Abstract

POSTIGLIONE, Enrico. Questions and performatives - communities of inquiry as conventional contexts. child.philo [online]. 2018, vol.14, n.31, pp.697-714.  Epub May 17, 2019. ISSN 1984-5987.  https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2018.30843.

'Philosophy for Children', firstly proposed by M. Lipman and crucially developed with the contribution of A. M. Sharp, aims to nourish both critical thinking and argumentative ability of participants, enhancing their dialogical disposition and stimulating their inclusive and respectful attitude. The model conceives of children as a crucial resource for social development, and at the same time, for philosophical inquiry: since children's thought is supposed to be free from undisputable dogmas and theories that predominate adults' views, their questions or arguments about philosophical issues can shed new light on them, or even underline some contradictions of the adult-like society, that in standard conditions are unconsciously disregarded. In brief then, the philosophical background of P4C pushes for an in-practice philosophy, highlighting the value of critical thinking and ambitious questioning against a docile acceptance of well-established theories (and social practices). Shared and inclusive dialogical dynamics are then considered as a meaning of enhancing both social development and the level of research. Yet, the undervaluation of some dangers hiding in the maze of the dialogical activity could mislead models such as P4C from their own goals. In this paper, resulting from the observation of several P4C sessions, I face one of these possible risks, by focusing on the question-choosing process. I argue that, although they are supposed to be cross-sections of social environments, communities of inquiry as defined by Lipman are conventional contexts, where participants take part into a procedure: the sentences pronounced within the community possess a high performative value. According to the model, a jointly-agreed question is the starting point for the following discussion, the nature of which rests on several factors: the epistemic openness of such starting question is one of them. At this stage (viz. during the questioning activity), regardless of the explicit purpose of the model of doing so, sometimes social and cultural differences among participants are not completely erased. Hence, in heterogenous communities, the process of moving from the agenda to discussion hides some more difficulties for the facilitator. In such circumstances, the questioning activity is often the premise for a less fruitful discussion. I therefore propose a methodological integration to the standard P4C model, as an additional meaning to allow the facilitator to grant both participation and epistemic openness, even in heterogeneous communities.

Keywords : communities of inquiry; questions; dialogue dynamics; performative language.

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