Philosophy with Children as an Exercise in Parrhesia: An Account of a Philosophical Experiment with Children in Cambodia

Abstract

The last few decades have seen a steady growth of interest in doing philosophy with children and young people in educational settings. Philosophy with children is increasingly offered as a solution to the problems associated with what is seen by many as a disoriented, cynical, indifferent and individualistic society. It represents for its practitioners a powerful vehicle that teaches children and young people how to think about particular problems in society through the use of interpretive schemes and procedures especially designed for this. It typically conceives of truth‐telling as the work of dialogical reasoning, which is understood in turn as leading to increasing awareness of mental and methodological processes. This article starts from another point of view. What is at stake, I shall argue, is not so much the question of how to think for oneself in an appropriate way. Rather, in line with Michel Foucault, I want to identify philosophy as a practice oriented by the care of the self and of transformation of the self by the self. From this angle, philosophy with children will not be understood as something that orients us towards valid knowledge claims, but as an act of becoming present in the present. This way of conceiving of philosophy with children will be explored in the context of a concrete philosophical experiment with children that I planned and carried out in Cambodia.

The Ethics of Stats

“…Nancy Vansieleghem's recent work, for example, presents Foucauldian parrhēsia as a way “to gain access to the reality of this world” and “to act as things demand” (Vansieleghem , 332). The move of distancing oneself from particular regimes of truth and value and one's own place within them can be undertaken in the interests of being more fully present in a particular place and context, able to respond to the “demands” of embodied life—the “objective reality” that always exceeds both the stats and the specificities of professional judgment, and in particular the bodies and voices that are at risk of exclusion.…”

Philosophy in Primary Schools?

“…Only one other paper in the Special Issue apart from the Kennedys' gives an extended description of philosophy for children in practice, that by Nancy Vansiegelhem () . Vansiegelhem describes, with photographic illustrations, a ‘philosophical experiment’ she recently conducted in Cambodia with children aged perhaps ten or older .…”

“…Many of us would say that this has nothing to do with teaching philosophy, given that this involves reflection on ideas and their interrelationships. But Vansiegelhem (, p. 328) sees it differently. Philosophising here is not about ‘putting something to the test of logical argument’, but has to do with ‘becoming present in the present’, with ‘an opening of the self to oneself’, with ‘a certain sensitivity and attentiveness to things as they truly appear, here and now’.…”

“…Gert Biesta (, p. 317) wants to replace Lipman's aims by a ‘post‐humanist’ concern that rejects the assumption that the essence of human being can be known, emphasising instead—following Levinas—‘ exposure ’ to one's singularity or uniqueness. Nancy Vansiegelhem () also starts from another point of view from standard philosophy for children, developing Foucault's idea of ‘ parrhesia ’ into an alternative aim for it to do with ‘the transformation of the self into a subject of care’ (p. 330). Walter Kohan (, p. 344) replaces Lipman's interest in the formation of the reasonable citizen with an aim, based on Heraclitus, Deleuze and Lyotard, which looks at the child under the aspect of eternity, and ‘therefore as something inherently constitutive of human life’ (p. 339).…”

“…Readers of Nancy Vansiegelhem's () essay may ask a similar question about her Cambodian workshop. How, if she had had more such sessions, would she have followed this up?…”