Counter-Currents
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed

LEVEL2

  • Webzine
  • Books
  • Podcasts
  • Donate
  • Paywall
  • Crypto
  • Mailing List
  • About
  • Contact
  • RSS
    • Main feed
    • Comments feed
    • Podcast feed
  • Private Events
  • T&C
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Print June 10, 2015 2 comments

The Philosopher is In
The Philosopher’s Bean

Greg Johnson

cafephilosophy1,429 words

Spanish translation here

Editor’s Note:

The following text was written in 2000. It is a report on the philosophy café movement of the 1990s, with special reference to the philosophy cafés I ran at Borders Books in Buckhead, Atlanta, in 1998 and 1999, while I was in graduate school. Since philosophy is my first love, I am using it to inaugurate an occasion “column” on purely philosophical topics entitled “The Philosopher is In.” 

“But now I find I must put somewhat more spirit into my activity, and for this reason I turn to you with a request for assistance. I think a . . . coffee maker would be of great use to me in this connection.”—Hegel to Niethammer, October 13, 1807

Last Fall, a friend who lives in Paris informed me that the unemployed were on strike, demanding Christmas bonuses. “What are they threatening to withhold until their demands are met?” I asked. “Cashing their government checks, of course.” “Of course . . .”

There is nothing strange, however, about the French institution of philosophy cafés, in which thousands of people gather every weekend to sip coffee and debate philosophical topics from the death of God to the standard of taste. So natural is the connection between coffee and philosophy that to me the greatest mystery of ancient philosophy is: How did they do it without coffee?

The philosophy café movement was founded quite by accident in 1992 when Nietzsche scholar Marc Sautet was inspired by Gerd Achenbach, the founder of modern private philosophical counseling, to open his own practice in Paris. Sautet’s decision was reported on a radio news program. (Only in France!)

The reporter also mentioned that Sautet and some friends often gathered on Sunday mornings at the Café des Phares on the Place de la Bastille to discuss philosophy.

The following Sunday, ten people showed up, asking to see “the philosophers.” Twenty came the Sunday after. When the Café des Phares became too crowded, the discussions overflowed into neighboring coffeehouses. Today, there are at least two dozen philosophy cafés in Paris and more than 130 in France as a whole.

Typically, the meetings are weekly—usually on the weekend. Once the participants assemble, topics are suggested on the spot and voted on quickly to obviate canned speech-making. Usually the discussions are moderated by a trained philosopher.

The movement has given rise to several books, including Sautet’s own Un Café pour Socrate, a television program, and a bimonthy magazine Philos. Philosophy cafés have now sprung up in Brussels, Geneva, Bonn, London, and the U.S.

My Philosophy Café

In August of 1998, I was asked by Borders Books in Buckhead (Atlanta) to set up a monthly philosophy café. Our first meeting was on Thursday, September 17, 1998. More than thirty people were present. I served as moderator. In all, I moderated eleven philosophy cafés from September 1998 to July 1999. In September of 1999, the café was taken over by one of the participants.

We followed the French method of nominating then voting on topics. The first topic for the evening surprised me: When is hope a reasonable basis for belief? For the next hour and a half, I was entranced. Although I did have to play Socrates, asking leading questions and suggesting clarifying distinctions, I was more a student than a teacher, and at the end of the discussion I found that I had learned a good deal about a question I had never considered, and had completely revised my initial thoughts on the matter.

On this and other nights, we had genuine Socratic discussions. The participants reflected upon the question at hand in light of their own experience. Solutions were offered. Criticisms were formulated. Then new solutions were offered to surmount the criticisms, and the process continued. On some occasions, the participants even approached a consensus.

From the very beginning of the café, I found it necessary to eliminate non-philosophical questions. Press coverage of the first café led to more than 100 people showing up at the next one. Unfortunately, an inaccuracy in the story led them to show up thirty minutes early. When I arrived, a discussion was already in full swing. The topic? Bill and Monica. Friends approached, imploring me to take over. Although virtually any political issue can be used to raise philosophical questions, the more topical the issue, the more likely it is to get bogged down in unphilosophical concretes or dissolve into name-calling and invective.

As I came to understand the kinds of questions that could lead to good discussions, I also used a strong hand in the nominating process, eliminating bad questions immediately.

The best discussions were about moral, political, and “existential” questions: honesty, personal responsibility, hate crimes, assisted suicide, faith and reason, the rights of future generations, selfishness and altruism, freedom, the nature of love, moral judgment, and the nature of friendship. None of these questions requires specialized philosophical knowledge or training. All of them allow the participants to draw upon their own experience.

The worst discussions were on topics in metaphysics and aesthetics. Metaphysical questions like the nature of time, the immortality of the soul, and the existence of God cannot be discussed in the light of personal experience. People tend, therefore, to fall back on dogmas and prejudices or simply to fall silent. Metaphysical topics also lead almost inevitably to half-baked discussions of what I like to call quantum baloney.

Aesthetics can be discussed profitably only by people with good taste. People who have never cultivated their tastes think that taste is subjective. Beyond that, they have nothing to say.

How to Start a Philosophy Café

If anyone is interested in starting a philosophy café, I advise the following.

First, follow the tried and true French formula of letting the audience nominate and vote upon questions. The very process of nominating, reformulating, and voting on questions draws the audience in and gets them thinking. This process gives the moderator a great deal of latitude in shaping the questions. To seek more power is counterproductive.

Do not foist questions on the audience, for such discussions start slowly and fall apart quickly. No matter how good the topic is “in itself,” the discussion will go nowhere if it is not a live question for the audience.

Do not announce topics in advance. I tried this, and found that those who were interested in the topic came with canned speeches; those who were not interested did not show up at all. The result: a dead session.

Second, you must be quick in identifying and ruthless in eliminating certain types of people from the discussion or they will drive good people away. Every café has its share of harmless flakes. As long as they are concise, let them have their say. Eventually, the will find less challenging forms of amusement. Others, however, need to be dealt with.

There are the proselytizers, who will make extraordinary statements about themselves, usually apropos of nothing and without a shred of argument. They then hope that individuals will ask them their secret. (The secret is Jesus, or Krishna, or LSD, or atheism.)

There are the pedants, who like to show off their learning and drag the conversation toward specialized topics where they feel superior.

Finally, there are neurotics of all stripes. Some crave attention and love to hear the sound of their own voices. Male moderators will encounter women and men who act out their problems with daddy. Female moderators will encounter similar problems from those whose mothers have much to answer for.

The best way to drive such people out is to keep them waiting. The moderator controls the flow of conversation. If an undesirable person wishes to speak, ignore him. If someone else has his hand up, pretend that you saw him first. If many people have their hands up, establish a queue, put the undesirable at the end, and then let the conversation take on a life of its own. By the time he is recognized, his point is irrelevant or forgotten. Eventually, such people will look for a more receptive audience.

Third, have several moderators who take turns running the cafés. This has three benefits. It makes it less likely that the café will degenerate because of personality clashes between the moderator and certain participants; it prevents the café from being too imbued with the personality of one moderator; and it prevents moderators from burning out. I eventually quit moderating the Buckhead philosophy café because all three of these factors took the joy out of moderating.

Fourth, when the latte machine begins whooshing, declare a few moments of silent reflection, then continue the conversation.

Finally, when the conversation lags . . . drink more coffee.

 

Related

  • We Apologize for Your Feral Behavior

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 458
    Gregory Hood & Greg Johnson on Burnham & Machiavellianism

  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
    Parte 10, O que Há de Errado com a Diversidade?

  • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 457
    Greg Johnson & Millennial Woes on Common Mistakes in English

  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
    Parte 9, Supremacismo

  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
    Parte 8, Raça Branca

  • Our Prophet:
    Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites, Part 2

  • Our Prophet:
    Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites, Part 1

Tags

coffeeGreg JohnsonphilosophyThe Philosopher is In

Previous

« A Soldier for Truth:
Tribute to Emmanuel Ratier, 1957–2015

Next

» Un soldat pour la vérité:
hommage à Emmanuel Ratier, 1957–2015

2 comments

  1. Wyandotte says:
    June 10, 2015 at 5:20 pm

    Flakes, proselytizers, neurotics, pedants…who’s left? Everyone has personal “issues” which will, one way or another, be slithered into the discussion. Or so it would seem to me, anyway.

    1. Greg Johnson says:
      June 10, 2015 at 6:02 pm

      There were lots of good people, some of whom are still my friends.

Comments are closed.

If you have Paywall access,
simply login first to see your comment auto-approved.

Note on comments privacy & moderation

Your email is never published nor shared.

Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.

  • Recent posts

    • The Union Jackal, June 2022

      Mark Gullick

      2

    • Male Relationship Fantasies

      James Dunphy

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 458
      Rich Houck Discusses Mishima’s My Friend Hitler on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake

      Kathryn S.

      7

    • We Apologize for Your Feral Behavior

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      3

    • The Crossroads of Our Being: Civil War Commemorations During the “Civil Rights” Movement

      Morris van de Camp

      4

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 458
      Gregory Hood & Greg Johnson on Burnham & Machiavellianism

      Counter-Currents Radio

      1

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      Gregory Hood on Counter-Currents Radio & Rich Houck on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

      5

    • Irreplaceable Communities

      Alain de Benoist

      6

    • Why the Concept of the Cathedral Is Nonsense

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      8

    • Brokeback Mountain

      Beau Albrecht

      6

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 10, O que Há de Errado com a Diversidade?

      Greg Johnson

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 457
      Greg Johnson & Millennial Woes on Common Mistakes in English

      Counter-Currents Radio

      9

    • What Law Enforcement and First Responders Need to Know about White Nationalism

      Beau Albrecht

      6

    • Just Like a Woman

      Spencer J. Quinn

      3

    • The Black Johnny Depp

      Jim Goad

      27

    • Special Surprise Livestream
      Greg Johnson & Millennial Woes on Common Mistakes in English

      Greg Johnson

    • From “Equal Opportunity” to “Friend/Enemy”

      Stephen Paul Foster

      9

    • Deconstructing Dugin:
      An Interview with Charles Upton, Part 2

      Fróði Midjord

      2

    • Deconstructing Our Own Religion to Own the Libs

      Aquilonius

      18

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 9, Supremacismo

      Greg Johnson

    • Deconstructing Dugin:
      An Interview with Charles Upton, Part 1

      Fróði Midjord

      5

    • White Advocacy & Class Warfare

      Thomas Steuben

      11

    • The Tragedy of the Faux Boys

      Morris van de Camp

      34

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 456
      A Special Juneteenth Episode of The Writers’ Bloc with Jim Goad

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • The Worst Week Yet:
      June 12-18, 2022

      Jim Goad

      21

    • Booking Problems at Hotel Rwanda

      Mark Gullick

      7

    • What White Nationalists Should Know About Bitcoin

      Karl Thorburn

      19

    • “I Write About Communist Space Goths”:
      An Interview with Beau Albrecht

      Ondrej Mann

      6

    • This Weekend’s Livestreams
      Jim Goad Celebrates Juneteenth on The Writers’ Bloc

      Greg Johnson

      1

    • 2000 Mules
      The Smoking Gun of 2020 Election Fraud?

      Spencer J. Quinn

      39

    • Podcast with Robert Wallace & Gregory Hood
      Time for White Identity Politics

      Counter-Currents Radio

      11

    • Christianity is a Vast Reservoir of Potential White Allies

      Joshua Lawrence

      41

    • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco:
      Parte 8, Raça Branca

      Greg Johnson

    • 2000 Fat Mules Laughing at Dinesh D’Souza

      Jim Goad

      63

    • Christopher Pankhurst’s Numinous Machines

      Anthony Bavaria

      3

    • When Florida Was French

      Morris van de Camp

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 455
      The Counter-Currents 12th Birthday Celebration, Part 2

      Counter-Currents Radio

    • White Fragility & Joseph Conrad’s The Nigger of the “Narcissus”

      Raymond E. Midge

      7

    • Our Prophet:
      Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites, Part 2

      Greg Johnson

      3

    • Hockey Playoff Losses, Violent Carjackings, & Race in Toronto

      Gunnar Alfredsson

      3

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 454
      Muhammad Aryan on The Writers’ Bloc

      Counter-Currents Radio

      2

    • Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 453
      The Counter-Currents 12th Birthday Celebration, Part 1

      Counter-Currents Radio

      3

    • Patrick Bateman is a Tranny

      Nicholas R. Jeelvy

      12

    • Our Prophet:
      Christopher Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites, Part 1

      Greg Johnson

      13

    • The New Dissident Zeitgeist

      Aquilonius

      4

    • The Worst Week Yet:
      June 5-11, 2022

      Jim Goad

      20

    • How Belarus Uses Migrants as Weapons

      James A.

      29

    • Look What You Made Me Do:
      Dead Man’s Shoes

      Mark Gullick

      4

    • Remembering William Butler Yeats:
      June 13, 1865–January 28, 1939

      Greg Johnson

      5

  • Recent comments

    • DarkPlato Male Relationship Fantasies Thanks for an entertaining article, and for the film rec of career opportunities.  So many great...
    • kolokol The Union Jackal, June 2022 It’s depressing how far Britain has fallen. It used to be a great nation. Now it’s shit-hole – and a...
    • Hamburger Today The Union Jackal, June 2022 Great update.
    • Hamburger Today Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake
      Wonderful essay. I, too, look to fairy tales and folk tales for the ‘mystery’ they present about our...
    • Hamburger Today Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake
      When talking about homosexuals and queers, isn't the question not whether such folks 'can be' moved...
    • Hamburger Today Male Relationship Fantasies Given the coincidence of mental illness as IQ increases, the stability of the tribe might be the...
    • Jud Jackson We Apologize for Your Feral Behavior The numbers suggest that it is still much safer to be a white in Canada than in America.
    • Hamburger Today The Crossroads of Our Being: Civil War Commemorations During the “Civil Rights” Movement Fabulous essay.
    • Hamburger Today The Crossroads of Our Being: Civil War Commemorations During the “Civil Rights” Movement Amen.
    • JWhite We Apologize for Your Feral Behavior As per usual, the best I can hope for is that those putting these policies in place feel their  ...
    • Beau Albrecht We Apologize for Your Feral Behavior "Blacks were 2.2 times more likely to have interactions with officers and 1.6 times more likely to...
    • Philippe Régniez Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake
      Robert Brasillach was not gay.
    • Hyacinth Bouquet Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake
      Kathryn S. - What a brilliantly written and beautiful article!  I have printed out a copy to keep...
    • Hyacinth Bouquet The Worst Week Yet:
      June 12-18, 2022
      @Rockwell  -  What there is "scant discussion" of here is how White men are so weak that they blame...
    • Hyacinth Bouquet Perilously Fair:
      Reflections on the Ladies of the Lake
      "Men are expected to go out and make their mark on the world; a woman to attract the world to...
    • Brad Moto Příčina a následek aneb uzavření muslimské mysli "People, according to whom a woman is a female adult, are not flogged in squares like Alkindi today...
    • Kök Böri What’s Really at Stake in Ukraine I would note one interesting fact. In many towns, occupied by the Russian Army, the new...
    • Lord Shang The Crossroads of Our Being: Civil War Commemorations During the “Civil Rights” Movement Excellent review. Appreciated the embedded links. The War Between the States destroyed the nation as...
    • James Dunphy White Advocacy & Class Warfare "They have achieved their position through a combination of affirmative action, dark triad traits...
    • James Dunphy White Advocacy & Class Warfare With all due respect, I couldn’t disagree more about finance and accounting. Colleges overproduce...
  • Books

    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Collin Cleary
    • Jef Costello
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Julius Evola
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Greg Johnson
    • Jason Jorjani
    • Ward Kendall
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Trevor Lynch
    • H. L. Mencken
    • J. A. Nicholl
    • Andy Nowicki
    • James J. O'Meara
    • Michael O'Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Tito Perdue
    • Michael Polignano
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Savitri Devi
    • Fenek Solère
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Leo Yankevich
    • Francis Parker Yockey
  • Webzine Authors

    Contemporary authors

    • Howe Abbott-Hiss
    • Beau Albrecht
    • Aquilonius
    • Anthony Bavaria
    • Michael Bell
    • Alain de Benoist
    • Kerry Bolton
    • Jonathan Bowden
    • Buttercup Dew
    • Collin Cleary
    • Giles Corey
    • Jef Costello
    • Morris V. de Camp
    • F. Roger Devlin
    • Bain Dewitt
    • Jack Donovan
    • Ricardo Duchesne
    • Émile Durand
    • Guillaume Durocher
    • Mark Dyal
    • Guillaume Faye
    • Stephen Paul Foster
    • Fullmoon Ancestry
    • Jim Goad
    • Tom Goodrich
    • Alex Graham
    • Mark Gullick
    • Andrew Hamilton
    • Robert Hampton
    • Huntley Haverstock
    • Derek Hawthorne
    • Gregory Hood
    • Juleigh Howard-Hobson
    • Richard Houck
    • Alexander Jacob
    • Nicholas R. Jeelvy
    • Greg Johnson
    • Ruuben Kaalep
    • Tobias Langdon
    • Julian Langness
    • Travis LeBlanc
    • Patrick Le Brun
    • Trevor Lynch
    • Kevin MacDonald
    • G. A. Malvicini
    • John Michael McCloughlin
    • Margot Metroland
    • Millennial Woes
    • John Morgan
    • James J. O'Meara
    • Michael O'Meara
    • Christopher Pankhurst
    • Michael Polignano
    • J. J. Przybylski
    • Spencer J. Quinn
    • Quintilian
    • Edouard Rix
    • C. B. Robertson
    • C. F. Robinson
    • Hervé Ryssen
    • Kathryn S.
    • Alan Smithee
    • Fenek Solère
    • Ann Sterzinger
    • Thomas Steuben
    • Robert Steuckers
    • Tomislav Sunić
    • Donald Thoresen
    • Marian Van Court
    • Dominique Venner
    • Irmin Vinson
    • Michael Walker
    • Aylmer Wedgwood
    • Scott Weisswald
    • Leo Yankevich

    Classic Authors

    • Maurice Bardèche
    • Julius Evola
    • Ernst Jünger
    • D. H. Lawrence
    • Charles Lindbergh
    • Jack London
    • H. P. Lovecraft
    • Anthony M. Ludovici
    • Sir Oswald Mosley
    • National Vanguard
    • Friedrich Nietzsche
    • Revilo Oliver
    • William Pierce
    • Ezra Pound
    • Saint-Loup
    • Savitri Devi
    • Carl Schmitt
    • Miguel Serrano
    • Oswald Spengler
    • P. R. Stephensen
    • Jean Thiriart
    • John Tyndall
    • Francis Parker Yockey
  • Departments

    • Book Reviews
    • Movie Reviews
    • TV Reviews
    • Music Reviews
    • Art Criticism
    • Graphic Novels & Comics
    • Video Game Reviews
    • Fiction
    • Poems
    • Interviews
    • Videos
    • English Translations
    • Other Languages
      • Arabic
      • Bulgarian
      • Croatian
      • Czech
      • Danish
      • Dutch
      • Estonian
      • Finnish
      • French
      • German
      • Greek
      • Hungarian
      • Italian
      • Lithuanian
      • Norwegian
      • Polish
      • Portuguese
      • Romanian
      • Russian
      • Slovak
      • Spanish
      • Swedish
      • Ukrainian
    • Commemorations
    • Why We Write
  • Archives
  • Top 100 Commenters
Sponsored Links
Alaska Chaga Antelope Hill Publishing Imperium Press American Renaissance A Dissident’s Guide to Blacks and Africa The Patrick Ryan Show Jim Goad The Occidental Observer
Editor-in-Chief
Greg Johnson
Books for sale
  • Trevor Lynch’s Classics of Right-Wing Cinema
  • The Enemy of Europe
  • Imperium
  • Reactionary Modernism
  • Manifesto del Nazionalismo Bianco
  • O Manifesto Nacionalista Branco
  • Vade Mecum
  • Whiteness: The Original Sin
  • Space Vixen Trek Episode 17: Tomorrow the Stars
  • The Year America Died
  • Passing the Buck
  • Mysticism After Modernism
  • Gold in the Furnace
  • Defiance
  • Forever & Ever
  • Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition
  • Resistance
  • Materials for All Future Historians
  • Love Song of the Australopiths
  • White Identity Politics
  • Here’s the Thing
  • Trevor Lynch: Part Four of the Trilogy
  • Graduate School with Heidegger
  • It’s Okay to Be White
  • The World in Flames
  • The White Nationalist Manifesto
  • From Plato to Postmodernism
  • The Gizmo
  • Return of the Son of Trevor Lynch’s CENSORED Guide to the Movies
  • Toward a New Nationalism
  • The Smut Book
  • The Alternative Right
  • My Nationalist Pony
  • Dark Right: Batman Viewed From the Right
  • The Philatelist
  • Confessions of an Anti-Feminist
  • East and West
  • Though We Be Dead, Yet Our Day Will Come
  • White Like You
  • Numinous Machines
  • Venus and Her Thugs
  • Cynosura
  • North American New Right, vol. 2
  • You Asked For It
  • More Artists of the Right
  • Extremists: Studies in Metapolitics
  • The Homo & the Negro
  • Rising
  • The Importance of James Bond
  • In Defense of Prejudice
  • Confessions of a Reluctant Hater (2nd ed.)
  • The Hypocrisies of Heaven
  • Waking Up from the American Dream
  • Green Nazis in Space!
  • Truth, Justice, and a Nice White Country
  • Heidegger in Chicago
  • End of an Era: Mad Men & the Ordeal of Civility
  • Sexual Utopia in Power
  • What is a Rune? & Other Essays
  • Son of Trevor Lynch’s White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • The Lightning & the Sun
  • The Eldritch Evola
  • Western Civilization Bites Back
  • New Right vs. Old Right
  • Journey Late at Night: Poems and Translations
  • The Non-Hindu Indians & Indian Unity
  • I do not belong to the Baader-Meinhof Group
  • Pulp Fascism
  • The Lost Philosopher, Second Expanded Edition
  • Trevor Lynch’s A White Nationalist Guide to the Movies
  • And Time Rolls On
  • Artists of the Right: Resisting Decadence
  • North American New Right, Vol. 1
  • Some Thoughts on Hitler
  • Tikkun Olam and Other Poems
  • Summoning the Gods
  • Taking Our Own Side
  • Reuben
  • The Node
  • The New Austerities
  • Morning Crafts
  • The Passing of a Profit & Other Forgotten Stories
  • Rss
  • DLive
  • Telegram
  • Gab
  • Entropy
Copyright © 2022 Counter-Currents Publishing, Ltd.

Paywall Access





Please enter your email address. You will receive mail with link to set new password.

Edit your comment