Show HN: Philosophy for Kids
philosophy.ocaho.comSometimes my son asks me 'why' questions that could be answered well by a kid-friendly philosophy article. But I don't know where to find those, so I ask Claude or ChatGPT, and have a specific workflow for getting the type of output I want.
I figured other people might find those AI-generated articles helpful, so I put them here: https://philosophy.ocaho.com/
There's a search box at the top.
Really great idea. And not going to ding it for kicking off with an LLM. But it might be worth thinking about how you could build a community of human contributors in a future stage. I personally don't feel comfortable with handing AI-generated stuff over to the kids in my life, and I imagine that would be a big barrier for your project as many others share this sentiment. That's a shame because encouraging kids to think deeply from a young age is something I would deeply support.
There are tons of knowledgeable teachers out there, and they are very often motivated to help the next generations thrive and grow beyond their day job. I'm sure you could find people to help with editorial work on this version to give it a human stamp of approval, and involve the many talented and inspiring educators and communicators that are out there to help grow this into a true value for the next generation.
Either way. Good luck!
Thanks for the encouragement. And you are 100% correct about how most people perceive AI-written content.
Separately, I wonder whether you'd find something like this more trustworthy: https://kidsdiscover.com/shop/issues/roman-empire-for-kids/
And, if so, what signals do you think makes it more trustworthy in your eyes?
Sorry, I find the articles pretty shallow. Of course I don't expect better from an LLM, but you should know it.
I would suggest not answering you childs questions using stuff directly from LLM. You should think about it, make up your mind and then answer your child.
If you can't be bothered, then I think it is ok to say "I am not sure" and let the kid figure it out in due course...
I think it is a good approach. However, I suggest considering it a little more from a child's perspective. Children like simple text accompanied by various interesting illustrations. I support you.
Good idea. Worth considering though, philosophy isn't really about right answers, it's about learning to question. Bit worried about an LLM tends to hand kids a tidy conclusion, which is kind of the opposite of what you want.
good idea however AI can be confidently wrong sometimes so how do you catch that?
OP here.
Great question. Thankfully most of the topics I'm covering here are well covered by trusted sources that are freely available on the internet. This is particularly true about dates (e.g. when a particular philosopher died). Separately, many of the articles are less about the specific history of each topic, but about how the topics fit together and what you as a reader might like to think about as a result. These parts aren't stating facts (which can be true or untrue) but explaining that there's a different way to look at something (which is matter of opinion or perspective).
Not for kids. Too much text and written for adults.
Thanks for your work preparing these materials. Sending the link to my son. Philosophy is not included in his curriculum at all.
If your son is 7 to 12 years old and you want to get him started thinking about philosophy, I'd highly recommend he read these three books:
Harry Stottlemeier's Discovery (free PDF at the top right of this page: https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED103298)
Sophie's World: https://www.amazon.com/Sophies-World-History-Philosophy-Clas...
The Fallacy Detective: https://www.amazon.com/Fallacy-Detective-Thirty-Eight-Recogn...
These books would provide a better introduction to philosophy in general, than reading about random topics in philosophy.
Thanks a lot. He is 12. I got books and will try to propose for him. But your comic-like website works better :)
One of the best applications of vibe coding.