This paper explores how children’s literature can be used as philosophy of childhood and what it could mean to use it as philosophy of education. By reading children’s literature as Stanley Cav-ell reads literature in his philosophy, I shall clarify the role of acknowledgement in claiming that children are rational beings and moral persons and how we actually do acknowledge children as rational beings by letting them represent our rational community and by our speaking represen-tatively for them as members of such a community. This is an extension of Cavell’s position that philosophy is an education for grown-ups that enables me to maintain that philosophy, and, in particular, philosophy of education can also be an education for children growing up. Hence, the aim is also to explore how children’s literature can assist philosophy of childhood and education to speak representatively for children; how children may have voice in a philosophy of education written by grown-ups. In an early essay, which precedes his later enthralling work on the philosophy of child-hood called “Philosophy and Children’s Literature,” Gareth Matthews surveys how philosophical thought, or what he calls philosophical whimsy, is present in children’s literature. By referring to a few empirical examples of children raising philosophical questions, or making philosophical claims, which he finds in children’s literature, Matthews argues that ”what philosophers do (in rather disciplined and sustained ways) is much closer than usually appreciated to what at least some children rather naturally do (albeit fitfully, and without the benefit of sophisticated tech-niques).” As he develops his work on the philosophy of childhood and philosophy for children, Matthews extends the empirical examples of children’s philosophical reasoning, which allowes him to claim, against Piaget, that our interactions with children really ought to be interactions with rational beings, as Kant put it, citizens of the Kingdom of Ends, or moral persons. Although I submit to Matthews’s conclusions that children’s thoughts may be closer to what philosophers do, and that we ought to treat children as rational beings and moral persons, I believe that his claims can be strengthened if we take a different route from our readings of children’s literature; a route that not only re-evaluates children’s assumed or denied rationality, but which also reformulates how rationality may be pictured. This involves reading children’s literature not only as illustrating and presenting philosophical issues that children may think of, but as a philosophical expression of the existential problems that are latent in our relationships to children. Additionally, this claim is not based on empirical examples of children’s reasoning, though empirical results are not always irrelevant, but also, and more forcefully, it emphasises the significance of acknowledging children as rational beings and moral persons – which, in short, is a matter seeing children as a representatives for their elders as well as their elders as representatives for them. This means that I, rather than taking children’s literature as illustra-tions of a possible empirical fact, explore how children’s literature suggests an acknowledge-ment of children as rational responsible beings.

This paper examines how we can use children’s literature to gain a clear view of children as ra-tional beings and moral persons. It proceeds from the philosophical work of Stanley Cavell. In particular the investigation seeks to develop a philosophical approach through reading chil-dren’s literature in a direction analogous to Cavell’s readings of literature and other artistic ex-pressions as a way of philosophizing. Also, the paper attempts to align this with how so-called therapeutic readings of the later Wittgenstein (that are very much inspired by Cavell) may be applied to thinking about children and childhood. The text is a philosophical inquiry aiming at close readings of philosophical and literary texts. Together with philosophical works by Cavell, Diamond and Wittgenstein I explore literary works such as Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax, Sven Nord-qvist’s Var är min syster? (Where is my sister?), Harry Potter and J. M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Ani-mals.

I shall suggest that rationality cannot primarily be understood as a capability, but as claims we make by engaging in everyday conversations with children; that is, every action and thought with others in a community is an act of representativeness for others, children and adults alike, of that community. It is, in Cavell’s words, “a claim of reason.” Reading children’s literature philosophically can work as a way to establish and recognise our rational community with chil-dren. This is a Wittgensteinian therapeutic use of children’s literature. Children’s literature may also work as what Cavell calls ”nations scripture,” presenting a new form of life and community that we may wish to live, but that is not corresponding to our current lives. These readings of children’s literature are a resistance against different established ways of thinking about children that are too dogmatic to give a constructive picture of our actual lives with children, possible and actual. That is, reading children’s literature can assist adults in acknowledging children as rational beings and moral persons. Additionally, I shall claim that this is a way for the philosopher of education to speak representatively for children, for children to have a voice in philosophy written by grown-ups.