How Symposia Work
A symposium brings together a small group of participants for a series of socratic dialogues.
What are socratic dialogues?
Socratic dialogues are guided conversations where participants explore ideas, develop habits of critical thinking and practice effective habits of communication.
They're founded on Socrates' conviction that encouraging people to think for themselves matters more than filling their heads with "right" answers. The method rests on the belief that through disciplined conversation and dialectic—the art of examining ideas logically through question and answer—participants can develop their individual powers of reason and understanding.
This philosophy creates a unique kind of conversation where asking "why?" isn't confrontational but rather opens a path to deeper understanding. Through sustained, structured dialogue, participants develop not just knowledge but the habits of mind essential for clear thinking—careful listening, precise speaking, examining assumptions, and tracing the roots of their opinions.
Every dialogue has the following main features
Registration and preparation
Participants register for a program and receive a physical package with the chosen texts.
The conversations are online, each one lasts 120 minutes, and consists of anywhere between 2-15 participants.
The main preparation required is reading the carefully chosen text.
The role of the moderator
The conversation is guided by a moderator. The moderator will not lecture, or provide opinions. She will ask questions, seek clarification and encourage participants to think about the ideas of the author and their own.
If the moderator does take a stand on an issue, her opinion should not be accepted uncritically. Every argument must stand on good reasons, and the same standards of reason apply to everyone.
In a socratic seminar, reason is the only authority.
The conversation style
The conversation style is probing, but friendly. If a debate is competitive contest, a dialogue is a collaborative discovery with multiple sides working toward a shared understanding.
Participants in a dialogue submit their best thinking, expecting that other people's reflections will help improve it rather than threaten it.
In a dialogue, the ideal participant's attitude is to further the process of mutual inquiry, not to raise their own status.
Why participate in a socratic dialogue
Often, learners may follow everything that is said in a lecture, speech or a podcast, and yet fail to articulate it by themselves. This is characteristic of learning through acquisition – I can listen, and follow, but that does not mean I have understood it securely as an idea I can generate myself.
Being expected to generate an idea in conversation forces us to trace the logical steps that lead to the conclusion, the hallowed answer. Or, it leads us to the realization that we remember what the answer is, but not why it is the answer. This too is common in learning through acquisition.
Seminars provide an opportunity to engage in a deep conversation about ideas. Participants read challenging texts and explore each other's understanding of the material. The conversation generates new connections, raises new questions, and leads to a deeper exploration than would be possible by oneself, alone.
Participants learn to reason carefully, to question the assumptions they take for granted, and bring the habit of introspection into their basic pattern of thought.