Philosophy for Children in Transition

Philosophy for Children arose in the 1970s in the US as an educational programme, initiated by Matthew Lipman (1922-2010), devoted to exploring the relationship between the notions of 'philosophy' and 'childhood'. The last 40 years have seen the programme spread globally, and the theory and practice of doing philosophy for or with children is now of growing interest in the field of education and, by implication, in society as a whole. This collection of papers, although widely diverse, focuses on the emergence of the concept 'philosophy/child', and more precisely, what determines its moment of emergence and the particular conditions of that emergence. Contributors, both educators and philosophers, establish the arguments that validate the relationship between philosophy and the child, and which clarify the significance of that relationship for teaching and learning today. In doing so, the book achieves two important goals: it familiarises an actual educational practice that is only now gaining importance in the field of academic philosophy; and secondly, it opens up discussion on the notion of the relationship between philosophy and the child 'after Lipman'.