The Development of Personhood and Philosophy for Children

Abstract

Introduction:  By now, I would guess that thousands of teachers and children have read chapter one of Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery by Matthew Lipman.  It is the chapter in which Harry discovers, among other things, the Aristotelian notion of conversation.  The students and the teahers have probably talked about truth, conversation, discovery, invention, mind, resentment, daydreaming, and perhaps even the role of Lisa as the one who supplies the counter-example to Harry's theory about language and how it works.