ABSTRACT

Matthew Lipman wrote his first philosophical novel for children, Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery, in 1969. Philosophy of childhood has become an established, inter-disciplinary field. Scholarship in Philosophy for children (P4C) is regularly published in top-ranked journals and by university presses in philosophy, education and other academic disciplines. National and regional-international federations of P4C centers have standardized multiple levels of professional development in P4C. In spite of the institutional and professional success of P4C and the growing empirical evidence of its benefits, the idea of children conducting their own philosophical inquiries still strikes many as odd and in need of special justification. The procedure that P4C teaches is collaborative inquiry that incorporates careful thinking. Many P4C practitioners tend to construe social and political issues in strictly discursive terms – questions to tackle through dialogue. P4C does not directly rely on particular theories of educational psychology, though a number of educational psychologists have studied the program.