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P4C, Community of Inquiry, 
and Methodological Faith

Dale Cannon

ABSTRACT: In this paper I venture to bring out and disclose an element of faith at the heart of the kind of critical 
inquiry that we encourage and foster in philosophy with children.  It is clearly distinct from doubt, the kind of doubt we cus-
tomarily associate with what makes critical thinking critical, but, properly understood, it grants to doubt and critical reflection 
essential roles in the process.  What I mean by “faith” in this connection may be understood as trust and confidence in the 
process of thoughtful inquiry (especially with thoughtful peers).  Our coming to recognize the centrality of faith in this sense 
within philosophy with children may entail some changes in our thinking about where philosophy with children fits into the 
larger cultural movements of our time and as well about how involvement in philosophy with children bears upon the beliefs 
and traditions of the sub-cultural backgrounds of children who participate.
 I should make clear that my perspective is informed by the philosophical insights of Michael Polanyi into what he 
calls the tacit dimension of all kinds of knowing, even the most rigorous and formal, especially considering knowing as an 
ongoing process.  Polanyi focuses a great deal on what he speaks of as “the fiduciary [i.e., faith] coefficient of our knowing” 
– indeed, of all explicit propositions we may happen to entertain or hold.  He takes as his paradigm of knowing (that is, the 
knowing process) the anticipation of an approaching discovery, whether in the natural sciences or in other areas.
 I will also relate my discussion to the well-known controversy between W. K. Clifford’s “The Ethics of Belief” and 
William James’ “The Will to Believe.”  I contend that James’ most important point in that controversy has much more to do 
with general epistemology than philosophy of religion.

Introduction

My aim in this paper is to bring out and disclose an element of faith at the heart of the kind of reasoned, 
critical inquiry that we encourage and foster in philosophy with children.  I think that there is something 

of this sort at the heart of all varieties of what we normally think of as “critical thinking.”  

But in philosophy with children (though this may also apply elsewhere, such as in the college classroom), 
we often find ourselves in a position of having to initiate and help develop in young people not only a certain 
practice of critical inquiry (the kinds of intellectual and verbal moves that it involves and the skills that its exercise 
entails) but also and crucially a trust in it, a confidence that it is a worthwhile thing to pursue and acquire com-
petence in, and a hope that something of value will come of its pursuit.  Now normally in the everyday practice 
of critical inquiry we take for granted these things; they go unsaid.  But when we seek to get it started in young 
people, and between them and their peers in a genuine community of inquiry, where we are seeking to get them 
to invest themselves in it in a way they have never done before, it becomes more a self-conscious matter for we 
who are its facilitators; it becomes something we can’t take for granted or ignore.  

Methodological Faith

I believe it is appropriate to call this trust, this confidence, and this hope, taken together, a sort of faith in 
the process of critical inquiry, a methodological faith.  Of course I do not mean “faith” in a religious sense.  I am 

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not trying to smuggle religious faith into the back door.  I am comfortable with calling it “generic faith” or “faith 
in a generic sense,” or “methodological faith.”  To give oneself over to reasoned inquiry clearly involves a sort of 
venture that is fraught with uncertainty and risk.  One cannot know with any certain assurance what will result, 
especially for the person whom we are trying to initiate into the process.  You can’t justify with any completeness 
that it will be worth her self-investment in advance, although you may be able to expose her to a limited extent 
to the successful ventures of others.

I want to make clear that the sort of faith I am speaking of involves as an essential component of that faith a 
respect for the contributions of other participants in the process of inquiry (both those who have already spoken 
and those who have not yet spoken, a trust, a confidence, and a hope in their contributions) and, crucially, a nur-
turing care and respect for one’s own contribution to the process (both what has been contributed up to the present and 
what is yet to come).  A crucial role for the facilitator therefore is to evoke and build that faith and that respect in 
each member of the community, where there may be very little of it in evidence when a community of inquiry is 
first finding its feet with all that it involves.  That is to say, a given would-be member of the community may have, 
even when asked, no faith at all in the process and no faith that she/he might have anything valuable to say, least 
of all valuable to the others.  In such a case, the facilitator/teacher must supply the missing, not yet evident, not 
yet emergent, faith and respect in the person and her/his contribution that she/he does not yet have.

What I want to call attention to here is that what I am here calling faith is the exact opposite of a certain kind 
of doubt – specifically, doubt that anything good at all will come from investing myself in the communal process 
of inquiry, doubt that I will have anything of value to contribute to the process, indeed, doubt that anything of 
value to me will result from the inquiry.  And if there is much of a spirit of skepticism about the process of inquiry 
shared by members of the group (as there often can be as adolescence is approached), especially a skepticism 
or cynicism that might occasionally be directed toward the potential contributions of shy and reticent students 
who doubt the value of their own contributions, you can be sure that the shy and reticent students in question 
will never move beyond ground zero – unless there is some kind of intervention on the part of the facilitator to 
counter that skepticism and doubt and bring to birth from within the group hope and confidence in the process 
and in those persons’ contributions.  

Now all of this I suspect may be fairly obvious to reflective, seasoned facilitators of young people’s communi-
ties of philosophical inquiry.  I don’t think I am saying anything radically new.  However, I want to call attention 
to how there is a certain tension between the cultivation of this sense of faith in the process of reasoned inquiry 
and our dedication to cultivating critical thinking in accordance with the paradigm of critical inquiry that has 
characterized modern intellectual culture—a paradigm whose motto is “Doubt unless and until one has sufficient 
reason to believe.”  “Doubt,” versus “Believe” or “Doubt” versus “Have faith.”  Make the advocate of belief first 
offer proof, or at least sufficient reason to believe before taking him at his word.  Take nothing simply on faith.  

Now were methodological doubt to be our first advice to young people we seek to initiate into a community 
of philosophical inquiry, and were this advice meant and understood literally, I think we would all agree that 
we would get nowhere fast and be working against ourselves.  To doubt the process of reasoned inquiry before it 
has even gotten off the ground, to cultivate a critical suspicion that takes in (or takes on) this process as well as 
everything else, to insist that reasoned inquiry first prove itself before one gives oneself to it (even tentatively), is 
a ticket to failure.  Indeed, I believe that were we to come to think about this deeply, we would realize that our 
own trust, confidence, and hope in the process of reasoned inquiry is similarly grounded in faith in this generic 
sense and not in doubt.  I do not mean faith in some absolutist unquestioning sense.  Doubt continues to have 
its place and function, to be sure—please don’t get me wrong—but prior to doubt and even enabling reasoned 
doubt is a root faith and confidence in reasoned inquiry—not uncritical but an acritical or precritical faith that is 
prior to critical examination and grounding it.1

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Michael Polanyi and the Shift from Critical to Post-Critical

Were we to come to recognize the centrality of faith in this generic, acritical sense within philosophy with 
children may entail some changes in our thinking about where philosophy with children fits into the larger 
cultural movements of our time.  What I have in mind has to do with the so-called shift from a modern to a 
post-modern intellectual sensibility.  What goes under the name of “post-modern” intellectual movements is a 
very mixed bag of things, not all of which are compatible—some good, some not so good.  I don’t think it is all 
simply confusing and confused.  It is quite a chore to sift the wheat from the chaff.  I do think that much of 
what has gone under the name, especially of “deconstructive post-modern” currents is to a large extent modern-
ist critical doubt turned upon modernism’s own presuppositions and paradigms —i.e., it amounts to the modern 
critical project deconstructively turned upon itself.  Much of this is good as far as it goes, but rarely if ever does 
it point forward to any constructive alternative.  There are a few exceptions, sometimes going under the name 
of “constructive post-modernism.”  One of these exceptions, though he made no use of this phrase, is the work 
of philosopher-scientist Michael Polanyi, who subtitled his magnum opus Personal Knowledge, “Toward a Post-
Critical Philosophy.”  I see philosophy for children, as I am conceiving it in this paper, as exemplifying the shift 
from a Critical to a Post-Critical sensibility in the sense that Polanyi understood it.2

I should make clear that my perspective is informed by the philosophical insights of Polanyi into what he 
calls the tacit dimension of all kinds of knowing,3  even in the most rigorous and formal of the sciences, especially 
considering knowledge as an ongoing process (shifting from the noun “knowledge” to the verb “knowing”).  We 
have been accustomed through positivist philosophy, the epitome of the modernist critical project, to think of 
knowing in its explicit dimensions only, especially in the sciences.  This has led to all sorts of distortion, prin-
cipally because of its neglect of what is going on in the tacit, non-explicit, unspoken dimensions of scientific 
practice only recently come to light (in large part due to Polanyi’s contributions and influence) come to light.  
Polanyi focuses a great deal on what he speaks of as “the fiduciary [= faith] coefficient of our knowing”4 – indeed, 
of all explicit propositions we may happen to entertain or hold.  This tacit coefficient of our knowing is largely 
acritical, not uncritical.  The very attempt in science or anywhere else to make it critical (i.e., to subject it to 
explicit critical examination) easily misrepresents it and disables the tacit practice that it relies upon.  He takes 
as his paradigm of knowing (that is, his paradigm of the knowing process) the anticipation of an approaching 
discovery, whether in the natural sciences or in other areas.5 For me this paradigm serves well for what it is that 
is pursued in a community of philosophical inquiry.

W. K. Clifford and William James

It may help to clarify what I am getting at by relating it to the well-known controversy between W. K. Clif-
ford’s “The Ethics of Belief” and William James’ “The Will to Believe” in the last years of the 19th century.  All 
of us have been long accustomed to think of critical thinking as specifically involving a disposition to doubt until 
sufficient evidence proves otherwise and therefore as essentially opposed to a disposition of faith as a matter of 
believing without sufficient evidence.  Very likely for many of us Clifford’s paradigmatic essay, “The Ethics of Be-
lief,”6  has had some influence upon us on this topic.  In that essay he famously advances the claim, “It is wrong 
always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.”  The argument he offers in 
support of it, when examined closely in light of the concept of methodological faith as I am articulating it, is 
a lot less convincing that it may otherwise seem.  There he sets out two vivid cases where inquiry was cut short 
and a conclusion prematurely reached and then acted upon with tragic consequences: one where a ship owner 
concluded that his emigrant ship was seaworthy without having thoroughly investigated the evidence, and the 
other where certain agitators concluded that some teachers of religion were illegally and immorally indoctrinat-
ing their children, again without having thoroughly investigated the evidence.  

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I agree with Clifford that the ship owner and the agitators are wrong in these cases, but I submit that they 
were wrong not because they believed when they should have doubted, as Clifford maintains, but that they al-
lowed their impatient hankering for a certain outcome of the investigation in question to override an appropri-
ate faith in the process of reasoned inquiry and in the result that that sometimes agonizingly slow process would 
have produced.  They allowed their prejudice to sway their conclusion rather than actual evidence.  One might 
say that each case was a situation of distrust, lack of confidence, and lack of hope in the process of reasoned 
investigation.  Of course it is possible to say, as does Clifford, that the ship owner and the agitators should have 
doubted their premature conclusions; but that doesn’t get at the crucial problem.  The real problem is that they 
failed to have faith in the process of inquiry (the disposition to attend to that process and to follow it to the end). 

Note here that methodological faith in these cases does not in advance of a result have sufficient evidence 
that the reasoned inquiry in question will come up with a satisfying result.  There are unavoidable uncertainties 
and risks involved in trusting in it ahead of time.  Simply following Clifford’s general advice to doubt rather 
than to believe literally would undermine this faith and bring the investigation to a halt.  No doubt there will 
be objections that Clifford did not mean that we should doubt the process of reasoned inquiry!  But if we take 
him literally here, such a doubt would be entailed.  My point is that faith in reasoned inquiry and in wherever it 
uncertainly leads on to, takes precedence over doubt and skepticism and should always take precedence.

Now what about William James’ response in his equally famous essay, “The Will to Believe”7?  There are 
some unfortunate circumstances that have led many readers of James’ essay to miss what I think is its main and 
most important point—which has less to do with an issue in philosophy of religion (specifically, with believing 
“the religious hypothesis”) than with an issue in epistemology.  James is in large measure responsible for these 
unfortunate circumstances.  But I would like for us to reconsider his basic argument independently from its 
relevance to “the religious hypothesis.”

James’ principal claim is that where there is insufficient evidence we should withhold belief (note that here 
James is in agreement with Clifford) except where there is what he calls a genuine option.8 A genuine option he 
defines as a situation where (1) we are presented with two candidates for belief, (2) there is no possibility of not 
choosing between them (i.e., when not to choose the one is to choose the other) — i.e., believe or not believe; 
(3) both options are real possibilities; and (4) one of the options holds a unique opportunity for realizing a sig-
nificant benefit.  He then presents five cases besides the religious hypothesis,9 several of which are relevant to 
methodological faith in reasoned philosophical inquiry.  (A) In order to reach a just verdict in a court of law, 
one must first believe (have faith, have the methodological faith) that there is a just verdict to be reached.  (B) 
In order to make progress in pursuit of a scientific discovery, one must believe a discovery is there to be reached 
by following up certain clues.  (C) To make progress in discovering the morally best thing to do in a given set of 
circumstances, one must believe that there is a good to be discovered.  (E & F) Certain realities (such as personal 
relationships like friendship and love, and social organisms of any sort like nations and fraternities [and com-
munities of inquiry]) do not come into being, nor do they remain in existence, apart from belief in them.  

My point in rehearsing these cases cited by James is to call attention to how methodological faith in reasoned 
inquiry is a prime case, perhaps it is the paradigmatic case, of a genuine option for belief, where belief in the 
sense of methodological faith can come—indeed, must come—prior to sufficient evidence, for it is the very means 
that will turn up and bring to light the evidence we seek.  Now in the process of reasoned inquiry, doubt—even 
what I would call methodological doubt—may have an important role to play.  It’s just that its role is not domi-
nant but is subordinate to faith in reasoned inquiry and serves it.  There is no good point to be realized in 
doubting for doubting’s sake; we need good reasons to doubt (even when they may not be fully clear).  As James 
himself put it, we seek first and foremost not to avoid error by doubt but to seek truth by believing in the process 
—“faithing,”10 as it were.

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Summary Conclusion

To summarize: I have sought in this paper to call your attention to the central and essential role of methodo-
logical faith in reasoned inquiry in philosophy for/with children, and how it is somewhat in tension with our 
fidelity to the dominant paradigm of critical thinking in our culture.  I have suggested that a recognition of the 
centrality and priority of methodological faith in this connection coincides with much of what Michael Polanyi 
has written of as a shift from a critical to a post-critical cultural philosophical outlook and what he has to say 
about the tacit dimension of knowing.  And I have shown how it relates in turn to the controversy between W. K. 
Clifford and William James, which many, unfortunately, have misinterpreted as exemplifying a conflict between 
critical inquiry and faith in any sense, whereas James actually was arguing for recognition of a foundational role 
of faith to reasoned inquiry and by no means did he mean to set faith over against reasoned inquiry as its op-
posite. 

Endnotes

1.  “Acritical” is distinct both from “critical” and “uncritical.”  Whereas uncritical refers to what could be and perhaps should be 
subject to critical reflection, “acritical” in important respects cannot be made subject to critical reflection.  It is something on 
which we are inarticulately relying, particularly in our very act of critical reflection; it is prior to it and grounds it, giving it, as 
it were, a place on which to stand.  My use of this distinction is drawn from Michael Polanyi, Personal Knowledge: Toward a 
Post-Critical Philosophy (Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1958), 264 et passim (see the index).

2. For a fuller discussion of what is meant by Critical and Post-Critical sensibilities and the shift between them – and how they 
relate to Pre-Modern, Modern, and Post-Modern sensibilities, see my essay, “Beyond Post-Modernism via Polanyi’s Post-
Critical Philosophy,” The Political Science Reviewer, Volume 37, 68-95, especially the chart on p. 72f.

3. See Michael Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2009, reprint of the Doubleday 1966 
edition).  See also Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, especially indexed reference to the “tacit coefficient” or “tacit component” 
of knowledge;and Michael Polanyi, Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, edited by Marjorie Grene (Chicago: 
University of Chicago Press, 1969), especially part three: “Tacit Knowing.”

4. See Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, pp. 264ff: “The Fiduciary Programme,” and indexed references to “tacit component” and 
“fiduciary.”

5. Polanyi, The Tacit Dimension, p. 25.
6. For ready access to Clifford’s essay, go to this website: <http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_

belief.html>.  The two imagined cases Clifford proposes for consideration, including variations, are given in the first few 
paragraphs of the essay.

7. For ready access to James’ essay, go to this website: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.htm, pp. 1-31.
8. James sets out his definition of “genuine option” in Ibid., section I, pp. 2-4.  He expresses his agreement with Clifford with 

respect to non-genuine options in the next couple of sections.
9. Ibid., sections VIII and IX, pp 18-25.
10. Ibid., section VII, pp. 17-19.

References

For more information on Michael Polanyi, see:
The Polanyi Society website: <http://www.missouriwestern.edu/orgs/polanyi/>.
Polanyi, Michael, 1969.  Knowing and Being: Essays by Michael Polanyi, edited by Marjorie Grene, Chicago: U of 

Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael, 1958. Personal Knowledge: Toward a Post-Critical Philosophy, Chicago: U of Chicago Press.
Polanyi, Michael, 1946. Science, Faith and Society, Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1964.
Polanyi, Michael, 1966. The Tacit Dimension, Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 2009.
Mary Jo Nye, 2011. Michael Polanyi and His Generation: Origins of the Social Construction of Science, New York: Ox-

ford U Press.
Gelwick, Richard, 1977. The Way of Discovery: An Introduction to the Thought of Michael Polanyi, Eugene, OR: Wipf 

and Stock, 2004.
Cannon, Dale, 2008. “Beyond Post-Modernism via Polanyi’s Post-Critical Philosophy,” The Political Science Re-

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viewer, Volume 37, 68-95.

For the original essays by Clifford and James, see:
Clifford, W.K., 1879. “The Ethics of Belief” in Lectures and Essays, Vol. II. London: Macmillan.  Available online 

at <http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/w_k_clifford/ethics_of_belief.html>.
James, William, 1896. “The Will to Believe,” The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy, New York: 

Dover Publications, 1956.  Available online at <http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26659/26659-h/26659-h.
htm>.

For further insight and teaching suggestions on methodological believing in relation to methodological doubting, see:
Elbow, Peter, 1987.  Embracing Contraries: Explorations in Teaching and Learning, New York: Oxford University Press.

Address Correspondences to:

Dale Cannon
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Religious Studies
Dept. of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Western Oregon University
345 Monmouth Ave., Monmouth, OR 97361
cannodw@wou.edu

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