Inspired by the practice of dialogue in ancient philosophical schools, the Philosophy as a Way of Life (PWOL) Project at the University of Notre Dame has sought to put dialogue back at the center of philosophical pedagogy. Impromptu philosophical dialogue, however, can be challenging for students who are new to philosophy. Anticipating this challenge, the Project has created a series of manuals to help instructors conduct dialogue groups with novice philosophy students. Using these guidelines, we incorporated PWOL-style (...) dialogue groups into our Spring 2021 course “The Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender” with the hope that, through having conversations about these challenging topics, our students would both be able to practice having philosophical dialogues as well as form their views on race and gender in light of contributions from their diverse peers. This article examines several strategies for how instructors can seek to incorporate similar dialogues into their own introductory classroom. (shrink)

This book offers the first full-length study of philosophical dialogue during the English Enlightenment. It explains why important philosophers - Shaftesbury, Mandeville, Berkeley and Hume - and innumerable minor translators, imitators and critics wrote in and about dialogue during the eighteenth century; and why, after Hume, philosophical dialogue either falls out of use or undergoes radical transformation. Philosophical Dialogue in the British Enlightenment describes the extended, heavily coded, and often belligerent debate about the nature and proper management (...) of dialogue; and it shows how the writing of philosophical fictions relates to the rise of the novel and the emergence of philosophical aesthetics. Novelists such as Fielding, Sterne, Johnson and Austen are placed in a philosophical context, and philosophers of the empiricist tradition in the context of English literary history. (shrink)

In Denmark, teaching the famous fairy tales of Hans Christian Andersen poses a challenge in primary education because cultural heritage status and oversimplified readings make it difficult to engage students in authentic readings. A strategy could be to use philosophical dialogues from the tradition of philosophy with children because this is a student-centred approach to teaching where students explore questions and ideas together, and where the teacher assumes the role not as authority, but as facilitator of the dialogue. (...) This kind of dialogic teaching has been encouraged as especially suitable for literary education where teachers aim to engage students in reading the literature with an open mind. However, this article presents a case study that gives reason for caution. It analyses materials for philosophical dialogues on Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales and concludes that despite the dialogic ideals, the teaching design caves in to the weight of the cultural and historical impact of Hans Christian Andersen and his work. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition (...) to the literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

No overall history of the philosophical dialogue has appeared since Rudolf Hirzel's two-volume study was published in 1895. In The Philosophical Dialogue: A Poetics and a Hermeneutics, Vittorio Hösle covers the development of the genre from its beginning with Plato to the late twentieth-century work of Iris Murdoch and Paul Feyerabend. Hösle presents a taxonomy and a doctrine of categories for the complex literary genre of the philosophical dialogue, focusing on the poetical laws that structure the genre, (...) and develops hermeneutical rules for its correct interpretation. Following an introduction that employs the categories of subjectivity and intersubjectivity to classify philosophy's modes of expression, Hösle's book is structured by the classical triad of the production, inner structure, and reception of the literary dialogue. To explain what is meant by "philosophical dialogue," Hösle first deals with the specific traits of philosophical dialogue in contrast to other literary forms of philosophy and its special status among them. Second, he distinguishes the philosophical dialogue as a literary genre from actual philosophical conversation, and as a philosophical literary genre from nonphilosophical literary dialogues. Finally, he takes up the connection between literary form and philosophical content in the philosophical dialogue. Numerous authors of dialogues are discussed, with a special focus on Plato, Cicero, Augustine, Hume, and Diderot. Originally published in Germany as Der philosophische Dialog: Eine Poetik und Hermeneutik, this book not only contributes to the philosophical discussion of dialogue but to a great extent defines it. This fine translation will prove useful to both philosophers and literary critics in the English-speaking world. "With its exceptionally clear and powerful argumentation, the book might become the defining work for the study of dialogue. Paraphrasing Kant, one could say that in philosophy mere theory without a history is empty, while history without a theory is blind. Yet in his work Hösle achieves a unique synthesis of historical perceptivity and systematic rigor. This book will be read for many years to come." —Dmitri Nikulin, New School for Social Research. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy—the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition (...) to the literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

The volume documents, and makes an original contribution to, an astonishing period in twentieth-century philosophy_the progress of Arne Naess's ecophilosophy from its inception to the present. It includes Naess's most crucial polemics with leading thinkers, drawn from sources as diverse as scholarly articles, correspondence, TV interviews and unpublished exchanges. The book testifies to the skeptical and self-correcting aspects of Naess's vision, which has deepened and broadened to include third world and feminist perspectives. Philosophical Dialogues is an essential addition (...) to the literature on environmental philosophy. (shrink)

The self is a historical and cultural phenomenon in the sense of a dialectically evolving narrative construct about who we are, what our borders and limits and capacities are, what is pathology, and what is normality, and so on. These ontological and epistemological narratives are usually linked to grand explanatory narratives like science and religion, and are intimately linked to cosmological pictures. The “intersubject” is an emergent form of subjectivity in our time which reconstructs its borders to include the other, (...) and which understands itself as always building and being built through a combination of internal and external dialogue. The shift from monological to dialogical discourse is both a product and a producer of the intersubject, and is in turn made possible by a shift—underway for the last one hundred years or so—in the human information environment. The major educational innovation which reconstructs theory and practice for the intersubject—community of philosophical inquiry (CPI)—assumes, following field and systems theory, that any group gathered together is an interactive system. It also assumes that the fundamental forms of growth and development both of the individual and of the collective take place through a process of communal deliberative inquiry into meaning, resulting in the reconstruction of beliefs, values, and discourses on both an individual and a collective level. CPI is a process in which subject and object are both active and passive, shaping and being shaped, determining and determined, in and through their transaction. It assumes that its interlocutors are in a relation of both mutual and self-interrogation. As the phenomenon of the intersubject gains credence in human culture, philosophy is gaining power as an educational idea in the elementary and high school classroom. Communal philosophical dialogue is the discursive space where the subject’s fundamental assumptions about self, world, knowledge, belief, beauty, right action and normative ideals enter a dialectical process of confrontation, mediation, and reconstruction. (shrink)

Environmental problems often outstrip the abilities of any single scientist to understand, much less address them. As a result, collaborations within, across, and beyond the environmental sciences are an increasingly important part of the environmental science landscape. Here, we explore an insufficiently recognized and particularly challenging barrier to collaborative environmental science: value pluralism, the presence of non-trivial differences in the values that collaborators bring to bear on project decisions. We argue that resolving the obstacles posed by value pluralism to collaborative (...) environmental science requires detecting and coordinating the underlying problematic value differences. We identify five ways that a team might coordinate their problematic value differences and argue that, whichever mode is adopted, it ought to be governed by participatory virtues, pragmatic resolve, and moral concern. Relying on our experiences with the Toolbox Dialogue Initiative, as well as with other dialogical approaches that support team inquiry, we defend the claim that philosophical dialogue among collaborators can go a long way towards helping teams of environmental scientists and fellow travelers detect their problematic value differences. Where dialogical approaches fare less well is in helping teams coordinate these differences. We close by describing several principles for augmenting philosophical dialogue with other methods, and we list several of these methods in an appendix with brief descriptions and links for further learning. Overall, the article makes three main contributions to the research collaboration and values in science literatures: It deepens our understanding of problematic value pluralism in team science; It provides actionable guidance and methods for improving values-oriented philosophical dialogue interventions; and It demonstrates one way of doing engaged philosophy. (shrink)

Interreligious Philosophical Dialogues provides a unique approach to the philosophy of religion, embracing a range of religious faiths and spiritualities. Each of these three volumes brings together five leading scholars and philosophers of religion, who engage in friendly but rigorous cross-cultural philosophical dialogue. Each participant in the dialogue, as a member of a particular faith tradition, is invited to explore and explain their core religious commitments, and how these commitments figure in their lived experience and in their (...) relations to other religions and communities. This set of volumes uncovers the rich and diverse cognitive and experiential dimensions of religious belief and practice, pushing the field of philosophy of religion in bold new directions. (shrink)

This book is a collection of exchanges between Christian philosophers who adopt very different perspectives on Christianity.

"Rule" adopts the tradition of political philosophy begun by Socrates, refined by Xenophon and Plato. The book concentrates on something the characters call life-without-rule. What would that be? Is it a sort of utopia? How does it differ from anarchy? What makes it so appealing and what are the trade-offs?

Political polarization is on the rise, undermining the shared space of public reason necessary for a thriving democracy and making voters more willing than ever to dismiss the perspectives of their political opponents. This destructive tendency is especially problematic when it comes to issues of race and gender, as informed views on these topics necessarily require engaging with those whose experiences may differ from our own. In order to help our students combat further polarization, we created a course on "The (...) Philosophy of Race, Class, and Gender" that incorporated intergroup dialogues - small, diverse, semester-long discussion groups-that focused on building the civic virtues of toleration, egalitarianism, and solidarity. In this article, we describe our approach, including the evidence that intergroup dialogue can act as a catalyst for democratic dialogue. We hope that the practice of intergroup dialogue can help other instructors cultivate the civic virtues in their philosophy classrooms as well. (shrink)

A philosophical treatment of ideas, the book presents a philosophical dialogue much in the spirit of classical philosophical dialogues, notably those of Plato and Xenophon. As those authors do in a number of their works, Nick Pappas adopts a light and playful tone to treat a serious topic. This contrast helps bring out the truth, in an approachable style that requires no prior exposure to philosophy and heavy intellectual work.

No overall history of the philosophical dialogue has appeared since Rudolf Hirzel's two-volume study was published in 1895. In _The Philosophical Dialogue: A Poetics and a Hermeneutics_, Vittorio Hösle covers the development of the genre from its beginning with Plato to the late twentieth-century work of Iris Murdoch and Paul Feyerabend. Hösle presents a taxonomy and a doctrine of categories for the complex literary genre of the philosophical dialogue, focusing on the poetical laws that structure the genre, (...) and develops hermeneutical rules for its correct interpretation. Following an introduction that employs the categories of subjectivity and intersubjectivity to classify philosophy's modes of expression, Hösle's book is structured by the classical triad of the production, inner structure, and reception of the literary dialogue. To explain what is meant by "philosophical dialogue," Hösle first deals with the specific traits of philosophical dialogue in contrast to other literary forms of philosophy and its special status among them. Second, he distinguishes the philosophical dialogue as a literary genre from actual philosophical conversation, and as a philosophical literary genre from nonphilosophical literary dialogues. Finally, he takes up the connection between literary form and philosophical content in the philosophical dialogue. Numerous authors of dialogues are discussed, with a special focus on Plato, Cicero, Augustine, Hume, and Diderot. Originally published in Germany as _Der philosophische Dialog: Eine Poetik und Hermeneutik_, this book not only contributes to the philosophical discussion of dialogue but to a great extent defines it. This fine translation will prove useful to both philosophers and literary critics in the English-speaking world. "With its exceptionally clear and powerful argumentation, the book might become the defining work for the study of dialogue. Paraphrasing Kant, one could say that in philosophy mere theory without a history is empty, while history without a theory is blind. Yet in his work Hösle achieves a unique synthesis of historical perceptivity and systematic rigor. This book will be read for many years to come." —_Dmitri Nikulin, New School for Social Research_. (shrink)

This book explores dialogue as a transformative form of philosophical practice by unveiling the method behind the unique dialogue developed by mystic and thinker Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). While Krishnamurti himself generally rejected the cultivation of systems and techniques, Shai Tubali argues that there are easily identifiable patterns through which Krishnamurti strove to realize his dialogical aims. For this reason, he refers to this method, whose existence has evaded Krishnamurti’s followers and scholars alike, as the Krishnamurti dialogue. He suggests that (...) these discursive patterns serve to broaden our understanding of the possibilities of philosophical and religious dialogues and further illuminate established forms of dynamic discourse, such as the Socratic method. Inspired by Pierre Hadot’s revolutionary reading of the classical Greco-Roman texts, the author centers his attention on Plato’s Socratic dialogues and the guru–disciple conversations in the Hindu Upanishads, which fall within the scope of what may be termed ‘the transformative dialogue’: dialogues that have been written with the intention of bringing about a transformation in the mind of the interlocutor and reader and reorienting their way of life. This text appeals to students as well as researchers and suggests that the Krishnamurti dialogue is not only a continuation and development of the transformative dialogue, but that it also amalgamates ingredients of classical Western philosophy and South Asian mysticism. Moreover, this type of dialogue encourages readers to revisit the lost practice of transformative philosophy, in that it reveals new pathways of philosophical and religious inquiry that bear thought-provoking practical implications. (shrink)

A philosophical treatment of the idea of authority, this book is a dialogue between three characters. "Director," a philosopher, challenges the others to think through their ideas of authority, how it is established, how it works, and how it can be either subtle or bold.

In recent years we have witnessed growth in the practical application of philosophy. Some authors talk about a so-called “shift in philosophical counselling” or “philosophical practice” taking place chiefly in western countries. Some Slovak authors also discuss the application of philosophy in practice but this issue is only in its infancy here. The author of this paper seeks to establish the boundaries of understanding the possibilities philosophy has to offer in practical life and to formulate an opinion on (...) the competency of philosophy in this area. The author believes that it is the “good life” that is central to the agenda of philosophical practice. The aim of philosophical counselling is to advise people through their personal life philosophy. It is a conversational process that controls dialectic thinking and reflects the fears and questions that arise in everyday life as well as questions about the meaning of life as a whole. The author understands philosophical dialogue as a space for seeking a good life, identity and critical thinking. (shrink)

Since the seminal 1955 habilitation by Heidegger's pupil, Walter Schulz, it has become an open secret that Schelling's philosophy, more than that of any of the other German Idealists, is an immediate antecedent to Heidegger's thought. For this reason, it is all the more fascinating that to this day research is still lopsidedly concerned with the interpretation of Heidegger's reading of Schelling's Freedom Essay and that a thorough and overarching investigation into the idealistic inheritance of Martin Heidegger's thought remains wanting. (...) The same applies to the debates that Heidegger's students began in the twentieth century. The traditions of modern nature ethics and the criticism of technology, which derive from Schelling, were interpreted and mediated through Heidegger to his students Hans Jonas, Hannah Arendt, and Günther Anders. This essay attempts to delineate some of the basic features of a more bilateral or dialogical relationship between these two philosophers and to more fully appreciate Heidegger's relationship to German Idealism in general and Schelling in particular. (shrink)

The notion of 'freedom' is essential to America's view of itself as a democratic and individual-based society. In this philosophical dialogue, characters assess the many facets, implications and apparent contradictions inherent in this deceptively complex idea. Seventy-nine short segments provide food for thought even in stolen moments of reading pleasure. The book sparkles with intellectually stimulating views. Drawing on the tradition of the Platonic dialogue, 'On Freedom' explores what freedom is and what it means through the discussions of two (...) characters (Director and Friend). Topics include Slavery, Responsibility, Anarchy, Wealth, Love, Courage, Authority, Inhibition, Happiness, Discipline, Vigilance. The characters arrive at no simple or absolute definition of freedom. But that doesn't mean they don't finish with a better idea of what freedom is than when they started. If anything, they come to appreciate the need for clarity about their subject. And they come to see that such clarity necessarily involves complexity. Readers with no philosophical training can enjoy this book, while readers with a philosophy background can enjoy the way it treats an old, familiar theme with a lighter touch. Families will value 'On Freedom' for enabling younger readers, too, to explore philosophic ideas of general interest and importance. (shrink)

All can agree that the achievement of Moses Maimonides (d. 1204) set the standard for subsequent works of "Jewish philosophy". But just what were the contours of philosophical-scientific inquiry that Maimonides replaced? A fairly large array of diverse texts have been studied, but no comprehensive picture has yet emerged. The newly discovered Hebrew dialogue published here has points of contact of various depth with most of the major works of pre-Maimonidean thought. It shares as well influences from without, especially (...) from the Islamic kalam. The dialogue thus presents, in an engaging literary form, a clear and detailed snapshot of pre-Maimonidean philosophy and science. (shrink)

In a warm and enjoyable dialogue the meaning of health, in its fullest sense, becomes a philosophical issue as much as a biological. For isn't the essence of health a general sense of well-being? Health can be seen as reflecting satisfaction with our quality of life; but how do we achieve that? Here, a character who is heading off for a job teaching health has an extended conversation with a trusted mentor, and they test various definitions, various visions, and (...) some of the infinite possibilities of the idea of health, in the process coming to a deeper and more invigorating understanding of life itself. They arrive at the notion of symbiosis - a living together to the advantage of each. And isn't a good conversation a sort of living together to the advantage of each? In such dialogue, we engage with our hearts and minds. When are we more alive than that? What is the peak of health if not this life, this engagement? The two friends want to know what health is. But they want more: They want to be healthy. They see three basic types of health - bodily, mental, and societal. These three types affect one another. How they affect one another matters in a critical way. But there is more. A friendly conversation allows special access to what is critical. Our guard is down in such a conversation. We are less likely to be defensive. We are more likely to keep our minds open and clear. We are likely to feel the confidence it takes to learn. (shrink)

If philosophical dialogue is broadly defined by concepts that are central to our lives and essentially contested, then philosophical dialogue is ethically valuable because it engages participants in the kind of communal and reasonable deliberation necessary for ethical life. Discourse Ethics acknowledges the instrumental value of philosophical dialogue for the making of ethical judgments. I defend the intrinsically ethical value of philosophical dialogue on the grounds that it potentially orients us towards that which transcends human subjectivity (...) in an effort to include it (which could also be called “otherness,” “alterity,” “Thou,” or “the unthinkable”). If respect is the modality of reason, then love is the modality of the transcendent, and, as with respect, love is recognizable by the virtues that express it. These include faith, grace, naivety, irony, and genius. My observation that these qualities are more readily found in children than adults suggests that children are particularly suited to philosophical dialogue because they can engage in it with an appreciation of its value and limits. (shrink)

In this article, I report on my reading of a debate between two practitioners and scholars of philosophy with children – Karin Murris and Darren Chetty. The parts of their exchanges I have chosen to focus on relate to a children's book called Tusk Tusk by David McKee. Their respective arguments raise questions for me about the relationship between the starting text and issues of importance in the wider world. Although Chetty sees benefits in using picture books, he appears to (...) believe there is an over-reliance on fables and other magical tales and that alternative starting points could be more suitable for exploring complex social issues with historical dimensions. Murris, on the other hand, seems to appreciate the lack of historical perspective that is evident in many of her preferred picture books. She values their ‘universal’ and ‘magical’ aspects because they stimulate ‘rhizomatic’ dialogues that are spontaneous and non-hierarchical. In this commentary I trace what, to me, are the most significant lines of argument put forward by Chetty and Murris. In response, I suggest some practical ideas for choosing texts and ‘reading against the text’ – a term both writers use. I also ask and answer the question: ‘In sessions of philosophical dialogue, should adults bring to children for consideration issues they regard as important or refrain from doing so?’. (shrink)

Is it always better to be active than passive? Is passivity a sign of cowardice - or prudence? Are people who keep their thoughts to themselves passive, or might they be actively preparing for well-considered future actions? Seemingly simple concepts turn out to be deeper and more significant than they first appear.

In these three dialogues, renowned for their dialectical structure and linguistic precision, Anselm sets out his classic account of the relationship between freedom and sin--its linchpin his definition of freedom of choice as the power to preserve rectitude of will for its own sake. In doing so, Anselm explores the fascinating implications for God, human beings, and angels of his conclusion that freedom of choice neither is nor entails the power to sin. In addition to an Introduction, notes, and (...) a glossary, Thomas Williams brings to the translation of these important dialogues the same precision and clarity that distinguish his previous translation of Anselm's _Proslogion_ and _Monologion_, which Professor Paul Spade of Indiana University called "scrupulously faithful and accurate without being slavishly literal, yet lively and graceful to both the eye and ear. (shrink)

Life works best when people value us for more than our looks. In these pages, Model and a philosopher friend reflect on the subtleties of life, revealing insights and finding ways to develop deeper, more meaningful ties with our own inner self and the other people in our lives.

Killing the Arab Spring tells the stories of the Arab Spring uprising in 15 Middle East states, from the point of view of a secular Middle Eastern political analyst familiar with the politics, the culture of the people and the history of the area. Dr. Hasan views the vast majority of the Arab rulers deriving their absolute authority from inheritance or military coups, or in the case of the Saudis from conquest, not at the pleasure of the governed. Arab leaders (...) do not believe that government is a trust on behalf of the people. They believe that if there is democracy and their societies are composed of equal and competing individuals, there will be a tendency towards anarchy. People involved in the Arab Spring uprisings demanded inclusive and equitable democracy, social justice and economic development. There were no civil society institutions strong enough to challenge the weapons of authoritarianism that included ideology, repression, payoffs and the solidarity of the crony capitalists. The author argues that Saddam Hussein’s 1980 war on Iran was the spark that started a chain of bloody wars and events which eventually led to the US invasion of Iraq and the Arab Spring uprisings. The revolts and the counter revolts took different forms in each country based on its history, the type of government and the economy. The author argues that the Arab Spring is a step of a long process toward democracy rather than an aberration between periods of authoritarian regimes. To understand the Arab Spring causes and its aftermath, the book provides the reader with a review of the Middle East common culture that includes the history of Islamic religion, Islamic-sects and Arab tribalism, and brief history of each country. There are few activities more controversial than writing history of a nation involved in a conflict. Even while witnessing history unfolding in a country, different historians provide different narratives, different causes and different conclusions. This becomes more obvious when the history of the conflicts is viewed through the prism of the politics of sectarianism ethnicity and tribalism. The author strives for an objective view, but he does not hide his strong support to liberal democracy and human rights. (shrink)

Violence and reason are related, if only because violence is done to reason every single day. All it takes is to fail to listen. Everything else, all the real violence, starts right there, including tough talk in lieu of rational argument and the violence of not allowing us to think things through. In a virtual conversation with other thoughtful people, we can evaluate and refine our own positions, gaining clarity and confidence.

This essay presents imaginary philosophical debates between Heidegger and Freud exploring their views on science, philosophy, their interrelationship and the fundamental philosophical presuppositions of Freud’s metapsychology. In the final section, Heidegger presents a series of criticisms of Freud’s theory, to which ‘Freud’ posthumously responds.

This essay presents imaginary philosophical debates between Heidegger and Freud exploring their views on science, philosophy, their interrelationship and the fundamental philosophical presuppositions of Freud’s metapsychology. In the final section, Heidegger presents a series of criticisms of Freud’s theory, to which ‘Freud’ posthumously responds.

Many philosophers have argued that large language models (LLMs) subvert the traditional undergraduate philosophy paper. For the enthusiastic, LLMs merely subvert the traditional idea that students ought to write philosophy papers “entirely on their own.” For the more pessimistic, LLMs merely facilitate plagiarism. We believe that these controversies neglect a more basic crisis. We argue that, because one can, with minimal philosophical effort, use LLMs to produce outputs that at least “look like” good papers, many students will complete paper (...) assignments in a way that fails to develop their philosophical abilities. We argue that this problem exists even if students can produce better papers with AI and even if instructors can detect AI-generated content with decent reliability. But LLMs also create a pedagogical opportunity. We propose that instructors shift the emphasis of their assignments from philosophy papers to “LLM dialogues”: philosophical conversations between the student and an LLM. We describe our experience with using these types of assignments over the past several semesters. We argue that, far from undermining quality philosophical instruction, LLMs allow us to teach philosophy more effectively than was possible before. (shrink)

The high prevalence of brain injury incidents in adolescence and adulthood demands effective models for re-learning lost cognitive abilities. Impairment in brain injury survivors’ higher-level cognitive functions is common and a negative predictor for long-term outcome. We conducted two small-scale interventions (N = 12; 33.33% female) with persons with acquired brain injuries in two municipalities in Sweden. Age ranged from 17 to 65 years (M = 51.17, SD = 14.53). The interventions were dialogic, inquiry-based, and inspired by the Philosophy for (...) Children Programme, a participatory thinking skills approach with documented higher-order cognitive outcomes, such as developed argumentation skills, in other target groups. Philosophical dialogues were conducted once a week in the two groups, totalling 12 dialogues per group. Group argumentation development was measured through compared scores from structured observations of filmed dialogues early and late in the intervention. Large positive changes in mean scores from early to late in the intervention, together with constantly high facilitator quality, suggest argumentation development in the sample due to the intervention. (shrink)