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Socrates Cafe by Christopher Phillips

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I do not know if anyone have you have heard of this book or know what a Socrates Cafe but I will explain it to the best of my ability here. The author Christopher Phillips has traveled the country starting what he calls "Socrates Cafes" which are like philosophical discussions that question just about everything and anything. A simple question like "Does anyone have the right to be ignorant?" or even what seems like simple questions like "What are we?" but it leads into more and more questions that bring up so many perspectives and definitions that people see all new aspects of life. It is a never ending process following in the footsteps of Socrates who constantly asked questions to show that we all do not really know what we think we know in contrast to the Sophists of his time period who put a price on their knowledge. Socrates had challenged them and asked them questions they did not know the answer to. By starting these "cafes" Phillips is passing around his ideas and learning the ideas of thousands of others. It is quite interesting. I originally had to read this book as a summer assignment and learned a lot from it. The book is like a biography in a way that it retells stories of meetings Phillips holds and the discussions held. At one they even asked the old question of whether a glass is half empty or half full which brought out aspects I never thought of before. It could be completely full of air and water or completely empty of everything but air and water or of course half full of water or half empty of water. If anyone else has read this book or participated in a Socrates Cafe please put your thoughts here.

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