International Conference 2014

from October 16 - 19, 2014 in Graz/Austria

Our society is undergoing fundamental changes due to increasing globalization, scientific-technological progress and digital information transfer. What is changing is not only the knowledge about the basics of our social, medial, cultural and economic coexistence, but already the access to and the handling of this knowledge. Consequently, a profound structural change is emerging that raises urgent sociopolitical and educational questions - especially with regard to the development of young people. What influence do these changes have on the development of thinking and personality as well as on the fundamental ability of children and young people to perceive and resolve conflicts? Obviously, it cannot be assumed that these changes will be accompanied by participation and equal opportunities for all young people in the population. Referring to the current cultural, socio-political and educational debates, the International Congress for Philosophy of Children 2014 addresses the resulting challenge to critically discuss the existing and the possible new relationships between knowledge and responsibility. However, Critical Thinking as a decisive mediating and justifying instance is not to be used merely as a means to an end of discourses, but is furthermore to be more strongly included in the philosophical-pedagogical potential for concrete educational areas. What does the ability to think critically mean anyway? What is knowledge? What is the connection between knowledge and responsibility?

Critical thinking is based on mutually rapidly expanding criteria to achieve distinctive standards of judgment and self-reflection. The congress aims to redefine these prerequisites and skills of critical thinking according to those social, medial, cultural and economic demands that young people today are inevitably confronted with in their living, learning and working worlds. The aim is to find new meanings in order to be able to provide a basis for improving young people's orientation knowledge. For never before in human history have knowledge and responsibility been so intertwined. This means that both individual and collective responsibility are on the rise. This is especially true for educational thinking and, more specifically, for strategic thinking, generally network-like connections between the rise of knowledge on the one hand and non-knowledge on the other. Between these categories, responsibility is to be positioned in an almost urgent philosophical-pedagogical way. Knowledge that is difficult or even impossible to access quickly leads to disorientation, disinterest and finally to a problem of responsibility for society as a whole, which can only be countered by philosophical, scientific and political sides in a corresponding inter- or transdisciplinary cooperation. The congress aims to contribute to the elaboration of conceptual foundations for concrete analyses and strategies that, in the field of tension between Critical Thinking, Knowledge and Responsibility, will enable "us to choose the best form of political and social organization for ourselves, to recognize our own values, in short, to become in a comprehensive way what each of us is, namely a free human being." (Federico Mayor, former UNESCO Director General) As the great interest of the approximately 200 congress participants from about 20 countries, including renowned international experts from various disciplines and fields, shows, our activities have become exemplary beyond national borders. We are expecting another eventful congress this year. International projects have intensified our cooperation with numerous domestic and foreign universities and other educational institutions, also outside Europe.

The topics of the congress include the following:

• Critical thinking
• Teaching argumentation and reasoning
• Tension between knowledge and responsibility
• Individual and collective responsibility
• New dimensions of knowledge
• Relevance of philosophical inquiry
• Inter- and transdisciplinarity
• Lifelong learning: philosophical perspectives and education
• Philosophizing with children and education in the digital age