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Philosopher Returns to Roots to Raise Questions about Democracy

By February 15, 2011General

Dr. Christopher PhillipsDr. Christopher Phillips, a professor, writer and pro-democracy activist, is scheduled to return to the campus of Delta State University, but not as a Delta State University science major, as he once was. Phillips will make his second professional visit to the Delta State campus March 1 and 2 to speak to students and to hold a public forum which he calls a “Constitution Café”.

The “Café” is scheduled for 7:30 p.m., on Tuesday, March 1, in the Recital Hall of the Bologna Performing Arts Center and is free and open to the public. Phillips will also give guest lectures on campus at other times as announced.  Phillips’ residency is sponsored by the Delta State University Special Programs Committee, chaired by Dr. Mark Butler.

Since leaving Delta State, Phillips has earned his PhD in Communications, has master’s degrees in the humanities, the natural sciences, and in education, and currently teaches in the graduate program in Media, Culture and Communications at New York University.  

A foremost specialist in the Socratic Method, he reminds us that we ought to ask questions – “not about any chance question,” as Socrates put it in Plato’s Republic, “but about the way one should live.”  Phillips encourages us to approach others with greater openness and less fear. His goal is to inspire curiosity and wonder, to nurture self-discovery and democracy.

To this end, Phillips is the founder of the Democracy Café and Socrates Café dialogue groups. These groups aren’t just about good conversation, however. “It’s grass-roots democracy,” Phillips told Time magazine. “It’s only in a group setting that people can hash out their ideas about how we should act not just as an individual but as a society.”

“Phillips induces his listeners to examine their assumptions rationally, in hopes they will see the way to improving the meaningfulness of their lives. These dialogues are intriguing, interesting, and often unexpected, as Phillips modestly considers himself a fellow inquirer, rather than a didactic instructor.”

In his first bestseller, Socrates Café (2001), Phillips traveled across America, launching philosophical discussion groups designed to stimulate inquiry and debate. In Six Questions of Socrates (2004)…[his] conversations reveal surprising points of intersection between classical philosophy, modern life, and the intellectual richness of societies far removed from Western philosophical tradition.

Phillips’s newest dialogue project, Constitution Café, is a space dedicated to the Jeffersonian idea of freedom: life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In these groups, a broad cross-section of actual and aspiring Americans grapple with how they would sculpt the United States Constitution if they could start from scratch. In his upcoming book, Democracy Café (W.W. Norton, 2011), Phillips describes what led him to hit the road once again and launch an initiative aimed at generating a new, nationwide Constitutional Convention. Energized by the initial optimism surrounding Obama’s presidency and the fierce partisanship infecting Congress, Phillips wants Americans to understand and challenge our most fundamental freedoms—with a little help from Thomas Jefferson.

Phillips is also the founder and executive director  of the Society for Philosophical Inquiry (SPI) and frequently lectures on such topics as “Leading Change,” “Deliberative Traditions and Democracy,” "Constitution Making," and “Inquiry the Socrates Café Way.”

Phillips resides in Mexico, Virginia, and New York.  For more information contact Butler and 662-846-4606 or mbutler@deltastate.edu.