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Interview

Peter Worley

Peter Worley runs The Philosophy Shop in London with his wife Emma. Rick Lewis asks him about teaching philosophy to kids.

What is The Philosophy Shop? What do you do?

‘The Philosophy Shop’ is the trading name of educational charity The Philosophy Foundation. We have been teaching philosophy to children and adults for nine years, and we train philosophers in doing philosophy with children as young as four.

In The Republic Plato said that in his ideal state people wouldn’t study philosophy until they were forty, by which time they’d have some experience of the world. Why was he wrong?

As the philosopher Simon Glendinning once said to me, when teaching children maths or music, you don’t wait until they’re old enough to do it well – you begin teaching them while they are not able to do them well. Inability is not a reason for children not to start learning.

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