The document discusses research on the philosophy for children (P4C) education program. It analyzes video recordings of P4C workshops with children ages 6-14 in France to describe the collective construction of children's reasoning. The analysis uses theories of speech acts, interlocutory logic, and pragmatism. It identifies different types of "philosophemes" that emerge from the children's discussions, which collectively build conceptual understanding around a shared referent through the exchange of ideas. The description of these philosophemes provides new insights into children's early abstract thinking abilities.

1. Collective construction
of children’s reasoning
during “philosophy for children” workshops
WHAT IS PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN?
The philosophy for children (P4C) is an education program invented by
Matthew Lipman (Lipman, 1991) on the 1980’s. Inspired by John Dewey
(Dewey, 1902) philosophy, Lipman advanced that we could not became the fully
thinking citizens without some philosophy education. Lipman used the word
"reasonableness" as a necessery skill to atempt.The benefits of the program on
learning, cognitions, critical thinking are very large and visible quickly after the
program’s introduction in class. Furthermore of those advantages, the linguistic
construction of children dialogues during the P4C seems very different than
during other lessons.
EXAMPLE
Lou: well::it was it’s quite nice ’cos like that // after we talk and we talk // and::// well we’re
happy and uh //{mumble} she lent it me ’cos // like one day uh //{mumble} I went and
stayed at her house // and then uh how // she did lend me a game // and {inaudible}
they changed the bed // uh I slept right on the mattress // so // after {inaudible} slept
// in her bed // so after around uh dunno what time // uh // I was in the bed // and
{inaudible} got on in on the mattress
Teacher: but what did you get out of sharing, Lou, that’s the question {inaudible}
Lou: well {inaudible}
Teacher: so I can see you shared lots of things but:: // what was the point of it all?
Lou: it was nice // and uh when uh we when I got home // I was I was happy
Teacher: you were happy // right so the point was it made you happy
OBJECTIVES
Our aim is to show and describe the specificity of children’s reasoning
during the P4C activity.
DATA
During three years experimentation, we collected data in classes from
6 to 14 years old children in France.We have kept 19 videos of 1h.
METHODS
To analyze the special character of P4C we adopted
The theory of speech acts (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969)
The interlocutory logic (Trognon, 1999)
The philosophy of pragmatism (Rorty, 1979)
We proceed to the linguistic analysis of videos' transcriptions and
annotations using those three theories. Our tool is ELAN Linguistic
Annotator software.
CONCLUSION
The description of collec-
tive reasoning construc-
tion called philosopheme
is an important advance-
ment in children reaso-
ning comprehension.
The children capacity
of abstract thinking is
earlier than the most of
language acquisition
theories advanced. Inde-
pendently of children’s
age, even if the reaso-
ning results are different,
the same type of philo-
sophemes exists.
References :
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things
with Words. Cambridge: Paperback.
Dewey,J.(1902).The Child and Curri-
culum.Chicago:University of Chicago
Press. Lipman, M. (1991). Thinking in
Education. New York: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press. Rorty, R. (1979). Philoso-
phy and the Mirror of Nature.New Jer-
sey: Princeton University Press. Searle,
J. R. (1969). Speech Acts. An essay
in the philosophy of language. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press.
Trognon, A. (1999). Eléments d’ana-
lyse interlocutoire.In M.Gilly,J.P.Roux,
& A. Trognon (Eds.), Apprendre dans
l’interaction (pp. 67–92). Nancy, Aix-
en-Provence:Presses Universitaires.
The Sixth International Conference of
the German Cognitive Linguistics
September 30 to October 2, 2014 at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg
TRUE
courage
TRUE
courage
TRUE
HAPPINESS
TRUE
HAPPINESS
TRUE
death
couragedeath
courage
GODcourage
GODcouragelove
couragelove
courage
RESULTS
FLASH
to download
the poster
Gabriela Fiema,
Université Blaise Pascal,
Clermont-Ferrand, France
gabriela.fiema@univ-bpclermont.fr
http://philosophemes.univ-bpclermont.fr/
n This cognitive process can be constructed
in different ways. So that we can have
four main philosopheme’s types:
- conceptual philosopheme;
- assimilative philosopheme;
- cumulative philosopheme;
- embedded philosopheme.
Which one of them could be accomplished (contains
a concept) or not accomplished (without a concept).
The first character refers to the process of linguistic
construction.The second one refers to the results.
why is it good to SHARE?
what’s the point of sharing?
CUMULATIVE PHILOSOPHEME
Teacher Pupils
sharing is good
sharing = to be kind
sharing = to EXCHANGE
sharing = to avoid to be bored
sharing the game and the bad with a friend at her home
it makes happy
LEND the things when the friend come at my home
it’s good to share cos’ it’s polite
sharing games = discover new games
REFERENTS
LEND
EXCHANGE
Concept’s STAGESMIND’S OBJECTSWhat use is sharing?
PHILOSOPHEME is composed with referent, mind’s object and
concept, each one results from the common reasoning and inte-
raction during P4C.
REFERENT is the representation of an experience, something in the world
that is referred to by a linguistic sign. A given referent can refer to different
representations. These representations will be brought together during the
interlocution. A shared referent arises from explicit sharing (repeat or syno-
nym), which sets, over a certain number of speaking turns, the referential
basis for the collectively produced discourse.
Example: What is the point of sharing?
MIND’S OBJECT is an attempt to carry the discussion forward starting from
a shared referent. The ideas that are produced will form the material from
which the referent will give rise to a concept.
Example: Sharing makes happy
STAGE is materialised through a mind’s object that influences how the
reasoning is collectively constructed.The mind’s object is taken up several
times in the discussion and validated or invalidated by the interlocutors.
Example: Sharing = exchanging
CONCEPT is the result of the collective construction of the meaning of a
shared referent through the production of mind’s objects.
Example: Sharing = lending
The regularities exist in the philosophi-
cal children’s conversations that we called
philosophemes. A philosopheme is a philosophi-
cally conclusive piece of reasoning that delimits
a conceptual field considered as having reached
a sufficient degree of completion. It is characte-
rised by a shared attempt to advance the definition
of the shared referent through the interplay of
ideas, and to tend towards truth.Thus the speech
acts that occur, in addition to their informative
purpose, serve to validate or to invalidate, to
support or to challenge.
The philosopheme is constructed around a
concept; it exploits ideas forming a chain of dis-
cursive entities that are extensions of the starting
referent. The philosopheme comprises argumen-
tation and abstract reasoning. It is characterised
by lexical shifts, repeated lexical items and new
lexical items. The philosopheme is a collective
discursive construction that corresponds to a pro-
cess that can translate “highs” and “lows” in the
reasoning.A “high” is when a philosopheme is in
action,and brings out ideas and conceptualisation.
A “low” is when the philosophical reasoning
comes to an end.