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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 100
EAN num: 9780393322989
ISBN number: 039332298X
Label: W. W. Norton & Company
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 241
Printing Date: 2002-04
Publishing house: W. W. Norton & Company
Sale Popularity Level: 228729
Studio: W. W. Norton & Company
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Product Description:
Christopher Phillips is a man on a mission: to revive the love of questions that Socrates inspired long ago in ancient Athens. 'Like a Johnny Appleseed with a master's degree, Phillips has gallivanted back and forth across America, to cafés and coffee shops, senior centers, assisted-living complexes, prisons, libraries, day-care centers, elementary and high schools, and churches, forming lasting communities of inquiry' (Utne Reader). Phillips not only presents the fundamentals of philosophical thought in this 'charming, Philosophy for Dummies-type guide' (USA Today); he also recalls what led him to start his itinerant program and re-creates some of the most invigorating sessions, which come to reveal sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and others among Life's Big Questions. 'How to Start Your Own Socrates Café' guide included.
Amazon.com Review:
For Christopher Phillips, philosophy is a passion: it is not so much a discipline to be learned as an experience to be lived. Taking his cue from Socrates, the inaugurator of the Western philosophical tradition, Phillips embarks on a search for truth and meaning through a series of conversations that is at once refreshing, humorous, troubling, confusing, encouraging, depressing, and provocative. What makes Plato's Socratic dialogues so enduring--and Phillips's book so intriguing--is that for both Plato and Phillips, philosophy is not something you read or study. It is something you do. Plato wrote in Parmenides that 'without wandering around and examining everything in detail one is unable to secure understanding.' Phillips takes this approach--the Socratic approach--to heart. In the course of Socrates Café, he travels around asking questions of everyone who's interested. Just like the real Socrates, who did not confine himself to the Athenian ivory tower, Phillips searches out public conversations--what he calls Socrates cafés--with children, seniors, psychiatrists, prisoners, ex-academics, students, lawyers, and everyday people. In a sense, the book is a series of short, modern-day Socratic dialogues interspersed with meditations on the nature of philosophical inquiry.
Phillips seizes upon what the Greeks called 'elenchus,' a method of inquiry that helps people see their own beliefs and opinions more clearly. In the course of the numerous Socrates cafés highlighted in this book, Phillips persistently reminds us that we ought to ask questions simply because the process is good for us. In each of the cafés, the participants vary as widely as the questions, and the dialogues are by turns candid, insightful, muddled, intelligent, bland, and piquant. The real meaning of Socrates Café lies in the contentious and wonderful space of human interaction. --Eric de Place
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Rated by buyers 
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I really enjoyed this book when I read it for the very first time in tenth grade. Looking back on it, however, I see it now as a bit...well, a bit childish. The world of thoughts and opinions is much deeper than the bottom of a coffee cup.
It seems now, even then as I was reading the book in tenth grade, that Phillips has oversimplified complex matters. His whole philosophy, as put forth in this book, could be summarized easily in one sentence: "Let's all be happy because philosophy is cool." This is a gigantic simplification of the real issues at stake; namely: What is being? Who are we? Why are we here?
He leaves out the actual history too; historical mentions are scanty and not worth noting. He idealizes Socrates and his contemporaries; in his book they are very "Americanized" versions of what the actual men were probably like, their real likenesses adapted to fit the cultural norms of contemporary North America--when in fact they were part of a totally different culture which he didn't even mention (As one who studies anthropology, this really irked me).
And, on top of this, he never really says anything. Somewhere near the end of the book, he asks why we should philosophize, and answers it by saying "to be better people" or something like that. But then, why should we "be better people"? Instead of exploring these real issues, he kind of vaguely says that they exist--and then recounts a meeting at a cafe (or a prison or school, the locations vary) where, once again, people with very "American" mindsets talk about their experiences and try to delve into the issue.
One other problem is the length and difficulty level. It's just too short and too easy of a read to answer, or even endeavor to begin to answer, the problems Phillips claims he is devoted to. For example, in one of the dialogs someone remarks that Phillips' wife has just "crossed the language barrier." There are two problems with this: First, the "language barrier" is never defined and like many other issues, just another abstract concept, now given a "philosophical" dimension.
Secondly, the barrier that is "crossed" in his book is between Spanish and English. Guess what people, those two languages are not very different. I am a budding linguist and nearly fluent in Spanish, Japanese, Arabic (Modern standard with a specialty in Saudi and Iraqi dialects), and am familiar with many other languages (one of which is ancient Greek, the language of Socrates). The "barrier" between Spanish and English just isn't very big. If a language barrier does exist between two given languages, it 1) is more related to culture and 2) can be crossed once the new "culture" is learned.
And lastly, there is one other problem, which is the biggest of all.
HE NEVER ACTUALLY CITES PLATO. You know, he could have written the book completely on what he's read about Plato and Socrates rather than what he actually did read of Plato's works. I couldn't believe that Plato's works weren't cited in the references section. He does mention a few, but they are relatively unimportant works like Gorgias and Euthyphro--I think there is only ONE mention of the Republic, without which Plato would have been an obscure philosopher, like Heraclitus. This is like talking about J.K. Rowling but never mentioning Harry Potter. When other philosophers are discussed, their views are oversimplified.
Looking back, this book poses serious problems historically, linguistically and anthropologically.
It was okay when I read it, a few years ago. I've grown up since then.
Rated by buyers 
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Christopher Phillips, in the true tradition established by Socrates himself, has provided a road map to passing on the process of "reason". I enjoyed the book and have recommended it to others following the same philosophy.
Rated by buyers 
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Where does "everyman" go in this world for reasoned, open, and enlightened conversation outside an academic setting? The filtered, abbreviated, and sanitized output of the media and Internet sites hardly serves as a replacement. Into this vacuum stepped the author, a former journalist, enamored of philosophers and philosophizing, who decided to facilitate Socratic discussions in all manner of locations, but mostly cafes and bookstores. Of course, Socrates, an Athenian of the 5th century BC, was known for his penetrating questioning of the assumptions of the leading citizens of Athens, a habit which little endeared him to them. This book consists of a rather meandering look at the author's hesitant start up of this enterprise, simplified re-creations of several actual question and answer sessions at a variety of locations, and various pertinent philosophical points from philosophers of the past and from the author.
The questioning process at these discussions is pretty much ad hoc with honesty being the only requirement for asking or answering. Among the questions asked were "What is here?"; "What is home?"; "What is silence?"; "What is a friend?"; or "Why is what?". It is simply assumed that a group of near strangers who meet for two hours once a week, or less, benefits from kicking around these various, often vague or obscure, subjects. He doesn't address the impact of the disparity in backgrounds that such an assemblage is likely to have. The discussions can deteriorate into an endless series of not necessarily connected questions with limited results.
It is striking that virtually none of the topics presented for discusion in the book are controversial. Does the author suggest that politics, religion, economics, media, justice, war, etc are of no interest to people who attend his cafes. If these subjects were broached, how would that affect the functioning of the groups? The author asks "What is a church?" in one group. What if he had asked, "What is the basis of religious belief"? One suspects that Socrates would have gone right to that. There is not the sense that the author is after the truth in quite the unrestrained manner as a Socrates.
The author notes that ideas and conversation are essential to a democracy, however, neighborhood gathering places located in the midst of our sterile, zoned housing tracts are virtually non existent. These Socratic cafes could easily be seen as inadequate, artificial alternatives to real community gathering places. It's hard to imagine the people in "The Great Good Places" by Ray Oldenburg devoting much time to "Why is what" when so many real world issues having community impacts need to be addressed.
The author disappoints in another way. Many authors have web sites, and he is no exception. In this case it is for his institution, the Society for Philosophical Inquiry, which supposedly supports 300 dialogue groups. But one can find no evidence of these groups anywhere on the entire web site - very strange. From reading his book, one would think they would be front and center on the site. Perhaps there are legal issues. Instead those who acess the site are given several means of buying goods or joining the SPI for a fee. It's disheartening to find an emphasis on the Socratic Café name as a brand for sale. [Note: It turns out that the list of local cafes is for sale also. Socrates is rolling over in his grave.]
At very first glance, Socratic cafes seem to be an unqualified good - and they are as far as they go. But there is a certain amount of doubt as to whether that model can play a relevant and important role in public discourse in this era of isolation and spin. The book is unwilling to address any shortcomings of the concept, which is rather ironic given the author's insistence that he is "seeking Socrates." The autobiographical elements of the book are interesting, but there is an element of self promotion that lingers.
Rated by buyers -
i can't speak for experts but for a firsttime philosophizer like me who wanted to get his feet wet in the field and know about Western philosophy, reading this book was a great experience, giving me just the taste of philosophy i hoped for without lots of intimidating jargon. Best for me was that it didn't just summarize the history of western philosophy but it brought it back to life in the modern world
Rated by buyers -
i run a (dead)philosophy club, and couple of people recommended the book to me, so i was obligated to read it. i usually don't care for Socrates. He gets on my nervs. Not that he is a crafty sophist, but perhaps his optimistic intellectualism and loaded questions goest against my philosphical sensibilities. But I was pleasnatly surprised. It was not bad at all. Philips is a good philosopher. He knows how to run a show. And I know, running a philosophy club is harder than he makes it appear. If you want to be involved with philosophy in some serious ways; but you don't care for the academic type, maybe this will give you a heretic stand.
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