Philosophy & the Young Child

Gareth B. Matthews

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PhilosophyForKids.com

While reading this book, I made a variety of comments on Post-it throughout.  Below you will find some interesting excerpts from the book as well as the comments I made.  My comments appear in pale yellow.

Quick-Jump

Philosophising As a Child The Dream Problem If Everything Shrinks at The Same Speed… Do Planes Shrink As They Fly Away? Are Apples Alive? Not Seeing Double In Front and Behind In Front and Behind On a Sphere Existence and Simultaneous Non-existence On Things Going Away The Subjectivity of Purpose Adult Claims Deserve Philosophical Challenge “Shan’t Tell You!” Joke The Problem With Descartes Differing Definitions of “Know” Tim’s “Joke” Can Logic Be “Mischievous”? The Flaw of Utilitarianism

Subjective or Objective Valuation of Selfishness Accuracy Dependent Upon Definition Time and The Instant Replay Question for Michael and Thoughts On Infinite Universes A Thought On Finite Universes Open Philosophical Curiosity in Young Children The Pinching Test Atoms, Human Minds, and Free-market Economies How Big Is a Foot? “Everything,” Present or Future? Ozma of Oz Detriment of Preoccupation With Techniques Amateur Philosophy How Much of The Brain Constitutes Self? Many Skies Hard and Soft Words Problems With Words Singing To Let Yourself Know How You Feel?

Preface

Philosophising As a Child (p. vii)

I’ve never thought of philosophy as unnatural, and can distinctly remember philosophising as a young child.  But then, I was probably a bit abnormal for a child.  I distinctly remember telling myself that I had to remember certain things in the future, so that I could know how children think.  I remember being an extremely rational child in some respects, and extremely irrational in others.

Contents

1.  Puzzlement

The Dream Problem (p. 1)

Oh, yeah, I’ve asked myself that.  I still do.  I also asked myself if I could not be a figment in someone else’s imagination—and still do.

One postulation I came up with was that a creature exists that sleeps for a hundred years at a time, and while it is sleeping, it forgets reality and begins to believe that its dream is reality.  Perhaps I am one of these creatures, and I only think I’m a “human” (whatever that is) because I’ve been off in la-la land for a couple of decades.  Perhaps in a half dozen decades, I’ll awaken again, and when I do, remember, “Oh yeah, I’m this creature that lives for many millennia.”  Then I’ll remain awake for another three-hundred years or so before falling back asleep, and the cycle begins again.

But this doesn’t go far enough, because it still assumes that a “reality” exists.  What if “reality” is itself an illusion?  Matter, the law of non-contradiction…all of it.  I came to question reality itself much later than questioning whether everything were a dream.

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