ABSTRACT. It is said that it takes a village to raise a child. It may also be said that it takes the unexplored wilderness to raise a philosopher. In this text I begin with Henry David Thoreau’s trope of going out into the wilderness to “witness our own limits transgressed” as an expression of a cosmopolitan philosophical exercise. This article is an attempt to bear witness to the transgressions of communal village life in the philosophical expressions of children. The sketch of those expressions leads to a depiction of philosophical life in early childhood education where, whatever pedagogical outlook or methods they may use, teachers will depend on a pedagogy of immediacy, of living with the child in the moment of awakening that is the child’s philosophical experience. This is a cosmopolitan moment of going beyond the boundaries of communal life and exercising untaken ways of living in the world. pp. 58–74

Keywords: cosmopolitanism; early childhood education; philosophy with children; immediacy; spiritual exercises; philosophical experience; Thoreau

doi:10.22381/KC7320194