Gareth B. Matthews: Philosphy and the Young Child.  Harvard University Press, 1980, £6.00.

Citing numerous intriguing anecdotes Matthews argues convincingly that philosophical wonder and reasoning can be found in young children. A very puzzled John (the author's son, aged 8) asks why, as we have two eyes, we don't see double; and there follows an arresting conversation between father and son that points out some baffling aspects of perception. Tim (aged 6) wants to be certain that everything is not a dream and concludes that everything isn't because “in a dream people wouldn't go around asking if it was a dream”. A girl (9) asserts that there must be a God because he has a name. Ursula (3) inquires where her tummy-pain will go when it goes away. Ian (6), who has to contend with three visiting children choosing to watch a television programme and so preventing him from seeing his favourite, asks his mother indignantly, “Why is it better for three people to be selfish than for one?”

Matthews discusses these examples and many more to show that children, unencumbered by later pressures to conform, naturally experience philosophical perplexity. With elegant conciseness he describes the complex conceptual problems that children articulate and clearly demonstrates that the questions the child poses often differ from the philosopher's only in degrees of sophistication. But, although children lack conceptual maturity, they do exhibit a fresh and genuine puzzlement at the way things are, which indeed is the prime motivation for philosophical reflection—a puzzlement the adult is liable to have left behind. And so Matthews encourages the reader to join the child in thought-experiments, for such intellectual adventures are mutually enjoyable and mutually beneficial.

Now one might believe that this area of philosophical thinking in children has already been well marked out by developmental psychologists and educational theorists. But Matthews asserts that these workers betray a general insensitivity to the child's original grappling with philosophical matters. In a most