Open seminars

CLEA Seminar: Jan De Maeyer, 23.04.2020

By April 8, 2020 April 23rd, 2020 No Comments
The Center Leo Apostel (CLEA) invites you to the next open seminar of the 2019-2020 series, taught by a student of our School of Thinking.
Time: Thursday, 23 April 2020 | 16:30 – 18:00
Place: Zoom (password: clea)

Dr. Jan De Maeyer, Socratic speaking

Speaking to each other, respecting the opinion of another, listening to the other and mutual respect is not always evident in our society.

Socratic speaking is a method of understanding another person better. You do this by suspending your own judgment. So we are not going to debate, but we are investigating. We try not to convince the others of our own knowledge. Socrates is an example in this: we agree that no one knows. So we talk with each other and not to each other. In this way we arrive at new thinking and better insights.

We go back to an age-old method that is of course adapted today. In any case, it remains a conversation in which everyone’s judgment is suspended, where they listen closely to each other and think critically on the basis of concrete experiences.

Socratic conversations can be used anywhere, in organizations and in schools. It can be in a one-to-one relationship, but also in a group. And depending on the context, there will be variation in the way these conversations will proceed. The Socratic method will be applied differently in schools than in organizations. But the essence of such a conversation remains the same.

In this lecture, Jan De Maeyer will introduce the participants to the foundations of Socratic thinking. Naturally, concepts such as maieutics, elenchus, regressive abstraction, etc. are discussed.

 


About the organization
This lecture is part of the long standing CLEA/ECCO/GBI series of interdisciplinary seminars on the foundations of science, cognition and systems. The seminars are open to everyone interested.