ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 15 From Neutrality to Intentionality: Notes for a Philosophy of Liberation for/with Children Erick J. Padilla Rosas o a person familiar with both philosophy for and with children and the philosophy of liberation, that the two would fit nicely together would seem obvious. However, the literature on how philosophy for/with children (P4wC) can contribute to decolonization is scarce. Drawing on various philosopher-educators and the tradition of liberation philosophy, particularly Amy Reed- Sandoval's (2019) article entitled “Can Philosophy for Children Contribute to Decolonization?”, this research paper explores what it means to engage in the philosophy of liberation (PL) and decolonization for and with children. Since not all children are the same, especially when one takes into consideration varying degrees of economic, social, and even geopolitical inequality, this research is relevant to developing an intentional decolonizing P4wC that prepares young people for a world in which the coloniality of power and knowledge (Quijano, 2000) is pervasive. Introduction From the age at which they begin to speak in a sophisticated way and formulate complete sentences, children can engage in philosophical conversations. By “philosophizing,” here, we mean thinking about the nature of and pondering reality. In so doing, one begins to formulate an understanding of the world, a reading of it (Freire, 2005). It is in this power to examine the nature of reality, the everyday, where PL and philosophy for/with children1 (P4wC) meet. The philosopher of liberation, Enrique Dussel (1985) writes, Philosophy, when it is really philosophy and not sophistry or ideology, does not ponder philosophy. It does not ponder philosophical texts, except as a pedagogical propaedeutic to provide itself with interpretive categories. Philosophy ponders the nonphilosophical; the reality. But because it involves reflection on its own reality, it sets out from what already is, from its own world, its own system, its own space. The philosophy that has emerged from a periphery has always done so in response to a need to situate itself with regard to a center in total exteriority. (p. 3) By "exteriority,” Dussel (1985) means that “Philosophy of liberation is postmodern, popular (of the people, with the people), profeminine philosophy. It is philosophy expressed by ("pressed out from") the youth of the world, the oppressed of the earth, the condemned of world history" (Preface). PL is 1 Throughout this paper, I will refer to philosophy for children, P4C or philosophy for/with children, depending on the concept used by the author I am discussing. Personally, I will use philosophy for/with children (P4wC) when referring to the movement in general. T ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 16 postmodern because it criticizes Western modernity and is not sustained by the exclusion of its own origins, peoples, cultures and lived cosmologies that have contributed historically and existentially to the very formation of modernity (Dussel, 2018, p. 20). PL, moreover, is expressed from and takes into consideration the oppressed, discarded, and excluded of this world because it is precisely their exclusion, rejection, and oppression that has allowed their non-existence and lack of capacity to understand reality to be justified. Therefore, central to PL is to understand the world, its history, from a non-Eurocentric lens and to be active in avoiding contributing to the fetishism of the coloniality of power and knowledge that lies upon the dominant European ideology. From the beginning of Modernity, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1484-1566) was already reading his world and describing the atrocities that were being committed during colonization in the Americas against the nations that already existed and lived in the lands now "discovered" by the Eurocentric Ego Conquiro (Dussel, 1985). The three ways the conquistadors used to extirpate the native nations were 1) unjust, cruel, bloody, and tyrannical wars, 2) murdering the adult males, and 3) dominating the children and women (Dussel, 1985, p. 9). In this way, those who remained alive had to submit to slavery, sexual domination, and pedagogical domination. The latter allowed, especially children—but not only them— to be "civilized," or rather, Europeanized. In this way education, reason, was used as an instrument of ideologization. It can well be affirmed that we are still living the consequences of pedagogical domination in our globalized world. This is largely because education is and will continue to be an instrument of domination if it is not intentional in making education an instrument of liberation. Throughout this essay, we will see how philosophy for/with children is in its essence liberating, particularly in a sense of this term that connects with PL. Despite the different definitions that have been presented to P4wC, disagreements and agreements about its definition are products of the very porous and rhizomatic nature of the concept itself. Critiques of P4wC must be seen from the same philosophical lens that seeks to make philosophy and education for/with children practices that do not perpetuate domination and the very silencing of the voice, reason, and existence of children themselves. Explaining what P4wC is and what it is not can better guide us to see how liberation philosophy and P4wC not only complement each other, but even share philosophical ideals. In substantiating the above claims, this paper addresses four questions: 1) what is and what is not P4wC, 2) what are some of the criticisms it has received, 3) are there decolonial critiques of P4wC, and 4) what, if anything, does PL have to do with P4wC. What is and What is not P4wC? Philosophy for Children (P4C) emerged in the 1970s in the United States initiated by Matthew Lipman. As Vansieleghem and Kennedy (2011) state, in the late 1970s there was a growing interest in critical thinking that was based on the conviction that reasoning is a necessary element of any profound educational reform (p. 173). The introduction of philosophy into the content of schooling, therefore, presented the opportunity for curricular and pedagogical innovation in the practice of schooling. ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 17 With the publication of his philosophical novel Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery (1974), Lipman laid the foundation for the development of the philosophical novel for children. With this novel, Lipman sought to introduce children to engagement with critical dialogue about philosophical issues, with the goal of stimulating the same type of dialogue among groups of students (Vansieleghem & Kennedy, 2011, p. 173). In this way, community of inquiry was put into practice where the stimulation of communal critical thinking led to improved thinking in the individual. As Margaret Sharp (1991) argues "a community of inquiry is characterized by dialogue that is fashioned collaboratively out of the reasoned contribution of all participants" (p. 31). Such dialogue uses reason to achieve discussion of issues such as logic, epistemology, aesthetics, and politics. However, students learn to oppose weak reasoning and to build on strong reasoning always in a context in which dependence on and respect for others is vital. In this way, philosophy is practiced by children in community. It is fundamental for P4C to be practiced and developed in community. In communion and dialogue with others, it is possible to ensure that education is not only about transmitting a body of knowledge, but also about equipping children with the skills and dispositions they need to create new knowledge and make better practical judgments (Margaret Sharp, 1991, p. 34). Hence, since its beginnings, P4C rejects a banking pedagogy (Freire, 2005), where the educator counts the material, and the students receive it. Such a pedagogy fails to recognize that the purpose of education should be to bring forth responsible, moral, and upright people who are capable of making wise judgments about what is right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate. Communal dialogue, then, becomes an inescapable means of education and community of inquiry, valuable in its own right, while giving rise to the traits essential to a morally discerning person (Margaret Sharp, 1991, p. 34). Already in the early seventies, Gareth Matthews (1984) was also contributing to the development of the proposal of P4C by questioning traditional education for being limited to the transmission of knowledge and undervaluing the voice of the child. In fact, Matthews (1984) proposes a symmetrical relationship between the adult and the child, where the child is an equal thinking partner. Thus, instead of speaking of P4C, Matthews (1984) proposes that it be called "dialogues with children." In this way, the name itself hints that children do not receive philosophy from their instructors or teachers, but are themselves the ones who invent it. Hence, P4C theorists and practitioners have begun to use terms such as "philosophy with children" (PwC) or even "philosophy for and with children", emphasizing that it is children who do philosophy, not those who receive it. As Reed-Sandoval (2019) explains, philosophical discussions practiced in communities of inquiry 1) emphasize dialogue and communication, which can be verbal, written, artistic, and/or physical; 2) maintain a sustained focus on one or more fundamental philosophical questions; 3) questions and ideas are generated by the students/children/youth themselves; 4) the adult facilitator is there to guide and support and does not lecture or become overtly directive (p. 6). Thus, P4wC overcomes a hierarchical education, where students must blindly do what the teacher says, and overcomes a trivialized and reductionist notion of children's critical reasoning and meaning-making abilities. ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 18 What Have Been Some of the Criticisms of P4wC? As ideal as the philosophy program for and with children may seem, it has received criticism. Most of the time, these criticisms are ill-founded and/or uninformed. In their defense of the program, Murris et al. (2008) summarize in four points what P4C is not: 1) P4C is not philosophy "lite," 2) it is not anti- dialogical, 3) it is not therapy, and 4) it is not primarily a "truth-seeking" process (p. 1). These four characteristics of what is not P4C are based on critiques of philosophy for children by scholars in the field of philosophy of education, broadly defined. What is a cause for concern about the criticisms is that, for the most part, they come from the unedited individual information and expressions available on websites, classroom resource materials, an occasional DVD of classroom practice, and even a newsletter published by P4C's national charity, S.A.P.E.R.E. (Murris et al., 2008, p. 2). As the commentators to the critiques assert, the critics, except for Nancy Vansieleghem, have ignored a rich literature on P4C of over forty years and have created their own account of P4C, after which they have expressed their own weak or erroneous conception of what P4C is. This without clarifying whether what they criticize is the approach of Lipman and Sharp (IAPC), of the S.A.P.E.R.E. variant, of the Philosophy Foundation, of some version practiced outside the Anglo-Saxon West, or of any attempt at pre-university philosophy. We shall see. Hand (2008) thinks that P4C is a watered-down version of analytical academic philosophy. That is, instead of taking into consideration the dialogical, political, social, and meta-reflexive dimension of the program, Hand (2008) reduces P4C to a conceptual analysis of this type of philosophy (Murris et al., 2008). Murris et al. (2008) urges Hand (2008) "to stop insulting children and to regard dialogical engagement with the rich tradition of P4C as a unique opportunity for both philosophers of and in education to reflect on the aims and purpose of both, education and philosophy" (p. 3). P4C is also said to be anti-dialogical. According to Vansieleghem (2006), P4C has presented a new 'common' approach that overcomes the teacher-centered model of domination with an approach based on critical thinking skills (p. 180). In this case, it is rationality that erases the asymmetrical power relationship between teachers and students. This approach, Vansieleghem (2006) argues, does not liberate the child because it puts critical thinking above dialogic practice. By focusing on critical thinking, "dialogue can only function with the means inherent to the prescribed scenario" (Vansieleghem, 2006, p. 180). Then, one does not listen to the self or the other, but to the voice of reason. Murris et al. (2008) respond to this criticism, denouncing that Vansieleghem's (2006) argument wrongly assumes that the goal of the community of inquiry is agreement. This ends up excluding those not included or assimilating them to the totality of the rational. However, Murris et al. (2008) assert that P4C is "active, evaluative, and infinitely receptive" (p. 4). Agreement, if it is reached, must be the product of consensus, not the imposition of reason. After all, for there to be a dialogue with the other, to include and listen to them, the capacity for critical reasoning is necessary. Here we could demonstrate that excluding, dominating, silencing the other is only an unethical act and, therefore, anti- philosophical. ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 19 The third criticism of P4C is that it is not therapy. In The Dangerous Rise of Therapeutic Education, Ecclestone and Hayes (2009) argue that there has been a therapeutic practice that some practitioners of P4C have made famous that promotes an enthusiastic and uncritical emotional well-being among children (p. 33). This ends up creating and reproducing a vague notion of what communities of inquiry are. Furthermore, while some practitioners of P4C engage in better ways of discussing specific philosophical issues, other educators are steeped in pedagogies of "feeling good about oneself and others," "being respectful," "empathetic," and disagreeing in "appropriate" ways (Ecclestone & Hayes, 2009, p. 33). This ends up creating the community of inquiry in a therapeutic, rather than philosophical, circle. Murris et al. (2008) agree with Ecclestone and Hayes (2009). The so-called "therapeutic turn" in P4C ends up undermining parenting and fostering dependence on emotional support in children (p. 4). Furthermore, the therapeutic turn trivializes and ritualizes children's thinking. Murris et al. (2008), therefore, stress that the solution to the exclusively therapeutic turn in P4C must be resolved through the training and education of good quality P4C practitioners. The fourth and final criticism discussed by Murris et al. (2008) is that P4C is not primarily a "truth- seeking" process. Judith Suissa (2008) perceives that philosophy practiced with children sometimes focuses on truth rather than meaning. This occurs because in emphatically seeking to obtain truth (i.e., valid and invalid arguments), questions of "what does it all mean," "what is it for" are not accommodated (p. 139). She argues that this shift from truth to meaning is especially important for older children between the ages of 14 and 18 who already have a fund of knowledge they have acquired throughout life. Therefore, Suissa (2008) argues that if the philosophy practiced in schools focuses only on critical thinking, this philosophy runs the risk of failing to address the questions of meaning in human life, as John Dewey advocated. Murris et al. (2008) argue that Suissa (2008) is wrong to argue that P4C proceeds from a mere process approach, focusing too much on truth criteria. They explain that a little study of Lipman's work would enable Suissa (2008) and other critics of P4C to see that the program is also concerned with creative and sympathetic thinking and reasonableness. This means that the premises, reasons, and arguments presented in communities of inquiry are not only based on multiple and diverse perspectives but are also tested for their strength and relevance in the very debate in the community of inquiry. In this way, the analysis of philosophical concepts practiced in P4C helps to develop the "philosophical ear," to discern the philosophical in the everyday and to find its meaning (Murris et al, 2008, p. 4). It is there in the listening and discussion of the philosophical content of the non-philosophical - reality - that the ethical, political, social, and aesthetic dimensions of human experience find a place and attention in P4C. As we have learned in this session of critiques and responses, practitioners of P4wC find themselves operating in a heterogeneous, porous, and rhizomatic field. Just like the meta-philosophical question of "what is philosophy?" or "what is PL?" the question of what P4wC is resists an unequivocal answer with which all scholars who practice or study P4wC agree. This is entirely normal, since like any concept or definition, it is permeated by 'conceptual porosity.' Susan Buck-Morss (2009) uses the concept of porosity to recognize that the concepts we use as theorists, philosophers, historians, and ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 20 writers never fully encompass the whole they are trying to explain and introduce. Moreover, when we try to capture and explain concepts such as ‘nation,’ ‘race,’ and ‘civilization’ we are inevitably faced with the reality that we can only capture a partial aspect of the concept since it always “travel across cultural binaries, moving in and out of conceptual frames and in the process, creating new ones” (Buck-Morss, 2009, p. 111). All concepts, therefore, always present an unembraceable and existentially dynamic reality. Trying to fit them into historical narratives, theoretical definitions, and philosophical reflections is to use violence to present a single story of a complex and compound reality. In this porosity, the rhizomatic nature of the practice of P4wC also operates. Murris (2016) argues that PwC is "a rhizomatic intra-active pedagogy bringing about an epistemological change, a shift in power, and requires an unlearning of didactic teaching practices (p. xiii). PwC is rhizomatic because as Deleuze and Guattari (1987; 2013) rightly propose, the 'rhizome' is knowledge constructed as non- hierarchical that sprouts and navigates in any direction and flexible and dynamic enough to act in other directions, places, and contexts (Murris, 2016, p. 12). Consequently, practitioners of P4wC are epistemologically different when it comes to defining the program. It would therefore be a mistake to propose an essentialist definition of P4wC that does not do justice to the porosity and rhizome of the practice, the program, the conception of philosophy, as well as the performance and development of the inquiring community itself. Moreover, it would be erroneous to assert that P4wC does not accommodate a community of inquiry inspired by the decolonizing project of PL. That task was embarked upon by Amy Reed-Sandoval (2019) with her article entitled "Can Philosophy for Children Contribute to Decolonization?" In the next section of this article, we will see that to make a philosophy of liberation for/with children, it is necessary to have the intentionality to address the coloniality of knowledge and power that permeates and threatens the very movement of P4wC. Without intentionality, we could be complicit in an oppressive system of domination and exclusion. Are There Decolonial Critiques of P4wC? As Rainville (2001) states, when we speak of community of inquiry in P4wC, we must address the issues of inequality that some children carry with them when they arrive in the classroom or space where the philosophy session is to take place. Although the P4wC program is highly interactive and opens the door for a rhizomatic intra-active pedagogy to be practiced with children, Rainville (2001) proposes that we should scrutinize PwC as a program, just as we should be doing with all modern democratic institutions (p. 66). That is, if we live in a world where the coloniality of power and knowledge permeates the world-system, we must be highly sensitive and critical to recognize the structures of sin and domination that also threaten P4wC. Decolonial theorist Aníbal Quijano (2000) with his concept of "coloniality of power and knowledge," differentiated what is "colonialism" from "coloniality." As Reed-Sandoval (2019) explains, while ““colonialism” refers to the imposition, establishment, and perpetuation of formal colonial regimes over Indigenous populations; the term "coloniality" refers to the various social, political, economic, and epistemic legacies that continue to exist in the aftermath of formal colonial regimes” (p. 2). "The coloniality of power and knowledge," in turn, describes the totalization and systematization of coloniality as the remnants of colonization, which produced racist political, economic, and epistemic systems of domination and exclusion that make it difficult to even imagine a world without coloniality ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 21 (Reed-Sandoval, 2019, p. 2). Hence, the need for decolonization. However, decolonization is a process. That is, it cannot be achieved overnight. The best we can do is to lay the foundations and provide the conditions that will allow future generations to be less colonized than the present ones. This is why the education of children plays an important role. Reed-Sandoval (2019) clearly agrees with the goal of epistemic decolonization of marginalized groups, especially when the children in question are racialized, gendered, colonized, and subaltern bodies (Grosfoguel, 2007). For this reason, it is imperative to develop a philosophy of liberation for/with children. This philosophy cannot be ostensibly neutral. As Kohan (1995) presents in "The Origin, Nature and Aim of Philosophy in Relation to Philosophy for Children," Matthew Lipman and Margaret Sharp understood that educators must be neutral and impartial in the classroom. This is to maintain objectivity among the students. However, how can one be impartial in the face of injustice or neutral in the face of coloniality? If we do not act against injustice and the coloniality of power and knowledge, we end up being entangled by it. If, as Rainville (2001) argues, PwC does not consider the treatment that Native/Indigenous students often receive within a white majority, then it is overlooking the impact that society, politics, and the world-system have on these students. Among a white majority, Native/Indian students may feel that no one will take into consideration or care about what they have to say (Rainville, 2001, p. 69). Especially, if issues of race and racism are intentionally left untouched. The issue of racism is unlikely to arise organically in contexts where the white majority is especially protected and privileged by the coloniality of power and knowledge. Reed-Sandoval (2019) recognizes like Rainville (2001) and Kohan (1995) that a neutral and impartial philosophy neither decolonizes nor liberates. Moreover, PwC must question the very ideal of democracy. As Kohan (1995) and Rainville (2001) acknowledge, the United States, like other Western "democracies," has perpetuated injustices against peripheral countries. This is without recognizing that within democracies, there are second-class citizens against whom the system can legally discriminate. Thus, it is necessary to study the same community of inquiry from a decolonial lens. In this way, it can be emphasized that the fact that a space is democratic does not mean that all those involved feel invited. This is due to systemic structures of the coloniality of power and knowledge. Therefore, we need a philosophy of liberation for/with children that does not ignore the coloniality of power and knowledge and that manages to imagine a world without coloniality. What, if Anything, Does PL Have to do With P4wC As Beorlegui (2010) states in his book Historia del pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano, it would be misleading to affirm that liberation philosophy is a "movement without fissures, whose members already had a clear and common problematic, methodology, philosophical presuppositions, etc. on which their philosophizing would be based" (p. 670). Therefore, to label PL as Marxist and/or revolutionary, or as a purely populist discourse on Latin America, or to label it as Christian philosophy would be to reduce it to orientations that describe "only some of the tendencies of the philosophy of liberation, and not the whole current" (Beorlegui, 2010, p. 671). ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 22 The preparation and development of the philosophical liberation movement was influenced by five matrices: 1) an economic matrix: dependency theory; 2) a pedagogical matrix: Paolo Freire's pedagogy of the oppressed; 3) a religious matrix: liberation theology; 4) an artistic and literary matrix: Mexican muralism and the boom of the Latin American novel; and 5) a philosophical matrix: the pioneering work of Leopoldo Zea and Augusto Salazar Bondy (Beorlegui, 2010, p. 677). From these five matrices emerged and continue to emerge thinkers who identify with the murdered and most disadvantaged, rejected and silenced of this world, to develop projects that liberate, protect, and include all possible types of lives and worlds. I argue that, inspired by the philosophical liberation movement, a conceptualized and intentionally decolonizing project can be developed to aid in the mission of liberating children. P4wC can be central to that task. As Mohr Lone (2021) states, "Children contemplate the meaning of being human and think about social, political, and ethical problems. When adults consider these subjects, however, children's voices invariably go unheard" (p. 8). As a movement that seeks to liberate the child from this inequitable power dynamic, P4wC came to give voice to the silenced: the children. So, first of all, this movement is already recognizing and letting the other question us with their voice. This is fundamental, although not sufficient, to make a philosophy of liberation for/with children. P4wC acts as a PL when it enables children to understand and address the original sin of modernity. Dussel (1973), inspired by Bartolomé de las Casas, maintains that "The original sin of modernity was to have ignored the sacred 'Other' in the Indian, in the African, in the Asian, and to have reified it as an instrument within the world of North Atlantic domination" (p. 193). That original sin continues to operate by killing, exploiting, ignoring, dominating, and controlling children, women, queer people, disabled bodies, the poor, the elderly, the undocumented, indigenous/native peoples, people of color, colonial subjects, and other beings that the dominant ideology of coloniality does not consider worthy of living, being loved, and protected. However, discussions of liberation philosophy for/with children need not always be about the original sin of modernity or the coloniality of power and knowledge. Whenever the child questions, imagines, and explores the ethical, political, social, and aesthetic dimensions of human experience, he/she/they are exercising PL. Precisely because they are questioning, exploring, imagining, they are opening themselves to the unknown, to the new. This openness is characteristic of the freedom that comes from the love of life (biophilia). As Fromm (1964) argues, "If love for life is to develop, there must be freedom "to"; freedom to create and to construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine" (p. 57). In this way, the child is not only shown to be a philosopher (lover of wisdom) but also a biophile (lover of life). To achieve this, freedom, justice, and love itself expressed in gestures more than in ideas is necessary for the child as well as for the adult. And this because without love, there is no philosophy. Practitioners of P4wC must also be lovers of life and wisdom if they want to practice decolonizing and liberating philosophy with their children. It is not enough for P4wC to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion of its facilitators. Although this is extremely important. As Reed-Sandoval (2019) states, ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 23 having diverse educators has been shown to be beneficial for underrepresented, underserved, and students of color (Reed-Sandoval, p. 11). However, we need facilitators who love life and wisdom so much that they explore, question, and imagine a better world, a world without coloniality. Facilitators who recognize that having a group of diverse children does not magically make inclusion happen. Facilitators who are aware of their biases, their identities, their positionality and how these affects or could affect the community of inquiry. Facilitators who recognize that silence is welcome and that forcing children to talk is a type of violence. Facilitators who scrutinize the structures of oppression, domination, colonization, and death that permeate their curriculum. As Reed-Sandoval (2019) states, "P4C practitioners should scrutinize the Eurocentrism that continues to characterize much of professional philosophy and the ways in which this may be impacting P4C classes" (p. 12). That is, we need to add literature for children that is intentionally diverse, inclusive, and equitable, written from a decolonial and liberation lens, from the global south, that does not focus disproportionately on telling a story from white, male, heterosexual, cisgender, Christian, middle- and upper-class perspectives. Finally, we need facilitators who are willing to live what they teach, especially when their philosophy sessions seek to put decolonial and liberation pedagogies into practice. Liberating intentionality in practice will be concretely based on moving from facilitator neutrality to intentional bias. As Kennedy & Kohan (2021) argue by endorsing the words of Elicor (2019), "impartiality in the social context is a myth used by the "gated community" in the service oppression" (p. 12). This is largely because "our ideas, views, and opinions are not objective and independent, but rather the result of myriad social messages and conditioning forces" (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017, p. 66-67). So, we must be intentional in practicing an informed bias toward the culturally and socially marginalized through a liberating P4wC. This philosophy will pay special attention to communities that are underrepresented, marginalized, and oppressed by the dominant culture and will not reinforce the monopolization of positions of authority by racialized people such as whites in the P4wC community. This monopolization has clearly not been neutral, as we all have biases, prejudices, and discriminations inherited through socialization. As Chetty et al. (2022) state, for more than the forty years that PwC has operated as a program, it "have paid little or no attention to the voices of BIPOC —be it in philosophy, pedagogy and education, or children's literature" (p. 78). I propose, therefore, that P4wC should move from neutrality to the intentionality of a bias towards the silenced and most disadvantaged. This bias will function as the "epistemic privilege to the oppressed" (Stenberg, 2006) which interprets scriptural traditions and our world from the perspective of those "who have not yet named the world—the marginal, the silenced, the defeated" (Welch, 1985, p. 34). This will not seek to change the open dialogic nature of the community of inquiry, nor the philosophical creation among the children themselves, but rather will impact the P4wC curriculum to engage in an inter-philosophical dialogue with the liberation philosophy movement and its thinkers, to strengthen the creation and development of new literature, novels, image-based stories, etc., aimed at children, and to familiarize the P4wC facilitators themselves with the decolonizing and liberating efforts that liberation philosophy has been making for over fifty years. As Leopoldo Zea (2017) states, "We have to be responsible for our attitudes because through them we not only commit to our own existence, but also commit to the existence of others" (p. 127). We educators have a special and vocational obligation to be responsible for our attitudes because through ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 24 them we stake our existence and that of our students and others. If we recognize, along with Baldwin (2008), that education always occurs within a social framework designed to perpetuate societal goals (p. 17), then we have concluded that to create a better world, one cannot be neutral, passive, and indifferent. Intentionality and commitment are needed, so that our students can be true lovers of wisdom and life. In this liberating intentionality must reside the philosophy of liberation for/with children. Concluding Remarks In this paper we have seen that P4wC and PL fit together very well if the former has an understanding of the coloniality of power and knowledge and the intentionality of contributing to the process of decolonization. Intentionality biased in favor of the oppressed, silenced, and disadvantaged of this world is fundamental for not perpetuating the totalization of coloniality and for children to be able to think and imagine a world free of oppression, prejudice and death. Achieving this would be ideal to develop a philosophy of liberation for/with children, which is necessary to lay the foundations and provide the conditions that will allow future generations to be less colonized than the current ones. References Baldwin, J. M. (2008). A Talk to Teachers. Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, 107(2), 15–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7984.2008.00154.x Beorlegui, C. (2010). Historia del pensamiento filosofico latinoamericano: Una busqueda incesante de la identidad (3a. ed.). Publicaciones De La Unive. http://public.ebookcentral.proquest.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=3214102 Buck-Morss, S. (2009). Hegel, Haiti, and Universal History. 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Childhood & Philosophy, 15, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2019.42659. Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M. Bergman Ramos, Trans.). Continuum. Fromm, E. (1964). The Heart of Man. Harper and Row. Hand & C. Winstanley (eds) Philosophy in Schools. Continuum, pp 132-145. ANALYTIC TEACHING AND PHILOSOPHICAL PRAXIS VOLUME 43, ISSUE 1 (2023) 25 Kennedy, D., & Kohan, W. O. (2021). Some ethical implications of practicing philosophy with children and adults. Childhood & Philosophy, 17, 01–16. https://doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2021.61025 Margaret Sharp, A. (1991). The Community of Inquiry: Education for Democracy. Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, 9(2), 31–37. https://doi.org/10.5840/thinking19919236 Matthews, G. B. (1980). Philosophy & the Young Child. Harvard University Press. Mohr Lone, J. (2021). Seen and not heard: Why children’s voices matter. Rowman & Littlefield. Murris, K. (2016). The Posthuman Child: Educational transformation through philosophy with picturebooks. Routledge. Murris, K., Bramal, S., Egley, S., Gregory, M., & Haynes, J. (2009). What Philosophy with Children is not: Responses to some critics and constructive suggestions for dialogue about the role of P4C in Higher Education. Academia, 1–8. Quijano, A. (2000). Coloniality of power and Eurocentrism in Latin America. International Sociology, 15(2), 215–232. https://doi.org/10.1177/0268580900015002005 Rainville, H. (2001). Philosophy for Children in Native America: A Post-Colonial Critique. Analytic Teaching, 21(1). Reed-Sandoval, A. (2019). Can Philosophy for Children Contribute to Decolonization. Precollege Philosophy and Public Practice, 1, 27–41. https://doi.org/10.5840/p4201811284 Sensoy, Ö., & DiAngelo, R. J. (2017). Is everyone really equal? An introduction to key concepts in social justice education (Second edition). Teachers College Press. Stenberg, S. J. (2006). Liberation Theology and Liberatory Pedagogies: Renewing the Dialogue. College English, 68(3), 271–290. Suissa, J. (2008) Philosophy in the Secondary School – a Deweyan Perspective; in: M. Vansieleghem, N. (2006). Listening to Dialogue. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 25(1–2), 175–190. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-006-0008-x Vansieleghem, N., & Kennedy, D. (2011). What is Philosophy for Children, What is Philosophy with Children—After Matthew Lipman? Journal of Philosophy of Education, 45(2), 171–182. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2011.00801.x Welch, S. D. (1985). Communities of Resistance and Solidarity: A Feminist Theology of Liberation. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Zea, L. (2017). Philosophy as Commitment (1952). In A. A. Oliver (Trans.), Philosophy as Commitment (1952) (Vol. 1). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190601294.003.0010 Address Correspondences to: Erick J. Padilla Rosas Marquette University Ph.D. student, Educational Policy and Leadership erick.padillarosas@marquette.edu mailto:erick.padillarosas@marquette.edu