The Deweyan Background in P4C

Abstract

Introduction: In a 1992 interview, Matthew Lipman affirmed that P4C was "a Deweyan way to go beyond Dewey" thereby explicitly acknowledging the Deweyan inspiration of his project but also asserting his own original contribution to the creation and development of a new educational approach. This achievement was the outcome of his effort to overcome what he later described as "the apparent inconsistency in Dewey's formulation of the relationship between philosophy and education" (Lipman, 2008, p. 147). This inconsistency had been, indeed, the leading motivation for Lipman's educational inquiry to the point that finding the solution to this problem would be his "life's work" (p. ivi).