Philosophy as an Experience of Liberation at School

A Proposal from Philosophy with Children

Abstract

In this paper I propose to reflect on the possibilities offered by philosophy with children to make a place for philosophy as a thinking experience in school. To do so, I begin by formulating a notion of philosophy as an experience of liberation based on some Latin American philosophers, such as Arturo Roig, Enrique Dussel, Juan Carlos Scanone and Mario Casalla. I then go on to explore the concept of experience proposed by Hans-Georg Gadamer and his distinction between the positive sense of experience (linked to science and the devices of institutional control) and the negative sense of experience (linked to everyday experience and philosophy). Finally, I arrive at philosophy with children as a Latin American alternative to philosophy for children, its North American antecedent. After developing the philosophical and pedagogical assumptions of both proposals, I focus on the idea of education and childhood that underlies the former.