Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2

43

T he Wisdom Beyond Languages
JINMEI YUANT

his paper is a report of my comparative researchconcerning the question “could there be a Chinese
Harry Stottlemeier?” My comparative research focuses on Chapter One of Harry Stottlemeier’s Discovery(hereafter HSD), one of the P4C novels. This book is basedon Aristotelian logic and provides the opportunity for children to figure out many logical relations and rules by themselves. I examine how children who speak different languages, such as Chinese and English, understand HSD. I let
two groups of children, Chinese and English, who were involved in the P4C project, read Chapter One of different
versions of HSD, one in Chinese and the other in English,
and discuss it in P4C classrooms. Although the focus ofgroup discussions in China were very different from thosein America both groups brought out some very valuable
philosophical questions despite their different cultural backgrounds. This research leads me to conclude that P4C introduces a kind of wisdom that is beyond the limitations of any
particular language, a wisdom that encourages all of us tokeep a space open in our minds for a sense of wonder.
General Information Concerning My Work and the P4C
Strategies Involved
HSD is one of a series of philosophical novels written
for children by Dr. Matthew Lipman. It aims to achieve anumber of objectives, which include the following:
1.

HSD aims to present the idea of a community of inquiry to children through a story that involves children
about the age of the students who will read the book(typically, ages 11-13). The children in HSD form acommunity of inquiry in their own classroom. In thiscommunity, they discuss a variety of issues, many ofwhich are of philosophical import.

2.

Lipman sees the development of the ability to reason as
crucial to developing the ability to think for oneself andsees logic as central to developing one’s reasoning
abilities. A major theme in HSD, then, is a series of“discoveries” that, in large measure, present the basic
content of Aristotelian logic. For example, in Chapter
One, Harry discovers a rule governing the conversionof what we recognize as A and E propositions.
The story of Chapter One in HSD begins with Harry’s

mind wandering during science class. He then fails to correctly answer his teacher’s question: “What is it that has along tail and revolves about the sun once every 77 years?”
He thinks that the answer is “a planet” because he hears“revolves around the sun” and remembers that “all planets
revolve around the sun.” After class, Harry tries to figureout why he made the mistake. Helped by his friend, Lisa, hediscovers that one cannot reverse and maintain the truth of asentence that starts with the word “all,” but can do so with atrue sentence that starts with the word “no.” Namely, one
cannot switch the places of subject and predicate in a universal, affirmative sentence, but can do so in a universal,
negative sentence. Harry’s first discovery is actually about
the truth value of a universal, affirmative proposition (A)and its converse, and the truth value of a universal negative
proposition (E) and its converse.
I studied both American and Chinese children’s understanding of and responses to the relations between these two
types of universal propositions and their converses after
they read, respectively, the English and Chinese versions of
Chapter One of HSD. Two groups of children were involved. Both groups consisted of elementary school students, the first from Honolulu, HI, USA, and the second
from Jiaozuo, Henan, China. Both groups were made up offirst, third, fourth, and fifth graders. In both groups, threeconstants were maintained: (1) the facilitators were experienced teachers of P4C who had received specific training in
P4C theory and methodology, (2) the “Plain Vanilla” strategies for facilitating philosophical inquiry were used, and (3)participants were familiar with the “Good Thinker’s Tool
Kit.”1 My study focused on two questions: (1) how muchdoes language itself affect children’s understanding, and (2)how much does the traditional logic of a culture influencechildren’s interests in what they consider to be the relevant
topics in the HSD text?
Different Ways of Thinking Between Chinese andAmerican Children—Different Perspectives of Inquiry
Asking questions after reading HSD Chapter 1 provides
Jinmei Yuan (jyu02084@creighton.edu) received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Hawaii. Her dissertation was titled:“Can Aristotelian Logic Be Translated into Chinese: Could There Be
A Chinese Harry Stottlemeier?” Jinmei is an award winning writer offiction who currently teaches philosophy at Creighton University.
Jinmei has been involved with P4C since 1994.

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Yuan, The Wisdom Beyond Languages

an initial point from which to begin inquiry. This procedure
was followed by both Chinese and American groups. In
looking at the actual questions raised by the students, I
found three significant differences. First, although the actual questions raised by each group were similar in important respects, they were also different in terms of the questions that were raised by the Chinese students but not raisedby the American students. Second, there were significant
differences between the groups in the actual questions selected for discussion. Third, there were equally significant
differences in the manner in which these questions werediscussed. These differences, I maintain, are the result of
two factors: first, the influence of each culture’s natural language and, second, the imbedded structures of the traditional logical system inherent to each culture; that is, the“logical space” in the minds of Chinese children is structured differently than their Western counterparts.
A comparison of the questions raised by the American
and the Chinese groups reveals essential differences in thethinking structures of each. Both groups understood thestory in Chapter One of HSD at the natural language level
and raised questions about why Harry reversed sentences.
Also, both groups were curious about Harry’s and the othercharacters’ attitudes and thoughts, and questioned whether
these attitudes were appropriate or inappropriate, right orwrong. Significantly, however, despite these similarities,
there was a set of questions that dealt with the value or significance of Harry’s discovery that were only raised by the
Chinese children. These questions do not inquire about
Harry’s rules of reversing sentences — which was the main
subject of inquiry in the American group — but about theessential worth of the rules and their implications for Harryas a person. In what follows, I examine these differences in
preference for types of questions from the perspective oflogical structures. By comparing the inquiry focus of thetwo groups of children, it will become evident how embedded traditional logical structures have impacted their waysof thinking and reasoning.
Different Thinking Processes
From the perspective of Western thought patterns, it issometimes hard to understand the thinking of Chinese children. Some American teachers who have taught in China
have complained that they could not understand Chinese
people, because it seemed to them that Chinese students did
not discuss topics directly, but rather went around them incircles. In examining my results from a Western point ofview, one would seem to meet a similar problem. One
would hardly be able to understand the discussions of theChinese children, especially why they mention many things
seemingly peripheral to the main topic. Chinese children
did not focus on what they learned or did not want to inquire about logical relations from Harry’s discovery, although they seemed to have learned a lot from how Harry
made his discovery. Aristotelian logical relations were sim-ply not the kind of relations in which they were interested.
Instead of focusing on the logical content of Harry’s discovery, they searched for similar ways to have Harry’s kind of
discoveries in their own lives. This is a typical thoughtprocess according to Chinese logic: one should look forsimilar relations to see how to get future benefits from theapplication of the lessons learned from a singular case.
Chinese children did not have much interest in the topic
of the content of Harry’s discovery, the logical relations between subjects and predicates. Each class would typicallyoffer a few sentences to illustrate Harry’s rules and thenturn to another topic. The story about Harry’s discovery—
and the Aristotelian logical relations that it relayed—hadbeen successfully translated into Chinese and understood,
so the lack of interest was not a problem of translation. The
children simply had almost no interest in pursuing any inquiry into these kinds of logical relations. What they wereinterested in and brought to the text was a different set of
relations. In other words, even though they read a story that
focused on a discovery in Aristotelian logic, their own Chinese perspective prevailed. This reveals that there are twolevels of understanding to a Chinese version of HSD. One isunderstanding at the level of natural language. Chinese children understood the content of what they read without any
prior knowledge of Aristotelian logic. However, the Chinese children were not interested in the logical content ofHarry’s discovery, a major focus of the chapter, but in a different set of relations that were important to their culture
and deeply embedded in the logic of their language. In effect, their thinking was influenced by traditional Chinese
patterns, which include the following components: (1) associations of a singular case (Harry’s discovery) and (2) how
other cases might benefit from the singular case (how might
one learn from and apply the wisdom of Harry’s discovery).
Instead of focusing on the content itself or the examples
involved in the discussion, Chinese children spent their energy looking for how they might benefit from Harry’s story.
Since the changing relation of yin and yang is essential in
Chinese logic, it is taken for granted that no discovery, including a rule of logic, can be absolutely true at all times orfor all people. Chinese children were thus more interested
in the question “does Harry’s discovery have value in ourlives?” The way they tested this question was to ask “if one
put Harry’s discovery in another situation in one’s present
life, could one get benefits by following Harry’s example?”
The following is an exemplary segment of a discussion
among a group of fourth graders in Jiaoxi Elementary
School, Jiaozuo:
The question picked by the children: What did you
learn from Harry’s discovery?
Facilitator: A Chinese teacher
B1 (Boy 1): I learned that I should listen to what
teacher said. I should also learn from Harry tothink hard.
B2: I learned that if I have questions, I should ask

Thinking: The Journal of Philosophy for Children, Volume 17, Numbers 1 & 2

someone for help. If I do not understand a problem,
I should test it.
G1: (Girl 1): I learned from Harry’s discovery that
I should not be scared of asking question.
G2: I learned from Harry’s discovery that one
should start by questioning. One should not bescared of being tested by others. One should use
the facts to show the power of his/her knowledge.
G3: I have learned from Harry’s discovery that inour daily life and classes I should often use mybrain to think.
B3: I have learned that if Harry had listened to theclass, how could he have made his discovery?
G4: I have learned that one should think hard andoften ask questions.
G5: I have learned that one should not see thingsfrom one perspective but from many perspectives.
This is a pattern typical of Chinese thinking.
In contrast, the thinking of the American group focusedon Harry’s discovery itself: the logical relations between
subjects and predicates. They were very interested in testing
Harry’s rules. Their discussions generally followed the topics that Lipman intended when he wrote the text. Even
though they had no prior training in Aristotelian logic, theybrought out the four kinds of propositions of the Square of
Opposition (A, E, I, and O) in their discussion. It seems that
this set of relations is important to Western culture anddeeply embedded in Western languages. This characteristically Western thinking pattern includes the following components:
1. Doubting: American children doubted both the truth
function of Harry’s rules and their fellow students’interpretations of these rules.
2. Testing: American children developed many counterexamples to both test whether Harry’s rule worked
and challenge each other’s propositions.
3. Categorizing: The American children were very goodat putting terms into different categories and wereinterested in using Venn diagrams to represent therelations among these categories. In
doing this, they discovered the various
applications of the rules governing“Some,” “No,” and “All” propositions. By playing with these rules,
they wanted to clarify the relations of
A,E, I, and O propositions.
4. Formulating: American children addressed the problem by finding differences in detail. They formulated the
problems of “All” and “No” propositions and pointed out that Harry’s sentences have “All” in them, but no“Not.” Some posed new sentences beginning with “All” according to45

Harry’s rule.
5. Defining: When a child brought in a new application ofa rule, the class defined the application’s main concepts in order to make it clear. They then tried to discover new rules about “Some” propositions and“No” propositions. The children invoked some criteria to define the terms of their discussion. For example, at the end of one session, the children tried tolocate one of their terms (“primate”) in a hierarchicalsystem according to a universal definition (the system of biological taxonomy).
The reason I think these thought patterns are distinctly
Western is that they are based on a belief that there is a
fixed order in the world. Children took the principle of asingle case (Harry’s sentence) and, through their use of criteria, applied it to other cases (their own sentences). They
felt happy with the order that the relation of subject andpredicate in a particular case was located in the structure ofgenus-species. In short, from the perspective of thinking
processes, one can see major differences between the thinking of Chinese and American children, differences that areclearly influenced by the traditional ways of thinking common to their respective cultures.
Discovering the Value of Different Ways of Thinking
Through the Wisdom Beyond Languages
In Chapter Thirteen of HSD, Harry says:
There are lots of different ways of looking
at things and thinking about things. But I
guess you have to find out about them foryourself. You get taught that there is only
one way to think, and then you find outthat there are a lot of other ways that may
be just as good. I’d like to find out all thedifferent ways in which it is possible tothink (68).
To allow for and discover different ways of thinking is abasic principle of P4C. Children are encouraged to think for46

themselves in a responsible way. Accomplishing this requires a shift from the traditional classroom structure,
where teachers are primarily transmitters of information totheir students, to classrooms that are “communities of inquiry.” Such communities become intellectually safe places
for both teachers and students. There is a focus on developing trust and courage amongst the members of the community, so that children feel free to open their minds and express their thoughts. In such an environment the classroom
community then engages in inquiries that arise, as much as
possible, out of the interests of the children. These inquiries
involve questions that frequently have no single, correct
answer. The role of the teacher/facilitator is crucial to thesuccess of the endeavor. The teacher/facilitator is not there
to guide the discussion to a particular end or specific answer, but to rather at once facilitate and participate in theinquiry with the children, serving as a co-inquirer. In an experienced community, the teacher becomes a fully equal
participant. Members of the community call on each otherrather than letting the discussion flow from the teacher.
This classroom structure is crucial for discovering the valueof different ways of thinking.
In an important sense, it does not matter how different
the Chinese and English languages are. The ability to wonder and question does not depend on what language thechild speaks. Putting it another way, the sense of wonder isthe original power from which children question theirworld, though what happens to the wonder and questioning(how, whether, and in what directions it develops) is partly
a matter of culture. Since the P4C classroom opens a wide
space for the sense of wonder, the value of different waysof thinking blossoms. In other words, even though HSD isbased on Aristotelian logic, no P4C facilitator lim ited theChinese students to think within this framework by insisting
they focus on the logical content of Harry’s discovery
which would have narrowed the space for wonder. The inquiries were allowed to flow in the direction of the children’s interests. The inquiry of Chinese and American children thus revealed each group’s cultural background andled to real philosophical discussions. Hence, keeping space
open for the sense of wonder encouraged students from different cultures to demonstrate the valuable aspects of theirown culture and ways of thinking.
As discussed earlier, while the American children focused on the formal logical relations present in Lipman’swork, the Chinese children explored the practical value ofHarry’s discovery in daily life. Both of these approaches
represent important forms of philosophical inquiry. They
simply make use of different sets of criteria for what is logical. The Chinese set of criteria judges how a rule can beused practically in life. These criteria come from the underlying belief that the world is constantly changing—there is
no pre-set order on which one can base a claim of universal
truth. Thus, the value of any rule must be tested in the particular place and time to which one wishes to apply it. The
American set of criteria judges how to correctly locate theYuan, The Wisdom Beyond Languages

positions of subjects and predicates in a hierarchical systemof taxonomy. If the relation between a subject and a predicate fits the positions in a structure of genus-species, then
one can judge the truth-value of a proposition. This set ofcriteria is based on a presupposition that there is a fixed order to the world. Without the guide of P4C principles regarding intellectual safety and the importance of developing
inquiry out of the interests of the children, the Chinese children’s understanding of HSD and their subsequent contributions to philosophical discussions might have been ignored
or dismissed.
In Conclusion
Through the efforts of P4C, it is possible to open a philosophical discourse between children from different cultures who speak different languages. The core of this idea
lies in one’s ability to keep a space open for a sense of wonder. In Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Rorty says this“space for the sense of wonder” is created by a lack of constraint in discourse. “Space,” the opposite of “constraint,” isdescribed by Rorty as a room that can hold any thinking. To
keep space open for a sense of wonder in a continuing conversation, we should give up the desire for constraint.
Though some languages and cultures are different, just as
one can always wonder about both the finite and the infinite, one should be able to also wonder about different waysof thinking and how they might be related. Keeping a space
open for the sense of wonder will keep open possibilities
for a discourse between different children in the world,which is more important than teaching that either Aristotelian logic or Chinese logic is the only true system of know ledge.
Philosophy for Children has contributed a great deal tothis notion of keeping a space open for the sense of wonder.
To allow for diverse understandings is the first essentialcondition of having a discourse with another languagegame player, whether the group is Chinese or American,
adults or children. It is easy for one player to simply claimthat the other player’s rule is wrong or illogical, but it ismuch more challenging to see his or her reasoning from theperspective of another system of logic. The possibility for a
fruitful exchange between Chinese logic and Aristotelian
logic depends on how much space each of them keeps open
for the other. This is the step which each should take tomake possible a common discourse.
When children come to school, they are full of wonder.
As adults, we should assist them as much as possible in
keeping this wonder alive. This is the wisdom that goes beyond any language.
Notes
1. For an explanation of Plain Vanilla and the Good Thinker’s
Tool Kit, see Thomas Jackson’s article in this journal.