Christopher Phillips

"Christopher Phillips is a man on a mission: to revive the love of questions that Socrates inspired long ago in ancient Athens. Public Radio International has called him the 'Johnny Appleseed of philosophy.' Motivated by charismatic optimism and passionate ideals, he has traveled around the country, gathering people to participate in Socrates Cafes in bookstores, senior centers, elementary schools and universities, and a prison. In this lively account of his travels, Phillips recalls what led him to start his itinerant program and recreates some of the most invigorating sessions. These philosophic exchanges reveal sometimes surprising, often profound reflections on the meaning of love, friendship, work, growing old, and more among Life's Big Questions. Phillips also draws from his own learning to introduce readers to other philosophers in the great Socratic tradition. An engaging blend of philosophy and storytelling, Socrates Cafe will inspire every curious mind to start asking questions and every reader to live more fully the examined life."
"A testament to Phillips's conviction that Americans are hungry to start probing questions."
"A bracing, rollicking read about the spark that ignites when people start asking meaningful questions."
"In an era in which writers haul out tales of the extreme--deadly treks up mountainsides, storms that swallow people whole--Phillips offers a book about conversation, Socrates-style. Phillips is 'a man on a mission,' an educator and former freelance writer who has been 'on the rather zany quest of bringing philosophy out of the universities and back ‘"to the people."' Crisscrossing the country, setting up shop in bookstores, elementary schools, senior citizen centers and prisons, Phillips plants and nurtures nascent questions and heralds the merits of inquiry. This book is the animated, never-less-than-accessible retelling of Phillips' journey. Phillips mixes the fresh, unscripted dialogue of his subjects with the texts of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato and so many others; he weaves his own personal history into the larger history of ideas; and introduces us to the friends he has made throughout his travels. It is a hopeful, energetic book, one that never loses sight of its purpose. The Socratic method, Phillips writes, 'enables us to bring into better focus, and then to resolve, our perplexities. Not once and for all, to be sure, because new perplexities always present themselves. But in a way that can make us more knowledgeable...more virtuous, Socrates might say.'"
“Like a Johnny Appleseed with a master’s degree, Phillips has gallivanted back and forth across America, to cafés and coffee shops, senior centers, assisted-living complexes, prisons, libraries, day-care centers, elementary and high schools, and churches, forming lasting communities of inquiry.”
"In an entertaining blend of memoir and philosophical reflection, a former journalist describes his adventures bringing philosophy to the masses through his Socrates Cafe. Phillips travels the country starting philosophical discussion groups in caf s, schools, churches, community centers, prisons, hospices, nursing homes and senior centers. In each session, a question from a participant becomes the focus for free-flowing, sometimes contentious, communal inquiry. Questions spotlighted in this book include 'What is insanity?' 'How do you know when you know yourself?' 'What is a world?' 'Does anyone have the right to be ignorant?' and 'Why question?'... These dialogues are lively and sometimes moving, particularly his account of how he met his wife. ...[H]e winningly showcases a tantalizing method for getting philosophy to thrive more widely."
"Former journalist Phillips travels around the country to elicit dialogs, questions, and philosophical investigations from nonacademic participants. Elementary schools, senior-citizen facilities, public coffeehouses, and other well-populated venues provide the backdrops for the discussions he reports in this account of what 'doing philosophy' can and does mean in contemporary culture. 'To this day,' he claims, 'Socrates' example continues to teach us how to expand our own intellectual and imaginative horizons.' In an accessible format and breezy tone, Phillips shows how his public Socratic forums help many in attendance work through the kind of life issues that would send others for professional help. Among his own boosters are distinguished scholar and professor of philosophy Matthew Lipman and Harvard psychiatrist and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Coles. Both this book as well as the web site (www.philosopher.org) that it complements provide inspirational guidance for those who want to investigate wisdom beyond the halls of academia or at least read about the efforts others are making in this regard. For all collections."
"Phillips (educator, writer, and founder of the Society for Philosophical Inquiry) is a man on a mission: to revive the love of questions that Socrates inspired long ago in ancient Athens. In this account of his travels in which he gathers people together wherever he can (in cafes, schools, bookstores, senior centers, etc.), he recalls what led him to start his program and recreates some of the most invigorating sessions in which he aims to inspire every curious mind to start asking questions in order to live a more examined life. He also draws from his own learning to introduce other philosophers in the Socratic tradition."
"Phillips, an educator, goes about the country hosting various group discussions of various philosophic concepts (for example, insanity, friendship), which are called Socrates Cafe. This work is a combination and distillation of many of these discussions. Each section is introduced by an unidentified woman who is accompanied by music. After this, Phillips reads his own work. His voice is practiced and moves easily from exchange to exchange, concept to concept. His inflections are subtle, and his soft voice easy on the ear."
"Bring[s] philosophy out of the ivory tower and back into the lives of ordinary people, where it belongs."