Lucid Inquiry: a critical eco-pragmatist framework of education

Presenter: Simone Thornton (Confirmation milestone)

A successful framework for teaching critical reasoning, emerging out of pragmatist theory exists in the form of Philosophy for Children, developed by Matthew Lipman and Ann Sharp. It is, however, not without its problems. Drawing on the work of Val Plumwood, Albert Camus, Lisa Guenther and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, I argue for a concept of violence to be found not only in physical actions, but in speech acts, in systems of rationality, and broadly speaking, in human-to-human and human-to-non-human relationships. I argue that by reconceptualising certain key aspects of pragmatist theory, especially those developed by Lipman, the philosophy for children framework can mitigate the transmission of such forms of violence in the classroom.