Nietzsche and Philosophy for Children: An Interpretive Hypothesis
Author(s):
Stefano Oliverio (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2017
Network:
13. Philosophy of Education (Standard submissions & Long Papers)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

13 SES 10 A, Philosophy for Children, Time, and Reading Classics

Paper Session

Time:
2017-08-24
15:30-17:00
Room:
W6.18
Chair:
Lovisa Bergdahl

Contribution

Since its beginnings in the 1970s, Philosophy for Children (P4C) has established itself as an important field of educational theory and practice (Gregory et. al., 2016). Over the last few years an increasing number of scholars in philosophy of education have engaged with a reflection on P4C’s theoretical and methodological device, whether in order to fine-tune or criticize or explore and re-signify it in the light of philosophical frameworks other than those usually deployed in the typical P4C discourse (see in the vast literature on this subject: Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011; Granger & Gregory, 2012; Kohan, 2014; Murris, 2016; Jasinski & Lewis, 2016a, 2016b).

Although since its inception Philosophy for Children has been a fairly plural field of practice and models (see for instance Bynum, 1976), the approach elaborated by Matthew Lipman and his collaborators at the Institute for the Advancement of Philosophy for Children (IAPC) has surely had a pivotal role in designing this field, as is also recognized in international documents like the UNESCO report La Philosophie, une école de liberté (UNESCO, 2007, p. 16).

Regarding the IAPC approach the standard narrative reads as follows: the approach is rooted in the tradition of American pragmatism (by drawing especially upon notions and tenets of Peirce, Dewey and Mead), is enriched through elements coming from Vygotskian psychological theory (Lipman, 1996), and represents a modern re-actualization of the Socratic method in the classroom (Lipman et al., 1980; Lipman, 1988; Nussbaum, 2010, pp. 73-76).

This is a plausible and accurate reconstruction of the sources of this approach but it does not exhaust the number of philosophical-educational influences that (may) have contributed to shaping the project of Philosophy for Children in its IAPC inflection. The focus here will be on some insights that could come from studying the contribution of Ann M. Sharp, who played a decisive role not only in co-authoring with Lipman the materials of the IAPC curriculum but also in devising the pedagogy of the community of philosophical inquiry (Kennedy, 2010).

In particular, by drawing upon Sharp’s (1975a, 1975b, 1976) scholarship on Nietzsche, I will provide a Nietzschean reading of P4C. First, Nietzsche (and, via the German philosopher, Heraclitus), appropriated through a Sharpian lens, can offer a framework within which to establish a peculiar regime in the relationships between children and the philosophical and cultural heritage (Nietzsche, 1872, 1876). In this perspective, without gainsaying the pragmatist influence, a different light could be shed on one of the main goals that Sharp (and most of the P4C tradition for that matter) has ascribed to the project of philosophical inquiry with children, namely that of respecting and furthering children’s entitlement to take part in the philosophical tradition.

Secondly, Sharp’s Nietzschean interpretation of the teacher as a liberator can enable us not only to corroborate Charles Bingham’s (2015) understanding of P4C as a “teaching movement” but also to revisit the meaning of the appeal to be “pedagogically strong” that is included in the IAPC principle for facilitators (= a facilitator should be “pedagogically strong and philosophically self-effacing”).

Thirdly, Sharp’s reading of Zarathustra’s metamorphoses (Nietzsche, 1885) can help us to give a different (but complementary) view of the reasons why Lipman (1988) understood the project of Philosophy for Children as the main road to “remake the foundations” of our educational systems.

Method

Ann Sharp’s engagement with Nietzsche is independent from and prior to her actual involvement in the creation of the IAPC curriculum and pedagogy. Nor, to my knowledge, did she ever thematize the possible connection between a Nietzschean perspective and Philosophy for Children. However, by providing a reading of her works on Nietzsche I would like to trace back some aspects of the P4C project to the influence of (her understanding of) the German philosopher’s educational thought. Thus, some Nietzschean motifs should serve as a way to revisit the meaning of P4C, while some facets of the P4C prism (both at the level of the theorization of its goals and at that of its pedagogy) could help us to provide new insights into Nietzsche’s topicality for contemporary educational theory. To put it differently: by drawing upon Ann Sharp (who was both a Nietzsche scholar and the co-inventor of the IAPC curriculum and pedagogy), the methodology of this paper is that of reading not only P4C through Nietzsche but also Nietzsche through P4C. Although the paper aligns itself with the aforementioned attempts to address the meaning of Philosophy for Children through philosophical frameworks usually not invoked in the literature of the field, the specificity of its argumentative methodology consists in its aspiration to unearth and to put to work possible forgotten sources of the P4C project. In this sense, a sort of genealogical stance is also in action in the reading here proposed.

Expected Outcomes

The proposed paper aims at two interrelated outcomes: first, at a typically scholarly level, it would like to provide a broader reconstruction of the sources that have played a role in defining the philosophical background of Philosophy for Children in its IAPC version. Drawing upon a Nietzschean perspective (mediated by Ann Sharp) could help us to identify some dimensions of the P4C project (in terms of its goals, pedagogy, and concept of childhood) that get lost when it is construed exclusively against the backdrop of the debate on education for critical thinking and, therefore, in comparison with other pedagogical models for promoting critical thinking that do not have any substantial philosophical matrix. In this sense, the paper would also contribute—and this is the second expected outcome—to reclaim the specificity of the Philosophy for Children project. While being sceptical about a stance which is too dichotomous—opposing education for critical thinking as merely accomplice in perpetuating the existing educational regime and alternative forms of education for thinking that ‘interrupts’ it—the present author shares the concerns about the risk that P4C is reduced to be only “yet another progressive curriculum and pedagogy for enhancing argumentation skills” (Jasinski & Lewis, 2016b, p. 538). In this perspective, re-considering the wider horizon from which P4C emerged represents one more way of “remaining faithful to a radical kernel that we find when we do philosophy with children and young adults” (Ibid., p. 540), through ‘keeping the tradition of P4C in good order’ by reconstructing and revisiting it (see Glaser, 2012, p. 94).

References

Bingham, C. (2015). Philosophy for Children as a Teaching Movement in an Era of too Much Learning. Childhood and Philosophy 11(22), 223-240. Bynum, T.W. (ed.) (1976). What is Philosophy for Children?. Special Issue. Metaphilosophy 7(1). Glaser, J. (2012). Dogmatism and Philosophy for Children: Response to Professor Johnson. In M. Santi & S. Oliverio (eds.). Educating for Complex Thinking through Philosophical Inquiry. Models, Advances, and Proposals for the New Millennium (pp. 87-98). Napoli: Liguori. Granger, D., & Gregory, M. (eds.) (2012). John Dewey and the child as philosopher. Special issue. Education and Culture: The Journal of the John Dewey Society, 28(2). Gregory, M., Haynes, J., & Murris, K. (eds.) (2016), The Routledge International Handbook of Philosophy for Children. London-New York: Routledge. Jasinski, I., & Lewis, T.E. (2016a). The Educational Community as In-tentional Community. Studies in Philosophy and Education 35(4), 371-383. Jasinski, I., & Lewis, T.E. (2016b). Community of Infancy: Suspending the Sovereignty of the Teacher’s Voice. Journal of Philosophy of Education 50(4), 538-553. Kennedy, D. (2010). Ann Sharp’s Contribution. A Conversation with Matthew Lipman. Childhood & Philosophy 6(11). Kohan, W.O. (2014). Philosophy and Childhood. Critical Perspectives and Affirmative Practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Lipman, M., Sharp, A.M., & Oscanyan, F.S. (1980). Philosophy in the Classroom. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lipman, M. (1988). Philosophy Goes to School. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Lipman, M. (1996). Natasha: Vygotskian Dialogues. New York: Teachers College Press. Murris, K. (2016). The Posthuman Child: Educational Transformation through Philosophy with Picturebooks. London: Routledge. Nietzsche, F. (1872). Die Geburt der Tragödie. In Sämtliche Werke. Siegfried König, Kindle edition. Nietzsche, F. (1876). Unzeitgemässe Betrachtungen. Zweites Stück: Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben. In Sämtliche Werke. Siegfried König, Kindle edition. Nietzsche, F. (1885). Also Sprach Zarathustra. In Sämtliche Werke. Siegfried König, Kindle edition. Nussbaum, M.C. (2010). Not for Profit. Why Democracies Need the Humanities. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Sharp, A.M. (1975a). Education and Culture: A Nietzschean Perspective. Humanitas 11(2), 291-311. Sharp, A.M. (1975b). Nietzsche’s View of Sublimation in the Educational Process. The Journal of Educational Thought 9(2), 98-106. Sharp, A.M. (1976). The Teacher as Liberator: A Nietzschean View. Pedagogica Historica 16(2), 387-422. Vansieleghem, N., & Kennedy, D. (eds.) (2011). Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects. Special Issue. Journal of Philosophy of Education 45(2). UNESCO (2007). La Philosophie, une école de liberté. Paris: UNESCO.

Author Information

Stefano Oliverio (presenting / submitting)
Department of Political Science -- University of Naples Federico II, Italy

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