Philosophy for Children I. The concept of the Community of Inquiry Central to the heart of P4C lies the notion of a community of inquiry. Originally a term from Pierce to reference interaction

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Philosophy for Children

I. The concept of the Community of Inquiry

Central to the heart of P4C lies the notion of a community of inquiry. Originally a term from Pierce to reference interaction among scientists, the concept of "COI" dominates the discussion of educational revisionism as presented by commentators on the P4C movement. The key description marking a COI is: a group (a social setting) of individuals who use dialogue (interaction among participants) to search out the problematic borders of a puzzling concept (inquiry as philosophical.) Implicit in the ideal workings of this group are two key concepts:

a demonstration of thinking that is caring (each member is supported and allowed to be an integral member of the community), creative (new ideas are sought out and encouraged) and critical (good reasons are expected for one's ideas and positions).

fallibilism (a willingness to be corrected and an acknowledgment of possible error or perspectivalness).

Thus, the COI offers us a dual message of promoting critical thinking and encouraging an obligation to one's fellow inquirer. As such the concept of COI attempts to address contemporary challenges to education to produce better thinkers and more caring members of society who can tolerate differences at the same time they can submit conflicts to reasonable scrutiny. In a COI all participants must respect one another as thoughtful persons who seek communally to better understand the issue at hand.

In describing the COI as central to philosophical inquiry with children I have tried to achieve a certain degree of metaphysical neutrality by focusing upon the methodological structure of the discussion. However, once we probes beneath the surface definition we discover a cache of important metaphysical and epistemological issues that appear to be embraced uncritically, or at least accepted as givens. Two of these controversial issues are:

the ontological nature of the individual vs. that of the community

the criteria of a "good" reason (the question of truth) or discovery vs. construction

It is important to recognize the presence of these issues within the P4C method and to explore how these issues color our vision of that method. We will note certain tensions among writers about P4C in terms of which metaphysical vision best embraces the ideals behind the COI. In the sections below I will suggest also a series of questions that are provoked by discussions of the COI which will hopefully lead to further reflection and dialogue with the P4C community itself.

II. Individual vs. Community

In his article "The Five Communities" (1) David Kennedy offers us a rich differentiation of a COI into communities of gesture, language, mind, love, and interest. (2) The concepts of gesture and language highlight the nuances of human communication that embrace physical stance, the unspoken presentation of the body itself as response and the powerful nature of spoken language as enriched by "stress, pitch, contour and juncture" (3) in addition to one's personal vocabulary and idiosyncratic use of words. By his phrase, "community of mind" Kennedy attempts to capture a phenomenological sense of mind as active agent immersed in a spatio-temporal-affective locus which is ever changing. He draws a portrait of the situatedness of thought which nevertheless struggles to eternalize itself in the shape of the argument before the group. The community of love references the nature of the COI as caring as it recognizes the vulnerability of its members and cherishes them. The community of interest focuses upon the self, the individual who works to position himself within the group even as every member does likewise. In this aspect of community, Kennedy details a socio-psychological environment of individuals moving towards community.

Throughout his discussion of these aspects of the community of inquiry, Kennedy emphasizes the nature of the community as telos (4) and the need to struggle with one's individuality as a limitation to achieving the connectedness within the community. The tendency to exert one's self and make a play for power is clearly the source of conflict within and fragmenting of the COI. Indeed, at times, there is the suggestion that the individual cannot achieve selfhood apart from the community and any attempt to maintain a degree of separation should be vigorously discouraged. This reliance upon community as central to the human endeavor is echoed by some other commentators as well. (5)

The challenge is to chart a course between the twin shoals of an egotistic individuality and a self-erasing communality. To what extent do I need a community to become myself? Could one develop a community of one? of two? of twenty? How different need we be? Are we participating in a vital COI if we are too homogenous a group? From a practical standpoint, how would we go about avoiding this, if homogeneity is indeed a weakening of the COI potential?

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When Sharp writes "The success of the community is compatible with, and dependent on, the unique expression of individuality," (6) and Traverso comments

"we can conceive of two levels of development. On the one hand, the development that each individual gains on her or his own thanks to the interaction with the rest of the group, and on the other hand, the strengthening of the community as a function of the interpersonal enrichment gained from dialog." (7)

they are highlighting a tension between the importance of maintaining and developing one's individuality and the vitality of meshing ...

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