Socrates Cafe: A Fresh Taste of Philosophy by Christopher Phillips.

3/5 rating. 205 pages.

Book #38 of 2021. Read April 28, 2021.

This book is about Christopher’s successful rollout of philosophical discussion groups that he calls “Socrates Café”.

As Socrates said: “The unexamined life is not worth living.” In this mold, Christopher finds there to be immense worth in asking questions, clarifying thoughts, and delving into deeper discussions about our lives.

“Every last bit of knowledge, every assumption, Socrates felt, should always be questioned, analyzed, challenged. Nothing was ever resolved once and for all.”

Christopher mostly discusses different interactions from these groups he’s set up. Different questions they’ve posed and tried to answer, but also, how exactly he chose to set up these groups as his passion and avocation.

As you might expect, this book is philosophy-filled and is quite thought provoking. I think that some of my favorite quotes might best illustrate this:

“Does the common sense of our day offer us the greatest potential for self-understanding and human excellence? Or is the prevailing common sense in fact a roadblock to realizing this potential?”

“What can I do to give my life the kind of meaning that makes my spirit soar, that makes me feel like I’m making this world at least a little bit better place to live in?”

“It’s hard work—trying to figure out new ways, better ways, to ask the questions that perplex you the most, so you can come up with more meaningful and fruitful answers.”

“‘Why can’t I just accept the fact that most adults end up abandoning their more youthful and idealistic aspirations?’ The answer I came up with was always the same: Because life is not a dress rehearsal. Because I shouldn’t settle for less than doing exactly what I want to do with my life, despite the risks, or, better, because of the risks. My philosophy of life had always been to live intensely, to love intensely.”

I love Christopher’s ideas of being more inquisitive about our lives in order to live more in-line with our morals and goals. This book will make you think and definitely (once things go somewhat back to normal) will make me seek out a Socrates Café near me.

Quotes:

“Just as psychiatrists try to ‘cure’ children with attention deficit disorder by giving them Ritalin, I think that drugs like Haldol and Zymexa and the old Thorazine are dispensed with alarming frequency to adults because of society’s desire to control behavior. Moderate behavior is the god of our mental health system. To me this is chilling.”

“He who has a why to live,’ he wrote, ‘can bear with almost any how.’” – Friedrich Nietzsche

“Whether or not we are partially aware, or wholly aware, of our ‘philosophical approach to life and living,’ virtually everything we think, every action we take, every move we make, whether fateful or mundane, reflects in some way our worldview and our worldplace.”

“I think a wise person is someone who has the rare ability to apply effectively what he’s learned about life and about people.”

#socratescafe #philosophy #socrates

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