What is a Philo café?

- A philo café is a double stimulant of caffeine and inquiry in a socially relaxed ambiance.
- “Philo” is a French abbreviation for Philosophy, but – given the ambiance – understood here in a different sense than “academic”: not as a formal discipline, subject or course but, rather, as a quasi-structured shared inquiry.  It is also distinguished from a bull session.  As my colleague Eric Dodson put it: “A form that both speaks to a gap between formal education and popular culture, and offers the institution of education a chance to broaden its own definition and structure.”
- It is inquiry shared in the classical sense of including anybody interested: noble, artisan, merchant or peasant.  Contemporary: All who would like to share inquiry of life’s meaningful questions.

Contemporary Origin of the Philo Café.

Philo café had its quasi-accidental beginnings at the Café Phare on Place de la Bastille, Paris, in 1992.  The story has it that one Sunday morning at a table in that cafe, Marc Sautet, a practicing Philosophical Counselor, was engaged with a client over certain philosophical issues pertinent to that client’s life.  The discussion was overheard, and enjoined by strangers sitting at a near-by table: Which then brought responses from others in the café, who had different thoughts and opinions.  Rather than block out these views, Sautet welcomed them and began to animate an open inquiry into the issues at hand.  The ensuing discussion proved so stimulating that it was decided it – around a different issue – would be taken up the Sunday following, and that one led to another and another.  The weekly event at Phare became so popular that crowds of participants came to fill the café, every Sunday, inside and at the tables out on the street, and roving microphones and speakers were required.  Philo cafes (or Philo-Bistrots) began to bourgeon, animated by others: some philosophers, some other, all around Paris: Then out into the suburbs, around France, around Europe, and around the world.

 Locations, Schedules, Formats and Themes:

- Place: The typical location is a café, with the understanding of the proprietor at a scheduled time, taking up part or all of the location.  However, some are held in people’s homes or a club and, in the case where these are scheduled as part of professional meetings, a “hospitality suite” or appropriate space pre-designated in the program.
- Time: Each philo-café has its own schedule, meeting generally either weekly or monthly: But, as mentioned, some recently have become linked to annual professional meetings, as is the case for the Humanistic Psychology Division of the American Psychological Association.  The typical duration for any discussion is, overall, two hours.  This includes the time necessary, either at the beginning or end, to decide on the topic of discussion.  Some philo cafes – such as that at Phare – choose the topic for that session at the beginning, others at the end of each session, for the following one.
-Dynamic: Depending on acoustics and number of participants, mics, typically portables, are used.  The raising of hands is typically used to determine the order of contributions.  The person who monitors this order could be or not the “animator.”  The animator may serve in several ways, besides this and “refereeing” exchanges that threaten to get out of hand: such as, in the Socratic mode, periodically commenting, incisively, at particular junctures of the discussion, perhaps contextualizing it, or in leading the discussion back to its initial thematic track, or conversely, by taking it in new and heuristic directions; by posing provocative questions, or by rendering timely summations, and integrating what has preceded.
-Issues: The tradition at Phare is to have topics nominated from participants at the beginning of each session.  The animator (“animateur-trice”) then chooses one of these proposed topics he or she thinks is most stimulating.  Whereas, some other philo cafes entertain proposed topics from participants at the end of each session, which are then voted on to elect the issue or question for the session following.  In this latter case, the person whose proposal is elected prepares, in advance, a brief introduction to that topic chosen to begin the next session’s discussion.  Other than in cafes which have become “thematic” such as Psych-cafes, Anthro-cafes, etc., the themes proposed and (s)elected both in form or in content, serious and/or light, can range without limit.  These can be posed in exclamatory or interrogatory form.  Samples:  “The normal and the natural,” “What is it to succeed as a human?” The soul in all its states,” “Why do tears and laughter so often join?” “The power of the night,” Masturbation: Thumbs up or Thumbs down?” “Instinct and Intuition,” “Our ideas, are they but expression of circumstances or our personality?” “The Environment: eating ourselves out of house and home,” “Why does the chicken cross the road” “Originality: Past origin and new and unique,” “What is a wise fool?”

American Philo Cafés: Not a Leader Here

Currently, there is but a scattering of philo cafés in the U.S.  This, in itself, raises an interesting question of why this relative paucity?  Are we Americans too busy with our overlapping jobs?  Too materialistically concerned?  Are we too pragmatic and utilitarian to bother with reflection?  Do we have too many alternatives, such as list-serves and other web-site dialogues?  Are we traditionally non- or anti-philosophical/anti-intellectual?  Are we to “politically correct” to question the going social “axioms”?  Or, do we share a view that disagreement is disagreeable?

Corner of the Corner Café

 We began our own philo café in Carrollton, Georgia.  Carrollton is a small university town of about 13,000.  It began in 1997 as a communal project in a psychology class titled Human Growth and Potential, and as part of a course theme of creating a new vocation, a humanistic vocation – one that is humanities-centered, yet that was never academically nor professionally oriented:  One that spoke directly to the questions of life’s meanings and that was attuned to questions that people of all ages, facets of occupation and social class may have about life, without presuppositions of theology, pathology or academic requirements or competition.  It is shared inquiry, exploration, for its own sake.

 Over 100 people showed up for the inaugural session that filled the Corner Café on Carrollton’s central square.  My colleague, Eric Dodson, and I share the “animator” role and we have met every Monday from 8-10 PM since, but now, for nearly five years, we’ve occupied but a comfortably furnished corner of the Corner Café, with 10 to 25 participants showing up each week, some regulars, some new.

 Just outside the Corner Café, on the square where tables now sit, were once the stools, crates and boxes where townsfolk and farmers sat for their daily cracker-barrel discussions.  As Sartre and Merleau-Ponty did at Les Deux Megots, on Boulevard Saint-Germain, as they do in the African palabres, as they do in the Mediterranean coffee houses, as they did in the streets of Ancient Athens.  Different times, different folks, different conditions and levels of sophistication, yet I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same questions pop up.

Dr. Mike Arons
State University of West Georgia