Philosophy for Children

children to express mutually their ideas, learning to listen to their partners’ response, they
over come the feeling that what they have to say is absurd or out of place, confirming it
with the classmates, in such a way that the experience from others is a teaching.
Transforming the class into an community of inquiry is considered to be essential in
order to stimulate the kids on thinking and behaving in a higher level than the one they
would have performed alone: a genuine community of inquiry is based on the mutual
respect and on the member’s volunteer commitment to search for something in common.
For ”inquiring” we understand the constant in the self correction exploration of plots that
at the same time are realised as something important and problematic. From this theoretic
perspective, to learn something is to learn it again with the same discovery spirit that was
once experienced when it was discovered, or with the same spirit of invention that was
predominant when it was invented.
By the philosophical discussion in the centre of the community of inquiry, the children
may achieve their own point of view and their own conclusions. Philosophy insists on the
strict logic, but only as a mean to produce a more effective thinking, and not in the sense of
achieving a total concordance among all the ideas. The program emphasis the discussion
process and not the achievement of a particular conclusion (the process is worth, not the
product). Even though no philosophical subjects are taught, the teacher must use the typical
philosophical way of thinking and questioning. Gradually, the students begin to find
out that a philosophical discussion presents a different pattern from any other discussion,
they start to realise that they can share ideas, experience and perspectives among each
other. They start to appreciate other’s point of view and realise the importance to give
reasons that support their opinion. It makes sense, then, the objectivity, and the necessity
of examining carefully the problems instead of getting satisfied with only expressing their
ideas in a raw and superficial way, or making a monologue pretending to be a dialogue. It
makes sense the philosophical discussion in an community of inquiry.
http://www.ffst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/
Objectives
The children get wondered and ask themselves not only about them, but also about the
world and the society in which they live in, and they have the necessity to find a meaningful
reference frame to the puzzling realities. They try to clarify the environment by a
scientific explanation, through some kind of history capable of supplying a useful interpretation
in the symbolic ambit or formulating the matter philosophically in a questioning
manner. Some of the questions they usually ask are; ”What is the mind?”, ”What is reality?”
, ”What are the things?”, ”What is goodness?”, What is fairness?”, based on what
we know, ”what can we find out?”, and they can be considered philosophical questions
(once the questions or the concepts aren’t philosophicals by itself, but in the meaning net
that the research community assigns).
Philosophy for Children proposes to promote a distinct pedagogic modality since the
philosophy, in which the informative and the formative make part of the same unity. The
aims do not end with the development of cognitive abilities (neither is tried to develop
5