Philosophical discussions with children: An opportunity for experiencing open-mindedness

Abstract

Children develop and experience numerous thinking skills in the course of a philosophical dialogue, which has been the didactic medium for the practice of philosophy with children, since its birth. One of these skills plays a paramount role in making possibile true dialogue, as it relies on the meeting of minds: open-mindedness. Furthermore, this concept is omnipresent in the literature about philosophy for children (Lipman, 2003: 172-179; Tozzi, 2001, 2002) and thus requires an exploration and a precise analysis, which is the aim of his article. More precisely, there are three objectives: define the nature and characteristics of open-mindedness, analyse its emergence in philosophical discussions and, moreover, study its role in the practice of philosophy. Our research (conducted at University Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) has shown that certain indicators present in the children's discourse indicate open-mindedness: reformulation of one another's words, complementarity of statements, explication of each other's ideas, establishment of nuances and disagreement on terms and critical thinking. These cognitive acts reveal an intellectual relation between children, so much that open-mindedness can be defined as a two-dimensional attitude, both as a cognitive disposition enabling the understanding of someone else's idea and an ethical disposition enabling the acceptance of alterity. Moreover, it signals an ethical posture: the capacity to embrace the words of others, without necessarily agreeing, the ability to take into account an alternative view on the world. The research hypothesis, the result of seven years' research in the French town of Romainville (East of Paris) is that:\ philosophical discussions constitute an opportunity for children to experience open-mindedness as a crucial thinking skill and ethical posture.