Philosophy for Children

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Philosophy for Children, sometimes abbreviated to P4C, is a movement that aims to teach reasoning and argumentative skills to children.^[1] There are also related methods sometimes called "Philosophy for Young People" or "Philosophy for Kids". Often the hope is that this will be a key influential move towards a more democratic form of democracy.^[2] However, there is also a long tradition within higher education of developing alternative methods for teaching philosophy both in schools and colleges.

Although the noted developmental psychologist Jean Piaget was of the impression that children were not capable of critical thinking until age 11 or 12, the experience of many philosophers ^[who?] and teachers with young children gives reason to believe that children benefit from philosophical inquiry even in early primary school. Furthermore, there is empirical evidence^[where?] that teaching children reasoning skills early in life greatly improves other cognitive and academic skills and greatly assists learning in general.^[3]