摘要：In March of 1996, I was asked to present a paper to a group who call themselves The – Women speak Institution. The contact person explained that the group was discouraged about the possibility of people ever changing sufficiently so that the genders would be able to relate to one another in a truly productive and mutually beneficial way. Having heard of the program Philosophy for Children, she posed the following question: Is it possible that Philosophy for Children might have the answer? Is it possible that if children learned to be “fairminded” through philosophy at a very young age, they might be able to avoid the pitfalls that hitherto have seemed to be an inherent part of gender interaction? It took only a matter of minutes before we both realised that Womenspeak and Philosophy for Children could be perceived as working on the same problem from different directions. Womenspeak hopes to bridge the gender gap by enlightening and empowering adults. Philosophy for Children can be seen as attempting to bridge the gender gap by short-circuiting the development of such “dysfunctional thinking” as bigotry, sexism, prejudice, intergender miscommunication, self-centredness and, perhaps most importantly, “fuzzy” thinking. The excitement of our discussion gave rise to the following request: Could I explain, with sufficient precision and persuasion, how a philosophical education can short-circuit what I refer to as dysfunctional thinking so as to rekindle the hope that the gender gap - along with other dysfunction human interactions - may yet be educated away. The following is the result of that challenge.
