The present paper addresses the question about "PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN", abbreviated as "p4c", which is an educational program that aims at developing CHILDREN’s power of thinking and reasoning. The research method is based on group research (the circle of research and seminary sitting) and seeks to train thoughtful, attentive, deliberately ambitious, conscious and God-seeking individuals. The term "PHILOSOPHY" in this discussion is not used to mean philosophical beliefs and view; rather, it refers to another dimension of PHILOSOPHY, i.e. the skill of philosophizing. BeFORe elaborating on the issue, the concept of "PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN" is defined and its aims and benefits are reviewed. Then, the necessity of implementing the project is explained. Since, according to the Holy Quran, man is demanded to think and Islam considers thinking as an act of worship, it is finally concluded that this project is in harmony with the goals and general spirit which governs Islamic education and can be considered as part of the Islamic educational system.

The general aim of this research is surveying and criticizing PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN program based on philosophical foundations of Transcendent PHILOSOPHY. General research question is “What are the philosophical foundations of PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN program” Based on the philosophical foundations of Transcendent PHILOSOPHY, which critiques are subject to it? In this study, we have used analytic deductive research method. The evidences show the similarities and differences between the PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN program and philosophical foundations of Transcendent PHILOSOPHY. Based on these evidences, we criticized the program from point of view of Transcendent PHILOSOPHY. Yet concerning similarities, with deleting unmatched elements and adding necessary ones as well as reFORming it, and concerning its localized version, we can apply it in our country educational system.

Each course including PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN is based on theoretical foundations. These fundamentals can be traced in the theories and views of philosophers, given the objective of the course intended to teach PHILOSOPHY to CHILDREN and also the overall generality of PHILOSOPHY itself. In this paper the views of Socrates, Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel, Nelson and Lipman were considered. Findings indicated that the views of Socrates, Plato, and Kant advocate a sense of PHILOSOPHY upon which the curriculum FOR CHILDREN is based, meanwhile the views of Socrates would support the curriculum in terms of methodology and the entirety of PHILOSOPHY. Dependence of Plato's views on education and its PHILOSOPHY provided an appropriate milieu FOR the development of a program as such.Emphasis placed on philosophizing and returning PHILOSOPHY to its own position as well as the similarity of Descartes' methodology to that of course of PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN could be considered as the theoretical foundations of this course. The major contribution of Hegel to the course is his emphasis on teaching logic. The contribution of Nelson is to provide a practical experience similar to the methodology of Socrates in consistence with the aims of the course. Lipman as the founder of PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN made a crucial contribution to the development of the curriculum.A shift from two-side dialogue to group discussion, the use of written texts, Plato's disbelief in democracy and his tendency to enter to dialectic from the age of 18 upwards, opposition of Kant with premature engagement of students and CHILDREN in philosophical debates, emphasis of Hegel on compliance with the government and the like are discrepancies of views of these philosophers with the curriculum in question.

The main purpose of this paper is a reflection on common approaches to P4C and offering an alternative to the program based on Wilber theory of integral. Accordingly, it is argued that the alternative contains four quadrants and could be considered as a Holon. FOR Wilber all aspects of the reality should be counted as a whole. In this view, PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN is a process like Socratic methods and research community as introduced by Lipman; is a historical approach as it could be found in the Gaarder’s work, “Sophie’s world”; is a philosophical story as elucidated in the Fischer’s book entitled: “stories FOR thinking” and Piquemal work “the story of the philosophical world”; and is a cultural bounded program as enlightened by one of P4C leader in Danmark, Jespersen.

PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN' program that Mathew Lipman and his colleagues have developed is now known in our society and has led to thinking and research in this regard. Thus, to consider the challenges that are in front of this program can lead to the richness of these researches. Three challenges are in front of this program:philosophical, psychological, and educational. The philosophical challenge is due to the point that PHILOSOPHY is mainly dependent on the history of PHILOSOPHY and thoughts of preceding philosophers. This dependence should of course be along with critique, but this dependence cannot be denied anyway. Hence, philosophizing cannot be reduced to the methods of thinking. Psychological challenge is rooted in the approaches of developmental psychology that emphasize on phases in human thinking. Accordingly, abstract methods of philosophizing cannot be used in the period of childhood. Educational challenge is related to basic cultural values that might be shaken in the process of philosophical interrogations. The philosophical challenge requires that teaching PHILOSOPHY to CHILDREN emphasize on an amalgamation of method and content. The psychological challenge makes us cautious as to looking FOR more investigations on the periodical characteristic of thinking. And finally, the educational challenge requires that criticizing cultural values, being necessary in active education, is not started from foundational issues of culture. The period of childhood can only be fitted to interrogation of low level cultural issues and values and leave the foundational cultural issues to philosophizing in higher ages.

Three main criteria were presented FOR the adequacy of the p4c stories: philosophical adequacy, psychological adequacy and literary adequacy. In this paper, the aim was to show that what philosophical adequacy is and by what characters can it be realized from the p4c program founders' point of view? The philosophical adequacy was studied from two aspects in this paper: in FORm and in content. Raw fictional materials and themes as story content was investigated in the first part of paper and the second part was dealt with the rules that FORmally make the stories philosophical in the p4c meaning of PHILOSOPHY. The research methodology is descriptive - analytical. The results of this study indicated that considering some characteristics related these two kinds of adequacy we can make the stories philosophical in p4c meaning. These characteristics include: questionable and controversial philosophical themes and topics related to CHILDREN's lives and to the philosophical problems in one hand, and reconstruction of Philosophical Inquiry process, simulation modeling some processes such as cognitive processes and modeling logical-philosophical process including inquiry and discovery presses as well as cognitive processes.

Background: Many researchers consider teaching PHILOSOPHY to CHILDREN as one of the main tools FOR fostering critical and creative thinking skills among them.Objective: The current research aims to survey the role of teaching PHILOSOPHY to CHILDREN on their creativity and its components among the fifth grade primary school boy students in five schools in Tehran.Method: The authors used post-test method with control group. To this purpose some 100 students (4 classes) were selected among fifth grade primary school students. The students were taught during 13 sessions FOR 45 minutes (1 session in a week) by Sharp Lipman community of inquiry and Phillip Cam thinking stories, then the Torrance tests of creative thinking were executed.Results: The results of MANOVA indicate effects on components fluidity and flexibility and total score of creativity and showed no effect on originality and expandability of the students.Conclusion: By teaching PHILOSOPHY to CHILDREN, we can increase their creativity.