Book review: Walter Omar Kohan and Barbara Weber (Eds.), Thinking, childhood, and time: Contemporary perspectives on the politics of education

Abstract

This new volume in Lexington’s Philosophy of Childhood series aims at a philosophical, political and educational exploration of childhood. The editors write in the introduction that ‘childhood is not seen as a developmental stage that needs to be overcome, but rather [as] an existential state of being human and a possibility for other beings’ (p. 1).1 Childhood is therefore, paradoxically, not limited to children. The aim of this approach is to foster a responsiveness to the otherness of the child and of childhood as such. This book thus provides a great overview of the current discussions in philosophy of childhood and education, including issues concerning decolonialization and the Antropocene.2 The book is divided in two parts: phenomenological approaches and poststructuralist approaches (including posthumanism and postcolonialism). Phenomenologically, ‘there are many possibilities to make sense of what we experience, and childhood stands as an experience that is no less meaningful than adulthood’ (p. 2). For the poststructuralists, childhood is ‘conceptualized beyond the limits of an individual human experience’ (p. 2). I will not discuss each contribution in its own right, since the editors already do this in their introduction. Rather, I will discuss the three main topics of the book: thinking, childhood, and time. The notions of time play a major role in many contributions to articulate a novel concept of childhood. This novel understanding of childhood allows for a re-evaluation of what thinking is and should do. I will therefore begin with what this volume teaches about time, before continuing on to childhood and thinking.