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Socrates Café at Clareville

For a human being an unexamined life is not worth living

Our generation will have longer and better lives. Our responsibility is not only to grow old well but to turn the experience into something good and happy.

We are not equal entering into this experience. In these late years we pay the price for past mistakes and negligence.

The challenge of ageing well means more than a balanced lifestyle, a good diet, exercise and sleep. It involves not only the body but also the soul. Both, indeed, run the risk of being extinguished by old age like the flame of a lamp deprived of oil. The psychological, spiritual and philosophical dimensions of old age are often ignored. There is an argument that philosophy is, in fact, one of the keys to a happy old age.

A Socrates Café is an innovative discussion forum which facilitates philosophy, taking it out of universities and academia. The focus of the lies in treating the service users as "Elders" of their community, honouring their wisdom as graduates of the University of Life, enabling them to flourish and develop as unique human beings.

Philosophy means the love of wisdom. The word is drawn from two derivatives in the Greek language; Philo which means Love, and Sophia which means Wisdom. Such Wisdom is understood in terms of living the best life possible, flourishing and developing as unique, irreplaceable, valuable human beings, living to full potential.

Every older person has no choice as to whether or not they are a philosopher. Every older person operates out of some philosophical world view, well-formed or incomplete or somewhere in between; unreflectively absorbed from the culture around us or built on critical questioning and sustained thought, or a mixture of both.

Socrates

Socrates was the first of the great philosophers, perhaps the greatest to them all. He lived from 470 to 399 BC, at the beginning of the world as we know it, the birth of democracy. He had a wife, apparently the bane of his life. He was not rich or good looking (rather quite ugly) and fond enough of a glass of wine or two, or three. He was sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens, and impiety in relation to the Gods of Athens. He never wrote any books or left any literary legacy, and yet we think the way we do today because Socrates thought the way he did two and a half thousand years ago. He was the first man to explore how we should live in the world, just as that world was working out how to live with itself. His philosophy is relevant to us today because it has been so tenacious over that period of time. 

Socrates was nominated by the Oracle at Delphi as the wisest man in Athens and yet he knew that, in fact, he knew nothing, leading him to continually ask questions; what is good? What is justice? What is courage? What is friendship? What is the right way to live? What is happiness? Socrates saw us coming. He worried that the pursuit of plenty would bring mindless materialism, that democracy would become just a banner under which to fight. What is the point he says of warships and city walls and glittering statues if we are not happy? If we have lost sight of what is good? His is a question that is more pertinent now than ever. He asks what is the right way to live? He speaks to us today, not simply about the meaning of life, but the meaning of our own individual lives.

Socrates believed that the essence of human life is moral and practical, with philosophy practiced as a way of living in the best possible way; a philosophy for ordinary people. He believed that men and women have the potential to enjoy perfect happiness. The implication being that there might be a way for men and women to achieve fulfilment on this earth, but only when they are at peace with themselves.
 
He believed that it is us not them who can make things better.
His primary concern was with the world as lived. All of his philosophy is drawn to understanding the lives of the men and women around him. This understanding, this consciousness of one’s own consciousness, is what he called the psyche, the life breath or soul. He did not believe or deal in abstracts. For Socrates, morality stemmed from, and emerged to deal with, real problems in a real world. He saw himself as flesh and blood and that his how he lived and understood his life. The characters he employs as porters of his ideas are ordinary people; cobblers, bakers, priestesses and prostitutes. 

The Socrates Café

The Socrates Café embodies a method of discussion devised by Socrates. It involves getting the inner thoughts of the individual out into the public sphere, not as a monologue but as a dialogue. Socrates believed that open conversation was an essential balm for the psyche; two or more people helping each other to find the answers to difficult questions. He believed that  it was not enough to memorise facts, to seek wisdom each person must work toward understanding not just their opinion of an issue but also the beliefs upon which that opinion is based;  not only what but also why.

In the rote model of understanding, there is an answer and you are expected to regurgitate that answer when questioned.  If you are a Catholic, and are old enough, you will recall how you were thought your catechism. Know it exactly or the nun would beat it into you. In the Socratic model of learning, there could be many answers but the issue is to be able to reason why a particular answer is correct. The Socratic Method is a method for determining the truth of a thing by dialogue and reasoning. It is a process whereby a person can present, and defend, their philosophy of life in a forum where they will be listened to and respected; where the questions are often more important than the answers.

The Socratic Method in Practice

  1. A question will be posed. That question might be from a facilitator or emanate from a group discussion.
  2. Someone will lead the discussion. 
  3. The dialogue commences with the question being answered by one participant.
  4. The answer will then be discussed, looking for shortcomings.
  5. There will probably be several iterations. 
  6. Eventually, we will have to admit we really don't know what the answer is.
  7. We will then start looking for the answer together.


Questions from the archives at the Socrates Café Clareville Day Centre:



A key element in the success of the Café at the Clareville Day Centre is the culture and ethos of Clareville itself where human flourishing is a core value, where a robust community model is cultivated and where the work is underpinned by a belief that both staff and service users should be engaged in continuous learning in a collaborative and respectful way. 

The example of the Socrates Café at Clareville provides encouragement and also challenges for other health and social care practitioners in the development of integrated healthcare in the broadest sense.