Place of Discussion in Knowledge Production in the Curriculum of Philosophy for Children

Unlike normal dialogs, discussion and understanding result in the development of an epistemo-linguistic interaction that shortens the path towards the discovery of the truth for the human society. This paper enquires into the place of such a methodical type of dialog in the production of knowledge in “Philosophy for Children”. Philosophy for children is a discoursive method of deliberation drawing on different philosophical findings and theories of the last 25 centuries. It also probes into the nature of the world, the characteristics of a good life, and the methods of developing wisdom. Since the time of Socrates, discussion or, in a sense, dialog has been introduced as a means of seeking wisdom and discovering the realities of the world. In some recent epistemological studies of teaching to learn, it has been demonstrated that discussion and collaborative learning are among the techniques that contribute to the metacognitive development of children and adolescents. When children benefit from each other’s experiences in a common inquiry, they develop some knowledge that is internalized at a deeper level and remains for a longer time than that transferred through a didactic method of teaching. The most important advantage of collaborative thinking is the achievement of cognitive and metacognitive skills by the participants in this activity.