Gifted? Or SEND?

[DoggyBird]

I have a relative - a girl aged nearly ten years old. She complained to her lovely Jamaican lady neighbour that: "Can you believe I am nearly ten and I still haven't read the Tractatus?" So the neighbour, who is a volunteer at the children's library, promised to look for it in there for her as though she's likely to find Wittgenstein's opus magnum nestled between Charlotte's Web and The Gruffalo. I thought that was hilarious until I discovered this little girl has already read Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and other philosophers, and could not only discuss them, but also critique them and highlight their respective inconsistencies and weaknesses like a post-grad student at Cambridge. Her dad thinks she's brilliant (I agree!) but her mum just wants her "to be normal" and have the same interests as her friends and is worried that she might be "on the spectrum (I disagree).

Many children are both.

Sounds impressive I hope her school realises her potential, the danger is she will be totally bored at school because the work is so far beneath her. Or is she home schooled?

Probably both. Abnormally high intelligence is a special educational need in an of itself in any event. People on both ends of the bell curve struggle. Life can be much easier if you're in the bulk of 'average'.

That sounds like a level of intelligence that will mean she'll have trouble with social relationships with her peers (who will be far behind her intelligence-wise). It'll potentially be very lonely for her.

This!

She attends mainstream state primary school. Her teacher wrote that she is something of a class comedienne as she has razor-sharp wit that has them in stitches, which I reckon is due to her jaw-dropping intellect. Her philosophy interest seems to me to be a hobby. Where some kids like computer games or horse riding, she does German Idealism and Logical Positivism. Oddly, while she loves girly things, it is noted that she hangs around more with boys. She's an enigma.

I’m not disbelieving you but I struggle to see how any ten year old could read and discuss the above, especially without extensive coaching.
if it’s true as stated, then she really is a genius and I guess her abilities will be hard to ignore especially when she gets to secondary school.
But are you sure she’s really reading and absorbing these very difficult writers, not just reading summaries of what they said and repeating those?
Her Mum’s reaction suggests this could be the case.

She started with a book she bought from a charity shop a couple of years ago called The Philosophy Book by DK which is highly illustrated and simplifies the ideas in a way that's perfect for kids. Then she talks about what she has read and then she asks for the actual sources. She also has family members who have a bit of understanding of some of this (like me, and her uncle Stan) and asks us questions and also to explain things with examples. Sometimes I struggle, like when she had read something by the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard with whom I am unfamiliar. If we can't help, she will generally find a You Tube video that explains it in a digestible form. One of the first signs she had fully grasped something was when she told off her mum for mocking a neighbour saying that: "people shouldn't be used for your amusement. They are an end in themselves." Those were very grown up words, but she had understood the context of the mocking and applied Kant's categorical imperative. I suspect that has to do with the fact her parents are atheists and Kant offered her a moral code a bit like a secular version of the Ten Commandments.

Nobody in their right mind reads Hegel.

The Tractatus is relatively readable but not easy to understand (somewhat similar to most of Wittgenstein).

I’d suggest she reads the Philosophical Investigations it’s much more readable and gives a better guide to his thinking.

oh an she could be either or both.

I was obsessed by French existentialists as a teen.

@Octavia64. Thanks. She quite liked Hegel's dialectics, but wasn't keen on Marx's reformulation - dialectical materialism. She started on a book by Sartre but couldn't get on with it and said it was "fuzzy". She also said she didn't think "Mr Kant" (her hero) wouldn't have liked his "stinky ethics". I guess she likes hard and fast rules and things that are evidence-based.

She sounds a lot like me when I was a child (although my special interest was never Philosophy!). Diagnosed with ASD five years ago aged 35. This post made me a little sad to be honest as I've been bullied all my life for being a 'know it all' when I genuinely thought others would be interested in the same things as I was (and still am)

I guess it's different if she has family members who can interpret the subject, explain and help her along. Then it's something that grows out of the environment, rather than a special talent. It sounds like you are pretty knowledgeable about philosophy yourself, OP.
I'm interested in why the Mum doesn't want her DD to develop along these lines. Is it because there's already enough philosophy in the family?

I’ve asked AI about this and it reports that the best known ‘infant prodigy was John Stuart Mill who started to develop in his teens.
Individuals who became world famous philosophers were asking deep and penetrating questions but did not develop skills in philosophy until their teens.
I t comments that one needs life experience to use philosophical ideas meaningfully.
So I think there’s something left out of your account?