Why Children Make Such Good Philosophers

Current Affairs

In this episode, we discuss the strange creatures known as children. Scott Hershovitz is a professor of philosophy and law at the University of Michigan and the author of Nasty, Brutish, and Short: Adventures in Philosophy With My Kids, which chronicles (hilariously) his philosophical conversations with his sons Rex and Hank. The book is a great primer on some basic philosophical questions for adult readers, but it also shows that children are more profound philosophers than they are often assumed to be. Because the world is unfamiliar to them, every child is a little Socrates, asking authority figures to justify their beliefs. The child's relentless query of "Why?" is a demand that knowledge be justified, and Hershovitz encourages us to take children's philosophical questions seriously. He also believes that philosophy ought to be taught much earlier than college, because it helps cultivate useful critical thinking skills. Today, we discuss how the "chaos muppets" that are children can actually be uncommonly profound.

Here is Scott's New York Times article "How To Pray To A God You Don't Believe In," which discusses his son's unique perspective on how God is both "pretend" and "real."

The image above is from a video of a child solving the "trolley problem."