Teaching Philosophy

Unlike brain surgery, the practice of philosophy shouldn’t be limited to professionals. That’s why I run a Socrates Café at the Scranton, PA public library. We are having our fourth monthly meeting tonight. We had 4 people attend the first month, 10 the second, and 21 last time. Because of the publicity created by the above linked article, the library is now thinking about expanding to two meetings per month, and maybe doing a third for 8-10 year olds.

Moderating a Socrates Café is a lot of fun, the discussions are lively, and I learn important lessons that I know enhance my teaching. Particularly I learn how to listen. This is not easy for me; as an academic, I like to talk. In the last meeting we discussed “Individual vs. Collective.” A woman who had moved recently from Russia brought this up, saying her motivation was to hear how much people loved the way we can express our individuality here in America. She heard some of that of course, but some people also criticized what they saw as the implicit lack of freedom in many cases to express their substantive individuality. There was 99% participation: how many times do you get that from a class? (And one of the two people who were just listening made it a point to come up and thank me at the end.)

People in the community are apparently eager to have philosophical discussions, and well, maybe like brain surgery, a professional should start it, but then a lay person can take over and do just as well. (OK, maybe brain surgery wouldn’t work quite that way.) If you are at all inclined, I highly recommend starting a Socrates Café in your area. I got hooked on this by starting one last year in Little Rock, AR. In fact, I just heard from the awesome gentleman with a BA in philosophy that took it over when my visiting position at UALR ended and my tenure-track position started here in Scranton. They are still going strong and thinking of expanding as well.

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