequences of a weak bridge. In
this way the physical properties of ‘strong’ are explored as well as the philosophical. In
1
A skipping rope is laid down on the floor and children stand on either side of the line to indicate their
response to the teacher’s question.
599
designing and making a new bridge the children link physical cause and effect to their
imaginations. This practice of combining reason and imagination through improvised
problem-solving and role-playing helps children anticipate possible situations and
outcomes and prompts their visions of different solutions to problems (Worth, 2008). In
the problem-solving process they develop the language and comprehension to articulate
and negotiate plans and solutions (Berkowitz, 2011).
Towards the end of the time allocated for the story, the children are presented with
a dilemma: ʽThe troll has come back. He is in the river and he can’t get out without your
help – goats, will you save him?ʼ Again a concept line is laid down in the classroom and
the children have to decide what to do by choosing which side of the line to stand on:
‘save him’ on one side, ‘not save him’ on the other. Philosophical questioning by the adult
helps the children to consider what assumptions are implicated by the different choices
and what the possible implications of the alternative choice is. The children are
encouraged to give reasons to support their choices and listen to each other and perhaps
change their minds as they hear the different reasons given. This discussion always brings
up the problem of good and evil. Whether or not a ‘bad’ person (the troll) can be
transformed by an act of kindness and behave well, or is it a case of ‘once bad, always
bad’. In this research most children thought the troll was a baddie and were asked to
consider, ‘what if we save him, can he change and be a goodie?’ Such psychological
counterfactuals reflect the way people might be and how they might act. As the children
disagreed about whether or not the troll could become good they discovered that different
people have different beliefs and behave differently because they have different kinds of
minds. It is this understanding of the minds of others – psychological causality – that
allows us to maintain complex social networks and to develop culture. They consider
whether or not a bad act is the same or different from being a bad person. Should they do
the right thing and save the troll regardless of the possible consequences or should they
be more cautious and consider possible bad outcomes. The concepts of ‘goodies and
baddies’ are fundamental to this age group and they will spend much time in the early
years’ classroom talking about what it means to be good and bad. Stories like ‘The Three
Billy Goats Gruff’ can provide the vehicle for such enquiry.
The story of ‘The Three Billy Goats Gruff’ has been used in a wide range of places
and contexts which has revealed how important context is for small children. Children in a
refugee camp in Palestine, for example, have had very different experiences of good and
bad people in the world and identified the troll as representing Israel and the goats as
Palestine and this influenced how they engaged with the concepts. In Palestine enquiries
always linked to justice and freedom. In contrast, children in areas of high deprivation in
Wales responded differently from the Palestinian children and differently again from those
in more advantaged areas in England. This work with story and play in very different
contexts has shown that the life experiences of very young children impact on how they
engage with abstract concepts like strong, weak, clever and safe. Children living safe,
relatively privileged lives were much more likely to want to save the troll and to believe he
could be transformed by an act of kindness than those whose lives have been subject to
hardship or conflict. More research needs to be done to appreciate the role of context in
children’s understanding of concepts and how they apply those to characters in stories.
We also ensure the book corner in the classroom has several copies of whatever
story the children are working on and many of our early years’ practitioners have
observed children as young as two sit in the area and open a book and pretend to read it,
sometimes to themselves and sometimes to each other, thus demonstrating knowledge of
how books work as well as a growing knowledge of the story. It is this kind of evidence
that can persuade practitioners to adopt the Storytelling Curriculum.
600
When we put story at the heart of our practice we open up possibilities for children
as social actors who have their own stories and understandings that they bring to their
engagement with the stories told to them. Through role-play and philosophical enquiry
they get the opportunity to engage with the abstract concepts embedded in the stories.
Conclusion
The early years’ practitioners who have worked with the Storytelling Curriculum
in their classrooms have valued the emotional and cognitive engagement of the children
with the stories. They recognize the power of story to support children’s cognitive,
affective, language and emotional development. By observing their play and recording it
on video or audio or in teacher notes, they are able to examine it later and reflect on the
children’s thinking and meaning-making processes to inform their planning. A pedagogy
that combines story-telling with philosophical enquiry has the potential to make teaching
and learning an emotionally and cognitively satisfying experience for teachers as well as
children.
As Gopnik (2016) has shown, children live in imaginative and fantasy worlds where
they demonstrate sophisticated understanding of the physical and psychological worlds.
Egan’s (2014) challenge to developmental approaches to curriculum also provides us with
a rich child capable of making meaning through their imagination. The classrooms of
Paley (1987; 2005) and Stanley (2008; 2011) give us practical examples of the skills
needed by the teacher who wishes to work with children’s imaginations, emotional
engagement and capacity for critical and creative thinking. When early years’
practitioners think of their classrooms as an opportunity for the children to find and speak
in their own voices, and that these voices may be expressed orally, through role-play,
drawing, playing with material objects and engaging in philosophical enquiry, both
children and adults flourish.
A curriculum rich in story is necessary for the Storytelling Curriculum approach to
be successful. Children need to be immersed every day in a rich variety of stories that
include fairy-tales, picture books and books children have created themselves. Children
need opportunities to listen, act out and produce their own stories. Continual provision
should be made for role-play, puppets, small-world play and other drama-based
approaches to engage the emotional commitment of pupils that is the prerequisite for
cognitive attainment (Lyle, 2014). To do this, teachers need to identify abstract
conceptual binaries in stories and plan activities to explore these concepts through
philosophy for children and thereby support the development of new mental processes.
Currently curricula and instruction across the globe is aimed at producing
measurable learning which suppresses imaginative activity (Egan, 1992: 113). Through
Gopnik’s (2012) research and new rhyzomic metaphors of the child (Deleuze & Guattari,
1980) we must recognize the importance of the imagination to children and draw on it to
stimulate children’s philosophizing through a storytelling curriculum.
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Filosofar con Natacha: nuevos recursos para el aula
de FpN
Victoria Maclean.
Catalina Bertoldi
Espacio Filosofía para Niños (www.espaciofpn.com)
espacio.fpn@gmail.com
CV
Victoria MaClean. Profesora de Filosofía (UBA. Argentina). Magíster en Filosofía 3/18
(GrupIREF—Univ. De Girona). Cursa la Maestría en Ciencias Sociales con orientación
en Educación (FLACSO). Hizo su formación en FpN en Buenos Aires (C.C. Ricardo
Rojas) y España (Centro de FpN). Desde el año 2005, asistió a cursos de formación en
Buenos Aires, Madrid y Uruguay, así como a Congresos y Jornadas en dichos países.
Actualmente dicta capacitaciones docentes en FpN y Filosofia 3/18, y se desempeña
como docente de FpN en una escuela primaria de Buenos Aires.
Catalina Bertoldi. Profesora de Filosofía de la UNLP (Argentina). Magíster en Filosofía
3/18 (GrupIREF—Univ. De Girona). Realizó su primera formación en Filosofía para
Niños en el Cifin (Centro de Investigaciones en el Programa Internacional de Filosofía
para Niños de Argentina), asistiendo a los cursos de Iniciación y Profundización.
Continuó su formación tomando cursos virtuales ofrecidos por el IAPC (Institute for the
Advancement of Philosophy for children) y realizando un curso de profundización en el
Programa Filosofía 3/18. Dedicada a trabajar en Filosofía para Niños desde el año 2008,
continúa coordinando sesiones en el nivel inicial, primario y secundario como así también
en espacios de educación no formal. Actualmente continúa su formación con la Maestría
en Educación (UNLP).
RESUMEN
Filosofía para Niños se consolida a través de los años como una propuesta curricular,
organizando una serie de materiales para estudiantes y docentes a partir de supuestos
teórico—prácticos bien definidos. Desde Espacio Filosofía para Niñxs asumimos el
desafío de continuar la reflexión en torno a la naturaleza de los recursos de los que parte
el proyecto, con miras a seguir trabajando en la elaboración de materiales que acompañen
el trabajo en el aula. Este trabajo espera poder dar cuenta de algunos de los fundamentos
que nos llevan a defender la pertinencia de los textos de Natacha para el trabajo de
Filosofía para Niños en el ámbito escolar. Si bien no son historias escritas para hacer
filosofía, consideramos que las mismas ofrecen una variedad de aspectos que las
convierten en recursos de gran potencial filosófico, promoviendo el diálogo y la
indagación colaborativa.
PALABRAS CLAVE
Currículo, recursos, Natacha.
ABSTRACT
Philosophy for Children is consolidated over the years as a curricular proposal, organizing
a series of resources for students and teachers based on well—defined theoretical and
practical assumptions. From Espacio Filosofía para Niñxs we take on the challenge of
continuing to reflect on the nature of the resources from which the project originates, with
604
a view to continuing to work on the development of materials accompanying the work in
the classroom. This work hopes to give an account of some of the fundamentals that lead
us to defend the relevance of Natacha's texts for the work of Philosophy for Children in
the school environment. Although they are not stories written to make philosophy, we
consider that they offer a variety of aspects that turn them into resources with great
philosophical potential, promoting dialogue and collaborative research.
KEYWORDS
Curriculum, Didactic ressources, Natacha.
Filosofía para Niños (FpN) y el currículo

El proyecto elaborado por Matthew Lipman se consolida a través de los años como
una propuesta curricular, organizando una serie de materiales para el alumnado y el
profesorado a partir de supuestos teórico—prácticos bien definidos. Desde sus primeros
pasos, el proyecto se muestra altamente comprometido con la praxis, y en ese sentido, con
su implementación en las aulas, involucrándose en crear estrategias para ofrecer una sólida
formación docente y unos recursos mínimos que permitan dar continuidad y sistematicidad
a la práctica. Además de trazar unos lineamientos metodológicos precisos, Lipman y Sharp
dedican una inestimable atención a la elaboración de un currículo que sirva de punto de
partida para la construcción de comunidades de diálogo filosófico en el aula.
Destacable es también su empeño por preservar una coherencia y progresión interna
en los materiales que fueron elaborando, conformando una propuesta programática que
daba orden tanto a cuestiones temáticas o conceptuales como procedimentales o lógicas.
Quienes nos preocupamos actualmente por los aspectos curriculares que entrañen a FpN,
¿conservamos el mismo propósito? ¿Cuáles son las implicancias de involucrarse con la
tarea de un diseño curricular que amplíe la oferta original?.
Desde el año 2013 venimos trabajando en Espacio Filosofía para Niños
(organización argentina, hoy constituida como Asociación Civil) en la investigación y la
capacitación en FpN junto con un equipo de docentes y el acompañamiento cercano del
GrupIREF. Desde este espacio asumimos el desafío de continuar la reflexión en torno a
la naturaleza de los recursos que se utilizan en FpN, por lo cual decidimos seguir
trabajando en la elaboración de materiales que complementen y amplíen el currículo
original; sabemos que no cualquier recurso es igualmente potente a la hora de motivar la
reflexión, y es en gran medida el modo como el mismo sea abordado (por docentes y
estudiantes) lo que va a definir si se provoca o no inquietudes de tipo filosófico y si facilita
o no la aparición de actitudes de este mismo tipo. En las aulas en las que se implementa
el proyecto, sobre todo en Argentina1, se utilizan infinidad de recursos novedosos que van
desde nuevos textos narrativos escritos en clave filosófica hasta productos culturales
diversos que no fueron pensados con tal propósito. A partir de nuestra realidad concreta
nos surgen nuevas preguntas: ¿Cualquier recurso con potencial filosófico puede devenir
y acrecentar el corpus curricular de FpN? ¿Qué dificultades conlleva el trabajar a partir
de recursos que no forman parte del currículum FpN? ¿Cuáles son las ventajas de trabajar
desde una propuesta programática?.
1. Se hace necesario destacar que en nuestro país son muchas las instituciones y docentes que se
distancian del proyecto FpN y sostienen sus prácticas desde una perspectiva crítica, conocida como
“Filosofía con Niños”. Desde esta línea teórica, la exigencia de trabajar a partir de un currículum o de
diseñar material de apoyo han sido cuestionadas y sus prácticas —son sostenidas desde fuertes
argumentos teóricos— hoy se encuentran más desvinculadas de lo que llamaríamos un proyecto
programático.
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Nuevos recursos para el aula: Natacha
El curriculum original del IAPC tendrá que ser modificado y extendido para que Filosofía para
Niños se convierta en una materia escolar plenamente madura.
(Sharp y Splitter, 1996: 149)
Desde el desarrollo curricular que ofrece P4C encontramos ciertos lineamientos que
funcionan como criterios para la elaboración y la posible selección de nuevos materiales;
una breve revisión y explicitación de los mismos nos será de utilidad para justificar la
selección de nuevos recursos que estamos desarrollando y que pretendemos presentar
aquí. La idea es reflexionar en torno a Natacha de Luis Pescetti, un material literario con
el que nuestro equipo de Espacio FpN viene trabajando en las aulas y avanzando en la
configuración de guías de acompañamiento para docentes. El propósito es complementar
(no reemplazar) la oferta de recursos con los que hoy cuenta el proyecto y buscando
actualizar las problemáticas clásicas a la luz de contextos más cotidianos para un niño o
una niña del siglo XXI en Argentina. Para ello, y aspirando a que nuestra propuesta se
replique en diversas escuelas, nos parece de crucial importancia producir materiales de
apoyo que faciliten la práctica docente en el aula.
Algo digno de ser destacado es que los textos de Luis Pescetti no fueron escritos
con una pretensión filosófica ni con miras a ser utilizados en el aula de FpN. Esto podría
pensarse, desde un enfoque ortodoxo, como un obstáculo que podría dificultar la
incorporación de este material al currículum. Sin embargo, a partir del trabajo de
experimentación que venimos desarrollando en las aulas, observamos que los textos
ofrecen no sólo grandes afinidades con otros materiales del currículum, sino además,
algunos elementos destacables que suponen un aporte interesante al trabajo que se viene
desarrollando en P4C.
Posteriormente a haber comenzado estas experiencias en las aulas, pudimos hallar
algunas razones que explicarían el porqué de esta afinidad que ya intuíamos entre los textos
de Natacha y el currículum: en una entrevista, el autor nos confesó que los primeros textos
de Natacha tienen efectivamente una enorme influencia de Lipman. Luis Pescetti conoció
a Matthew Lipman de primera mano, en una de las formaciones que se impartían en New
Jersey, y quedó fascinado con Filosofía para Niños. Él mismo nos explicó cómo los planes
de diálogo de los manuales del currículum fueron una importante fuente de inspiración para
comenzar a desarrollar sus primeros capítulos de Natacha, donde se aprecia la presencia de
problemáticas de tipo filosóficas y donde se delinean personajes y tramas muy compatibles
con los principios de los que partió Lipman al escribir sus novelas.
Lo que esperamos compartir aquí es apenas un avance del trabajo que estamos
realizando y las reflexiones que le fueron dando forma, luego de tres años de llevar a cabo
sesiones de FpN a partir de los textos de Natacha. Mucho del material que fuimos
elaborando es producto de un registro minucioso de las experiencias y de las preguntas
que despiertan los textos. Acompañamos estas inquietudes con el material de apoyo que
vamos elaborando, el cual, una vez sistematizado, fue puesto a prueba nuevamente en el
aula para evaluar su pertinencia al momento de profundizar en la indagación y acompañar
el diálogo filosófico.
La ficción y sus personajes
Las novelas que organizan el currículum fueron pensadas desde un primer momento
como el punto de partida para la reflexión y el diálogo filosóficos. Las mismas no
pretenden ofrecer un compendio teórico de las problemáticas o temas desarrollados por
la tradición filosófica ni mucho menos exponer las tesis de los grandes filósofos, sino que
fueron pensadas como relatos de ficción capaces de poner en movimiento aquellas ideas,
volviéndolas pensamientos de sujetos concretos y contextualizándolas en situaciones
cotidianas como las que podrían vivenciar niños y niñas corrientes.
606
Muchas veces nos preguntamos: ¿por qué motivar la reflexión a partir de la ficción
y de unos personajes? ¿Cuál es la potencia de partir de recursos de este tipo? El poder de
la ficción consiste en que nos invita a pensar desde un contexto nuevo, que puede ser a la
vez cercano y lejano a nosotros. Diríamos que las novelas del currículum P4C tienen una
fuerza ambivalente: por un lado, pretenden generar una proximidad con los lectores,
invitándoles a transitar aventuras en compañía de personajes que experimentan vivencias
afines a las suyas, resignificando los cuestionamientos que la propia ficción propone; y
por otro lado, nos habilitan también a distanciarnos y a poder pensar temas de manera
más abstracta, a partir de un contexto que sea lo suficientemente ajeno como para poder
contemplarlo con mayor transparencia, y sin que nuestra subjetividad se vea del todo
expuesta en el recorrido.
Todo ello se nos muestra como una gran ventaja frente a lo que podría hacer una
prosa académica o cualquier otro tipo de texto expositivo. Las novelas filosóficas nos
ofrecen situaciones concretas, encarnadas en sujetos concretos, donde las abstracciones
filosóficas toman forma y abren una infinidad de sentidos posibles, que esperan de los
lectores para ser actualizados. Al mismo tiempo, las novelas del currículum tienen la
capacidad de ofrecernos problemas, preguntas, sin clausurar los temas de la filosofía a
una serie de líneas teóricas o enunciados.
Natacha: la singularidad de los textos
—¡Un monstruo, Pati!
—¿¡Dónde?! ¿¡Dónde?!
—Aquí en el suelo, mirá.
—¡¡Aaagghhhh!! No, mejor no lo miro porque, si no, sueño.
—Creo que está muerto.
—¿A ver? ¿En serio? No, mejor no miro. ¿Está muerto?
—Sí, creo que sí, casi ni se mueve.
—¡Si se mueve está vivo Nati!
—No, porque si apenas se le mueve una pata quiere decir que está muerto casi
todo menos esa pata.
—Entonces está vivo.
—¡No! ¡Te digo que está muerto! ¡Lo único que está vivo es la pata!
(Pescetti, 2008)
Atendiendo a las cuestiones mencionadas, los textos de Natacha nos presentan
situaciones y tramas muy cercanas a las experiencias de un niño o una niña del siglo XXI,
y más aún, de quienes habitan estas partes del mundo (Argentina—Latinoamérica).
Creemos que el deseo y el interés son el primer motor de la reflexión filosófica, por lo
cual, si el recurso no genera algo de esto —(philein)—, es muy difícil motivar la reflexión
en las aulas. Natacha suele generar mucha risa, pero también desconcierto, y hasta a veces
enojo. La diversidad de emociones que despertaban los textos nos desconcertó en un
primer momento, y nos llevó a pensar si dichas reacciones eran compatibles con la
reflexión que esperamos motivar. Pero llegamos a descubrir que tanto la risa como la
bronca que el personaje generaba en el aula daban cuenta al mismo tiempo de un lazo
afectivo, un vínculo,— que el recurso generaba casi de manera automática y muy
espontáneamente. Al mismo tiempo descubrimos que la risa o el enojo son ambos
producto de una cierta incomodidad y nos hablan de algo que no cierra, algo que inquieta,
moviliza. A partir de emociones de este tipo parecía mucho más sencillo despertar
preguntas y diálogo que desde un material que no las genere.
El lenguaje que utiliza el autor, los dobles sentidos y sus guiños acerca de la
cotidianidad de la familia y la escuela despiertan una gran atracción en niños, niñas y
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jóvenes, y nos dan la posibilidad de lecturas a distintos niveles y desde perspectivas tanto
adultas como infantiles. A su vez, los escenarios que construyen los textos para desarrollar
los conflictos y las diferentes situaciones se muestran despojados de juicios de valor e
intentan alejarse de cualquier tipo de mensaje sobre cómo deberíamos actuar o cómo
deberían ser las cosas. Así, de manera neutral, las historias atraviesas diferentes temáticas
en las que lo evidente se pone en cuestión, y emergen las preguntas de Natacha que invitan
a los chicos a problematizar su realidad.
Encontramos además en Natacha muchos de los grandes temas de la filosofía,
traducidos —bajo la misma lógica que lo hizo Lipman— a un lenguaje simple y accesible
a los niños y las niñas, pero conservando la complejidad de los conceptos e ideas. Sin
tener una intención específicamente filosófica, Pescetti retoma problemáticas clásicas sin
mencionar fuentes ni autores y los introduce en las conversaciones cotidianas que Natacha
tiene con su mejor amiga Pati o con sus padres.
Algunos de los temas recurrentes, que emergen del texto a partir de los conflictos o
situaciones problemáticas que se presentan, son: las relaciones entre niños/as y personas
adultas, los vínculos de amistad, los roles en la escuela y en la familia, los usos del
lenguaje, las formas de legitimación del saber, la tecnología en la vida cotidiana, los
derechos de los niños, los derechos y formas de comportamiento de los animales,
cuestiones de género, etc. Si bien estos tópicos no constituyen necesariamente un
contenido específico de la filosofía, sí devienen filosóficos por el modo en que son
tratados. Pescetti logra llegar al fondo de cada uno de los problemas que se presentan,
llevando a sus lectores a repensar aquello que daban por supuesto y reflexionar sobre los
primeros principios y causas de las cosas. Y veremos cómo los personajes y sus actitudes
tienen mucho que ver en esta vuelta filosófica que hallamos en los textos.
Natacha, el personaje: ¿modelo de pensamiento?
—¡No es así Nati! El monstruo o está vivo o está muerto, éste yo creo que está
más muerto que no sé qué…
—Pero yo recién vi como que se le movía la pata, entonces está un poquito vivo.
– ¡Está vivo del todo Natacha!
—La pata está viva del todo y él está muerto del todo o un poquito vivo: un
poquito vivo en la pata.
—¡Nada que ver Natacha! Si apenas mueve la pata quiere decir que se está
muriendo, en todo caso.
—… (piensa)
—… (ve pensar)
—O que se está viviendo.
– ¿¡Qué?!
(Pescetti, 2008)
Natacha es una niña de unos 7–8 años, a quien, como decíamos, le encanta hacer
preguntas y cuestionar todo aquello que se le presenta. En función de sus intereses y
formas de pensar y expresarse, se muestra muy cercana a las chicas y chicos de hoy. Tal
como explica el propio autor, el personaje es producto de una condensación —como
recurso literario— de lo que podría ser cualquier niña preguntona. Según Pescetti,
“Natacha es en una semana lo que cualquier chico es en un mes” (Pescetti, 2017). Por
momentos sin darse cuenta, Natacha logra con sus planteos y comentarios quebrar la
lógica de lo predecible, lo esperable, llevando a sus interlocutores a buscar todas las
herramientas argumentativas que tienen a mano para hacerla entrar en razón y restablecer
el sentido. Así, Natacha logra atentar contra lo que llamamos el “sentido común”,
desafiándolo, pero también desafiando los límites de la paciencia de sus interlocutores.
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Casi como una pequeña Sócrates en un mundo contemporáneo, animándose a retar a
aquellos que se pretenden más sabios (sean estos niños o adultos), dejando a sus
interlocutores en la necesidad de revisar sus creencias u opiniones.
Algunos de sus rasgos y reacciones extravagantes nos recuerdan a Pixi, pero
también se acerca a Lisa por lo apasionada a la hora de defender sus convicciones, o nos
recuerda a Ari por su tenacidad y constancia a la hora de investigar sobre algún tema.
Cuando con Pati —su amiga y fiel interlocutora— encuentran algún tema que les
preocupa, no se rinden fácilmente en la búsqueda de soluciones, sino que suelen diseñar
grandes y complejos proyectos que llevan hasta sus últimas consecuencias. Si bien se
comprometen en lo que solemos llamar “procesos de investigación” —formulan
hipótesis, buscan y dan razones, ponen en común las distintas ideas, elaboran teorías,
etc.— en general sus procedimientos son poco fiables.
Natacha, con sus errores o sus intervenciones disparatadas, suele poner de manifiesto
aspectos de la realidad (o de nosotros mismos) sobre los que pocas veces reflexionamos, y
nos lleva a repensar sentidos que solemos dar por supuestos. ¿Se puede quemar el fuego?
o ¿qué define a un monstruo? o ¿por qué los derechos de los niños son siempre de cosas
aburridas y no tenemos un “derecho a tener un celular”? Son alguna de las preguntas que
ella nos sugiere, sin dar tregua a cualquier tipo de aceptación acrítica o pereza intelectual.
Las formas de resolver las discusiones no suelen tener mucha consistencia: así, en sus
discusiones no suelen prevalecer los mejores argumentos o las buenas razones, sino que
Natacha puede llegar a ganar al resto por cansancio, o incluso con Pati pueden llegar a
pactar —arbitrariamente— quién tiene razón en cada uno de los temas.
Natacha: protagonista de la indagación en comunidad
—No Nati, lo que pasa es que estaba vivo, vivo del todo y a lo mejor estaba
medio viejito o alguien medio lo pisó o sin querer olió un poco de veneno y se empezó a
morir.
—Yo digo que estaba muerto y pasó algo y se empezó a vivir…
—¿¡Y qué pudo haber pasado Natacha?!
—¡¡¡Qué sé yo nena, para eso son monstruos!!! ¡Si fueran personas estarían en su
casa y no en el piso de la mía todos muertos y con una pata viva! ¡Son cosas que les
pasan a los monstruos nena!
—Es un insecto, no un monstruo.
—Es lo mismo Pati. ¿No los viste de cerca? La diferencia entre un monstruo y un
insecto es que los monstruos son más grandes nada más, si convirtieras un monstruo
chiquito dirías: Uy, un insecto.
—No, porque los monstruos no existen y los insectos sí, já…
—Los insectos más grandes son los monstruos de los insectos más chiquitos, já…
—Los insectos no creen en monstruos porque no piensan, já…
—Para tenerle miedo a un monstruo no hace falta pensar…
—Sí hace falta, porque si no podés pensar ¿De qué te vas a asustar, Natacha?
(Pescetti, 2008)
No obstante, toda esta incoherencia no presentaría el potencial reflexivo que
presenta si no estuviera acompañada de otra serie de actitudes, gestos y conductas que
nos invitan a acercarnos. Detrás de toda esta aparente falta de razonabilidad hay, sin
embargo,: un deseo constante de los interlocutores de involucrarse en una indagación
común, comprometiéndose con el diálogo y abriéndose a las ideas del otro; hay escucha
y un esfuerzo de cada uno por comprender y hacerse entender; hay un respeto por las
distintas formas de pensar y de actuar (por más que en ciertos momentos Natacha se
vuelve inaguantable, sus padres o amigos no dejan de prestarle atención); y sobre todo,
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hay afecto, hay amor de amigas, pero también de padres/madres, o de abuelos, o entre
personas y animales (con el perro Rafles), y esos lazos de afecto sostiene gran parte de la
irracionalidad que puede emerger. Podríamos decir que algo de todo esto es lo que
posibilita que un grupo de personas se transformen en una comunidad de indagación.
Según el Luis Pescetti, la risa y la reflexión no serían posibles si esta excentricidad de
Natacha no fuese acompañada de un entorno cuidadoso, que sirva de soporte afectivo
para permitirnos jugar con el pensamiento: ʽHay todo un colchón de cuidados gigantescos
sobre el cual se produce toda esa burbuja y eso, fijate qué es lo silencioso en el texto, cuál
es el soporte silencioso, y el soporte silencioso es un mundo en el que todos son muy
afectuosos y cuidadosos con todos, donde las razones se preguntanʼ. (Pescetti, 2017).
Los personajes de las novelas, según como son tratado desde la propuesta de P4C,
son facilitadores de los aspectos procedimentales que se pretenden motivar, y sirven de
guía para desarrollar el camino hacia el “buen pensar” o un pensar más razonable; dando
muestras no sólo de formas de pensar modélicas sino también de actitudes que es deseable
preservar y cultivar. Si bien Natacha no se presenta precisamente como portadora de un
tipo de pensamiento modélico, a través de su forma de ser nos da a conocer ciertas
actitudes muy valorables: es una niña observadora, cuestionadora, intrigada por el
acontecer del mundo, al que nunca da por sentado y al que constantemente desnaturaliza
con sus preguntas y comentarios. Natacha nos alerta, con sus recurrentes incoherencias,
sobre las infinitas ambigüedades y vaguedades a las que nos enfrentamos al hablar. Si
bien es disparatada, excéntrica en su modo de razonar, y muchas veces inconsistente, sus
planteos nos ponen frente a los grandes problemas de la lógica y la metafísica, y
afortunadamente los dejan sin resolver.
Podríamos decir que Natacha, al distanciarse de lo que imaginamos con un niño o
niña ʽidealʼ, y al mostrarse tan profundamente errática y caótica en su manera de pensar,
produce en los lectores —niños y adultos— este sobresalto que se expresa en forma de
risa y de inquietud. Quizás en este movimiento de mostrarse ajena a la lógica, y capaz de
tropezar una y otra y otra vez con la misma piedra, desde una actitud despreocupada por
la mirada del otro e irreverente con las exigencias del entorno, nos invita, al igual que
otros personajes de las novelas del currículum, a reflexionar sobre el universo y el modo
en que nos relacionamos en él. Y lo hace sobre todo al generar deseo por recorrer los
problemas que ella misma nos presenta.
Tal como decíamos al comenzar, el humor va acompañado en la ficción de unos
lazos afectivos muy sólidos, aquellos que habilitan a los personajes a comprometerse en
el diálogo y la escucha a pesar de cualquier posible dificultad. Y esta risa y esta inquietud
a la que nos arroja Natacha va generando también en el aula unos vínculos afectivos
semejantes: cuando los estudiantes se ríen de los disparates de Natacha y el/la docente
también, se va tejiendo una red de complicidad, en la cual el gran desafío se vuelve
comprender de qué nos reímos, desentrañar esta compleja e inteligente trama de dobles
sentidos, ambigüedades y juegos del lenguaje en la que Pescetti nos sumerge. El deseo,
el interés, son los primeros motores de la reflexión filosófica, pero el poder pensar con
otros desde el respeto y la escucha serán sus condiciones de posibilidad, algo que
mediante un trabajo sostenido en el afecto se vuelve mucho más accesible.
Nuestro trabajo con los textos
Como mencionamos al principio, nuestro trabajo con Natacha comenzó hace más
de tres años; al percibir la potencialidad del recurso decidimos probarlo y llevarlo al aula
(lo trabajamos con niños/as de entre 8 y 10 años). Grata satisfacción fue constatar que no
sólo las chicas y chicos se entusiasman con las anécdotas de este singular personaje sino
que además despierta inquietudes y cuestionamientos de tipo filosófico. Manteniéndonos
fiel a los propósitos perseguidos por el Proyecto y asumiendo el compromiso de seguir
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acompañando a los docentes en su formación y brindarles herramientas que faciliten la
práctica de FpN, comenzamos a trabajar en un material de apoyo siguiendo el modelo de
los manuales de Lipman. A partir de las preguntas surgidas en el aula y de una lectura
cuidadosa del recurso fuimos identificando y proponiendo algunas ideas o tópicos
principales con potencial para promover el diálogo filosófico.
Para cada una de estas ideas, elaboramos una breve justificación teórica que
pretende dar cuenta de cómo surge cada una de ellas a partir del texto y también de las
razones que la tornan una cuestión de tipo filosófico, un problema propio de una
indagación filosófica. A partir de delinear el problema, desarrollamos una serie de planes
de diálogo y ejercicios pensados en función de guiar y profundizar la indagación sobre
cada una de ellas. Creemos que las actividades propuestas son diversas posibilitando el
ejercicio del pensamiento en todas sus dimensiones.
Una vez diseñado este material regresamos al aula para probar su eficacia; si bien
no creemos que sea indispensable su utilización, sí nos parece valiosa y útil para aquellos
docentes que familiarizados con la lectura de Natacha se interesan por seguir trabajando
sus libros en el contexto de la práctica de FpN. Al igual que Lipman, sugerimos que el
trabajo y la implementación de estas actividades acompañe el interés de los chicos y las
chicas, y no sea meramente impuesto por el/la docente.
Así mismo, consideramos que la propuesta curricular de FpN debe implementarse
de modo programático y por este motivo el trabajo con Natacha nos resulta rico y
pertinente seguir complementando el currículum con materiales de este tipo, que ofrezcan
fundamentos consistentes y puedan ofrecer algún tipo de apoyo al profesorado que quiera
llevarlo a sus aulas.
Fragmentos de un trabajo en proceso
A continuación dejamos una selección del material de apoyo que estamos
desarrollando. Es evidente la cercanía que esta producción presenta con los manuales de
apoyo elaborados por Matthew Lipman y Ann Sharp, los cuales hemos tomado como
modelos y fuentes de inspiración. Asimismo, buscamos complementar este material con
planes de diálogo y ejercicios que se encuentran ya en otros materiales del currículum,
con miras a trazar redes que nos permitan retroalimentar los distintos recursos. Lo que
sigue es una guía de trabajo para acompañar al capítulo ʽ¡Se vivió!ʼ, que forma parte del
libro Natacha (Pescetti, 2008).
Guía de acompañamiento para “¡Se vivió!”

ÍNDICE DE IDEAS PRINCIPALES
1. Vivo o muerto. ¿Y por qué no se mueve si está vivo?
El movimiento en la vida y la muerte
Procesos y cambios de estado
2. El cuerpo y sus partes. ¿Y por qué se movería la pata si está muerto?
Relaciones entre las partes y el todo
Morirse y vivirse por partes
3. Insectos y monstruos. ¿Qué es: un monstruo o un insecto?
El concepto de monstruo
4. Pienso luego me asusto. ¿Las cosas que no piensan no se pueden asustar?
El miedo, las emociones y el pensar
Cómo piensan los insectos
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5. Formas de decir. ¿Se empezó a vivir el monstruo?
Definir qué es algo
Expresiones
1. Idea Principal: Vivo o muerto.

¿Qué quiere decir que algo esté vivo o muerto? Esta será una de las preguntas más
potentes que orienten nuestra investigación, y sobre la que podemos conceptualizar una
experiencia que es bien conocida por todos, pero difícil de explicar. Parece muy sencillo
distinguir qué cosas tienen vida y cuáles no, pero no tanto explicar en qué se fundamenta esta
distinción. Natacha y Pati nos involucran con una temática que cuesta mucho abordar tanto
en la escuela como en cualquier otro contexto cotidiano. La cuestión de la vida y la muerte
es un asunto que preocupa y angustia tanto a niños como a adultos. Sin embargo, no por ello
debemos evitar tematizarla, y será nuestro objetivo abordarla sin tabúes y con naturalidad.
En este capítulo se plantea además la posibilidad de que un ser (insecto) pueda morirse
por partes e incluso “vivirse”. ¿Es posible que la vida y la muerte tengan grados, o puedan
estar presentes por partes? Es decir, ¿se puede estar “medio vivo” o “medio muerto”?.
Plan de diálogo: Comprensión de lo vivo y lo muerto
 ¿Qué cosas pueden tener vida?
 ¿De dónde surge la vida?
 ¿Cómo algo vivo deja de estarlo?
 ¿Puede algo estar vivo y muerto al mismo tiempo?
 ¿En qué consiste estar vivo?
 ¿En qué consiste estar muerto?
Plan de diálogo: El movimiento y los cambios de estado
 ¿Todo lo que está vivo, se mueve?
 ¿Todo lo que no tiene vida, está quieto?
 ¿Puede un “ser vivo” no tener vida?
 ¿Puede un ser vivo morir y después “vivirse”?
 ¿Es lo mismo no tener vida que estar muerto?
 ¿Puede aparecer la vida en algo que no la tiene? Por ej. una lámpara, una piedra.
 ¿Cómo sabemos si algo está vivo/muerto?
Ejercicio: Cosas con vida o sin vida
De estos ejemplos, ¿cuáles dirían que tienen vida y cuáles no? ¿Cómo se dan
cuenta? De los ejemplos que creen que no tienen vida, ¿dirían que están muertos? ¿Es lo
mismo estar muerto que no tener vida?.
Un tronco talado Un zombi
Un árbol Hojas verdes del árbol
Un huevo Una manzana
Una piedra
El mar
La arena
El pelo
Un robot
El viento
El sol
Un pez
Una computadora
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2. Idea Principal: Insectos y Monstruos
Plan de diálogo. Monstruos o no monstruos
 ¿En qué se diferencia un monstruo de un insecto?
 ¿En qué se diferencia un monstruo de un animal?
 ¿En qué se diferencia un monstruo de un ser humano?
 ¿Cómo podríamos saber si existen o no los monstruos?
 ¿A qué se dedica un monstruo? ¿Desempeña alguna tarea/trabajo?
 ¿Quién creó/ inventó a los monstruos?
 ¿Cómo definirías a un monstruo?
Ejercicio: Nuestros monstruos
La propuesta es que los Niños creen sus propios monstruos, aquellos con los que
sueñan o con los que nunca desearían soñar, realizando una escultura o collage con
material descartable.
Hacerle una ficha de datos:
 Nombre
 Características
 Especialidad
 Debilidad o talón de Aquiles
Armar luego una galería monstruosa. También pueden escribir algunas páginas del
“diario íntimo” de alguno/s de sus monstruos.
Conclusiones
A modo de cierre, simplemente queremos reiterar nuestra convicción en cuanto que
encontramos el material de Natacha como un recurso potencialmente riquísimo para el
trabajo en Filosofía para Niños. Creemos que esta niña de ficción aporta, desde su
ignorancia, su desconcierto y su creatividad, varios elementos novedosos para motivar la
reflexión y el diálogo en las aulas. Además, encontramos que la singular narrativa de
Pescetti es capaz de aportar un giro muy novedoso, no sólo por ofrecer un sinfín de guiños
respecto de la infancia y el mundo actual, sino sobre todo por hacerlo desde el humor y
la risa. Más allá de las razones que ofrecimos, que nos permitirían hablar de la pertinencia
de este tipo de relatos en las aulas de FpN, nuestra convicción más profunda surge de
haber vivenciado numerosas y variadas experiencias de FpN a partir de Natacha, en las
que encontramos casi sin excepción una motivación e interés peculiar en los chicos por
ahondar en las problemáticas sugeridas por los personajes.
Esperamos seguir avanzando en la producción de un material de acompañamiento
sólido y consistente para el profesorado, que nos ayude a seguir complementando el
currículum y nos anime a seguir desarrollando este bellísimo proyecto en las aulas de
nuestro país.
REFERENCIAS
Lipman, M.; Sharp, A. (1989). En busca del sentido. Manual para acompañar a Pixie.
Madrid: Ediciones de La Torre.
Lipman, M. (1998). Pensamiento complejo y educación. Madrid: Ediciones de La Torre.
Lipman, M. (2008). A life Teaching Thinking. Montclair: IAPC.
Lipman, M. (2016). El lugar del pensamiento en la educación. Barcelona: Octaedro.
613
Lipman, M.; Sharp, A.; Oscanyan, F. (2002). La filosofía en el aula. Madrid: Ediciones
de la Torre.
Lipman, M.; Sharp, A. (1993). Asombrándose ante el mundo. Manual para acompañar
a Kío y Guss. Madrid: Ediciones de La Torre.
Lipman, M.; Sharp, A.; Oscanyan, F. (1988). Investigación filosófica. Manual para
acompañar a El descubrimiento de Harry Stottlemeier. Madrid: Ediciones de La
Torre.Pescetti, L. M. (2008). Natacha. Cap: “Se vivió”. Buenos Aires: Alfaguara
Infantil. El capítulo completo puede leerse en https://www.luispescetti.com/¡se—
vivio/.
Pescetti, L. M. (2014). Apuntes sobre el humor, los niños y lo infantil. Obtenido de
http://www.luispescetti.com/apuntes_sobre_el_humor_los_ninos_y_lo_infantil/
Pescetti, L. M. (2017, febrero 16). Entrevista realizada por Catalina Bertoldi y Victoria
Maclean (grabación no publicada). Buenos Aires.
Santiago, G. (2006). Filosofía, Niños, Escuela. Trabajar por un encuentro intenso.
Buenos Aires: Paidós.
Sharp, A.; Splitter, L. (1996). La otra educación. Filosofía para Niños y la comunidad
de indagación. Buenos Aires: Manantial.
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ÍNDICE DE CONCEPTOS CLAVE/ INDEX
Elaborado a partir de las palabras clave en cada capítulo / Based on the keywords from each chapter
A priori relation, 272 Democracy, 34, 39, 42, 44, 45, 54, 59, 70,
Acquired brain injury, ABI, 482-487, 489 71, 77, 127, 128, 176, 202, 203, 212,
Aesthetics, 70-72, 75, 79-81, 104, 258, 213, 236, 262, 296, 367, 370, 371,
306 373, 377, 406, 407, 410, 417, 491,
Affective gains, 105, 112, 515, 523, 525, 529, 530-561, 564, 565,
Alexander of Aphrodisia, 196 574, 576
Ancient Philosophy, 188, 190, 192, 292 Derechos de los animales, 83
Answers: no right and wrong, 178, 179 Desacuerdo, 179, 384, 437, 438-440, 571
Arendt, Hannah, 308, 495, 559 Dewey, John, 33, 35, 36, 39, 42, 44, 45,
Argumentation Rating Tool, 482, 487, 48-50, 54, 59, 70-72, 75-77, 79-81, 96,
490 122, 126, 127, 143, 157, 158, 160,
Aristóteles, 153-157, 159, 160, 189, 223, 161, 168, 169, 176, 189, 191, 199,
268, 269, 299, 300, 301, 306, 497, 566 200, 201, 203, 208, 227, 233-236, 258,
262, 281, 282, 283, 296, 352, 353,
Bienes internos, 118, 119 367, 369, 370-378, 406, 410, 417,
Biesta, Gert, 71, 80, 93-103, 119, 120, 517-519, 523-525, 528, 530-543, 546,
124-126, 144, 149, 156, 160, 163-168, 553, 555, 556, 560, 565, 566, 593, 600
172, 176, 177, 202, 204-219, 219, 223, Dialectic, 184, 188, 189, 192-201
255, 262, 323, 331, 370, 378, 500, 502 Dialéctica, 97, 100, 189, 339, 547, 570
Disabilities, 482, 483, 486
Camus, Albert, 47-50, 53, 59 Disagreement, 177, 178, 180-187, 273,
Carácter, 67, 151, 158-160, 215, 217, 222, 583
337, 338, 385, 389, 433, 436, 440-442, Disassociated logic, 272, 275
492, 520, 566 Discapacidad intelectual, 333-340, 470
Care, 41, 43, 56, 75, 114, 126, 132, 139, Discapacidades, 334, 483
144, 146, 147, 149, 248, 255, 348, 591 ‘disembodied’ persons, 272
Character, 17, 27, 34, 41, 44, 121, 125,
135, 151, 152, 158, 190, 193, 275, Educación Internacional, 404
316, 406, 524, 530, 538, 581, 596, 597 Educación Universitaria, 83
Childhood studies, 82, 83, 89, 90 Educational platform, 14, 15, 26
Cognitive knowledge, 107, 272, 276, 277 Egological subject, 163
Competencias, 63-65, 67, 69, 151-154, Empoderamiento, 156, 333, 334
156, 157, 161, 341, 433, 443-446, 577 Empowerment, 334
Competencies, 152, 341, 407, 408, 576, Epistemología, 139, 140, 280
577, 579, 581-583, 586, 588 Epistemology, 34, 60, 116, 119, 125, 139,
Conocimiento cognitivo, 273 140, 142, 143, 147, 150, 226, 279,
Conocimiento intuitivo, 272, 273 287, 371, 408, 417
Constructivism, 94, 119, 139, 141-147, Espiritualidad, 280
149, 150, 228, 259, 295 Estudios de la infancia, 82, 83
Constructivismo, 93, 140, 169, 175, 207, Ethical Heuristic, 139-141, 145, 147-149
209, 211 Ética Heurística, 140
Crecimiento, 14, 93, 95, 151-153, 157-
159, 161, 164, 167, 173, 174, 206, Filosofar como método de investigación,
208, 268, 307, 383, 403, 439, 515, 83
516, 519, 520, 546 Filosofía antigua, 188, 189
Cuentos filosóficos, 31, 220 Filosofía de la ciencia, 277, 297
Cuidado, 102, 140, 152, 153, 155, 165, Filosofía lúdica, 492-494, 498, 499
206, 209, 269, 381, 384, 399, 400, Formación del profesorado, 62, 63, 69, 433
438, 444, 497, 499, 500, 501, 545 Formative tool, 14, 15, 26
Freire, Paolo, 156, 211, 212, 253, 260, 262,
Daño cerebral adquirido, DCA, 483 336, 337, 523-531, 544, 545, 548-553,
Death and dying, 87-89 569
Deep reflective thinking, 47-49, 52, 53
615
Grown-upness, 206, 208 Pensamiento autorregulado, 273
Pensamiento reflexivo profundo, 48
Habit, 49, 50, 56, 71, 90, 124, 151, 152, Pensamiento situado meta-relacional, 15
233 Philosophical mindfulness, 70, 75-77
Hábito, 151, 157, 158, 474 Philosophical novel, 201, 202, 258, 311,
Hermenéutica, 129, 223, 280, 570 485, 579
Hermeneutics, 129, 176, 279, 579 Philosophising as a research method, 82
Herramienta formativa, 14, 15 Philosophy of Science, 188, 227, 229,
Higher Education, 82, 83, 89, 90, 115, 131, 234, 236
369-371, 374, 378, 379, 418, 473, 481 Plataforma educativa, 14, 15
Holistic Education, 105 Pragmatism, 39, 45, 46, 59, 80, 81, 129,
176, 189, 192, 207, 208, 279, 280,
Ideal regulativo, 36, 37 290, 296, 515, 523
Improvisación, 93, 94, 98, 101, 102, 209, Pragmatismo, 129, 207, 208, 280, 515
437, 471 Profesionalización del profesorado, 83
Improvisation, 71, 94, 103, 104, 209 Professionalisation of teachers, 82, 83, 90
Instrumento de Valoración de la Proprioception of thought, 272, 275
Argumentación, 483
Inteligencias Múltiples, 303, 341, 474 Razonabilidad, 37, 131, 265, 381, 437,
Intellectual disability, 333, 334 566, 572, 607
Internal goods, 118, 120, 121, 125 Reasonableness, 34, 36, 39, 44-46, 131, 136,
International education, 404-406, 416-418, 265, 288, 417, 539, 583
580 Regulative ideal, 36-41, 45
Reid, Thomas, 130-138
Jazz, 93, 94, 97-104, 209 Relación a priori, 272, 273
Relación Situada, 14, 15
Lipman, Matthew, citado en numerosas Religión, 218, 280
páginas Religion, 74, 232, 233, 274, 275, 279, 281-
Ludic Philosophy, 493 284, 286-293, 296, 530
Respuestas incorrectas y erróneas, 179
MacIntyre, Alasdair, 118-123, 125-128 Riesgos, 94, 95, 98, 99, 204, 208, 211, 214,
Matthews, Gareth, 92, 130, 131, 133, 288, 474
290, 505, 570, 593 Rights of animals, 82, 86
Metacognición, 151, 152, 153, 155, 157 Risks, 33, 123, 204, 208, 214, 251, 406, 424
Metacognition, 151, 152, 228, 230, 345, 464
Metáfora, 93, 94, 97, 140, 160, 209, 225, 268, Self-Study, 70, 72, 80, 81
297-306 Sharp, Ann Margaret, citada en numerosas
Metaphor, 94, 104, 136, 139, 141, 244, 287, páginas
297, 298, 540, 590, 591, 593, 595 Silogismo, 189
Meta-Relational Situated Thinking, 14, Situated Relatedness, 14-17, 19, 20, 23-27
15, 25, 26 Slow pedagogy, 105, 106, 110-112, 114, 115,
Moral (castellano), 131, 157, 158, 159, 117
161, 162 , 280, 303, 338, 380-389, Smith, Adam, 130, 131, 133, 135-138
516, 518, 520, 521, 522, 533, 534, Spirituality, 115, 279, 280-283, 290, 291,
536, 538, 539, 552, 566, 573, 574 294, 295, 506
Muerte y morir, 31, 83, 266, 337, 386, Stewart, Dugald, 131-133, 138
387, 499, 566, 569, 607, 609, 610 Sujeto egológico, 164, 206
Multiple Intelligences, 341, 344, 345, 349 Syllogism, 188, 190-195, 197-200
Novela filosófica, 15, 266, 566 Teacher Facilitator, 70-73

Nussbaum, Martha, 228, 236, 268, 271, Teacher training, 89, 90, 118, 292, 376,
336, 382, 385, 390, 407, 419, 515, 415, 424, 565
516, 517-522, 593, 601 The inborn Thou, 272, 274, 275
Tú innato, 272, 273
Parresía, 273
Parrhesia, 272, 275, 319 Utopia, 40, 41, 511
Pedagogía del miedo, 505 Utopía, 37, 220, 334, 340
Pedagogy of Fear, 504, 512, 513
Peirce, Charles, 39, 44, 46-51, 55-58, 60, Wellbeing, 79, 105-115, 123
61, 141, 157, 162, 189, 202, 566
616

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PARECIDOS DE FAMILIA

Propuestas actuales en Filosofía para Niños

Ellen Duthie. Félix García Moriyón. Rafael Robles Loro (eds.)

Arie Kizel. University of Haifa, Israel

Aristidis Galatis. Academic Teaching, Melbourne Graduate School of Education. Australia

Claire Cassidy. University of Strathclyde. Glasgow. Scotland

Edwige Chirouter. Université de Nantes. France

Joe Oyler. Maynooth University. Ireland

Larisa Retyunskikh. Moscow State University named after Lomonosov. Russia

Laurance Splitter. The Education University of Hong Kong. China

Magda Costa. Universidade dos Açores. Portugal

Megan Laverty. Teachers College. Columbia University. New York. USA

Nadia Stonayova Kennedy. City University of New York.USA

Pat Hannam. Hampshire County Council, Hampshire, UK

Roger Sutclife. Sapere. United Kingdom / France

Stefano Oliverio. University of Naples Federico II. Italy

Susan Lyle. University of Wales, Trinity St David. UK

Thomas Wartenberg. Mount Holyoke College. Massachusetts, USA

Ylva Backman. Luleå University of Technology. Luleå, Sweden

Ana María Vicuña Navarro. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Chile

Carla Carreras Planas. Universitat de Girona. España

Elena Morilla. Colegio Europeo de Madrid. España

Félix García Moriyón. Universidad Autónoma de Madrid. España

Gloria Arbonés Villaverde. GrupIREF. Barcelona. España

Jorge Sánchez Manjavacas. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada “HASER”. España

Julia Molero Azaya. Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Alemania

Luis Alberto Prieto. Centro de Filosofía para Niños. España

Nelson Bedoya. Corporación Universitaria Minuto de Dios – UNIMINUTO. Colombia

María Teresa De la Garza. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la UNAM. México

Rafael Robles Loro. IES Nuestra Señora de la Victoria. Málaga. España

Sara Elizabeth Pérez Morales. Universidad de Guadalajara. México

Tomás Miranda Alonso. Centro de Filosofía para Niños. Albacete. España

1. METODOLOGÍA /METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 13

Antonio Cosentino: P4C as Philosophical Practice of Community ........................................................... 30

Kerstin Michalik: The Philosophical Conversation as a Method of Examining Children’s Perceptions,

2. FUNDAMENTACIÓN FILOSÓFICA / PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND ..................................... 129

Félix García Moriyón: De los pensamientos al destino ........................................................................... 151

Jelle de Schrijver, John De Poorter, Eef Cornelissen and Richard Anthone:

Manuela Gómez Pérez: Pensamiento multidimensional y práctica filosófica según

4. DIFERENTES CONTEXTOS / DIFFERENT ENVIRONMENTS ........................................................ 309

Maura Striano: Philosophical Inquiry as a Deweyan way of Teaching Dewey's Philosophy

5. DIFERENTES MODELOS DE EVALUACIÓN / DIFFERENT MODELS OF EVALUATION ......... 405

Ourania Maria Ventista: A Literature Review of Empirical Evidence on the Effectiveness

7. EL CURRÍCULO / THE CURRICULUM .............................................................................................. 565

ÍNDICE DE CONCEPTOS / INDEX ........................................................................................................... 615

Family Resemblances. Current Trends in Philosophy for Children. Madrid. Anaya

Situated Relatedness as an Education Choice and Formative

Anna Maria Carpentieri

informará sobre la conciencia, el conocimiento y la práctica de la Relación Situada en cuanto

procedure/development) for any functional practice/reference both in terms of thinking and

Situated relatedness and praxis

Situated learning – Situated cognition – Distributed thinking – Situated

Relatedness. Situated Relatedness is nothing other than an interactive network of situated

Lipman, M. (2003). Thinking in Education. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Ruffaldi, E. (1999). Insegnare filosofia. Firenze, IT: La Nuova Italia.

Philosophy for Children (P4C) as Philosophical Practice of

With regard to philosophy, there is a primary question to be asked: What kind of

The Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Regulative Ideal

The Community of Philosophical Inquiry as a Regulative Ideal

2.2. Thomas More: the ideal as Utopia

Lipman, M. (2008). A Life Teaching Thinking, Montclair: Montclair State University.

‘Do Not Block the Way of Inquiry’:

interventions during this macro-cycle enabled further development of the students’

Kelly, A.E. (2003). ‘Research as Design’. Educational Researcher, 32(1), 3–4.