The Play of Socratic Dialogue

Abstract

Proponents of philosophy for children generally see themselves as heirs to the ‘Socratic’ tradition. They often claim too that children’s aptitude for play leads them naturally to play with abstract, philosophical ideas. However in Plato’s dialogues we find in the mouth of ‘Socrates’ many warnings against philosophising with the young. Those dialogues also question whether philosophy should be playful in any straightforward way, casting the distinction between play and seriousness as unstable. It seems we cannot think of Plato as representing how to engage in dialectic, nor as prescribing a method for doing so. The irreducible textuality of the dialogues defeats any attempt to read them in this way. This is not to criticise the practice of philosophy for children: only to note the ambivalence and instability of the philosophical heritage that it wants to claim.

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