Abstract

This article presents an approach in doing philosophy with children through thought experiments, by focusing on that one about founding an utopia. Describing the group work practice and the role of philosophers in the dialogic learning process provided by the mental simulation concerning utopia, the author presents some elementary observations on the central role played by thought experiments both in philosophy and in the natural sciences, and stresses a variety of interesting implications in doing philosophy with children through thought experiments. Finally, the author argues that mental simulation can be an engaging introduction to doing philosophy with children, which are enabled in this way to envision conflicting possibilities and face with something like Wittgenstein’s “puzzle pictures”