Philasophy and Children: 17 (1)

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Philosophy and Children Editor Notes Society

Philosophy and Children Editor Notes Society Manuscript profile

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2 - The Approach of Philosophy and Children in Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy Ibn Yaqzan
Nadia Maftouni

It is possible to find some approaches towards philosophy and children in theworks of Muslim philosophers. One of these works is that of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan which is written by Ibn Tufayl which is known as the first philosophical novel. Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is the name of a boy, More

It is possible to find some approaches towards philosophy and children in theworks of Muslim philosophers. One of these works is that of Hayy Ibn Yaqzan which is written by Ibn Tufayl which is known as the first philosophical novel. Hayy Ibn Yaqzan is the name of a boy, who lives in an uninhabited island, in the lap of nature and among the animals where a deer has undertaken to bring him up. Apart from his physical growth his intellectual growth also proceeded ahead in the lap of nature following which he attained a kind of intellectual, philosophical and mystical maturity. At the end of this story Hayy came to be acquainted with the inhabitants of other island and found that what he earned through thinking about himself and the nature is in consistent with religious teachings. This approach is considered to be a part of Hayy’s intellectual and philosophical compartment. Some of Hayy’s intellectual approaches in the course of his intellectual process since his childhood to old age led to certain achievements in the field of technology, natural science, philosophy, and gnosis. It is possible to analyze Hayy’s way of thought with reference to the four spiritual journeys. Manuscript profile

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3 - Practicing Creativity at Home and School
Alireza Amin

It is generally believed that creativity is an inborn talent that coexists with men since their birth, so others should only begrudge such merits. But such impression is totally wrong and unfounded belief. Creativity is a skill that everybody can learn, exercise, and ap More

It is generally believed that creativity is an inborn talent that coexists with men since their birth, so others should only begrudge such merits. But such impression is totally wrong and unfounded belief. Creativity is a skill that everybody can learn, exercise, and apply it. Creativity is just like skiing, playing tennis, cooking or learning mathematics. So everybody can learn these skills and improve themselves through exercising them. But, at the end, all may not succeed to learn these skills equally. Accordingly, given the importance of creativity, some communities since long ago have sorted out certain strict plans to foster the creativity of their people. Since the development of creativity needs proper environment and atmosphere, it is necessary to adopt various methods. The present paper is an attempt to elaborate these points and by referring to the way of developing creativities, seeks to be familiar with the definition, importance and obstacles of creativity. Manuscript profile

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4 - Cognitive Development Theories of Children as Viewed by Four Iranian Philosophers (Farabi, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra)
Nawab Moqarrabi

In dealing with the philosophers of any school of thought we should not contend ourselves with explaining and unraveling their views and teachings only. Rather, we proceed to ask ourselves that had they been alive today how could they look at our present problems with t More

In dealing with the philosophers of any school of thought we should not contend ourselves with explaining and unraveling their views and teachings only. Rather, we proceed to ask ourselves that had they been alive today how could they look at our present problems with their own philosophical and epistemological spectacles? How this world and its problems would loom up before them and which solutions they would sort out as the way out. Hence, the present paper is an attempt to explore various cognitive development theories of children based on the foregoing viewpoint on philosophy and philosophers. To do so, four major Iranian philosophers have been selected in this study and their views on cognitive development theory have been assessed. As a matter of fact, early Iranian philosophers had no specific view or independent work on cognitive development, but if it is supposed to explore their views on this issue we should first of all try to deal with their epistemology, which in the tradition of Iranian philosophy is called “self-knowledge”. Following the introduction of “Philosophy and Children” to Iranians, most of the respective people hastily sought to hold workshops and communities of inquiry in schools and research centers in order to analyze it statistically and descriptively without assessing critically its foundations, principles, and background, most of which seemed to be inconsistent with our culture and Iranian philosophy. Seemingly, both proponents and opponents of “Philosophy and Children” are unaware of its theoretical principles. In this paper, for the first time, cognitive development theories of children will be studied critically in the context of Iranian philosophy with reference to the views of four great Iranian philosophers such as Farabi, Ibn Sina, Suhrawardi, and Mulla Sadra. It is impossible and illogical to lay the foundation of any new philosophical system without tracing its background and foundations to its culture, for acquiring any knowledge based on which the end of any action is attainable is possible only through a previous knowledge. Manuscript profile

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5 - Worship, Education, and Philosophy and Children
Moslem Shojae

Basically, man’s need for praying and worship is rooted in his inmost being. Indeed, man by nature tends to worship God. Such inclination in man is not something alien to him, but is something internal, for had it been otherwise the concept of worshiping God would have More

Basically, man’s need for praying and worship is rooted in his inmost being. Indeed, man by nature tends to worship God. Such inclination in man is not something alien to him, but is something internal, for had it been otherwise the concept of worshiping God would have been failed to be realized. In order to persuade its followers to worship God and attain spiritual perfection Islam prescribes certain rules. In Islamic thought man is considered to be the vicegerent of God on earth. In order to materialize such station the ground must be prepared from the childhood for assuming such assignment in the adulthood period. Accordingly, it is necessarily to teach the philosophy of praying and worship to man from the childhood and bring him up in the lap of Islamic teachings. The aim of this paper is to explore the notion of praying and worship, education, and Philosophy and Children in an analytic-descriptive manner. It also deals with certain issues such as the reality of worshiping and its impact upon man, the effects of praying and worship in life, the motive of worship, its roots and fruits, its contents, the importance of education and philosophical thought for children, and the role of philosophical education of children in attracting their attention towards praying and worship. Concluding that like all men, children also possess thinking power. Moreover, by nature they are curious as well. By directing their curiosity it is possible to bring them up as creative scholars. Creativity can develop their intellectual capacity. It is by means of this method that children turn up to be thinker and critic, and then learn to know how by criticizing an idea to direct their thought towards a better one in their creative nature. On the contrary, failing to foster their creative thought will bring in its wake a kind of imitative state in conduct and finally cease their critical and thinking power. Manuscript profile

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6 - Philosophy and Children and the Skill of Communicative Conduct with the Followers of other Religions
Mahdi Ganjvar

Nowadays one of the main concerns of philosophers is to apply philosophy to our daily life for which extensive measures have been taken up so far in certain teaching and research centers. In this regard the attempts made by the founders of Philosophy and Children to rec More

Nowadays one of the main concerns of philosophers is to apply philosophy to our daily life for which extensive measures have been taken up so far in certain teaching and research centers. In this regard the attempts made by the founders of Philosophy and Children to reconcile philosophy with society are remarkable. Though “Philosophy and Children” from the outset tended to ethics, it seems that the effect of such educational program on the augmentation of behavioral skills and interplay of children with their fellow men, in spite of its importance and necessity, remain unnoticed from the view of the experts and researchers. Accordingly, the present paper proceeds to give a critical analysis of the epistemological geometry of “Philosophy and Children” and also explains the role and impact of this program on the enforcement of communicative conduct of children with others. Drawing and presenting effective components for the augmentation of their skills in communicating with the followers of other religions are among the important achievements of the present work. The other achievements are: respecting the rights of fellow men and the opponents, bring about an atmosphere for free thinking (freedom of thinking and expression), enforcing the EQ of children, teaching the peaceful coexistence with others, and commitment of children to morality (avoiding bigotry and unduly imitation). The method of this work is analytic-deductive. Manuscript profile

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7 - A Study of the Necessity of Teaching Logical Thinking to Muslim Children
Khadijeh Shahidi Marani

“Philosophy and Children” entered our country as a ready-made commodity and as a plan of teaching thinking to children, while it had crossed various stages in its birthplace in order to attain such level. All these stages had a determining role in the formation of such More

“Philosophy and Children” entered our country as a ready-made commodity and as a plan of teaching thinking to children, while it had crossed various stages in its birthplace in order to attain such level. All these stages had a determining role in the formation of such a plan. One of the earlier stages was the very sense of need and necessity for teaching correct thinking to the children. Intellectual education is a subject of certain interdisciplinary sciences such as education and logical and philosophical studies to the extent that both these sciences directly involve themselves in this issue. It also is an attempt to explore the data collected through observations and classified in a cluster method for analyzing and interpreting them in a qualitative way. The present paper tends to highlight the importance and necessity of teaching correct thinking to Muslim children which are pursued in two main sections as followed: first, “our children can think” (even they can criticize other’s thoughts). In order to prove this assertion, namely possibility of developing of logical thinking in children, the author refers to certain sayings of Iranian Muslim children and tries to analyze them; the sayings that contain certain logical and valid demonstrations that have clear definitions in logic. Second, “sometimes our children commit mistake in their thinking”. In order to demonstrate this issue author should refer to certain logical errors among children and try to explain them. This introduction prompts us to reach the conclusion that given the intrinsic talent and capacity of children it is necessary to augment their skill of logical thinking through “teaching thinking power to Muslim children”. Manuscript profile

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8 - Spirituality for Children with Emphasis on Ayatullah Shahabadi and Imam Khomeini’s Ideas
Maryam Davarniya

Spirituality means to attend and develop the spiritual dimension of man. Bringing up and rearing human spirituality particularly in childhood is an inevitable condition for the attainment of psychic health in a world wherein the storm of technology, mass communication, More

Spirituality means to attend and develop the spiritual dimension of man. Bringing up and rearing human spirituality particularly in childhood is an inevitable condition for the attainment of psychic health in a world wherein the storm of technology, mass communication, and conflict of ideas threaten them from all sides. Psychologists usually prescribe two fundamental components for the spiritual training of children as follows: spiritual intelligence and moral intelligence (virtue). According to Imam Khomeini, spirituality is a willful attention to the world of meaning which consists of various levels and finally lead to the realization of the station of perfect man. From the perspective of this philosopher, spiritual training is a monotheistic upbringing which contains three angles of teacher, student, and training. Imam Khomeini is of the view that apart from the role of teacher and student, there are some other factors such as fitrah (nature), thought, will, and moderation which are effective in bringing about spiritual training. In his view, by spiritual training of children it means to draw the attention of children towards the world of meaning in order to actualize their spiritual and natural dimensions with the aim of achieving the final goal. All these depend on the human will power and the role of the parents even before the birth of their children. Manuscript profile

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