Socratic dialogue can take 1-5 days. A group of participants (usually 5-12 people) solve a specific question: e.g. What are the limits of tolerance? Under what circumstances is violence acceptable? Do we need to help each other? But there are mathematical topics as well :)

Neo-Socratic approach is based on following principles:

• participants proceed from their own life experiences and analyse them (telling stories from real life) to find a general answer on a chosen question, to find the principles which are behind the experience
• participants focus on mutual understanding: with help of a facilitator they try to really understand each other and express themselves clearly and honestly
• no authority or academic knowledge is needed/wanted: the facilitator only focuses on the group dynamic, he/she is not involved in the content of the dialogue
• striving for consensus: the group creates and critically verifies its own philosophical/ethical/mathematical content that everyone truly understands. The aim of a dialogue is to find a common truth, not only to share various ideas without a consensus

There is a specific role fot the facilitator who takes care of the dialogue itself and concentrates his or her attention on the form and flow of the dialogue. This gives the participants the opportunity to focus purely on their thoughts and helps them to understand themselves and other participants.

There is very little of theory and “ordinary philosophy”. You do not have to know famous philosophers and their theories. It is only up to you what will be the content of the dialog!

Who does this and why?
At the moment, the Socratic Dialogue is used in various countries for various target groups: e.g. ethical themes for doctors in Spain, philosophical topics for prisoners in Germany, business topics for people in the Netherlands, and of course in schools: for pupils, students and teachers from different countries (Germany, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Austria, Italy, Great Britain...).

Participants discuss the topic and their chosen experience and the facilitators lead them to fruitful results and control that the dialogue doesn´t become a simple chitchat.