Text Box: This past November the IAPC hosted its first in a series of formal Socratic Dialogues, conducted by Bergen Community College Philosophy Professors Peter Dlugos and Mehul Shah, who are also co-directors of SOPHIA: The Center for Critical Thinking and Philosophical Practice at BCC (www.bergen.edu/sophia). Based on the work of German philosopher Leonard Nelson, Socratic Dialogues engage participants in extended, collaborative inquiry into philosophical questions and/or the construction of philosophical concepts. Unlike the Socratic Method, which exposes contradictions in peoples’ working concepts, the method of Socratic Dialogue assumes that all of us have a grasp of universal concepts like loyalty, justice and love. Socratic Dialogue begins with each member relating a personal experience relevant to the question or concept, and the group selecting one of these as the object of their deliberation, to be probed in search of instructive details. The facilitator leads the group through established stages of systematic reflection, prohibits certain kinds of contributions (e.g. hypothetical statements and appeals to authority), and monitors progress toward consensus, carefully avoiding any substantive philosophical contribution of her own. Popular for some time in Germany and Holland where they may be undertaken as holidays, Socratic Dialogues are now offered in many parts of the world and are in increasing demand in the corporate sector, where critical thinking and consensus-building skills are seen to have practical value. The theme for the November dialogue at the IAPC was, “What is loyalty?” and for two full days, nine participants engaged in analyzing and attempting to build a definition of the concept of loyalty. Each participant came on the first day with a story from their own life in which they had experienced loyalty first-hand. From this set of stories, one was chosen to be the focus of the dialogue, and the group had to agree on what aspects of the story exemplified loyalty. Progress to each new stage of Socratic Dialogue is conditioned on unanimous consensus at the previous stage. Many interesting questions that were raised had to be sidelined for later inquiry, such as, Does loyalty always involve disloyalty to something else? Can actions that are only driven by self-interest be considered acts of loyalty? It seemed at times that the group would not reach its goal within the allotted two-day schedule; however, thanks to helpful facilitation and group tenacity, group achieved its goal, constructing the following definition: “Loyalty is acting in accordance with an ideal to preserve or advance something or someone (e.g., yourself, others, relationships, situations, values, etc.) in ways that may involve conflict and/or sacrifice.”

Socratic Dialogue at the IAPC

Text Box: Socratic Dialogue is a great way to teach conceptual analysis and exercise critical thinking skills, and the dialogue process promotes active listening, cooperation, and patience. The IAPC looks forward to hosting a new Socratic Dialogue each semester.