Scientific, Philosophical, and Practical Elements of Two New Philosophical Group Practices: Dialectic into Dialogos and the Socratic Search Space

Summary

Two group philosophical practices—Dialectic into Dialogos (DiD) and the Socratic Search Space (SSS)—are described and contrasted with Nelsonian Socratic Dialogue (NSD). NSD aims for consensus by extracting a virtue concept from personal experiences, then testing it through Socratic questioning, making it a 'cataphatic' or positive practice. DiD instead leads participants into aporetic engagement with a virtue concept, making it 'apophatic' or negative. SSS integrates elements of both, balancing cataphatic and apophatic approaches. DiD and SSS are designed to induce dialogical flow states (Dialogos) that afford transformative experiences of distributed cognition, described by practitioners as a 'secular séance' that ignites Heraclitus's metaphorical fire associated with Logos, the intelligibility of ultimate reality. The paper presents cognitive science, philosophical, and practical supports, ethical considerations, and relevance amid the AI revolution and meaning crisis.

Study at a glance

Abstract

In this paper we focus on describing two group philosophical practices, Dialectic into Dialogos (“DiD”) and the Socratic Search Space (“SSS”) (“these two practices”). In the discourse domain of philosophical practice, the closest analogue for purposes of contrastive understanding of these two practices is Nelsonian Socratic Dialogue (“NSD”). NSD aspires to reach consensus by extracting a targeted virtue concept from participants’ personal experiences of the virtue, only after which the consensus definition, if attained, is exposed to Socratic cross-examination, with the continued aim of attaining consensus understanding. It is thus primarily a ‘cataphatic’ or ‘positive’ practice. By contrast, DiD aspires to lead participants into an aporetic engagement with a targeted virtue concept. It is thus an ‘apophatic’ or ‘negative’ practice. Lastly, SSS integrates elements of NSD and DiD, forming a hybrid cataphatic/apophatic balance. Both DiD and SSS, but not NSD, are specifically designed to bring about conditions under which participants will enter dialogical flows states (“Dialogos”), affording them transformative experiences of distributed cognition that many practitioners have described as functioning like a “secular séance” that ignites the metaphorical fire that Heraclitus associated with the Logos, the intelligibility of ultimate reality. The cognitive science, philosophical, practical, and related supports for these two practices will be presented, along with some ethical considerations about facilitating them, and considerations about their relevance at this time of the advent of the AI revolution during the already existing meaning crisis.