I FIRST BECAME INTERESTED in the philosophical thought of young children by worrying about how
to teach introductory courses in philosophy to college stu- dents. Many students seemed to resist the idea that doing
philosophy could be natural. In response to their resistance
I hit on the strategy of showing them that as children many
of them had already done philosophy. It occurred to me
that my task as a college philosophy teacher was to reintroduce my students to an activity that they had once enjoyed
and found natural, but that they had later been socialized to abandon.
Once I began ruminating on philosophical thinking in children, I found the subject fascinating. I also found that it interested others, both inside and outside the classroom. So
I began to develop my ideas about it, to do some informal
research and teaching on the subject, and to gather the re- actions and thoughts of others—philosophers and nonphilosophers, parents, teachers, and simply people who like children.