Good Reasoning: A Reconsideration Drawn from Experience with Philosophy for Children

Abstract

Introduction:  Six years as a trainer of teachers in the Philosophy for Children Program as affected my thinking in a number of ways.  One major way, which I choose to dwell upon here, pertains to my thinking about what it is that makes up good reasoning in practice and how that might best be learned.  I wish to argue that good reasoning is best understood not as a set of isolatable skills, attained and possessed by an individual, but as a social practice, specifically: a virtue or set of virtues, learned and practiced in community with others.