1. Education is a moral undertaking and therefore our practice within education must be open to inquiry.
2. To engage in philosophical inquiry is to theorize, to analyze, to critique, to raise questions about, and/or to pose as problematic that which we are investigating.
3. Theory can be derived from other systems of thought; derived from social, political, and/or economic situations; and constructed from practice.
4. Philosophical inquiry is concerned with (i.e., “inquires into”) the nature of reality, knowledge, and value.
5. Philosophical inquiry can be descriptive, normative, and/or analytic. It can be interpretive and/or critical.
6. Modes of philosophical inquiry have interests: Interpretive inquiry has an interest in understanding, critical inquiry has an interest in emancipation.
7. Critical inquiry is a mode of philosophical inquiry that questions reality, looking for contradictions. Critical inquiry is
change/action-oriented.