Scholarly record

NAIVE PHILOSOPHIZING IN “THE CULTURE OF A KEEPING THE CHILD SILENT”: TO BREAK THE WALL OF MISUNDERSTANDING

S. Borisov, V. Klenovskaya, O. Pashchenko

Abstract

Philosophizing of a child is a very multi-faceted phenomenon, as well as philosophy and childhood in general. On the one hand, there is the naivety of children’s asking and interpretation, and on the other hand, there is a metaphysical depth of the issues. Unfortunately, children as naive philosophers do not meet proper understanding and attention to their raised problems from adults. The cultural tradition paradoxically ignores the importance of naive philosophizing in development of a child. But in that case it is “the culture of keeping the child silent”. The importance of research of naive philosophizing from the point of view of philosophy consists in the opportunity of directly studying specific conditions of intellectual discoveries, everyone experienced them in their childhood, but for some reasons forgot about them when an adult, though the discoveries made, understood and stated at that time have, as a matter, formed our adult life. We think that solving this problem is impossible without investigating such form of cognitive activity of a child as naive philosophizing. Phenomenological analysis leads us to many children’s interpretations of everyday life, life experience. The appeal to these interpretations is realized by us from the point of view of ontological hermeneutics. Methods (reflexion, empathy, contemplation, understanding, interpretation) and forms of naive philosophizing (dialogue, polylogue, asking) as events of the birth of thought are considered by us in the process of assimilation (appropriation) of the child by the symbolic reality of culture.

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