نشریه فلسفه و کودک
سال سوم شماره 1 (پیاپی 9، بهار 1394)

Both research and teaching play key roles in producing the content for Philosophy and Children. A change in the content of Philosophy for Children (P4C) and having access to appropriate materials for Philosophy and Children rely on investigating the instances of conformities and disconformities between research and teaching. This demands a profound study of the concept of naturalization. The first step here is paying attention to the difference between the meanings of philosophy, which plays a central role in determining instructional goals, in these two fields. Through considering the same goal for teaching, most of the literature in this regard equates the change of names or traditions and customs in the stories written based on Lipman’s style with naturalization. However, this is the most superficial layer of naturalization intended to increase the efficiency of stories. Creating a change in the efficiency of stories and accessing the designated goals behind learning philosophy in the sense of wisdom demands research. The teaching of Spirituality for Kids (S4K) with the purpose of increasing access to inner powers is one of the teachings which has attracted a great deal of attention parallel to the Philosophy for Children (P4C) Program. This means that today the world is paying attention to developing some programs which are more comprehensive than the Philosophy for Children Program. The instructional program of Philosophy and Children can produce the required content for teaching philosophy to children based on both teaching and research and relying on the wisdom intended by Muslim philosophers (which corresponds with the wisdom of many non-Muslim philosophers in many ways).

Obviously, children are the creators and owners of future. Moreover, the philosophical, cultural, scientific, and religious legacies of society must be transferred to children through education and training. At the same time, this education and training process needs to be completely purposeful and target rationality and the production of moral, intellectual, and religious human beings and, finally, lead each person towards the station of humanity in proportion to their capacity and capabilities. However, the questions which arise here are what the different features and stages of this process of education are, and to what extent its specified periods are dependent on or independent from each other. In this paper, the author examines two interpretations of teaching rationality and philosophy to children and demonstrates why and in what sense children are not small adults.

It is irrational to claim that Muslim philosophers have not presented any theories regarding the training of children. This is because, basically, this problem belongs to the recent period, particularly to the 20th century, and either did not exist in previous periods or was approached differently. Accordingly, in the present paper, it has firstly been tried to provide a schema of the main contemporary approaches in the field of children’s cognitive and moral development. Then the writer provides a general picture of the theory of children’s cognitive development in Mulla Sadra’s philosophy. At the end, reference is made to the concomitants and consequences of Mulla Sadra’s theory of epistemological (psychological) development. The theories of children’s development can be examined in two ways: from the viewpoint of “stage-by-stage” development and from the viewpoint of “loop development”. The theory of loop development has been propounded for the first time in this paper and has no precedent among other related theories. In the stage-by-stage or cognitive development theory, which was initially proposed by Piaget, children are the same small adults who need to go through the stages of development one by one in order to attain cognitive development. In contrast to Piaget’s theory, in the theory of loop development, each loop of children’s cognitive development is unique and distinct from any other period of childhood or adulthood. This paper mainly argues that, as stated by Mulla Sadra, the first stage of cognitive development does not begin with birth; rather, it begins before birth. In other words, human beings start their process of development during the embryonic period, when spirit appears in body. Moreover, based on Mulla Sadra’s theory of psychological development, Man’s development does not end with his death; in fact, death is the beginning of another stage of development which can continue until eternity. These two features are indeed the two lost loops of all theories related to children’s cognitive development in today’s psychology and philosophy.

Riddles are one of the components of the folk literature of Iranian ethnic groups. In the past, they were one of the major tools for improving thinking and rationality as well as promoting the level of thinking, optimizing the methods of thinking, and developing thinking skills in children. However, they can be revived and updated in order to be used for the same purposes today. As we can see, there are several instances of riddles in Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and Anglo-Saxon literature. The wise men of various Iranian ethnic groups, such as Turks, Azaris, Kurds, Lors, Baluchis, and Gilakis, used and disseminated riddles as rich sources of developing ways of thinking. At that time children became involved in those fascinating game-like riddles which provided the basis for rational thinking in their mind. These instructive games which were followed by rewarding children with encouraging comments and small prizes sometimes had miraculous outcomes and helped to form the foundations of Iranian thought. In this paper, the author intends to demonstrate that critical thinking, which is of great importance in the world today, is embedded along with all of its six-fold elements in these rich sources. Through reviving and updating these native elements of folk literature, in addition to preserving them, we can continue exploiting a rich source of critical thinking which has previously proved to be very useful. Here, while referring to equivalent riddles among various Iranian ethnic groups, the author tries to match them with the six-fold elements of critical thinking.

Based on the approach of the Philosophy for Children Program to the functions of stories and with reference to Lipman’s idea regarding the necessity of reading useful stories in philosophical inquiry in the light of their literary, psychological, and intellectual sufficiency, the present paper analyzes and examines the presence of these three sufficiency conditions in two funny stories: “Jodie Establishes a Secret Order” and “Memories of a Vampire in Love”. The author has explored their literary sufficiency through the structural analysis of the text. Regarding their psychological sufficiency, she has used the field method by having some children read, criticize, and analyze the stories. Finally, she has examined the intellectual sufficiency of these two stories based on Philip Cam’s elements of philosophical thinking. The findings of this story indicate that both stories enjoy the necessary literary and psychological sufficiency; however, they lack an appropriate level of intellectual sufficiency, particularly with regard to interactive skills, which have the lowest percentage among the other skills required for the philosophical analysis of both stories.

Education is one of the extremely important and sensitive processes which, if not provided correctly and systematically, can do some irreparable damages to the present and future lives of individuals. The common system of education results in children’s passivity and, consequently, suppresses their capabilities and talents. According to Dewey, the atmosphere of the house and school should be such to promote happiness and vitality in children. The materials taught to children should match their level of understanding and perception and satisfy their needs. They should also involve some applied aspects so that there would be no gap between their real lives and what is taught to them. Through a thorough knowledge of the needs and cognitive and affective characteristics of children, parents and teachers, while contributing to the development of their talents and interests, must guide them to the right direction so that the process of teaching and training becomes more efficient and productive. The teaching of concepts to children should be accompanied with inquiry so that it leads to the growth of their critical thinking and logical reasoning abilities. In this way, the children of today will turn into the aware and democrat citizen of tomorrow.

In my experience and that of my colleagues, children and adults without philosophical training are nevertheless capable of discerning ethical, aesthetic, political and other philosophical dimensions of their own experience, of recognizing problematic aspects of that experience, and of inquiring toward judgment and action intended to resolve what is problematic in that experience. In my work in pre-school through university classrooms around the world, I have often seen classroom dialogues that are highly democratic and that evidence many kinds of critical and creative thinking, yet tend to be disorganized and haphazard, lacking direction and momentum, because of a lack of a shared framework for systematic inquiry. In this article, I present a framework I have used for facilitating philosophical dialogue with children, school teachers and graduate students, in my work for the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC). The framework I present is meant to be an aid for conducting dialogue construed as systematic, collaborative inquiry. I think of such inquiry as having a trajectory in the shape of an arc, beginning with some kind of question, problem or vague opportunity, and ending in some kind of satisfactory resolution or fulfillment. The framework I present here is not a substitute for the social and cognitive virtues that distinguish rigorous dialogue from other modes of discourse; it is intended to structure the exercise of those virtues so that they can reinforce and build on each other toward a meaningful resolution of the questions at hand. It is intended to structure the exercise of those virtues so that they can reinforce and build on each other toward a meaningful resolution of the questions at hand. Regarding those virtues, the framework can be used pedagogically: students can learn the principles and the uses of argumentation and informal logic, as well as habits of democratic interaction. The framework consists of six stages. There is an order to the stages, but the order isn’t lock-stepped: the dialogue can move back and forth between stages and even jump around among them, so long as the participants know where they are within the framework and which tasks have been accomplished. The hierarchy of these stages is as follows: 1) identify issues relevant to purposes; 2) formulate and organize relevant questions; 3) formulate and organize hypotheses in response to questions; 4) clarify and test hypotheses in dialogue and confirm, revise or abandon; 5) experiment with hypotheses in experience and warrant, revise or abandon; 6) implement warranted hypotheses. Finally, the kind of dialogue described in the intended framework is only possible if individual participants see themselves as partners in one collaborative inquiry, if they commit to a shared agenda of questions and to shared methods of pursuing those questions.