On the 'Socrates Cafe Method'

How My Socratic Way of Inquiring May Differ from Other Versions of the Socratic Method

As I put it in my Socrates Café: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy (2001), the ‘Socrates Café’ version of the Socratic method principally is a way to seek truths by your own lights.

A Socratic dialogue reveals how different our outlooks can be on concepts we use every day. It reveals how different our philosophies are, and often how tenable - or untenable, as the case may be - a range of philosophies can be. Moreover, even the most universally recognized and used concept, when subjected to Socratic scrutiny, might reveal not only that there is not universal agreement, after all, on the meaning of any given concept, but that every single person has a somewhat different take on each and every concept under the sun.

It is a system, a spirit, a method, a type of philosophical inquiry an intellectual technique, all rolled into one.

Most of all, what distinguishes – or should distinguish -- the Socratic Café method from mere nonsystematic inquiry is the sustained attempt to explore the ramifications of sundry perspectives proffered during any particular gathering, in part by offering an array compelling objections and alternatives to any given way of seeing things, even using one’s imagination to come up with counterexamples. This scrupulous and rather exhaustive approach to this kind of inquiry in many ways resembles the scientific method, in that one posits and tests a variety of views, evaluating their warrantability. But unlike Socratic inquiry, scientific inquiry would often lead us to believe that whatever is not measurable cannot be investigated. This “belief” fails to address such paramount human concerns as sorrow and joy and suffering, joyousness, and love – themes addressed methodically, imaginatively, empathetically, at your typical Socrates Café.

What makes something ‘methodic’? In Metaphysics of Natural Complexes (1966), the naturalist-pragmatist Justus Buchler, who spent most of his career teaching at Columbia University, characterizes “(m)ethodic activity” as one with “purposive ramification of judgment in any of its modes [...]. When methodic activity is informed by the interrogative spirit, by invention and probing, it constitutes query” (1966, p. 187).

As Buchler points out in The Concept of Method (1961), “(m)ethod can be indifferent, and can serve any cause” for good or ill. However, when combined with his concept of query, Buchler sees it as having an implied “moral direction” (1961, p. 115). Such a methodic approach typically requires a hypothesis (or hypotheses) to be posited and then subjected continually to testing, scrutiny, and further experimentation; to confirmation or refutation by one’s fellow inquirers, as one actively seeks out compelling objections and alternative and sympathetically immerses oneself in other proffered views while at the same time considering what speaks for and against them..