How To Run A Philosophy Salon 1/3

Hi, I'm dPhilosopher and I taught philosophy for ten years, and for a couple of years I also ran philosophy salons (group philosophical discussions) at an art gallery in San Francisco. In this series of blog posts, I’m going to share how I did it —everything you need to know to organize your own philosophy salons. I will be covering the different stages of the discussion, how to choose a topic, how to get the discussion going and generate ideas, and how to engage in collaborative, creative thinking. (In fact, this is a process that can be adapted to number of settings beyond the philosophy salon in order to generate ideas, but a full treatment of this is beyond the limits of this blog series.) At the end, I'll include my notes for an actual philosophy salon on the question of Beauty that will serve as a concrete example.

In case you are wondering, you do not need to have a philosophy background in order to participate in, or run, a philosophy salon. You just need to have a strong sense of curiosity and the desire to examine what you believe. Philosophical questions are human questions, after all, and I believe that we all the better for engaging with questions of truth, goodness, and beauty. Are you ready to become philosophers, at least for a hour or two?

What Is A Philosophy Salon? 

First, let’s consider, what is a philosophy, and what is a philosophy salon?

You might already know that the word philosophy is a combination of two words, philo or love and sophia, or wisdom, so literally the word means “love of wisdom.”

Interestingly, when the word was coined, it was meant as an oxymoron because the idea that someone could love an abstract idea such as wisdom, as opposed to a desirable person or beautiful object, was thought to be a little ridiculous. So this was a way to make fun of philosophers like Socrates and his student Plato who seemed to always have their heads in the clouds. If you’re interested, you can read Aristophanes’ hilarious and absurd comedy about Socrates aptly named “The Clouds.”

In any case, what people often mean when they say that they are philosophizing (to turn it into a verb) is that they are having a discussion about their beliefs and values, values that are handed down through our families, common customs, religion, and even laws, socially agreed upon rules of conduct that are supposed to embody our values as a nation.

Given this, a good place to begin to do philosophy is to consider questions of belief or value, and to do so in the form of a “What is” kind of question, also known as a Socratic question because Socrates used to run around Athens asking his fellow citizen questions like, What is beauty?, What is justice?, What is piety?, What is love?, etc.

In sum, philosophical inquiries seek after human wisdom or knowledge, often dealing with questions of human beliefs and values, and traditionally taking the form of a “What is?,” Socratic question. So then, what is a philosophy salon?

The reason I choose “salon” (as opposed to “discussion” or “cafe”) is because the salon is a very particular kind of place in the home. Notice that it’s not the kitchen, or the bathroom, or the bedroom; it’s not a place dedicated to survival or fulfilling basic human needs. It’s a domestic space, but it is one into which we often invite friends and strangers. In the past, people gathered in their salons to socialize, discuss ideas or politics, and to appreciate music and art. These kinds of spaces no longer exist, at least not in the same ways, but it is in the spirit of conjuring such a space that I coined the term “philosophy salon” for what I wanted to create: not just an activity, but a kind of place created by the activities of thinking.

Stages of A Philosophy Salon Discussion 

In my experience, a philosophy salon has an organic structure and rythmn:

1. First, you’ll need to get people together and into the same room. I ran my salons before the explosion of social media, so I posted flyers, distributed postcards, told all my friends about it, and posted about it on some list servers and Yahoo! groups. (Remember Yahoo! Groups?!?) It is easier today than ever to get together a groups of interested people using social media platforms as well as word of mouth.

Once you get into a space, it is important to situate people so that they can see each other. Gathering around a table or chairs set out in a circle (or semi-circle) is ideal - it’s simple, but it’s also what works. Also, for reasons that will become obvious, bring large notecards and pens for everyone to write down their ideas. In sum, you’ll need to get people together in a space where they can see each other, and have something to write with and on.

2. Next thing that you will need to do as a group is to choose a discussion topic, and I’ll say much more about this in an upcoming lecture.

3. Once you have settled on a topic and a question, you want to lay down as many ideas about your topic or question as possible. These first ideas are often common ideas and beliefs, assumptions that may or may not be shared by all participants, etc. These are the best starting point for collaborative thinking.

4. Once these ideas are out there, it is time to discuss and test those ideas and to decide, as a group, which of these ideas are most interesting or provocative, so the group can fix on an idea to elaborate further. You will want to take up only a couple of the ideas forward, so you’ll need to discard many ideas, but there will be a chance, in the end, to revisit the bigger picture in the end. You will also find that ideas which are repeated or overlap with other ideas will likely be ones meaty enough for the group to take further.

5. One you have done this, you will begin the process of moving from old ideas to new ideas, from received ideas to ones that are based on your own experience.

6. The best way to cull ideas together, in my experience, is through the attempt to stipulate a definition or an answer to the Socratic question with which the group began. As a way of thinking in this direction, I’m going to show you what I call “the pencil test” in an upcoming segment, so we’ll return to this.

7. Finally, there is the experience of aporia that will probably come up. One of the most important experiences that can emerge through this process is aporia, a word that means impasse, a “not being able to get past” or cross. Often, what comes with thinking is hitting upon the limits of our knowledge, as humans or as individuals. The experience of aporia can feel like being on the cusp of new understanding and can be exciting, or it can feel like a running aground and feel somewhat unsatisfying or even frustrating. The thing to keep in mind is that getting to ignorance is the beginnings of getting to know - maybe we need to do some empirical research, maybe we need to ask people with more or different expertise than ourselves, and maybe we nee dot ask ourselves why we don’t know (if perhaps we should, since ignorance is often cultivated and produced), or why we can’t know (we are limited beings!). Letting people know ahead of time that this is one possible outcome of collaborative thinking can help them to put this sometimes unnerving experience into a greater perspective.

In sum, you will get together, share your ideas on a given or an agreed upon topic, focus on one or two ideas to develop further and test out, stipulate and answer to your question on the basis of your discussion, and finally, bring the salon to a close.

Now, lets take a closer look at the this process in greater detail, as it unfolds in real time.

Ready? Let's Go! 

Once people have settled down and you are ready to start, you can begin with introductions: Usually I start with myself, telling folks a little bit about my background and why I decided to run philosophy salons. Then we go around the room and have people say their names and one other thing such one interesting or unusual thing about themselves, or what interested them in participating in a philosophy salon. Keep it simple and casual…

Before beginning, I set up an easel with a flip chart (the ones with adhesive at the top of the page are great because once one fills up, you can stick it up where people can see it and continue writing on a new page) and take this opportunity to write down everyone’s name in the order in which they speak, so now everyone can see what everyone’s name is, right then and there. Of course, this would be too tedious if the group is large (say, more than 20 people), but with small and medium groups it helps to build group repoire, especially if participants do not already all know each other.

Everyone knows general etiquette - you don’t use foul language, you don’t interrupt others, you treat others as you wish to be treated. You can also open it up for discussion: ask the group what rules of etiquette they would like to see the group follow, and if the group agrees, then put up on the board and place it somewhere where it is visible for all to see during the discussion. I am not personally so invested in reminding people of these common courtesies. If anything, people err too much on the side of politeness, especially when in mixed company of people they don’t know much or at all. Instead, I like to say to people:

“You will hear views you disagree with, people may be passionate about their ideas and be forceful in how they express these, but I trust you are all adults who can all take care of yourselves.” But that is just me; my threshold for disagreement and conflict is high. You may want to create more of a safe space, remind people of basic conversation etiquette, and intervene if someone is taking up too much time or space, or getting aggressive. Again, styles will vary, and it’s all good.

The last thing to take care of is to give participants a brief overview of the process or of the structure for the discussion, Here is what I say to participants:

1) First, we are going to agree upon a topic and frame it as a Socratic question (if this has not be predetermined).

2) We will take a couple minutes to brainstorm: jot down on our note cards whatever our first thoughts are regarding our question.

3) We will go around the room and collect as many of these ideas as possible.

4) We will discuss these ideas. Ways for participating is the discussion include: active listening, of course; elaborating upon an idea, maybe offering a concrete example or adding to the idea in some other way; asking someone to clarify their words or thoughts; disagreeing with an idea; challenging some ideas on the board, maybe even your own ideas. (I’ll elaborate upon these in an upcoming segment.)

5) We will look for patterns developing in our shared ideas, and pick one or two that seem to be the most interesting or important ideas to develop together. We will focus our discussion on these ideas.

6) As a way of seeing where we’ve been as a group, we will try to formulate an answer to our Socratic question based on the discussion we’ve had.

7) We may come to agreement on an answer, or not. We may feel satisfied that we know something about the topic, or else end up with more and more interesting questions.

8) Are there any logistical questions? Once the group is clear on the process and goals for the salon, then you are ready to move forward!

The Big Questions: Choosing A Topic 

For the salons that I organized, I had picked a topic ahead of time and we rotated through these topics from year to year. For example, every October (and in honor of Halloween), we took up the question of “What is Evil?” In February, we took up the question of eros… you get the idea. But picking a topic can become a part of the process itself. You can have the participants of a salon pick the topic for the next meeting, which has the added benefit of encouraging people to come back, adding stability and continuity to the group. Or, each group can pick a topic and formulate it as a Socratic question at the meeting in question. In either case, here are some ways to approach the task:

1) There are a number of classic philosophical questions to choose from, including “What is philosophy?,” a most excellent question with which to start off a group. Here are some other true and tried questions, straight from the philosophical cannon:

What is Truth?

What is Good?

What is Real/Reality/Really Real?

What is Justice?

What is Art? Beauty?

What is Love? A good Friend?

What is Piety? Faith?

You may also think of questions through the “five windows” onto philosophy: ontology/metaphysics, epistemology/logic, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. Here are the questions formulated in each:

Ontology/Metaphysics: What is the structure or the nature of reality? (Maybe it has no real structure and we impose that upon our experience?)

Epistemology/Logic: What do we know and how do we know it? (Of what are we ignorant and why, how?)

Ethics: What should we do and how should we act?

Politics: How should our society organize itself in order to achieve the best possible results? (What are the best possible results that can come from organizing human life?)

Aesthetics: What is Beauty? Sublime? What is “good taste”?

These five can also be thought of as falling into three categories: Questions of Truth (Ontological and Epistemological questions above), questions of Goodness (Ethics and Politics), and questions of Beauty (Aesthetics). As you can see, these are some of the bigger questions we humans can put to ourselves and each other!

A more practical approach would have participants identifying a problem, then developing a question based on this problem. Say the problem is greedy Wall Street bankers ruining it for the rest of us. First, consider whether this is a question of Truth, Goodness, or Beauty? Some problems may straddle a couple of these categories, but in this case, our problem fits squarely in the realm of Goodness.

Here you have a problem that deals with politics and ethics, and with the question of greed. You might then consider the question “What is Greed?” and discuss it’s causes or origins, and it’s value - is greed good in some cases, in all cases, or never? Or, you might have a discussion (as we once did, and it was one of the most fascinating ones!) on “What do the rich owe the poor?” This is the only salon I ever ran for which the question did not strictly take the Socratic form of a “What if?” question, we did end up in more of a policy discussion — one that takes up issues of what should be done— but it still worked very well.

A more random approach would be to have everyone write down a philosophical question on a piece of paper, and pick one randomly out of a hat. The question may need to be massaged, as I’ve done above with our practical problem question; that proving too difficult, you might have to pick another one out of the hat until you hit upon a good result. Alternately, you can approach it by consensus or majority vote. In short, there are a number of ways to go about this. It is up to you to decide how to proceed given your own preferences and what you know about the group you’ve gathered for the salon.

One final note: From time to time, a group dynamic is such that there is something on people’s minds that they want to talk about, other than the chosen question. There are so few places for people to talk about things that matter to them and sometimes people just need to talk about something as a community or group, and this process gives them a context to do so. If after some nudging you find that the group wants to move in a different direction that that which had originally been set out, there is little you can do to prevent this from happening without shutting people down. I say, go with it, if this does happen. There is always time for another discussion, another day.

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Resources

► You can listen to my podcast episode on How To Run A Philosophy Salon on DSound. It covers much of this material!

This is the third article in a three part series that includes: (1) How To Establish A Philosophy Reading Practice, (2) How to Keep A Philosophy Notebook, and (3) How To Run A Philosophy Salon.

Cover photo by Saad Sharif on Unsplash