Reflecting and Looking Forward: Inquiring into Inquiry, Philosophy and Community
Abstract
Introduction: I trace the beginnings of my journey in both P4C and p4c2 to my first encounter with Matthew Lipman, in his "office" which was, in fact, a caravan parked on the campus of Montclair State College. That was in August 1982, just prior to my oral examination at Oxford, in which I managed to persuade the examiners that my thesis in the philosophy of biology warranted the award of a doctorate degree. Over the next few years - and I admit, with mixed feelings - my intellectual (and physical) energy took me out of theoretical philosophy and into philosophical practice, i.e., philosophy for children, although my work in the philosophy of biology had already convinced me that philosophers could make important contributions beyond their own field. As someone long interested in exploring the connection between philosophy and education, P4C "hit the nail on the head": it was precisely what I had been looking for. I hasten to add, however, that I never lost my interest in, or love for, philosophy itself. Indeed, notwithstanding the historical features of P4C that linked it to a specific "curriculum" and pedagogic structure, I have always seen p4c (lower case intended here) as a way of bringing philosophy and young people together, rather than a self-contained discipline in its own right. After all, we don't refer to "Maths for children" or "Science for children", because we want to preserve the idea that what we are doing in schools really is maths and science. This is somewhat ironic, given that the practice of teaching these subjects in schools often bears little resemblance to what actually goes on in their parent disciplines. To what extent is that also true for philosophy, it might be asked?
