Richard Kitchener (1990) in "Do Children Think Philosophically?" argues that children lack the capacity for philosophy. Piaget argues that children are simply not cognitively developed enough to engage in philosophical thought and conversation. Kitchener agrees with Piaget that children lack this seemingly fundamental cognitive ability necessary for philosophical thought.
But this argument that children cannot engage in "formal" thought is not the only argument for his view. He argues that children cannot lead a philosophical way of life because of deprivation. Kitchener, however, claims in such cases that they are not doing "real" philosophy, and denies that these cases prove that children do.
First, even if we agreed that children do not do philosophy in the full sense of the word. One of the major weaknesses in Kitchener's argument is his claim that children cannot participate in philosophically based conversation.
Conclusion
Kitchener's final claim that children, unlike genuine philosophers, cannot lead a truly philosophical life is refuted by Murris by asserting that they lead a life of philosophical inquiry as their cognitive capacities permit, and this should not be not be dismissed as insufficient. Rather than simply demolishing Kitchener with Murris' counterarguments, I would like to present additional evidence that will support Murris's arguments and give us reasons to believe that children are philosophers. Kitchener and Murris seem to think that the possibility of child philosophers is a very recent hypothesis.
In other words, people from a very different time and place than ours seemed to recognize that there were children. The research includes testing cognitive development through executive functions and a philosophical discussion in which children's responses were recorded and scaled, testing their ability to think freely for themselves. I will argue that the results of this study provide data that support an empirical argument for my contention that children under the age of ten are capable of philosophizing.
Historical Argument
- The Attributes of Young Guardians Include Philosophy
- The Philosophical Education of the Guardians
- Philosophical Life-Stages
- Conclusion
But the reason why the craft of the guardians is so important is not only that the city needs good soldiers for war. The guardians must keep the safety of the city as their main priority and act bravely and selflessly in everything they do. Another reason why Socrates recommends epics as opposed to plays is that the talent of the actors might deter the guardians from their purpose.
This musical training is philosophical because, I believe, it is the beginning of their formation of the Form of Good. Of course, as the stages progress, it will be easier to define the true philosophers. This, Plato asserts, is the highest point of what culminates in the Form of the Good.
With this, they will be able to understand everything in the physical world with an appreciation of forms. They can think about the nature of goodness and how to practice goodness. One at this stage has a complete nature of good and how to implement good.
We can see these multiple stages of education illustrated in the analogies The Allegory of the Cave and The Divided Line. Within the cave is the physical world or realm of opinion/doing and perhaps the first two stages of education. The mouth of the cave is the separation between the physical realm and the realm of intellect/ideas and being, these would be the tests one undergoes to determine who does the training.
Outside the cave is the realm of intellect and being; this is phase three, where the guardians form a unified vision of all they have learned. In the final phase of the guardians' lives, they grasp the forms in their entirety and implement them. Significantly, the allegory of the cave gives us all the more reason to believe that Plato believed in philosophical children.
Empirical Data
Methods for the Empirical Study Participants
In the pre-switch trials, participants were presented with sorting cards (i.e., blue boats and red bunnies) and asked to perform the first sorting rule based on one dimension (e.g., sort by color so that the red bunny matches the red sailboat target) . card). Participants were then presented with six post-switch trials in which they sorted the cards along a competitive dimension that required participants to view the stimuli in a different way (e.g., sort by shape and now match the red bunny with the blue bunny). Finally, participants were presented with 12 boundary trials in which they were asked to sort by color and shape.
The order of the cards was randomized with the stipulation that no more than 2 of the same cards were presented consecutively, and this random order was applied to all participants. Participants were first presented with two practice trials where two numbers and the rule were presented (i.e. “if I say 1,2, you would say 2,1. If I say 3,4, what would you say?”). If participants were incorrect on practice trials, the experimenter would correct them and present the trial again.
In the test phase, the number of digits that participants had to reproduce backwards started with a range of three digits and increased as participants progressed through the tasks. Participants were shown three trials of each number series (e.g., a 3-digit series) before moving on to the next series of numbers (e.g., a 4-digit series). Participants were read Frog on a Log, a story about a frog who is told to conform to a certain behavior (i.e., sits on a tree trunk) and does so.
In the control condition participants were asked questions based on memory and comprehension at similar points in the story, but at a non-. To develop a set of philosophical questions, philosophy experts (i.e., graduate students, graduate students, and professors with philosophy training) were asked to rate a series of questions about what they were assessing: (1) strictly memory/ understanding (eg what color was the cat?), (2) lower order thinking - reasoning, critical thinking (eg why shouldn't the frog sit on the log?). The purpose of the questions was to engage participants in a philosophical conversation in which they thought about history, its epistemological and moral implications, took those abstract ideas and generalized them to their everyday lives, therefore (hopefully) using their highest level of high. thinking skills.
Another aim of the study was to investigate how philosophical thinking could influence subsequent philosophical reasoning in a real-world scenario as part of higher order and abstract thinking skills.
Results
For adults, we designed a similar task under the guise of an olfactory perception task, since stickers and rubber are not necessarily desirable for adults. In this task, an experimenter asked participants to identify the best-smelling scent between two identical candles. We told the participants that they would do an olfactory perception task in which they had to see if they could identify the subtle difference between two candles and then identify which one they preferred.
After they told us their preference, we questioned them and told them that the two candles were identical and that the most preferred candle was not. By reading a child-friendly story and questioning participants in ways that prompted philosophical reasoning, we found that there was no significant difference between children and adults, t(20)=1.16, p=.26., despite them doing better did on EF and language. We found no significant difference between the philosophy and the control group on the conformity task.
Discussion
With the second question of how children and adults compare, the results show that despite cognitive differences on executive function and verbal intelligence tasks, children's philosophical scores were as good as, if not better than, adults. It should be noted that children were scored with the same code as adults, however, they were scored based on addressing the listed topic rather than using the language/vocabulary that adults used (see Appendix A for philosophy scoring code) . Again, we were limited by sample size and were only able to test 6 children, 1 of whom received control questions.
Children were scored with the same code as adults, however, they were scored based on addressing the listed topic rather than using the language/vocabulary that adults used. If someone tells you to do something, but it makes you uncomfortable, should you do it? Do you agree with the Cat that the right thing to do is to sit where you are told, or do you agree with the Frog that comfort is more important.
Is it wrong for someone not to do something they are told to do because it makes them uncomfortable. If we don't have the cat telling us where to go, how can we find our special place. 2 – yes/no + use example from book; no, it's difficult/uncomfortable/splinters, etc. 3 – goes beyond book; no, he can make his own decisions, not listen to others 2.
Do you agree with the cat that it is right to sit where you are told, or do you agree with the frog that it is more important to be comfortable and happy. Is it wrong for someone not to do what they are told because it makes them uncomfortable. 2 - yes/no, you can choose for yourself, no one can tell you what to do 3 - yes/no/both respect the authority/variability of the situation.
2 – yes/no they don't look happy, their seats don't fit, they aren't comfortable 3 – goes beyond observing the book, they haven't chosen their seat, they have no choice and everyone should deal with the seed interrogation authority. 3 - yes/no example with reasoning; she steers me around, she asks a lot of questions, doesn't go with the flow, people who are manipulative, people who don't like being told what to do. 2 – yes/no with appropriate answers 6. Where was the dog sitting. could say personality or physical - spotted, brown, white, floppy ears, long nose, etc.).
