Rethinking philosophy for children: Agamben and education as pure means

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

There are many texts that present and discuss Philosophy with Children, the majority of which focus on Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children (P4C) programme. These usually align with Lipman’s philosophy and practice. They do so by recognizing Lipman’s triumvirate of critical, creative, and caring thinking in the drive to advance democracy. Lewis and Jasinski’s book, while acknowledging the contribution Lipman made to encouraging us to think and discuss philosophically with children, urges us to reconsider this democratic goal, and they do so in conversation with the ideas of Giorgio Agamben. Indeed, they carry forth Agamben’s religious language throughout the book while being far from reverential of Lipman’s work. This lack of reverence, while unusual, is not unwelcome. It is important that questions are asked, practices are challenged, and approaches evolve if a movement is not to become a cult. Indeed, both testimonials on the cover of the book, written by key thinkers in the field of Philosophy with Children, Walter O. Kohan and Stefano Oliverio, acknowledge this by drawing attention to the authors’ ‘unexpected questions and readings that expand the meaning and sense of doing Philosophy for Children’ (Kohan) and that ‘P4C would be unfaithful to itself if it ceased to rethink itself’ (Oliverio).