It is surprising to note that the respected and valued academic discipline of philosophy does not feature on the UK National Curriculum. The subject is not covered through any other curriculum area and is not considered in policy debates, but in other countries, such as France, philosophy has a central role in the school curriculum.For around forty years, people undertaking philosophy with children have constituted a small, but vocal movement. Initially in the US and more recently in Latin American and Eastern European countries, philosophy with children has become widespread (Lipman, 1980; Matthews, 1984; Fisher, 1990; Cam, 1995; Quinn, 1997). Underpinning theory is however problematic. With a lack of conceptual clarity and diverse definitions and understandings of the nature of philosophy, the literature sometimes descends into unfounded evangelism. Difficulties in evaluating outcomes from teaching philosophy render empirical evidence similarly shaky (Kitchener, 1990). Despite the flawed research, Philosophy for Children holds a fascination for many educators, with its apparent inherent contradiction. In our view, some fundamental questions need addressing before valuable empirical work can be usefully undertaken. To this end, the round table session will attempt to bring clarity to the debate through three key questions. We will explore the nature of the subject, asking 'What is philosophy?' and exploring different competing conceptions. Some theorists favour the notion of philosophy as a search for truth, whilst others seem to focus on notions of philosophic enquiry as a method or type of thinking. Others still describe philosophy as a body of problems or kind of history of ideas (Gazzard, 1996). We will then ask if there are good reasons why we should teach philosophy to children and whether or not they would benefit from learning philosophy. Practitioners of philosophy with children make claims about the positive effects on behaviour as well as improved rates of literacy and general understanding (Sutcliffe, 1990; Lipman, 1994). We will consider whether or not these claims are substantiated and also whether these are the right measures by which to decide the efficacy of philosophy with children. Existing programmes of philosophy with children use novels (Lipman, 1980), picture books (Murris, 1990), news stories (Williams and Sutcliffe, 1990), poetry and games (Fisher, 1998). We are not advocating any of these approaches but instead, questioning how the discipline might be made accessible to children, examining what might serve as good routes into philosophy and philosophical understanding.