The paper examines the relationship between Matthew Lipman's Philosophy for Children (P4C) and Dewey's views on democracy and education, tracing the influence of Dewey on Lipman, and arguing that P4C can potentially realize Dewey's idea of "democracy as morality" and "education as inquiry." The paper also looks at the differences in their attitudes towards the western philosophical tradition and in their conceptions of philosophy. The paper draws from Dewey's inspirational vision of philosophy to argue for a broader and more open conception of philosophy for P4C as a means to realizing "deeper democracy" in the globalizing world.