The Quest for Meaning and Value: Family Education and Philosophical Inquiry

Starting from the close connection between philosophy and education (from the time of Socrates to the present day), the paper suggests that the approach of Philosophy for Community – the extension of Matthew Lipman’s Philosophy for Children model to adult education – could be beneficially deployed within the contexts of family education. In this perspective Philosophy for Community is re-interpreted as an educational strategy to promote paths of reflectivity and a special focus is on education for caring thinking, that is, thinking which thinks in values. The latter seems to be more necessary than ever in an epoch when what has been forcefully called the “axiological refusal” risks undermining the family’s mission and, accordingly, the urgent need for a new family culture and for a re-construction of our perspectives on meaning and value is ever more strongly felt.