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Reflecting and Looking Forward:  
Inquiring into Inquiry, Philosophy and Community1 

 
 

Laurance J. Splitter  
 

Introduction 
 

  
trace the beginnings of my journey in both P4C and p4c2 to my first encounter with 
Matthew Lipman, in his “office” which was, in fact, a caravan parked on the campus of 
Montclair State College. That was in August 1982, just prior to my oral examination at 

Oxford, in which I managed to persuade the examiners that my thesis in the philosophy of biology 
warranted the award of a doctorate degree. Over the next few years – and I admit, with mixed feelings 
– my intellectual (and physical) energy took me out of theoretical philosophy and into philosophical 
practice, i.e., philosophy for children, although my work in the philosophy of biology had already 
convinced me that philosophers could make important contributions beyond their own field. As 
someone long interested in exploring the connection between philosophy and education, P4C “hit 
the nail on the head”: it was precisely what I had been looking for. I hasten to add, however, that I 
never lost my interest in, or love for, philosophy itself. Indeed, notwithstanding the historical features 
of P4C that linked it to a specific “curriculum” and pedagogic structure, I have always seen p4c (lower 
case intended here) as a way of bringing philosophy and young people together, rather than a self-
contained discipline in its own right. After all, we don’t refer to “Maths for children” or “Science for 
children”, because we want to preserve the idea that what we are doing in schools really is maths and 
science. This is somewhat ironic, given that the practice of teaching these subjects in schools often 
bears little resemblance to what actually goes on in their parent disciplines. To what extent is that also 
true for philosophy, it might be asked?  
  

By way of moving toward an answer to this question, I make two contextual points. First, while 
I do think that we need a clear sense of what “philosophy” means in the context of p4c, I don’t find it 
helpful to insist that it refers to Pragmatist philosophy alone just because (i) Lipman, Sharp and 
subsequent generations of scholars identify with this particular tradition, and (ii) the same tradition 
has emphasized key aspects of the practice of p4c, including those connected with the pedagogical 
environment called “the community of inquiry.” Speaking from experience, I have found children of 
all ages happily and productively drawing on and applying (if inadvertently) aspects of the Anglo-
American analytic tradition, even if this does happen to match my own philosophical predilections. 
Indeed, and this is my second point, I am prepared to assert that philosophy, generally, exemplifies 
certain elements that lie at the heart of education itself, including a commitment to “getting to the 
bottom of things” while realizing that the bottom is rarely, if ever, reached and, accordingly, there is 
always more work to do. This commitment is neatly captured by the term “inquiry” (see Gardner, 
1995). In this essay, I am engaging in a meta-level inquiry into the nature of inquiry.  
 
 It is tempting to cite stereotypes of teaching and learning where the chief dynamic is the 
transmission of “stuff”, along the lines of Freire’s (1970) “banking” model of education, in which case 

I 



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philosophy may seem to offer an attractive alternative on the grounds that there is no “stuff” – in the 
form of accepted content – to be transmitted. However, as appealing as this may be as a marketing 
ploy for p4c, it misrepresents teaching and learning both generally and in the specific case of 
philosophy in schools. On the one hand, good teachers in any subject area understand the importance 
of focusing more on inquiry – as characterized above – (even if their efforts are undermined by rigid 
models of assessment and accountability); and on the other hand, the practice of teaching and 
learning in philosophy does not always qualify as inquiry-based. Think, for example, of philosophy 
courses offered at senior secondary level in Australia, where the sheer amount of textual content 
(“stuff”) leaves little room for genuine inquiry; or of philosophy classrooms at any level where – 
perhaps due to lack of experience or philosophical expertise on the part of the teacher – questioning, 
discussion and other activities remain superficial at best. These two examples represent a tempting but 
false dichotomy that needs to be exposed: that between (objective) “fact” and (subjective) “opinion”. 
Both have their place but, taken together, they squeeze out the crucial domain of inquiry which lacks 
the finality of facts, on the one hand, and the flimsiness of opinions, on the other.  
 
 I have long supported the idea that classrooms and other learning environments should be 
transformed into communities of inquiry, regardless of the subject or discipline being taught. While the 
origins of this concept predate P4C (it being one of Lipman’s and Ann Sharp’s greatest insights to 
infuse the latter with the former), 3 I believe, nevertheless, that we can learn a great deal about what 
such a transformation involves by taking as paradigm the model of the community of philosophical 
inquiry. Freed from the accountability requirements associated with finding the “correct” answers, 
philosophy teachers use “open questioning”, among other strategies, to encourage inquiry – what I 
term “powerful thinking” – in their students.4 More precisely, these strategies encourage “powerful 
talking”, i.e., dialogue (I shall have more to say about this below). However, it does not follow that the 
absence of correct answers is a necessary condition of either open questioning or powerful 
thinking/dialogue. It does not follow unless we are prepared to rule out the possibility of inquiry in 
domains like science where, for all intents and purposes, there are well-established answers or, at least, 
well-understood empirical procedures for arriving at them. Indeed, neither the presence nor the 
absence of “answers” (pre-determined or otherwise) is necessary for inquiry.  
 

Whether implicitly or explicitly, inquiry is preceded and driven by questions, whereby the 
process of inquiry may be construed as a search for solutions or answers to these questions. Generally, 
we ask questions when there is something which (i) we do not know or understand and (ii) we 
wish/seek to know or understand. Wishing and seeking, like asking, reflect a motivation driven by 
curiosity, puzzlement or wonder. But while questions – whether asked explicitly or lying in the 
background – are essential to any inquiry, their presence does not, by itself, signal that some kind of 
inquiry is occurring, or is about to occur. I may ask you whether or not it is raining outside, or to 
account for your whereabouts at the time of the burglary or, in more pedagogically familiar terms, to 
prove a mathematical theorem (i.e., to ask you for the solution in the expectation that it will require 
you to produce a proof), or generate a hypothesis about the results of mixing sodium and chloride 
(i.e., to ask you what happens when you mix them). In all such situations, my questions reflect 
curiosity on my part although they may not produce much by way of inquiry. Notice that this curiosity 
might be “first-order” or “second-order”: the former when someone is genuinely curious as to the 
answers to the questions being asked; the latter – characteristic of the “question-response-evaluation” 
scenarios commonly employed in classrooms – when that curiosity is focused on whether or not those 
being asked know, or can work out, the answer. My contention is that the potential for genuine inquiry 
is inversely proportional to the expectation, on the part of those being asked (students, typically), that 



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those asking (teachers) already know the answers on account of their expertise, reputation or status. 
This expectation, in turn, feeds the desire to satisfy the questioner by providing the correct answer.  
 

What emerges so far, then, is that (i) many questions, whether first or second-order, are not 
aimed at provoking inquiry; (ii) inquiry is not ruled out by asking questions that have determinate 
answers [in any discipline], nor is it guaranteed by asking questions that have no determinate answers 
(as in philosophy); and (iii) over and above the desire to know or understand something new, the 
potential for genuine inquiry depends upon the absence of the expectation that someone else – the 
teacher, the text-book, the computer – already knows the answer. To what extent does this summary 
capture both the nature of inquiry and what actually drives inquiry? Not greatly, it must be said, but it 
does, at least, point us in the right direction, namely, away from a narrow focus on subject matter and 
content, toward specific dispositional characteristics of those who engage in inquiry (Splitter, 2010a). 
Regarding the latter, we should not ignore the connection between what may be termed “professional 
inquiry” – i.e., inquiry engaged in by (adult) inquirers such as scientists, historians, mathematicians, 
philosophers, etc. – and “student inquiry” – i.e., inquiry engaged in by students who may be novices 
with respect to the subjects in question. I have already stated that inquiry is a process aimed at 
answering questions or solving problems which precede and drive it. The detailed nature of this 
process depends upon the subject matter, discipline or field of inquiry, be it philosophy, science, 
history, social studies, literature, mathematics, etc. I am assuming that each of these disciplines can 
indeed be associated with a certain discipline of thought and activity, i.e., a body of rules and 
procedures which guide its followers and practitioners to make certain kinds of moves and avoid other 
kinds. Further, those who hold that the community of inquiry provides an appropriate framework for 
effective teaching and learning are proposing that students acquire and enact collaboratively the same 
disciplines of inquiry as those modelled by their more expert counterparts, albeit at a suitable level of 
complexity in relation to their age, maturity, knowledge level, etc. In short, at the heart of student 
learning in science, philosophy and history lies their own reflective and self-correcting practice in and 
of these disciplines. This idea, aimed at reducing the gap between learning x and doing x is hardly new; 
it serves as a reminder that a community of inquiry is, at least ideally, an authentic environment in 
which novices, as well as experts – with teachers placed somewhere between these extremes – regard 
themselves as thinking scientifically, mathematically, philosophically, and so on (Splitter, 2009; 
Taylor, 1991).5  
 

 

 

The Idea of Settlement 6 

 
 Irrespective of one’s commitment to something called “the truth,” I share the Pragmatist view 
that the process of inquiry involves moving from a state of “unsettlement” to one of (relative) 
“settlement” (judgment), while realizing that the latter is, itself, a “resting place” from which, in due 
course, further inquiry may be launched (just as a plateau represents a resting place on the way to the 
mountain peak) (Dewey, 1938, 1956).7 I also agree with the central place that open questioning plays, 
both in initiating and in furthering the inquiry. But what precisely is open questioning? I have rejected 
the view that open questions are questions with no settled answers, on the grounds that it sets too 
high a standard for inquiry as an activity that can realistically be pursued by students. There ought to 
be room for (open) inquiry irrespective of the state of settlement, at least if the latter refers to what is 
known or understood by relevant experts (notably, scientists and other scholars). And, indeed, there is 
room, if we shift the focus of what counts as settled from the experts to the students, who may or may 
not be on their way to becoming experts. In so doing, we also focus on both the type and the level of 



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motivation that moves them to search for answers (or explanations). I hold that: 
 

The feeling or belief that matters are unsettled, in so far as it determines the dispositional states of 
those inquiring, is the crucial ingredient needed for sparking an inquiry, irrespective of the state 
of settlement among relevant experts in the field.  
 
     In referring to feeling and belief here, I have in mind two aspects of unsettlement which are 

mutually reinforcing. When we are genuinely puzzled or intrigued by something (a question, problem, 
scenario), we both feel a sense of unsettlement that yearns to be resolved (psychological or subjective 
unsettlement) and, within the context and boundaries of our current state of knowledge, believe that 
the answer really is unknown or unresolved (epistemological unsettlement). Of course, when those 
inquiring happen to be, or include, relevant experts, then their sense that things are not settled may 
be taken as definitive of the state of knowledge in the field itself. But since my concern here is with 
the conditions underlying student-based inquiry, we do need to distinguish between questions that 
students find unsettling and those that relevant experts find unsettling.  
 

     The following is a list of dispositions or attitudes that are involved in the inquiry process 
which, taken together, elucidate the role played by the transition from “unsettlement” to “settlement”: 
 

1. An awareness – including self-awareness – that we (i.e. the group or community which is 
asking or responding to the initial question or confronting a puzzling scenario) either don’t 
know the answer to the question or do not understand something which is needed for its 
solution (epistemological unsettlement); 

2. First-order curiosity or puzzlement (psychological unsettlement) which motivates us to look for 
answers, understanding, explanations…8 

3. A belief or expectation that we can find a satisfactory – and satisfying – answer/response/ 
explanation [settlement] or, at least, make some progress toward one (relative settlement); 

4. More general dispositions such as patience, persistence, confidence, thoroughness, respecting 
the procedures appropriate to the mode of inquiry (e.g. scientific or historical method, 
reasoning, conceptual thinking…), and a commitment to self-corrective thinking. These 
dispositions are known as “intellectual virtues”. 

The rationale for adding 3 (the belief or expectation that settlement is possible) is that it motivates 
us to proceed, and reinforces the general dispositions described under 4. Conversely, in the absence of 
such a belief or expectation – which can also be described in terms of hope – any attempt to move 
forward may well be viewed as pointless. Still, it is worth pointing out that in the right circumstances – 
an inspiring teacher who invokes trust, a supportive community of fellow inquirers – we might be 
moved to proceed in the absence of such a belief or hope.  
 

The “Illusion of Unsettlement” 
 

In practice, the dispositional sequence I have outlined does not always run smoothly. Earlier I 
proposed that the potential for genuine inquiry is inversely proportional to the expectation, on the 
part of those being asked (students, typically), that those asking (the teacher) already know the answer 
on account of their expertise, reputation or status. This expectation, in turn, motivates students to 
satisfy the teacher by providing the correct answer (or, at least, the answer she is looking for). It also 
motivates the teacher to provide an appropriate evaluation or confirmation in response (“Right!”; 
“Not quite!”, “Anyone else?”…). Such expectations and motivations distract from, if not subvert, the 



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inquiry process; after all, there is a difference between getting to the bottom of things and arriving, 
expeditiously, at solutions which have been pre-determined. In these situations, which are all-too 
familiar to students and teachers alike, the first-order curiosity about the original question or puzzle, 
outlined in 2 above, is replaced by the motivation to get the right answer and “move on”.  

 
Fortunately, this scenario is not inevitable, even when teachers are confident that they do 

know the answers to, and understand the issues behind, the questions that are asked. Good teachers 
know how to keep the spark of curiosity alive in their students, to fuel their desire to find the answers 
for themselves (albeit collaboratively and under her guidance), and to persuade them that solutions 
are, indeed, within their reach. They do this by distracting students from playing the familiar “Can 
you tell me the answer that I am looking for?” game by acting as co-inquirers and facilitators rather than 
experts with respect to the subject matter involved. This, in turn, requires teachers to engineer a 
different kind of game which may be termed “entertaining the illusion of unsettlement”; that is, 
simulating in the classroom the same kind of environment as might be found among scientists or 
other experts (including philosophers) working at the epistemological boundaries of their disciplines. 
Assuming that the questions at issue do arouse the curiosity of students so that they experience a 
sense of intellectual unsettlement and a corresponding desire to find a solution (1 and 2 above), 
teachers can demonstrate, by their own practice and attitudes, that there will be no inevitable “short-
cuts” to resolution and that the only way for students to relieve their sense of unsettlement is to think 
about the issues for themselves. The following comment nicely captures what I have in mind here: 
“Good teachers…know the set curriculum outcomes, but suspend desire for these… allowing them to 
be rediscovered through [genuine] inquiry…” (Metcalfe and Game, cited in Scholl 2010, 6).  
 

I take it that suspending desire for predetermined curriculum outcomes is akin to both 
suspending desire (on the part of students) to gain the teacher’s approval by obtaining the “right” 
answer, and suspending desire (on the part of the teacher) to push students toward a known outcome. 
How, in practice, do teachers suspend such desire (their own and their students’)? Not by insisting 
that there is no outcome to be obtained; such insistence is likely to drain the potential inquiry of much 
of its interest. Nor again by requiring teachers to pretend that they do not know the likely outcome; 
this threatens to make the whole activity even less authentic than it may seem already. Teachers 
suspend the desire for predetermined outcomes by embedding questions and problems into contexts 
which students find intrinsically enticing, intriguing, puzzling, etc. The expectation here is that such 
intrinsically motivating factors are sufficiently powerful as to subdue or divert the extrinsic desires 
described above. This is why teachers in a community of inquiry, instead of introducing a topic with 
specific questions that are likely to provide only extrinsic motivation (whereby students will ask 
themselves “What answer is she looking for?”), usually begin by sharing a scenario or context (story, 
video, activity, media article, etc.) which both has a strong likelihood of puzzling, intriguing or 
otherwise capturing the interest of students and is linked, in appropriate ways, to the subject matter 
that they intend to cover.  

 
The Case of Philosophy and the “Illusion of Settlement” 

 
Many children, like many adult philosophers, are content to discuss philosophical questions 

indefinitely, without the expectation that at the end of the day, they will have arrived at – and, 
presumably, agreed upon – any solutions. Others, however, may not relish the prospect of an inquiry 
which never ends, preferring either to give up in frustration (“This is going around in circles”; “There 
are no answers so what’s the point?”…) or not to begin in the first place. Again, pointing out to 
students that the questions about which they are deliberating have been around for thousands of years 



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and never satisfactorily answered is likely to appeal to some (“Wow! We are really having a dialogue 
with Plato (etc.) here”) but not others. It is easy to dismiss the negative side by pointing out that this is 
what happens when students are spoon-fed solutions or spend their school lives answering questions 
and solving problems that, as they well know, have been answered and solved by thousands before 
them. However, such a response is not altogether convincing because, irrespective of the 
epistemological status of questions that really do not have settled answers, there is a separate 
expectation – and corresponding belief – on the part of those engaged in an inquiry that if we just 
keep trying, we will, indeed, find a solution and, thereby, conclude the inquiry. Why bother asking 
questions in the first place if we are already convinced that there are no answers?  
 

I had long thought that the only decent response to the conundrum posed by this last 
question was to advise inquirers to adjust their cognitive expectations and beliefs away from the 
unrealistic prospect of the right or final truth of the matter, toward more modest objectives. Two such 
objectives come to mind; one substantive, the other procedural. On the one hand, student inquirers 
should celebrate those occasional “light bulb” or “aha!” moments that signify both a breakthrough in 
their understanding, and a resting point or plateau on their journey toward finding a solution (“So 
there are at least three types of reality,” “I can see now how the mind can exist without being an actual 
object,” “So both intention and outcome are important elements to consider when making ethical 
judgments”, …). On the other hand, they can celebrate mastering a new procedure (argument by 
analogy, identifying hidden assumptions, even asking a philosophical question…) that will likely assist 
them in future inquiries. Needless to say, such objectives tend to be complementary: mastering a new 
procedure leads to a new and important substantive realization, etc.  

 
While I stand by these ways of modifying our original expectations when faced with 

philosophical questions, I now think that something further may also be needed – or, at least, helpful. 
It brings us back to the idea, expressed in condition 3 above, that a key aim of any inquiry is to arrive 
at some kind of settlement which, as I have explained, has both psychological and epistemic aspects. 
For, surely, the settlement aimed for refers to the original question itself, i.e., as a whole, not just in 
part, and not just some procedural gains along the way. In this respect, philosophical inquiry with 
students is not so different from that which engages professional philosophers (and, needless to say, 
teachers of philosophy). When embarking on a philosophical inquiry, we may need to play a different 
game which can be called “entertaining an illusion of settlement”; that is, we proceed with the same 
kind of dispositional state of mind as we would in an area such as science, where there is a clear 
assumption that if only we had sufficient time, energy, patience, etc., we would indeed come up with a 
solution. That we do not, in fact, find it does not dent our commitment to ongoing inquiry, as long as 
we continue to entertain the same illusion. Moreover, we deem the inquiry to be justified and 
worthwhile because, when we look back and see what we have achieved, we realize we have made real 
progress on procedural and/or substantive grounds, as discussed above.  

 
Upon further reflection, I do not think that characterizing the philosophical questions as 

questions with no settled answers is particularly helpful. I am thinking here not just of the need for an 
illusion of settlement to make the inquiry seem worthwhile, but also because it is simply not clear that 
no philosophical questions have settled answers. If we think of such familiar philosophical puzzles as 
those concerning the concept of identity (The Ship of Theseus and Heraclitus’ claim that “You cannot 
step into the same river twice”), it does seem that once we become clear about the meanings of the key 
concepts involved, the puzzles can be resolved. In my terms, conceptual clarification and analysis can, at 
least sometimes, relieve the sense of unsettlement, both psychologically and epistemologically. In this respect such 



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philosophical problems are akin to those in science and other disciplines, yet warrant being described 
as “philosophical” because of the manner in which we seek to solve them.  
 

Follow-up, Probing or Socratic Questions 
 

Thus far I have aligned my discussion of the dispositions conducive to inquiry with the kinds 
of questions that initiate or spark inquiry. But there is another type of question which is highly 
relevant to the structure of inquiry, namely, those questions we often term “procedural” or “follow-
up” questions (as noted in the above heading, I also associate the terms “probing” and “Socratic” with 
this type, because these are the questions characteristically employed by Socrates in his dialogues with 
scholars and students in ancient Athens). In our 1995 book, Ann Sharp and I constructed a graph 
consisting of two axes: “Procedural-Substantive” and “Closed-Open” (Splitter and Sharp 1995, 58). 
Examples of procedural questions include “Are you implying that…?”, “What assumption is being 
made here?”, “Do you agree with her reasoning?”, “If you are right about that, what would follow?”, 
“Can you find a counter-example to this rule?” and so on. What role do such questions play in inquiry 
and how well do they qualify according to the dispositional aspects I have been considering?9  
 

It is no accident that procedural questions of this type are invariably context-dependent (or 
indexical), as indicated by the open-ended “…” and use of the terms “here”, “this”, “that”, “her”, etc., 
whose actual references can be suppled only by tracing them back to specific items (statements, 
persons, etc.) previously referred to. Whatever substantive content they have is drawn from those 
items and contexts. In presenting them in an abbreviated or schematic form as shown, we focus 
attention on their primary purpose, which is to explore or probe the logic, direction and shape of the 
inquiry as it unfolds. But the inquiry itself derives its content from more substantive questions and 
responses. Likewise, for the dispositional conditions I have been discussing. We do not need to be 
overly concerned with whether or not inquirers are aware that they don’t know the answer to specific 
procedural questions or if they induce a sense of unsettlement, etc., so long as the substantive 
elements of the inquiry meet these conditions. Of course – and this is an important qualification – if 
it should turn out that students do not understand a particular procedural move (looking for a 
counter-example, identifying the argument structure used, etc.), then the procedure may become the 
subject of a separate inquiry. Indeed, it is a merit of philosophical inquiry that in the course of asking 
about the meaning of substantive terms like “truth,” “real” or “mind,” we may find it necessary to 
digress (as it were) in order to consider what such procedural terms as “counter-example” or “valid 
argument” mean. All concepts (and associated questions) are potential topics for philosophical 
inquiry. By contrast, teachers of science, history or literature who discover that students do not grasp 
the meaning or significance of certain procedural elements may find it more difficult to devote time to 
clarifying the latter because to do so would take them beyond the substantive boundaries of their own 
discipline or subject matter, and so may exceed either their own capabilities (basic logic is not a 
regular subject in teacher education) or the time allocated for the subjects in question. Of course, such 
boundary problems would be less troublesome if (i) teacher professional development were more 
inclusive of the philosophical dimensions of teaching and curriculum, and (ii) school curricula and 
timetables were more fluid and integrated, reflecting the epistemological reality that human inquiry 
and experience are not neatly carved up according to subject area.  

 
Inquiry as Self-corrective Thinking 

 
Matthew Lipman wrote that inquiry can be characterized as “self-correcting practice in which a 

subject matter is investigated with the aim of discovering or inventing ways of dealing with what is 



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problematic” (Lipman 2003, 184). Good inquirers are willing to temper their passion and enthusiasm 
for their subject matter by exhibiting those attitudes or dispositions – intellectual humility, 
persistence, self-effacement, sense of fallibility, etc. – which make it relatively easy for them to self-
correct, that is, to acknowledge the power of a counter-argument or objection made by a co-inquirer 
(or perhaps themselves) and rethink their point of view – perhaps even their entire line of inquiry. In 
the absence of such dispositions, the inquiry may not even get off the ground because those involved 
will be reluctant to admit that there is something of concern which they do not know or about which 
they are less than certain. To the extent that certainty excludes the possibility of being mistaken, it, as 
much as indifference, is the enemy of all genuine thought and inquiry. Conversely, as can be 
corroborated by studying the history of scientific inquiry, the path of progress toward greater 
understanding and knowledge allows for – and, arguably, necessitates – making, acknowledging and 
repairing mistakes. In the terms of the present discussion, dogmatic and authoritarian thinking lacks 
the crucial sense of unsettlement which drives inquiry.  

 
Dogmatism – including all forms of fundamentalism and extremism – is not the only obstacle 

to inquiry. To be unsettled by a question, in my sense, presupposes that we care about it – and, in 
turn, we care about finding an answer or solution or, at least, making some progress toward one. 
Accordingly, one avoids the sense of unsettlement simply by failing to care, a condition often 
manifested by disillusioned or alienated students who feel that regular schooling has nothing to offer 
them. Needless to say, we cannot compel others to care but here we find one important merit of the 
classroom when it functions as a community of inquiry: its members develop a multi-dimensional 
sense of care which embraces caring for one another as persons, caring for the procedures of inquiry 
(i.e., for the quality of those skills and strategies in which they engage and which they seek to master as 
powerful thinkers), and caring for the questions, topics, concepts and other elements which make up the 
content of their inquiry. It is this pervasive sense of care which, in turn, underlies the key dispositions 
of inquiry that I have been discussing. Needless to say, students also care about other aspects of their 
school experience, including gaining appropriate recognition from teachers and peer group, and 
progressing through the various grade levels that lead to “success.” It is unrealistic to imagine them 
not caring about these things; still, the prospects for genuinely powerful thinking and inquiry depend 
upon cultivating in them the more intrinsic sense of care to which I have been alluding (Splitter, 
2010b; also, Noddings, 2002).  

 
Philosophical Inquiry 

 
So far, I have defended several claims, including: that inquiry, as a practice which involves and 

cultivates powerful thinking, is not restricted to philosophy; and that philosophical inquiry is not 
adequately characterized in terms of having no (settled) solutions. These claims lead naturally to the 
question: “What constitutes philosophical inquiry?” I wrote earlier that “In this respect [namely, in 
being resolvable] such philosophical problems are akin to those in science and other disciplines, yet 
warrant being described as ‘philosophical’ because of the manner in which we seek to solve them.” 
The underlying point here is that the procedures which characterize philosophical inquiry are not (i.e. 
not solely) empirical or narrowly logical (e.g. deductive), or linguistic (e.g. textual analysis). They are 
conceptual, given that the questions and problems which move us to do philosophy are, primarily, 
conceptual in nature, where these concepts form the fundamental building blocks of our 
understanding of the world and ourselves. Concepts are not merely classifiers; they are vehicles for 
meaning-making (or sense-making). The capacity to form and apply concepts of varying degrees of 
abstractness is part of what it means to be a person. As persons we are each aware of ourselves as one 
among others who are, jointly, aware of a common world. We use concepts to make sense of the world to 



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ourselves and one another. In this collaborative process of making sense, we also find ourselves needing 
continually to construct and reconstruct these concepts. We see this process at work in a community 
of philosophical inquiry even with young children, when they attempt to make sense of terms such as 
“friend,” “fair,” “right,” “mind” – terms which may well be familiar to them, but whose accepted 
meanings require rethinking in light of new experiences (whether real or imagined) on which they 
reflect together. In practice, it is a hallmark of philosophical inquiry that its participants can readily 
identify one or more concepts whose meanings are the subject matter of their deliberations. It bears 
reiterating that conceptual agreements and resolutions should be regarded as temporary resting places 
rather than final solutions and, accordingly, further inquiry always beckons to us. Granted, this is a 
feature of all forms of inquiry, but where students in subject areas such as science and mathematics 
must, ultimately, defer to the expertise currently available, students in philosophy are free to transcend 
the limits of what they, or anyone, claims to know or understand.   
 

Finally on this point, notwithstanding my preference for a more integrated syllabus which 
leaves room both for improving the tools of powerful thinking, and for deliberating on the meanings 
of key concepts – including those which lie at the heart of the disciplines (number and function in 
mathematics; mass, force, energy, causality, in science; change and agency in history;…) – I am skeptical of 
the view that in such a syllabus, there would be no need or place for philosophy itself. Its venerability 
among disciplines should be respected; but its importance to young people who have an opportunity 
to engage in and with it, is even more salient. Philosophy matters to children, and they have a right to 
do it.   
 

Remembering the Community in “Community of Inquiry” 
 

Inquiry, like thinking itself, is internalized as a social practice in which forms of linguistic 
expression and communication – notably, dialogue – are essential ingredients. Elsewhere, I have cited 
both empirical and conceptual factors in defense of this thesis (in line with the thinking of a broad 
range of scholars, including Peirce, Mead, Vygotsky, Bakhtin, Dewey, Habermas, Gadamer, 
MacIntyre, Ricoeur, Appiah, Taylor, Lipman, and Davidson10). These social and inter-personal 
dimensions of thinking and inquiry are needed to make sense of the psychological, affective and 
epistemological elements of questioning, including the sense of settlement/unsettlement, self-
awareness and self-correction to which I have given attention. While scholars from many disciplines 
(including various schools of philosophy) have articulated and defended various elements of this 
thesis, I will not resist the temptation to cite Davidson who, among those mentioned, stands out as an 
analytic philosopher par excellence. While never – to my knowledge – writing about education 
specifically, his celebrated theory of mind makes clear reference to the social origins of thought and 
knowledge: “A community of minds is the basis of knowledge; it provides the measure of all things”. 
(2001, 218). Again, “Writing may portray, but cannot constitute, the intersubjective exchanges in 
which meanings are created and firmed. Socrates was right: reading is not enough. If we want to 
approach the harder wisdom we must talk and, of course, listen” (1994, 432).  

 
How does the kind of community, qua environment for powerful thinking and talking, 

referred to in the previous paragraph, bear on the more common-place sense of community as used in 
the social sciences and media? At one extreme, the term “community” serves as an innocuous place-
holder for just about any group of people who are connected by a common attribute or quality: the 
Australian community, the LGBTQI community, the community of Christians and Jews, the left-
handed community, the world community… , i.e., virtually any group at all! At another extreme, it 
connotes the kind of collective or institution which generates a strong sense of belonging and moral 



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purpose for its members. Examples include the nation/state, religion, ethnic group, tribe, culture, and 
so on. Elsewhere I have criticized this view, largely on the grounds that it is based on a confused 
notion of identity, and has given rise to populist modes of thinking by which individuals seek to 
identify with others who are “like them,” at the exclusion of those who are not. I shall not attempt to 
revisit this issue here, although, given the political realities currently confronting us around the world, 
resolving it remains a matter of great significance. My point in mentioning these uses of the term 
“community” is to contrast them with the sense intended when we speak about the community of 
inquiry. 

 
A clue to this intended sense is found in the inter-dependence of thinking and talking, more 

specifically, of powerful thinking – i.e., inquiry – and powerful talking – i.e., dialogue. While I hold that 
both inquiry and dialogue – which are really two sides of a coin – have specific features beyond those 
of everyday thinking and conversation (including the sense of unsettlement and commitment to self-
correction discussed above), what I wish to emphasize here is that those engaged in inquiry and 
dialogue are persons and, conversely, that persons are those entities who engage – or, at least, who strive 
to engage – in inquiry and dialogue. To be a person in the world is to regard (in the sense of 
awareness) oneself as one among others, where “others” refers both to other persons (i.e., those who also 
regard themselves …) and to those objects in the world of which we have common experience. 
According to this conceptual thesis of triangulation, as articulated and defended by Davidson among 
others, these forms of awareness are mutually irreducible and interdependent. My own self-awareness 
is inextricably linked to my awareness of others, as my awareness of the world is inextricably linked to 
theirs. But the links in question are not made in some mysterious mental realm (“mind-melding”); 
they are made in the ordinary material world in which we co-exist and of which we have shared 
experience (for Davidson, there is no other world). These links are “the intersubjective exchanges in 
which meanings are created and firmed” (Davidson, above) and, while these exchanges can take many 
forms, they are, in their most full-blooded and richest sense, linguistic. There need not be – indeed, 
there must not be – any constraints, boundaries or limitations placed on those eligible to participate 
in such exchanges (differences of language, culture and tribe notwithstanding), other than those that 
constitute what we mean by being a person. Indeed, and to complete the circle, to be a person just is to 
be eligible to participate.  

 
The sense of community which captures this conception of personhood is, somewhat 

paradoxically, both crucial and ultimately redundant. Crucial, because as a dialogical environment, it 
brings us together inter-subjectively. Redundant, because unlike those groups and associations which 
all too often impose extrinsic conditions of existence and morality on their members, the community 
of inquiry (or of dialogue) is nothing other than a relational network of its own members, bound by 
whatever existential and moral commitments they bring to it. As such it is a means to an end (we 
might describe the latter as becoming a person) and is, inevitably, left behind as its members move on.  

 
Concluding Comments: What Does a Philosophy Curriculum for Young People Look Like? 

 
To what extent does a focus on concepts, together with reflective practice in the tools that 

make for powerful thinking, provide the structure for a curriculum in philosophy, i.e., a sequence of 
lessons/activities that form a coherent whole for children and adolescents over a specified period of 
time (a semester, a year, several years, etc.), while corresponding, if loosely, to different philosophical 
styles and subdisciplines? I recently addressed this question in the context of p4c in Australia, which 
moved away from the original IAPC curriculum model during the 1990s (Splitter 2019), a move 



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echoed in other English-speaking countries. I noted there that while every generation faces new 
benefits and challenges brought about by increased knowledge (and information) and technological 
expertise, “our stock of concepts, by which we seek to classify, organize and make sense of our 
knowledge and experience is relatively enduring and resilient.” (76). We may not yet fully understand 
the ethical and epistemological implications of globalization, social media and the growth of AI (with 
driverless vehicles just around the corner, so to speak), to take some familiar examples, but the 
underlying concepts that are involved will “continue to be reflected in questions about what is the 
right thing to do, how we should treat others, [whether] our claims to knowledge [can] be justified, 
and so on.” (76). Inquiries in the history of ideas reveal that these very concepts and questions have 
been around for thousands of years, kept alive, in part, by their application to changing circumstances 
and new experiences, but also by their intrinsic contestability.  

 
In light of the recursive and cyclical nature of the concepts and questions which form the 

building-blocks of philosophical inquiry, how realistic is it to believe, as Lipman and Sharp did, that a 
“core curriculum” in philosophy could be constructed for children and adolescents? In addressing this 
question, we need to acknowledge that philosophical inquiry, even – perhaps especially! – in the 
hands and minds of children, quickly takes on a life of its own, as new circumstances and challenges 
to old solutions (points of settlement) arise; accordingly, any attempt to limit or constrain a 
philosophy curriculum in terms of content (“stuff”) to be learned is doomed to failure. Concepts, as 
the bearers of meaning, cannot be defined by any specific set of examples or instances. We understand 
or grasp concepts such as right by linking them, both to instances or exemplars (e.g. right or wrong 
actions…), and to other concepts whose meanings may be related or contrasted (right seems related to 
just and fair, but quite different from wrong and power…). Such links cannot be limited or 
predetermined by teachers or other “experts”. But teachers can guide students as they seek to forge 
these links for themselves, based on their own experiences and dialogical exchanges. Guidance in this 
sense has several dimensions, including modelling and assisting with the procedures of inquiry (notably, 
thinking procedures), and experience with forging such links themselves, based on their experiences 
and dialogical exchanges. There are clear implications here for the kinds of teacher professional 
development required for teachers of philosophy. But there are also implications for a well-structured 
curriculum which provides a framework or model for students as they gain mastery of the appropriate 
conceptual links and procedures. The IAPC curriculum stands as exemplary for several reasons: its 
novels and teacher manuals correspond roughly to different age groups and class levels; they provide 
models of inquiry, via fictional characters who grapple – both dialogically and by themselves – with a 
broad range of familiar but contestable concepts – notably, those which have featured throughout the 
history of philosophy in their attempts to make sense of their experiences;11 this process of grappling is 
not resolved by the imposition of an adult or “expert” viewpoint – indeed, it is often not resolved at 
all; it involves the reflective use of thinking or inquiry procedures (critical, creative and “caring”) to 
construct and evaluate chains of reasoning and the conceptual links by which the characters expand 
and deepen their understandings of familiar yet puzzling scenarios and problems.  

 
While these exemplary features may be open to challenge or modification, they support the 

claim that teachers of philosophy – and even more specifically, those who train these teachers – 
benefit from understanding and appreciating what the IAPC attempted to do (by spending time doing 
p4c as P4C!). They will, then, be in a stronger position to create or utilize alternative approaches and 
curriculum materials.  

 
The above considerations suggest, to me at least, that the very idea of a core curriculum in p4c 

is, if not misguided or unrealistic, then not the primary area of concern for those of us who are 



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committed to bringing philosophy and children together. What matters more – apart from finding 
room in a crowded timetable – is ensuring that schools, teacher educators, teachers and, in due 
course, students themselves, are committed to the integrity of philosophy as an age-old tradition of 
conceptual thought, inquiry and, as appropriate, action. In simpler terms, what matters is that they are 
actually doing philosophy as opposed, say, to merely bouncing opinions around or resting content with 
what others have come up with. Earlier, I suggested that our grasp of concepts depends on our 
capacity to link them, in appropriate ways, to other concepts that matter to us, and to exemplars 
(including those we encounter in our lives). But as I have noted elsewhere, we need also to attend “to 
the links and threads that bind philosophical issues of contemporary concern with those that have 
generated philosophy inquiry and dialogue for thousands of years. P4c invites children of all ages, 
abilities and backgrounds to join this dialogue…” (2019, 84). In response to the question “To whom 
does ‘we’ refer here?”, I repeat my insistence that while it includes young people and teachers, it is not 
their responsibility alone: on the one hand, children are moved more by what is philosophically present 
to them than by what, or who, has gone before; and on the other hand, most teachers do not have the 
kind of background that would give them mastery over the links and threads to which I have referred. 
This responsibility must also be embraced by the academy, and shared by members of the academic 
philosophical community. Forging and sustaining links among young people, teachers, teacher 
educators and professional philosophers remains, perhaps, our greatest challenge.*  

 
Endnotes 
 
1 I use this terminology to distinguish between the specific curriculum created by the Institute for the 
Advancement of Philosophy for Children (“P4C”), and the broad range of alternatives developed and 
used in many parts of the world (“p4c”).  
2 For an excellent discussion of the origins of “community of inquiry” and its role in historical 
inquiry, see Seixas, 1993. Also, Sharp, 1987, 1996. 
3 “Powerful thinking,” in my terminology, includes what has become known in p4c as “critical, 
creative and caring thinking”. See, for example, Lipman, 2003, Thayer-Bacon, 1993, Noddings, 2002.  
4 There is an extensive body of research on the ideas of authenticity and inquiry in the mathematics 
classroom. See, for example, Lampert, 1990; Cobb, Stephan, McClain & Gravemeijer, 2001; Yackel 
& Cobb, 1996.  
5 Some of the material in this and subsequent sections is taken from Splitter 2016. 
6 A useful discussion of how both early and later pragmatist philosophers (e.g. Peirce, James and 
Dewey; and Putnam and Rorty, respectively) dealt with issues of truth and inquiry is in Capps, 2019.  
7 These two aspects of unsettlement do not always go together. I/we may agree that we do not know 
the answer or understand the problem, but be uninterested in finding a solution.  
8 The importance of “Socratic” questioning in promoting critical thinking is a key theme in Richard 
Paul’s work. See Paul, 1993, Paul & Elder, 2006.  
9 Splitter 2015 Chapter 7 includes a detailed discussion of this issue, together with references to the 
writers named in the text.  
10 It will surprise many to learn that the IAPC constructed detailed bibliographies linking the novels 
and teacher manuals to parts of the philosophical tradition.  
(*) I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers assigned by the Editor for their very helpful comments 
and suggestions.  
 

 

 



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Splitter, L. (2019). Memo to Harry Stottlemeier and friends: You are not wanted here. Reflections on the idea of a 
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Splitter, L. J. (2016) The dispositional ingredients at the heart of questioning and inquiry. Journal of 
Philosophy in Schools, 3(2), 18-39.  

Splitter, L. (2015). Identity and personhood: Confusions and clarifications across disciplines. Singapore: 
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Splitter, L. (2010a). Dispositions in education: Nonentities worth talking about. Educational Theory, 
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Splitter, L. (2010b). Caring for “the self as one-among-others”. Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for 
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Splitter, L. (2009). Authenticity and constructivism in education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 
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Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of authenticity. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.  

Thayer-Bacon, B. (1993). Caring and its relationship to critical thinking. Educational Theory, 43(3), 
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Yackel, E., & Cobb. P. (1996). Sociomathematical norms, argumentation, and autonomy in mathematics. 
Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 27(4), 458-477.(*) 

 
 
Address Correspondences to:  

Dr. Laurance J. Splitter  
Honorary Professor at the Education University of Hong Kong,  
and Honorary Associate at the University of Melbourne  
Email: laurance.splitter@unimelb.edu.au 

 
 
 
 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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