Philosophical Talent : Empirical investigations into philosophical features of adolescents' discourse

This study tests the hypothesis that a philosophical talent exists in thinking patterns, uttered through oral expressions during philosophical discussions. A systematic study on the philosophical quality of thinking patterns was undertaken among youngsters of 10 - 20 years old. 'Philosophical quality' strongly relates to concepts of 'philosophy', 'philosophising', and 'wisdom'. To describe 'philosophical quality' three main features of philosophy were derived from history and from descriptions by leading current philosophers about the mental activity of philosophising. These include: 1) analysing and reasoning qualities, 2) qualities detecting ambiguities, uncertainty and borderline explorations, and 3) qualities of moving smoothly from theory to practice and vice versa. Empirical studies on wisdom and divergent thinking patterns uncovered similar qualities. Conceptual considerations concerning philosophically qualified thinking patterns were matched with observations of expressions uttered by youngsters while discussing philosophical topics. Their mental explorations of philosophical topics cover a wide spectrum from tentative behaviour, trying to 'capture' the unknown. Conventional judgements through criteria of correctness or maturity do not always meet the quality of these explorations adequately. A different framework is required. Therefore, a conceptual framework consisting of five clearly detectable indicators was developed and a measuring instrument, the tetralogue, as a standardised format for philosophical discussions with four participants to facilitate registration and counting indicators. Tetralogues are ignited by key questions voluntarily selected by participants and chaired by qualified experts. In this research, 70 such tetralogues with 215 youngsters between 11 to 13 and 14 to 16 years old, in two educational levels (relatively high and low) and in two levels of life course (regular and irregular) were recorded, revealing a total of 14,393 oral utterances. The transcribed and formatted utterances were checked on the presence of philosophical indicators. Scores were processed quantitatively. The results of this operation were tested positively on objectivity and reliability. Two numerical indices were constructed: pq and PQ, reflecting philosophical quality of individually and collectively performed thinking patterns in tetralogues. The pq index is based on a balanced ratio of indicator frequencies, while the PQ index was designed to measure the philosophical quality of participants' joint venture exceeding that of individual contributions. Validity of the pq / PQ construct is corroborated by positive correlations between calculated PQ indices and previous estimates of the same tetralogues and between pq indices and characteristics that were expected to relate with concerning participant's personality trait, their educational level and -to a limited extent- intelligence. No significant correlation was found between philosophical quality and age, irregular life course, or philosophical topic (epistemology, metaphysics, anthropology, ethics, and questions of meaning and demarcation). A limited follow-up study shows the influence of school environment and peers on philosophical quality of participants after entering a secondary school of lower educational level. This study has clarified the mental activity of philosophising, confirmed its distinguished domain of cognitive behaviour, and emphasised the difference between philosophically qualified and convergent thinking patterns stressing the independence of the first from traditional measures of cognitive and moral development. The use of the term philosophical talent as an equivalent of philosophical quality is justified by demonstrating that this quality is relatively stabile, age independent, related to openness to experience as a personality trait, determinable at an early age, and potentially exploitable in cooperation with the environment.