A practical guide to facilitating philosophical conversations with groups (especially in schools) based on philosophical and pedagogical principles derived from the ancient Greek philosophers but supported my modern-day research and pedagogical practices. It divides facilitation up into basic, expert and advanced levels, allowing a teacher to get going with some basic moves and principles allowing for development of facilitation over time. As well as being packed with practical strategies, questioning prompts and methods for developing metacognition and critical thinking in pupils, it also has brand new session plans published nowhere else previously.

Peter Worley is the co-CEO and co-founder of the registered charity The Philosophy Foundation. He is also a Visiting Research Associate at Kings College London and an author of many books on doing philosophy in schools and questioning in classrooms.

Foreword

Preface

A little background

Acknowledgements

Introduction to PhiE

Part One: Philosophy and dialectic

What is philosophy?

Philosophy as conversation

The 4 Rs

Logos and flux

Ambivalence: Two-eyed thinking

The reason for reason in philosophy

Philo-Sophia and the love of learning

And to the children?

A word about right and wrong answers in philosophy

Dialectic

The origins of dialectic

Heraclitus

The dialectical effect: thinking flows like a river

Socrates

Plato

Aspects of Platonic dialectic

Correspondence to PhiE

Two dialectics in Platos Parmenides

Aristotle

Aristotle and PhiE

Community of Enquiry

Part Two: Core values of PhiE

Ancient core values of PhiE

Exploration and discovery

Dissent

Autonomy

Inquiry/Enquiry

An open, questioning mind-set

Friendship

Friendship: xenia and knowing thyself

Excellence

Excellence and competition: the paradox of Socrates

Oracy

Oracy: Aoidos

Oracy: small d and big D dialectics

Part Three: pedagogical principles of PhiE

A sensitive method

A descriptive approach

Philosophical maturity: was Plato wrong?

Capability

Interest and engagement

The need for conditions

The conditions

Ideal speech situations

Classroom culture

PhiE begins with intuitions

Within and without: is PhiE democratic?

Truth and knowledge

Ownership

Two keystone principles in PhiE: Absence and Open Questioning Mindset

Absence and Presence

Socrates midwifery principle

From within

Open Questioning Mindset

Guess whats in my head

Problematisation

Blocking

Guess whats in your head and intentional sensitivity

Two aims of PhiE: dialectic and inclusion

Socratic irony and questioning mindsets

In summary

Bibliography

About the author