Socrates Cafe Frequently Asked Questions, and Tips

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[PLEASE CONTACT US IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS, AND IF YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW IF THERE'S A SOCRATES CAFE GROUP NEAR YOU]

How do I find the right place to host a Socrates Café? Libraries, community centers, bookstores, and coffee shops are among the many great places to host a Socrates Café. Independent coffee shops, which are especially dedicated to reaching out to the community, are usually very receptive to the idea. Present the Socrates Café concept to the owner or person responsible for the venue. Feel free to download articles from the Society for Philosophical Inquiry website that you can use when making your pitch for holding the Socrates Café event. Ask if the place could accommodate the group during their slowest day and time so that you won't interrupt normal business activity. Weekday evenings (except Fridays) are usually good times to host the event .

If you're starting a Socrates Cafe® or Philosophers' Club, or another dialogue group that goes by a different name, but that largely shares our goals, please send us information about it (time, place, contact information, etc.). For those starting an ongoing group, please remember that participants propose and choose the questions, and please strive to have many different facilitators.

Please note that Socrates Cafe and Philosophers' Club are our registered trademarks, and we do of course reserve the right to deny use of our trademarked names.The trademarks help make sure that the names are used for the specific volunteer, nonprofit, community-creating purposes for which they are intended. They also help ensure that these groups specifically use the version/method/ethos of inquiry that we've spelled out on our website -- the aim with this inquiry is to create a more vibrant and participatory democracy and empathetic society. We particularly ask that facilitators and coordinators steer clear of using this venue to promote for-profit endeavors. Please never affiliate with us if your aim is for-profit , or if you do not share our nonprofit's goals, and/or you aspire to promote coaching or counseling or guidance services, which is anathema to our mission. And we ask that you model for other participants a keen respectfulness for and sensitivity towards the views and feelings of others. Facilitators: Please be sure to read carefully the guidelines below. And please, if possible: And please: Join our nonprofit group. It enables us to carry on programs with those who live on society's margins, and who rarely have a chance to weigh in on matters that are of importance to all of us who want to live in a stronger democracy. Help us "dialogue for democracy," by joining SPI.

Now that you've found a coffeehouse or bookstore or other suitable venue to hold a Socrates Café on a regular basis, one burning question you likely have is: How do I facilitate a Socrates Café?

What kind of question is appropriate? In a Socrates Café, just about any question can be grist for a meaningful dialogue.

How do we decide on a question for discussion? Ask the participants for questions. Encourage them to propose for Socratic discourse absolutely any question that is on their minds. Their questions don't at all have to be traditional ones. Read all the questions aloud to the participants, and then ask them to vote for the one about which they feel least expert and most perplexed.

How do I launch a discussion on the chosen question? At the outset, let a few of the participants respond to the question in any way they please. But just when they think it's safe to assume that this is going to be a free-for-all confab without any underlying method-start probing the question in a Socratic way. That is, examine it for: 1) built-in assumptions, 2) embedded concepts, 3) differences of kind and degree, and logical consistencies and inconsistencies. Then try to seek out compelling objections and alternative viewpoints.

How do I find the question's built-in assumptions? For example, when a participant asks an apparently deep question like "How can we overcome alienation?" you need to challenge the premise of the question at the outset. You may ask: Is alienation something we always want to overcome? Shakespeare and Goethe may have written their timeless works because they embraced a sense of alienation rather than attempting to escape it.

Where are the concepts embedded in this question? To probe the question of overcoming alienation, you first need to ask and answer such questions as: What is alienation? What does it mean to overcome alienation? Why would we ever want to overcome alienation? By separating out the concepts and exploring them individually, everyone will get to see the question from a new perspective.

What are examples of exploring "differences of kind and degree"? In response to the alienation question, you might ask: Are there some types of alienation that you want to overcome and other types that you do not at all want to overcome but rather want to incorporate into yourself? What are some of the many different types of alienation? How do they differ? But also, what are the aspects that link them? Is it possible to be completely alienated?

How do I know there will be alternative views? You may think you already can predict the responses. But you and everyone else probably will be surprised by just how diverse and eye-opening they will be. In exploring the meaning of the terms they use, participants will reveal and articulate philosophies of basic concepts they might take for granted. This is what makes for a spontaneous and thrilling discussion.

How do I deal with people who monopolize the conversation or who do not show respect for other participants? Since Socrates Cafes are typically held in public places, anybody is welcome to participate. It is very important to create an environment in which all participants feel comfortable to participate and listen. If one of the participants seems to dominate the discussion and often interrupts others, the facilitator needs to be assertive and make sure that others have their say as well. If necessary, you may want to talk in private with the person and point out gently that he or she needs to be more considerate of others who also want to have their say. You should explain that quiet or shy people may feel intimidated if they are interrupted by more aggressive personalities and that you want to create and maintain a safe, caring, and supportive environment for all the participants.

How can I encourage people to speak? A good facilitator can create a healthy environment for exchange by setting an example for others. First and foremost, a good facilitator must be a very engaged listener. You need to be actively listening to what each participant is saying at the time; do not project how you are going to respond or what you will ask next. Also, make sure that all the people who want to participate have a chance to do so; look for body language or hand signals from people who want to speak. They may make a gesture to indicate that they have something to say, and after a while they may stop doing it because some time has passed or what they intended to say does not seem relevant anymore. If this happens, you can still give them a chance to voice their ideas by asking them what they think about what was just discussed.

Is it okay to have only one facilitator? At the beginning, you may be the only facilitator, because you took the initiative to organize the group. However, over time, you should look for other participants who would like to try their hand at facilitating and who clearly grasp the nature of this type of inquiry. Socrates Café is meant to be a refreshing alternative, where an egalitarian spirit allows many voices. So the more facilitators, the merrier. Every facilitator will bring a different style, which will enrich the dialogues and help ensure the group's long-term viability.

Do facilitators have to be neutral or can they express their perspectives too? Like everyone in the group, the facilitator of a Socrates Café is striving to become a better questioner. As a facilitator, you will see that it is very difficult to be neutral. The kinds of questions you ask in the course of a dialogue are themselves a reflection of your personal curiosity. However, you should strive to some degree to be more neutral than the rest. You are not a teacher, and your purpose is not to lead the group to a certain answer or truth. If you monopolize the discussion, others might feel intimidated or turned off. Your role as facilitator is to help and inspire others articulate their unique perspectives.

At the outset of each and every Socrates Cafe, you should stress to participants that this is meant to be a thoughtful and reflective philosophical sharing. For this to take place, each participant must need and want to cultivate his/her capacity to become a more careful listener -- indeed, the ability to listen with all one's being to what other participants are sharing is the most important quality a Socrates Cafe-goer can have. Socrates Cafe is meant to provide a refreshing and exhilarating alternative to the way many groups engage with one another -- it is meant to be the exact opposite of the mindless types of debates and diatribes and polemics and which he/she who speaks the loudest and interrupts the most and browbeats the best and engages in the most frequent non-redemptive oneupsmanship "wins," whatever that could mean. Socrates Cafe is meant to cultivate new habits of discourse in which the primary purpose is to inspire each person within the community of inquiry further to cultivate and discover his/her unique point of view, nothing more and certainly nothing less.

Do be an active and engaged listener. Respecting the ideas of each participant is a key element of a successful Socrates Café. Be open to what people have to say even if you disagree. The facilitator needs to let the group know that putting down others is absolutely taboo at a Socrates Café.

Do encourage participants to offer specific examples that back up what they take to be a universally accepted view. The facilitator should try to get them to support their perspectives with cogent, well-constructed, reasoned views.

Do question the perspectives offered by others and try to examine any perceived logical inconsistencies. The collective goal is for all participants, not just the facilitator, to become a more expert questioner.

Don't allow the dialogue to become a one-on-one back-and-forth between facilitator and participant (or between one participant and another). Remember: this is a community of philosophical inquirers. So a good facilitator should involve everyone else at every turn.

Do make sure everyone has a chance to speak. Invite but do not pressure quieter participants to contribute to the dialogue.

Do be receptive to unexpected and unfamiliar responses. Facilitators should avoid steering the dialogue in a preconceived direction, as if they know better than others what the answers, or questions, should be.

Don't browbeat a participant or put him on the spot in a way that makes him uncomfortable. You should nudge participants into articulating their perspectives as clearly as possible, but if someone doesn't have a response to your further prodding, move on to other participants.

Don't strive for consensus. In the version of Socratic inquiry practiced at Socrates Café, it doesn't matter if everyone begins and ends a dialogue with disparate perspectives. There's never any need to try to force any sort of agreement.

Do remember the Socrates Café is just one version of philosophical discourse, and it might not work for everybody. For those who don't seem satisfied with Socrates Café style of discussion, encourage them to form their own groups so they can promote their own kinds of philosophical inquiry.

Don't try to bring the discussion to any sort of artificial closure. Most Socrates Café dialogues last about two hours. (If held at a coffeehouse or any venue that sells food and drinks, it is of immense benefit to the owner if you take a ten-minute "pause for the cause" after an hour or so of discourse.) A Socrates Café is considered a success when participants leave a discussion with many more questions than they had at the beginning.

Don't ever use readings to start a group discussion. This is not supposed to be a group based on didactic directiveness. One of the ways we steer away from the traditional "philosophy club" model is that there is no teacher or guide or guru to lead the discussion, but rather a facilitator who simply makes sure that the group as a whole picks a question among those proposed by the group and then makes sure that the dialogue is well-distributed among participants, so that everyone who cares to can take part. A directed or suggested reading beforehand is much too controlling, and too much like other types of groups that are claiming to bring philosophy out of the classroom, but end up bringing the classroom model along with them. While AFTER the dialogue, it is quite appropriate for anyone who took part to suggest to others that there's certain books they may want to take a look at that relate to the topic discussed, so participants can get a more keen sense that they are part of a wonderful questioning tradition that includes great thinkers arcorss the ages and disciplines, this should never be done as a way to jumpstart the dialogue itself. A Socrates Cafe is meant to bring together as broad a cross-section of people as possible -- emphatically including people who possibly can't read, but who surely have very rich experiences to share in the course of a dialogue -- so directed readings would only be exclusive and elitist and rather snooty, and so anathema to the ends of a Socrates Cafe discourse.

Socrates Café is trademarked to assure that people who are using the name and concept stay true to the Socratic method and to the specific volunteer and nonprofit, community-creating ethos set forth by the nonprofit Society for Philosophical Inquiry. As long as you do so you, you are welcome to use the name and concept, but please do not forget to notify us about your Socrates Café [or Philosophers' Club] group. If you choose to use the name and concept, we ask you NOT to use it to promote other personal or business-related interests or to recruit or attract clients for your or anyone else's business -- e.g., consulting, counseling, coaching, etc. [We of course reserve the right to request anyone to discontinue use of the Socrates Cafe and Philosophers' Club names, or to prohibit its use from the outset, if it is deemed that they are is not being used, or will not be used, for the appropriate purposes.] We are a non-profit organization that wishes to stay true to the values that Socrates himself lived by. He never charged other people and he did not promise to "lead" people to a specific truth; rather, he inspired people to discover and articulate their own unique truths by their own lights. We ask you to do the same: stay true to this ideal and do not promote yourself as a consultant or guide or otherwise. These gatherings are meant to be a safe haven from such self-aggrandizing promotions.

[Please note that Socrates Cafe and Philosophers' Club are our registered trademarks. This helps make sure that the names are used for the volunteer, nonprofit, community-creating purposes for which they are intended. We particularly ask that facilitators and coordinators steer clear of using this venue in any way to promote for-profit endeavors. Contact us if you have any questions]

Chris Phillips used to be a journalist and photographer, a public school teacher, and a college instructor with three master's degrees. Today, at forty, he's underemployed, deeply in debt, and completely ecstatic about how his life has turned out.

While studying for a master of arts in teaching at Montclair State University in 1996, Phillips chanced to pick up Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, the seminal collection of existentialist and protoexistentialist texts that Walter Kaufmann compiled in 1956 as a means of preparing humankind for a genuinely philosophical form of life. Something Phillips read in Kaufmann's introduction to the book soon sent him rocketing across America, visiting jails, hospices, nursing homes, and other public venues-all on his own dime. "I didn't have any master plan when I started doing this," he told me recently. "I just had this little idea: Let's give philosophy back to the people."

"More than anyone else who's ever lived," Phillips insists, "Socrates models for us philosophy in practice-philosophy as deed, as a way of living, as something that any of us can do. The Socratic method is a way to seek truths by your own lights; it is a system, a spirit, a method, a type of philosophical inquiry, an intellectual technique, all rolled into one." Having decided to bring Socrates' mordant, incisive methods of philosophical to ordinary men and women around the country, Phillips started what he calls the Socrates Café. By which he means a bunch of people getting together in a café or coffeehouse for a couple of hours and, with the help of a facilitator, applying the Socratic method to some question that troubles them: What is Truth? What is Justice? What is a Philosopher?

This kind of group effort, Phillips argues, is the best possible antidote to traditional philosophy lectures, which create a hierarchy of philosopher and student. He doesn't charge for his services, because "it would be sacrilege to charge people when you learn much more from them than they could ever learn from you." A Socrates Café is nontechnical, and though it may become erudite, the participants-including the ones who've never read a word of philosophy in their lives-can't help but become expert at Phillips's brand of philosophical inquiry. "A Socrates Café is a home for a lot of people who've never felt at home in academia, including academics," Phillips explains. "It's not in any way, shape, or form antiacademic, but it does hopefully expand and broaden the range of inquiry, to the way philosophers used to be, when they would look at any and every question under the sun."

How, exactly, does one facilitate a Socrates Café? Apparently, you just have to keep asking yourself: "What would Socrates do?" Remember, Socrates presented himself as a perplexed inquirer who knew only that he knew nothing; by example, he showed that the proper business of the philosopher-and, by extension, a Socrates Café facilitator-is to help us see that we don't know nearly as much as we think we know.

Do Socrates Café participants ever arrive at an answer to their questions? "It's not about coming up with answers but finding a way to ask the questions, which, in a way, is the answer," Phillips replies enigmatically. "Those who become smitten with the Socratic method of philosophical inquiry thrive on the question. They never run out of questions, or out of new ways to question. In fact," he concludes, "some of Socrates Café's most avid philosophizers are, for me, the question personified."

Josh Glenn is a contributing editor to the online magazine FEED and the editor of Hermenaut, a (print) journal of philosophy and pop culture. This is an excerpt from a profile that first appeared in FEED, May 23, 2000.

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