It’s amazing how in this age of color-coded terror alerts and religious conflict how relevant a discussion of the Socratic
method has become. In Socrates Café, Christopher Phillips discusses his personal quest to bring
philosophy back to the people in an easy-to-read style that anyone, philosophy student or not, can understand. By facilitating
discussions in coffee shops, book stores, elementary schools, and even prisons, Phillips strives to make obsolete what he calls America’s “to hell with you” attitude and to bring our nation back to its philosophical roots. Phillips relates a number of the different discussions with the people he meets at his numerous Socrates Café meetings, where they address questions such as “What is a friend?”, “What is a church?”, and “Why is what?” Some of the questions proposed at these gatherings seem obvious, and others obscure, but regardless of the nature of the query, discussions always seem to dig into deeper territory than the average coffee shop conversation. And these are not discussions played out for some kind of grade or other evaluation, but merely done for the sake of seeking a greater understanding of the world around us. Sometimes, Phillips concedes, the ones who say nothing at all really benefit the most from these meetings. At times, Socrates Café seems to read more like a self-help book than a work about philosophy. But in spite of these tendencies to encourage readers to take a particular course of action in order to gain personal benefits, Phillips also incorporates a number of useful facts and valuable insights about philosophy, society, and education. He distinguishes between a philosopher and a professor of philosophy, criticizing philosophy as it is taught in today’s college classrooms. In some cases, such criticism may prove undeserved, but in others, quite accurate. Through an emphasis on analysis and exploration, Phillips downplays the idea of a “right answer” to any question. At Socrates Café, people learn through questions, not through answers. Phillips does not pretend to provide a solid answer to any of the questions proposed in this book, but the discussions that they spark encourage readers to think more deeply about these issues, to look at the world around them from many different perspectives. In a time of East-West/Muslim-Christian conflict, looking from different perspectives is exactly what this world needs.