fink’s notion of play in the context of philosophical inquiry with children.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2021.56494Keywords:
Fink, Play, P4wC, Philosophical Inquiry, Play-world, ChildrenAbstract
Research in education indicates that the Philosophy for Children (P4C) curriculum is instrumental in achieving important educational objectives. And yet, it is precisely this instrumentalist conception of P4C that has been challenged by a second generation of P4C scholars. Among other things, these scholars argue that P4C must remain vigilant toward, and avoid subscribing to 1) developmentalism and 2) a reductive identification of thinking with rationality. On the contrary, they suggest that P4C must ensure that it gives voice to childhood, allowing it to enter a genuine dialogue with adulthood. Scholars who defend a non-reductive and non-instrumentalist approach to P4C, highlight the significance of play in philosophy sessions with children. In this paper I examine the extent to which the philosophical inquiry that takes place in the context P4C can be understood as a playful activity. I submit that Fink’s account of play can help us reach a better understanding of what we mean by play, which in turn can help us examine the compatibility between the activities of P4C and play. In the first part of the paper, I examine some of the basic ideas of P4C and raise the question about the compatibility of philosophical inquiry and play. In the second part of the paper, I engage in a philosophical appreciation of play by drawing on the work of Eugen Fink. In the final part of the paper, I show how play – understood along Fink’s lines – is compatible with philosophical inquiry as practiced in school settings.
References
Alvis, Jason W. (2019) "God’s Playthings: Eugen Fink’s Phenomenology of Religion in Play as Symbol of the World", Research in Phenomenology 49, 1: 88-117.
Ardley, Gavin. (1967) "The Role of Play in the Philosophy of Plato." Philosophy 42, (161): 226-244.
Biesta, Gert (2011) “Philosophy, exposure, and children: How to resist the instrumentalization of philosophy in education”. In: N. Vansieleghem and D. Kennedy (eds) Special Issue Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45(2): 305–321.
Bleazby, Jennifer. (2011) “Overcoming Relativism and Absolutism: Dewey's ideals of truth and meaning in philosophy for children”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 43 (5): 453-466.
Boronat, Nuria Saras Mirat. (2017) “Oasis of Happiness – The Play of the World and Human Existence”. In M. MacLean, W. Russell & E. Ryall (eds.) Philosophical Perspectives on Play. London: Routledge, 95-106.
Brinkmann, Malte & Friesen, Norm. (2018) “Phenomenology and Education.” In Paul Smeyers (ed) International Handbook of Philosophy of Education. Springer, 591-608).
Bruzina, Ronald. (2004) Edmund Husserl and Eugen Fink. Beginnings and Ends in Phenomenology 1928–1938, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
D’Angour, Armand. (2013) “Plato and Play Taking Education Seriously in Ancient Greece.” American Journal of Play 5 (3): 293–307.
D’Olimpio, Laura & Teschers, Christoph. (2017) “Playing with philosophy: Gestures, life-performance, P4C and an art of living, Educational Philosophy and Theory”, 49 (13): 1257-1266.
Fink, Eugen. (1970) Erziehungswissenschaft und Lebenslehre. Freiburg: Rombach
Fink, Eugen. (1972) "What Does the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl Want to Accomplish? (The Phenomenological Idea of Laying-a-Ground)." Research in Phenomenology 2: 5-27.
Fink, Eugen. (2003) Nietzsche's Philosophy, trans. G. Richter. London: Continuum.
Fink, Eugen. (2016) Play as Symbol of the World (and Other Writings), trans. I. A. Moore and C. Turner. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Freire, Paulo. (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Harmondsworth, Penguin.
Gibbons, Andrew. (2007) “Philosophers as Children: Playing with style in the philosophy of education”, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 39 (5): 506-518.
Gorard, S., Siddiqui, N. & See, B.H. (2017) "Can ‘Philosophy for Children’ Improve Primary School Attainment?", Journal of Philosophy of Education, 51 (1): 5-22.
Gregory, Maughn. (2011) “Philosophy for Children and Its Critics: A Mendham Dialogue.” Journal of Philosophy of Education 45 (2): 199–219.
Halák, Jan. (2016) “Beyond Things: The Ontological Importance of Play According to Eugen Fink”. Journal of the Philosophy of Sport. 43 (2): 199–214.
Haynes, Joanna. (2003) Children as Philosophers. London: Routledge.
Haynes, Joanna & Murris, Karin. (2012) Picturebooks, Pedagogy and Philosophy. New York: Routledge.
Haynes, Joanna & Murris, Karin. (2013) “The realm of meaning: imagination, narrative and playfulness in philosophical exploration with young children”, Early Child Development and Care, 183 (8): 1084-1100.
Heidegger, Martin. (2000) Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Gregory Fried and Richard Polt. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Huizinga, Johan. (1955) Homo Ludens: A Study of the Element of Play in Culture. Boston: Beacon Press.
Kennedy, David. (1999) "Philosophy for Children and the reconstruction of Philosophy", Metaphilosophy, 30 (4): 338-359.
Kennedy, David. (2002) “The Child and Postmodern Subjectivity”, Educational Theory, 5: 155– 67.
Kennedy, David. (2004) “The Role of a Facilitator in a Community of Philosophical Inquiry.” Metaphilosophy, 35 (5): 744-765.
Krell, David F. (1972) “Towards an Ontology of Play: Eugen Fink’s Notion of Spiel.” Research in Phenomenology. 2 (1): 63–93.
Kohan, Walter Omar. (2014) Philosophy and Childhood: Critical Perspectives and Affirmative Practices. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Kohan, Walter Omar. (2018) "Paulo Freire and Philosophy for Children: A Critical Dialogue", Studies in Philosophy and Education, 37 (6): 615-629.
Lipman, Matthew. (2011) “Philosophy for Children: Some Assumptions and Implications”, Ethics in Progress, 2 (1): 3-16.
Lipman, Matthew., Sharp, A.M, & Oscanyan, F. S. (1980). Philosophy in the Classroom, 2nd ed., Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lipman, Matthew & Sharp, Ann Margaret. (1978) “Some Educational Presuppositions of Philosophy for Children”, Oxford Review of Education, 4 (1): 85-90.
Lipman, Matthew. (2003) Thinking in Education. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Malpas, Jeff. (2006) Heidegger’s Topology: Being, Place, World. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Moran, Dermot. (2007) “Fink’s Speculative Phenomenology: Between Constitution and Transcendence”, Research in Phenomenology 37 (1): 3-31.
Murris, Karin. (2016) “The Philosophy for Children Curriculum: Resisting ‘Teacher Proof’ Texts and the Formation of the Ideal Philosopher Child”, Studies in Philosophy and Education, 35 (1): 63–78.
Nussbaum, Martha. (1990) “Finely Aware and Richly Responsible: Literature and the moral imagination”. In Love’s Knowledge: Essays on Philosophy and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 148-167.
Pritchard, Michael. (2018) “Philosophy for Children”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, URL= https://plato.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/encyclopedia/archinfo.cgi?entry=children.
Reed, Ronald & Johnson, Tony. (1999) Friendship and Moral Education. Twin Pillars of Philosophy for Children. New York: Peter Lang.
Sharp, Ann Margaret. (1987) “What is a ‘Community of Inquiry’?”, Journal of Moral Education 16 (1): 37-45.
Shchyttsova, Tatiana. (2019) “Poetics of Intergenerational Relations. To the Importance of Eugen Fink’s Cosmological Substantiation of Educational Coexistence”. In M. Brinkmann, J. Türstig, Johannes, M. Weber-Spanknebel (eds.) Leib – Leiblichkeit – Embodiment: Pädagogische Perspektiven auf eine Phänomenologie des Leibes. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 267-278.
Smith, Richard. (2011) “The Play of Socratic Dialogue”, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45 (2): 221-233.
Van der Leeuw, Karel. (2009) Philosophy for Children as Educational Reform”. In: E. Marsal, T. Dobashi and B. Weber (eds) Children Philosophize Worldwide. Theoretical and Practical Concepts. New York, Peter Lang, 117–126.
Vansieleghem, Nancy & Kennedy, David. (2011) “Introduction: What is philosophy for children, what is philosophy with children: After Matthew Lipman?” In: N. Vansieleghem and D. Kennedy (eds.) Special Issue Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45 (2): 171–183.
Vansieleghem, Nancy. (2005) “Philosophy for Children as the Wind of Thinking”, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 39 (1): 19–37.
Weber, Barbara. (2011) “Childhood, philosophy and play”. In: N. Vansieleghem and D. Kennedy (eds) Special Issue Philosophy for Children in Transition: Problems and Prospects, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45(2), 235–251.
Winnicott, Donald. (2009) Playing and Reality. London: Routledge.
