Christopher Phillips

Many of us search for answers; Christopher Phillips searches for questions. For him, philosophy is an essential way of approaching the world and puzzling out one’s place in it. Philosophy is his passion and he has found his life's vocation in bringing the Socratic Method to ordinary people in ordinary places, challenging them to consider: What is virtue? Good? Justice? Moderation? Piety? Courage? What is success? Does race matter?

He believes that, “Socrates’ example continues to teach us how to expand our own intellectual and imaginative horizons.” Phillips’ goal is inspire people who are curious, perplexed and filled with an insatiable sense of wonder, so they can dialogue for discovery and democracy.Phillips employs the Socratic method, in which, among other things, participants try to define key moral concepts and then scrutinize those answers for flaws, contradictions and insights. The journey is as important as the destination.

Phillips reminds us that we ought to ask questions--that the process of dialogue and the space of human interaction are good for us as individuals and are essential for us as a society. At a time when American culture is perceived as isolationist and self-involved, Phillips’ inquiries provide us with a key to understanding ourselves and the people around us with greater openness and less fear.

Christopher Phillips, who earned his PhD in Communications, teaches at university and also travels around the world, facilitating hundreds of Socrates Cafés, in which ordinary people gather to ask questions--and questions about questions. He has been a teacher, a journalist, and is the founder and executive director of the nonprofit Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI). The distinguished scholar and professor of philosophy Matthew Lipman and Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles serve on the advisory board of SPI.

Phillips has a bachelor's degree in government from the College of William & Mary. He has also earned a Master in Education degree in Early Elementary Education, with a specialization in Teaching Philosophy for Children, a Master of Science degree in Natural Sciences from Delta State University, and a Master of Arts degree in Humanities from California State University-Dominguez Hills. Currently he’s working on his doctoral degree in communications, as well as writing two new books on “dialogue for democracy”. Chris' wife, Cecilia Chapa Phillips, is co-founder of the nonprofit SPI; they're also the ecstatic parents of Caliope Alexis Phillips.

“Christopher Phillips leads audiences in dialogues with patience and a ready intelligence of the Socratic Method. Simultaneously engaging and accessible, his approach to an ancient tradition is seemingly effortless and refreshing. He truly inspires people as he leads them on a questioning search for their own ultimate truth.”
“It was Christopher Phillips--as well as the philosophical underpinning and accessibility of his approach--that brought Socratic thought to Roger Williams University. We have had Mr. Phillips back sharing with us his world tour and mission of bringing dialogue and civil discourse and rhetoric to the planet. The students, faculty and community members, from provosts to custodians, all joined in responding to his mission and message.”