Olympia Socrates Cafe

Details
The Olympia Socrates Cafe aims to gather a vibrant bunch of curious minds who enjoy thinking about big ideas and encourage learning and wisdom by engaging in Socratic dialogue. Our discussions aim to stimulate critical thinking, challenge assumptions, and expand your mind to new ways of seeing the world, not to advocate a specific viewpoint or “win” an argument.

What is the Socratic Dialogue?
Socratic Dialogue is the conversational form of the Socratic Method, as depicted in Plato’s dialogues, and is a technique Socrates employed to uncover the truth by encouraging people to reflect critically on their beliefs, values, and knowledge. He compared this technique to midwifery, aiding in the birth of new understanding by questioning and challenging assumed knowledge.

What is a Socrates Cafe?
Here’s a good introduction to the concept from Christopher Phillips, the founder of the Socrates Cafe Movement: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWNOa-Q0S6c

What You Can Expect
We get together and chat about all kinds of stuff - life, the universe, everything. We brainstorm topics at the start of the meeting, and we pick one democratically that we're all keen to delve into. The goal isn't to speak like a textbook but to share ideas from our own perspectives. Our meetups are like a hot blend of thoughts, beliefs, and viewpoints.
A few examples of questions explored in the past meetings:

• Could we ever achieve “equality, fairness, and equity” in our society?
• Can humanity exist without conflict?
• Is a beautiful illusion better than a painful truth?
• What would an ideal society look like?
• What is true friendship?
• When nothing lasts forever, what does actually matter and why?
• What is an “ideal” education?
• What does it mean to be “successful?” And does it really bring happiness?

Our Core Guidelines - The 4 Tenets of Socratic Dialogue
We place high emphasis on mutual respect, active listening, reflection, staying on topic, and courtesy without resorting to hostility or taking disagreements personally. With this in mind, our discussions are guided by four non-negotiable requirements:

• Seek truth, not victory - This is about learning and growing, not ego-boosting, and certainly not claiming ideological dominance.
• Be willing to be refuted - This is the only way to guarantee you're not living in delusion. There's nothing painful about saying "I stand corrected" or "I was wrong" (unless your ego is in charge).
• Listen to understand - not just wait for your turn to speak. Everything you say should be a continuation of the previous statement. Either you agree and move on, or you disagree and explain why you disagree.
• Question to clarify - Inspired by Socrates, we use inquiry to deepen understanding and clarify concepts.