The Case for Plato: Why Kids Need Philosophy (and Philosophy Needs Kids)
Midgley in 2002
Mary Midgley in her Animals and Why they Matter suggested that there are three kinds of human beings who are drawn to the unpopular, or rather to the unpopular truth:
1. Poets
2. Scientists
3. Children
She argues that philosophy (and philosophy is very much for everyone, according to Midgley) should pull on the contributions and perspectives of these thinkers if we are to create flourishing and mixed moral communities. In short, now more than ever, we need to do philosophy to help us think clearly. We need to see the familiar (or that which we take for granted) in a new light and look (and think) again.
I’m privileged to be involved in two big projects currently, inspired by the work of Mary Midgley’s Mixed Moral Community. Firstly, during the Spring and Summer of 2025 I will continue to deliver our philosophy ‘lenses’ or modules at CATALYST by Winchester College where we draw heavily on Midgley’s ideas. Secondly, I will be leading Team UK for the global Philosophy in the Wild project.
Both endeavours seek to bring about powerful conversations and creative collaboration. They both also, more than anything else they seek to achieve, hope to foster dynamic new ways of seeing the world and being together within it — and children are key players in this.
When Midgley was raising her own children, she was very aware of how they lived in a sort of mixed moral community, as we all do, with the family cat or hamster, reading the The Large Family Elephant books (a million times a day!), watching the cows in a nearby field in awe, and scurrying on all fours. Midgley reminds us that the boundaries we put in place between the human and the animal are not so fixed for the young homo sapien, who is happy to roll between the two worlds. She helps us to see that we are not just rather like animals, but that we are animals. It is also a powerful reminder of the insights and contributions of children, and how they see the world.
A marble head of Socrates in the Louvre
A metaphor used to describe Socrates’ work is that of the midwife, the figure who helps to birth new ideas. I often think about how having children made me think in radically new ways, and there have also been other experiences that have afforded a similar transformation in my thinking. But it wasn’t just because I was pregnant (and Fiona Woolard writes and talks about the important idea of pregnancy as an epistemically transformative experience) or because I had children — it was also because I am entangled in conversation and thinking with children (my own and other people’s as a teacher of over 20 years).
Whilst it’s easy to think of the philosopher, and the person engaged in philosophy, as an older individual (indeed, in Plato’s The Republic there is the idea that in ideal state people wouldn’t study philosophy until they were forty) the child and children are an important part of philosophical conversations and should not be excluded or deemed not ready.
As Peter Worley (The If Man) says in an interview for the brilliant Philosophy Now publication: “Philosophy can provide children with a kind of mental playground to exercise their thinking skills. This should be done from a young age so that when they get to forty the kind of thinking skills needed for philosophy have become second nature.”
“Philosophy can provide children with a kind of mental playground to exercise their thinking skills. This should be done from a young age so that when they get to forty the kind of thinking skills needed for philosophy have become second nature.”
The benefits and reasons children undertaking philosophical exploration through our CATALYST courses (where we combine our philosophical sessions with our work on AI, economics and STEM) abound from the evidence that it improves their logical prowess, their comprehension and self-confidence, and their ability to navigate and enjoy their social interactions in a meaningful way.
But crucially, I would argue, they are already part of the conversation, and we need to learn to listen to them, talk to and with them, and help facilitate ways in which they can make sense of the world around them — and help us to shape and make necessary changes.
Philosophers love to talk, but we also need to learn to listen. Midgley said the philosopher must ‘listen to everyone and cast their nets [widely] before starting to draw… new maps.’ We must be alert to who we allow into our philosophical discussions and who we cast out or deem not ready. Midgley, in a similar vein to another 20th century philosopher Dorothy Emmet, said philosophy must work alongside and collaborate with those in other disciplines and learn to ‘speak the language’ of those other disciplines — we should also listen to what comes from the mouths of babes. If we are going to bring together the many ways of looking at the world, we should be sure to include our children, as, despite all the chaos of family life, my own children and my students, have helped me to “see things more fully or more steadily.”*
With thanks to my lovely children and my students. I look forward to more conversations.
Beth x
*An idea from philosopher Dorothy Emmet, drawing on that famous line from poet Matthew Arnold in his sonnet To A Friend.
