SPI

We now have over 400 ongoing gatherings around the globe coordinated by hundreds of dedicated volunteers who are deeply committed to making ours a more participatory and inclusive world.

We at SPI are devoted to spreading forms of inquiry that enable and inspire each participant, within a group setting, to become a more autonomous and conscientious thinker and doer, a more expert questioner and listener. A paramount aim of ours is to inspire people who are curious, perplexed and filled with an insatiable sense of wonder, so they can dialogue for discovery. We also strive to enable those who share our deep concern about the state and straits of civility and civic-mindedness to dialogue for democracy. And we are here for those who subscribe to the Socratic ethos that the philosophically examined life can make for a richer existence.

SPI co-founders Cecilia Chapa Phillips, in addition to being a natural birth instructor(Bradley Birth), and Christopher Phillips are devoted to enabling, empowering and inspiring people -- particularly those at society's margins -- to articulate, explore, and further discover their singular philosophy of life, and to develop and contribute their unique talents and potentials. They believe that every person on this planet matters and counts. Countries like the U.S. even have documents that loftily declare this to be so. Yet such noble ideals all too often are mirrored by an ignoble reality.

How can we better recognize the glaring gap and contradictions between the ideals we claim to espouse, and the actual ways of the world in which we carry out our works and deeds? How can we become inspired to bridge this gap ,and resolve these contradictions? How can we quit being so quick to label others, and to label ourselves, obviating the exhilarating possibility of greater self- and communal discovery as we rekindle our childlike but by no means childish questioning nature?

By taking part, on an ongoing basis, with people of diverse human experiences, in a type of dialogue that opens up our imaginative, intellectual and empathetic lenses. By feeling a keener and deeper sense of connection to all members of human society on local and global scales. Our operating premise is this: As people of a bracing variety of ways of world-viewing and world-making come together regularly -- as they become more civil, even downright empathetic -- they will become more civic-minded; they will strive to become the change they aspire to see in the world at large.

In this ongoing quest to widen the circle of thoughtful souls who cultivate a more acute social and intellectual conscience, SPI was formed to support these efforts, and to be a clearinghouse for information useful to individuals or groups with similar goals. Thanks to ongoing support of our hundreds of individual and institutional members, and the popularity of our workshops and presentations, we are able to move forward with our mission, and establish around the globe democratic communities of inquiry and encounter, which are typically called Socrates Café or Philosophers' Club -- the name is not nearly as important as the shared ethos of rational, reflective, egalitarian and empathetic inquiry.

Welcome to the Society for Philosophical Inquiry, SPI is a grassroots nonprofit organization devoted to supporting philosophical inquirers of all ages and walks of life as they become more empathetic and autonomous thinkers who take active part in creating a more deliberative democracy. Its members strive to form and facilitate "democratic communities of philosophical inquiry". Their gatherings - which, depending on the setting , occasion and purpose, have such names as Socrates Café, Philosophers’ Club, bring together people from a wide array of walks of life and experiences. They take place in venues like parks, coffee houses, libraries, hospices, senior centers, nursing homes, prisons, plazas and other public spaces, bookstores, homeless shelters and community centers, libraries and schools.