The child and the P4C curriculum1

Abstract

In this paper I take my cue from what I suggest calling “Adamitic modernity.” In this phrase I endeavor to capture a specific 'removal' of childhood that occurs in the Cartesian gesture of the enthroning of Reason. By drawing upon a reading of the major philosophical works of Descartes, I will argue that one of the main thrusts of his conceptual device is a deep-seated, and even anguished, mistrust of childhood and its errors. To put it in a nutshell: in Cartesian modernity, philosophy/science and childhood are at odds with each other. In the second step of my argument, I will show in what sense Dewey rehabilitates childhood and its form of experience by, thus, healing the rift between childhood and science (as his notions of inquiry and qualitative thought prove). This notwithstanding, Dewey was not ready to take the decisive step of thinking a philosophy for children. Precisely by activating and developing the significance of qualitative thought, Matthew Lipman was able, instead, to progress beyond Dewey. In this perspective, I will show how Lipman and Ann Sharp, while walking in Dewey's footsteps as far as their non-Cartesian interpretation of childhood is concerned, part company with him in their educational take on philosophy, and on how this results in a revamping of the way of construing the Deweyan relationship between the child and the curriculum.