In this volume Rorty offers a Deweyan account of objectivity as intersubjectivity, one that drops claims about universal validity and instead focuses on utility for the purposes of a community. The sense in which the natural sciences are exemplary for inquiry is explicated in terms of the moral virtues of scientific communities rather than in terms of a special scientific method. The volume concludes with reflections on the relation of social democratic politics to philosophy.

This is a textbook for teachers that demonstrates how philosophical thinking can be used in teaching children.

For centuries, philosophy has been considered as an intellectual activity requiring complex cognitive skills and predispositions related to complex (or critical) thinking. The Philosophy for Children (P4C) approach aims at the development of critical thinking in pupils through philosophical dialogue. Some contest the introduction of P4C in the classroom, suggesting that the discussions it fosters are not philosophical in essence. In this text, we argue that P4C is philosophy.

This research project investigated manifestations of critical thinking in pupils 10 to 12 years of age during their group discussions held in the context of Philosophy for Children Adapted to Mathematics. The objective of the research project was to examine, through the pupils' discussions, the development of dialogical critical thinking processes. The research was conducted during an entire school year. The research method was based on the Grounded Theory approach; the material used consisted of transcripts of verbal exchanges among the (...) pupils. Analysis of the transcripts revealed that: critical thinking appears to the extent that a 'dia-logue' is established among pupils; on the cognitive level, dialogical critical thinking is comprised of four thinking modes: logical, creative, responsible and meta-cognitive; and on the epistemological level, dialogical critical thinking is only manifested in a context where egocentricity of perspective and relativism of beliefs are transcended. (shrink)

One of the fundamental objectives of Philosophy for Children is the cognitive development of elementary and secondary school pupils. In this text, we examine to what extent the age of the children and the number of years of praxis in P4C influence the development of their critical thinking. To do so we used, as an analysis grid, the model of the developmental process of dialogical critical thinking that emerged from the analysis of transcripts of exchanges among pupils aged 4 to (...) 12 years . The content analyzed was the “philosophical” exchanges among pupils. Participants were 13 groups of pupils from preschool to the end of elementary school. These groups originated from two schools, one in Quebec and one in Ontario. At the time the data were collected, the Quebec school groups had one year of P4C praxis, whereas the Ontario school groups had two years of praxis. Results indicate that children’s age and number of years of philosophical praxis are among the factors that influence the developmental process of critical thinking. (shrink)

L'Homme spéculaire tente de faire pour l'épistémè occidentale tout entière ce que Michel Foucault avait fait pour l'épistémè du XVII e siècle dans Les Mots et les Choses. C'est dire l'ambition et l'ampleur de cet ouvrage. La métaphore fondamentale que Rorty découvre -et dont il démonte les effets - au sein de notre culture, est celle de l'Homme Miroir de la Nature. De là, découlent des pseudo - évidences séculaires dont nous ne sommes toujours pas affranchis : à commencer par (...) l'existence de quelque chose comme l'esprit; puis la définition de la philosophie comme théorie de la connaissance; et la version occidentale de la vérité comme correspondance du reflet - dans-le -miroir à ce qu'il reflète. Mais l'apport de Rorty n'est pas seulement historico - critique. La philosophie ainsi délivrée du complexe du miroir ouvre sur le programme d'une nouvelle sophistique dont le modèle emprunte à la fois à Wittgenstein, à Heidegger et au pragmatisme. Et ce n'est pas une des moindres importances de ce livre que la rencontre qu'il amorce entre philosophies continentale et anglo-saxonne. (shrink)