outlandish

How do you explain what Philosophy is to an 8 year old?

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Recently I was asked by my 8 year old son what Philosophy is, and what a Philosopher is. I was really stumped. How would you explain this to an 8 year old?

Kids are great at asking challenging questions.


How to get to infinity? Divide by zero.

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Philosophy is trying to answer questions that cannot be answered.

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Try and find a philosophical question that the 8 year old is interested in. My dad used to tell me about paradoxes.

At 13 I was interested in questions like free will, reality, morality. At 8 I was into Lego and Pokemon.. but I guess, ask the kid if they know what right and wrong is, and how they would describe it. If he tries to put morality into words, he is being a moral philosopher.

Then you can also turn to metaphysics. What is the difference between dreaming and real life?

Philosophers try to answer these questions and more.

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@outlandish Ask him fun philosophical questions and explore possible answers with him. He will then develop some intuition for it.


How is this post just me acting out my ego in the usual ways? Is this post just me venting and justifying my selfishness? Are the things you are posting in alignment with principles of higher consciousness and higher stages of ego development? Are you acting in a mature or immature way? Are you being selfish or selfless in your communication? Are you acting like a monkey or like a God-like being?

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You have individual knowlege (science): physics, language, psychology, etc

 

If you need to use several fields of knowlege to explain something you are doing phillosophy. 

 

Basically everything that is not science, or encompasses more than one science, is phillosophy.

 

Edited by RedLine

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Simple:

  • Love of wisdom
  • Love of questioning reality

Why does anything exist?

How do we know anything for certain?

What is the point of life?

If God exists, who created God?

What is the color red?

What makes mathematics true?

If I turn my back on the moon, does it still exist?

Why does war happen?

Even... What is philosophy? ;)

Etc.

Every kid will understand such questions. So philosophy is simply the serious pursuit of such questions.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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The fact you were stumped at such a question in order to convey it simply to your child may be a good thing to actually convey to him. Be honest that philosophy is so good that even at your age you have a hard time explaining it all.

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Question that are too hard for science are philosophical questions

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Science is a branch of philosophy.


You are God. You are Truth. You are Love. You are Infinity.

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Great answers thanks everyone!


How to get to infinity? Divide by zero.

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On 10/8/2020 at 10:24 PM, outlandish said:

Recently I was asked by my 8 year old son what Philosophy is, and what a Philosopher is. I was really stumped. How would you explain this to an 8 year old?

Kids are great at asking challenging questions.

Philosophy is related to thinking, make him think, ask him some questions, simple ones, like why do you go to school every day? Then discuss his answer by asking more questions… you both will have fun!

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