Socrates Cafe

The Gadfly. In 5th-century B.C. Athens, Socrates likened himself to a GADFLY (a horsefly). Just as a gadfly constantly agitates a horse, preventing it from becoming sluggish and going to sleep so too Socrates, by (moving through the city) stirring up conversations in the marketplace, prevents the City from becoming sluggish and careless and intolerant (thinking it knows something when it doesn't).

SOCRATES CAFE WILL RESUME IN SEPTEMBER

This is a Wednesday morning, 9:30 - 11:00 A.M. discussion group based on the teachings of Socrates reviving the art of conversation. Christopher Phillips, founder of the Socrates Café, writes: "The whole idea is not that we have to find the final answer; it's that we keep thinking." Join us every Wednesday at the church. Come as you are.

It has been 2,500 years since Socrates roamed the Athenian marketplace and held dialogues that fostered critical thinking. Members of our group propose questions in written form. The questions spark open dialogue about some hard issues facing the human race. Is there a difference between ethics and morals? What makes us human? Has morality been hijacked by religion?

Socrates Café is a gathering place where participants can constantly test their ideas, compare them with others and create and experiment with new ones. It seems a critical moment in history to hold dialogues around foundational questions. The answers we discover together might help all of us to better understand how we got ourselves into this predicament, how we might learn from mistakes and successes of the past and present and how we might get out of it. The whole idea, however, is not that we have to find the final answer, it's that we keep thinking.

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