Philosophical Practice as Action Research. The Socratic Dialogue Method at Norwegian Folk High Schools

HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH. THE SOCRATIC DIALOGUE METHOD AT NORWEGIAN FOLK HIGH SCHOOLS LA FILOSOFÍA APLICADA COMO INVESTIGACIÓN-ACCIÓN. EL MÉTODO DEL DIÁLOGO SOCRÁTICO EN LAS UNIVERSIDADES POPULARES NORUEGAS MICHAEL NOAH WEISS University of Education of Lower Austria [email protected] SIGURD OHREM Norway’s Creative University College [email protected] RECIBIDO: 20 DE OCTUBRE DE 2015 ACEPTADO: 24 DE NOVIEMBRE DE 2015 Abstract: In this article the authors discuss whether and how philosophical practice in general and the Socratic dialogue method in particular can be understood, not only as a form of counseling or education, but also as a form of research. For this purpose references and comparisons to so-called participatory action research are made, on the one hand. On the other, by means of several short case studies, a project about Socratic dialoguing is presented, which was conducted at so-called Norwegian folk high schools and which should point out the inherent research-character of philosophical practice. Keywords: philosophical practice, participatory action research, Socratic method, Norwegian Folk High School Resumen: En este artículo, los autores discutirán si es possible, y cómo, la Filosofía Aplicada en general y el método del diálogo socrático en particular puede ser catalogados no solo como una forma de orientación o de educación sino, además, como un mecanismo para investigar. A tal fin, se articulan comparaciones con la, así denominada, investigación-acción participativa. Por otro lado, partiendo de un conjunto de pequeños casos, se presenta un proyecto MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 146 sobre diálogos socráticos. Éste se llevó a término en las universidades populares noruegas, lo cual pone de manifiesto el caracter investigador inherente a la Filosofía Aplicada. Palabras clave: philosophical practice, participatory action research, Socratic method, Norwegian Folk High School Introduction Today, one can find a vast amount of publications on philosophical practice. By now, there is also a diverse range of methodologies in use within the field 1 . Nevertheless, since the “hour of birth” of philosophical practice, the discussion on what kind of activity it actually represents and how it can be defined, did not fall silent until today. For this reason, one of the guiding questions of this article reads: What is a philosophical practitioner actually doing, when performing philosophical practice – and to what extent can this activity be understood, not only as a form of counseling or education, but also as a form of research? Philosophical practice as a counseling or educational activity Since its beginnings in the early 1980ies, many practitioners proclaimed that philosophical practice is a counseling activity – socalled philosophical counseling. Other approaches, like the Socratic method after Leonard Nelson, or the so-called Philo Cafè as introduced by Marc Sautet, suggest philosophical practice to be more of an educational activity. The respective (academic) literature on philosophical practice, however, shows that 1 see WEISS, Michael N. (ed.): The Socratic Handbook. Dialogue Methods for Philosophical Practice, LIT Publishing, Vienna, 2015. PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 147 understanding it either as an educational or as a counseling activity is both problematic. There are several publications, which discuss the identity and uniqueness of philosophical counseling compared to psychotherapy, coaching, life counseling, pastoral care etc. 2 In our opinion, however, the respective literature on the matter remains inconclusive. In its essence there seem to be too little decisive aspects that would identify philosophical counseling – mainly practiced in one-on-one settings – as clearly genuine and different from other counseling approaches, like existential analysis or existential psychotherapy 3 . Furthermore, our personal and professional experiences over the last years, leads us to the question, whether philosophical counseling really deserves the name “counseling” or whether it actually is an activity of a rather different kind 4 . When understanding philosophical practice as an educational activity, then it is obviously not an educational activity in the traditional sense – though without any doubt certain philosophical practices can lead to learning effects with the participants. However, these effects are not the outcome or the result of teaching as we normally understand it. Rather, one can interpret the kind of learning achieved in philosophical practice in the sense of so-called 2 see i.e.: ACHENBACH, Gerd: “Philosophy, Philosophical Practice, and Psychotherapy”, in LAHAV, Ran & TILLMANN, Maria da Venza (eds.): Essays on Philosophical Counseling, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1995. Or: LAHAV, Ran: “A Conceptual Framework for Philosophical Counseling: Worldview Interpretation”, in: LAHAV, Ran & TILLMANN, Maria da Venza (eds.): Essays on Philosophical Counseling, University Press of America, Lanham, MD, 1995. 3 see ibidem, p. 11 4 see HANSEN, Finn Thorbjørn: “The Call and Practices of Wonder. How to evoke a Socratic Community of Wonder in Professional Settings”, in WEISS, Michael N. (ed.): The Socratic Handbook. Dialogue Methods for Philosophical Practice, LIT Publishing, Vienna, 2015. p. 219f. MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 148 anamnesis. Anamnesis, as a certain form of learning, was presented in the Plato’s dialogue Menon, where only by means of questioning and not by direct teaching Socrates succeeds in making a slave (who never received any previous training in mathematics) solve a geometrical problem. One has to admit that many philosophical practitioners do neither refer to counseling nor to education when defining their work-approach. Often they rather refer to terms like critical thinking, existential reflection, philosophizing or dialoguing – but these activities are not necessarily unique to philosophical practice (i.e. existential reflection or dialoguing is done in other professions or disciplines too). To put it in other words, a teacher is supposed to teach, a therapist is supposed to treat, a counselor is supposed to counsel etc. – therefore the question is: What is a philosophical practitioner actually doing when she performs philosophical practice? To approach this question it is necessary to go into the specific context of this particular activity. Philosophical practice as a research activity Until now research in philosophical practice has been a rare phenomenon, so to say. This issue of the Haser journal is an “exception to the rule”, being one of the few publications in which philosophical practice and research is discussed. In this article we would like to take it even a step further – our intention is to reinterpret philosophical practice both as a narrative-based method of investigation and as a research activity in itself. In order to do so, we will relate the so-called Socratic dialogue method to what is called participatory action research 5 . In the course of this article we 5 see CHEVALIER, Jaques M. & BUCKLES, Daniel J.: Participatory Action Research: Theory and Methods for Engaged Inquiry, Routledge, London & New York, 2013. PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 149 will present several short case studies, which should exemplify how and why we understand philosophical practice as a research activity in general and a form of participatory action research in particular. However, before introducing these short cases, we would first like to make some theoretical and methodological remarks on the Socratic dialogue method. The Socratic dialogue method after Leonard Nelson Today many philosophical practitioners make use of the so-called Socratic method as developed by Leonard Nelson 6 . When conceptualizing it, Nelson’s intention was to offer a dialogue method for groups in order to make the respective participants of such a dialogue (like students) philosophize about the topic at stake. A unique characteristic of this method is that it does not require any philosophical pre-knowledge with the participants. Another central aspect of the Socratic method is that the chosen topic, subject or phenomenon of the dialogue is investigated by means of concrete cases and experiences, formulated as narratives. A philosophical investigation performed according to the Socratic method consists of several steps, its most central ones are briefly summarized in the following. The steps of a Socratic dialogue First, a topic is chosen, preferably a philosophical term i.e. an ethical value like honesty, but it can also be a term like selfknowledge, meaning of life, etc.. Then the dialogue participants are 6 see HECKMANN, Gustav: Das sokratische Gespräch: Erfahrungen in philosophischen Hochschulseminaren, Schroedel, Hannover, 1981. MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 150 invited to tell a personal memory-based story, in which they once experienced the topic at stake. In the next phase these narratives are reflected and investigated in order to make definitions what the topic means according to each narrative. Finally, the group tries to make a more general definition out of the definitions already made due to the different narratives. Philosophizing by means of story-telling and experiencesharing An important question, which comes up at this point is how and why such a dialogue can be called philosophical? As described previously, narrated experiences represent the starting point of a Socratic dialogue. From these specific cases the investigation leads deeper into the subject matter in terms of making definitions about what the topic at stake actually means. And it is this “movement” in the thinking process, which goes from the concrete (the personal stories) to the general (the general definition) – a characteristic which can also be found in the dialogues of Socrates – that makes such a dialogue philosophical: If one assumes that the activity of philosophizing means to reflect and investigate general aspects of the human condition (like empathy, freedom, the search for meaning, etc.), then such an activity is certainly performed by means of the Socratic method as described here (since general aspects of the human condition, like ethical values, are reflected by means of story-telling and experience-sharing). Moreover, with an emphasis on the term to investigate, one can already get a first idea of how and why the Socratic method can also be understood as a narrative-related and experience-based “research activity”. PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 151 Forming a community of inquiry and performing narratives A further characteristic of the Socratic method after Nelson is that the dialogue facilitator (often a philosophical practitioner) and the participants form a so-called community of inquiry, to use a term coined by Mathew Lipman 7 . In other words, the facilitator and the participants investigate a topic together – there is no expert-layman hierarchy, there are only “co-researchers” in a Socratic dialogue. This is the first way in which this dialogue setting relates to the practice-oriented research approach of participatory action research, as it will be described afterwards. The other way is concerned with performing the narrations, that is the plot-telling as such, which can be identified as action (which in the next instance turns into interaction between the dialogue participants). Ricœur-inspired Socratic narratives By analogy to Ricœur, the narrative process in Socratic dialogues may also be considered as a particular kind of action, understood as follows: “According to Ricœur, the work of art – including literary fiction – may be considered as a particular kind of action.” 8 The question now is what kind of action is this narrative process in a Socratic dialogue about? In our opinion it is an action of selfreflection. For example, by answering a reflective question or sharing a story in the course of a Socratic dialogue, the storyteller 7 see LIPMAN, Matthew: Thinking in Education, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2003. p. 84. 8 BJØRSNØS, Annlaug: “Den lange veien til forståelse. Om Paul Ricœr og litteraturens epistemologiske funksjon”, in Norsk Litteraturvitenskapelig Tidsskrift, Nr. 1, Vol. 15, Trondheim, 2012, p. 61. MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 152 herself can reach a revised understanding of herself. That means coming to a clearer or richer understanding of herself, or just starting to understand herself. To put it into more concrete terms: Such a self-reflective action is taken in the course of a Socratic dialogue, when i.e. a participant starts to ask herself : “What does the story that I just told (or heard) tell me about me?” Asking oneself such questions often happens unexpectedly with the participants, but it can bring revealing self-insights for the respective participant to the fore 9 . Such kinds of “actions” are of course neither foreseeable nor predictable in the beginning of a dialogue. But the presupposition in order to “perform” such selfreflections is to share personal narratives. Furthermore, hermeneutics (that is the interpretation of a literary work, a narrative, a metaphor) and the self-reflective process of a Socratic dialogue seem to correspond with each other. The (trans-)formation (formation in the sense of “danning” in Norwegian) of the self, reflected in the “telling“ of the respective narratives and the resulting changes in self-understanding happen simultaneously. But it seems to be the latter that is the object, the phenomenon of a Socratic dialogue in the sense of research. The actions of Socrates – philosophical midwifery and irony The term Socrates used to describe his way of conducting dialogues was maieutics – the art of midwifery of the soul. The self-image of Socrates was the one of a midwife assisting a pregnant soul in the birth process – an image, in which one certainly can find similarities to counseling activities. However, 9 see HANSEN, Finn Thorbjørn: “The Call and Practices of Wonder. How to evoke a Socratic Community of Wonder in Professional Settings”, in WEISS, Michael N. (ed.): The Socratic Handbook. Dialogue Methods for Philosophical Practice, LIT Publishing, Vienna, 2015. p. 219f. PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 153 when one takes a closer look at what the figure of Socrates was actually doing in those dialogues, it was far more than counseling. Rather, it was to investigate a topic, a term or a phenomenon together with his dialogue partners, simultaneously as giving birth to new stages of self-insight among these adepts. Investigation and formation At this point, two key-aspects of the Socratic method have come to the fore: investigation and formation (“Bildung” in German), both approached simultaneously. In other words, in his dialogues the role of Socrates was not the one of a traditional teacher, nor the one of a counselor – it was the one of a researcher and a releaser. However, the relationship between Socrates and his dialogue partners was not constituted according to a researcher/interviewer role model. Rather, he saw both himself as well as his dialogue partners as investigators or “co-researchers” and partakers in the “birth process”. At first sight we have to admit that this does not sound convincing, since Socrates often introduced himself as a layman on the matter and his dialogue partner as an expert. However, according to Sæverot this attitude of Socrates is not only a trick to “lure” his opponents into a deeper investigation of the subject matter 10 . His saying that “I know nothing except that I nothing know” conceals a double meaning, pointing directly to the intrinsic structure of his philosophical midwifery method and the “judgmental” aspects of the formation processes. With this notknowing-attitude Socrates tries to give his adepts a definite “push” towards self-reflection in the sense of “Know thyself”. 10 see BRUNSTAD, Paul Otto, REINDAL, Solveig Magnus & SÆVEROTH, Herner (eds.): Eksistens og Pedagogikk, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, 2015. MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 160 was applied with the purpose of team building. In the following, several cases are presented in which Socratic dialogues were performed – these cases should also give a first glimpse of how and why philosophical practice can be understood as a philosophical “version” of participatory action research. Case 1: Implementing core values by means of the Socratic method The first case is about a Socratic dialogue that was performed at a school, which is owned by the municipality. The fact that the municipality is the owner of the school is important, because at a certain point the leaders of this municipality decided to develop new core values and mission statements. After this developmentprocess was finished and new core values and mission statements were “on the table”, a campaign was started in which all entities of the municipality were invited to implement these values and mission statements in their respective field of work. Now developing core values can be hard work, but implementing them can be even harder. The teaching staff of the respective folk high school knew that they had a difficult task to fulfill, because only putting up banners on the schoolyard with the core values printed on them would not do the job. The task included two main challenges. The first was how to actually implement core values, which were given to the school from outside? And the second, how to do this implementation in a way so that it would fit the school culture? Soon the idea came up to combine this task with the teachthe-teachers program on philosophical practice and to perform Socratic dialogues on each of these values (these dialogues were part of the course mentioned above and facilitated by one of the teachers as well as supervised by a certified philosophical practitioner). In this way, the dialogue participants (which finally were both members from the teaching and the administrative staff as well as students) could share experiences by which they PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 161 experienced the value at stake. One of these dialogues, for example, was on the topic of “professionalism”, which was one of the core values to be implemented. Here the participants shared personal stories, which all started with “Once I experienced professionalism, when…” Most of these stories were about experiences made at the school. The result – the finding of this investigation, so to say – was how the value “professionalism” already was and can actually be practiced at the school. In other words, instead of discussing how professionalism should ideally be practiced, the participants of the dialogue came up with concrete examples of best practices by means of storytelling. In addition, the dialogue resulted in a common and more general definition and understanding of what professionalism actually means (at the school). With regards to participatory action research, we would like to summarize this case as follows: A school was confronted with the task to implement a set of core values, which was given to them from outside, namely from the municipality. However, there were no strategies offered on how to do that. Since the school culture of a folk high school leaves little room for top-down approaches, it was clear from the beginning that the implementation process would have to include both the teaching and administrative staff as well as the students in a rather democratic manner. Since it was not clear how to do the implementation, it seemed to be natural to tell each other stories in which these core values were once experienced and practiced. An advantage here was that many of these experiences were made at that school, because in this way the participants became aware of how these values were already practiced there. In the course of the Socratic dialogue certain best practices came to the fore. Since these practices were communicated in the form of stories, they were also easy to be remembered (simply because stories are much easier to remember MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 162 than i.e. plain theories or guidelines) 21 . However, what has to be mentioned is that it was not the direct goal of this Socratic dialogue to find and to develop best practices – the main goal was first and foremost to investigate this set of values by means of a philosophical-practical approach. And maybe this is also one of the main differences between action research and philosophical practice, that the latter is not focusing on finding solutions to a problem, but rather to reflect and to investigate the problem together with those who are concerned with it. That such investigations and self-reflections often lead to concrete actions, however, is undoubtedly the case. In this way, and as this previous case has shown, the three aspects of participation (all staff and students have been involved in the dialogue process), research (the core values have been investigated together and self-reflection was performed on how each participant of the dialogue could practice this value on his or her own) and action (in the form of best practices but also in the form of the dialogue itself) have been present in this dialogue. Case 2: Team building through philosophizing about the practice of pedagogical and educational ideals In the next case a Socratic dialogue setting is described in which both the teaching staff as well as the administrative staff from one school participated. It has to be mentioned that the administrative staff not only included the secretaries, but also the staff from the school kitchen as well as the school caretakers. The reason for this was that at this folk high school the opinion was shared, that not only the teaching staff but also the administrative employees 21 see HEATH, Chip & HEATH, Dan: Made to stick. Why some ideas survive and others die, Random House, New York, 2007. PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 163 contributed essentially to what can be called formation (“danning” in Norwegian) with the students, which is the overall goal of all folk high schools: “The aim is to provide a formative (Bildungs) year, nurturing "the whole person".” 22 One could also call this the pedagogical and education ideal of Norwegian folk high schools. Since in former times there was a rather strict distinction at folk high schools between the teaching staff and the administrative employees (a distinction which of course had an influence on the school culture as such), several measures had been taken at this respective school to unite these different “leagues” into a common team. One of these measures was that both the teachers and the administrative employees started to share a common staff room, where they would also have lunch together. This did not only foster the dialogue and the exchange between the two “leagues”, but it was also a clear sign that both the teaching staff and the administrative staff were equally important. Though the teachers and the administrative employees had different tasks to fulfill at their work, the idea was introduced that they still were working towards a common goal, namely formation with the students. This was a first step in the team building process (that is, uniting the two “leagues”). To go further into this process several other measures were taken over the years, and one of them was to perform a Socratic dialogue with all staff members on the question “Hva er god danning?” (in English “What is good formation?”). The overall goal of this Socratic dialogue was not to find a common definition of what good formation would be (this was rather seen as a natural outcome of the dialogue), but to hear, share and philosophize about stories, in which good formation was experienced. Because in this way the staff members would learn from each other how and by what means the process of formation was fostered in their different 22 FOLKEHØGSKOLENE: “What is Folk High School?” available in HUhttp://www.folkehogskole.no/site/main/les_mer.php?page_id=357UH (last access October 16th, 2015). MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 164 work contexts. In this case, however, the dialogue was not necessarily about best practices that were developed. Rather, this Socratic dialogue represented a collective self-reflection process in which the whole group and the whole team could become aware of the different situations at the school in which formation with the students was actually fostered. To philosophize about how the common goal of formation can be fostered in everyday life situations at the school, i.e. when cleaning the tables in the dining hall together with the students, and what formation in this context actually means, turned out to be quite fruitful for the team-building process among the staff members. First, because the staff members did not exchange on an everyday basis in what exact way they would contribute to their overall goal. Therefore, in this Socratic dialogue the different approaches and practices were not only voiced and heard, but also appreciated by the other team members (in this way, the participation aspect of participatory action research was included). Secondly, the different stories unveiled a bigger picture of the potential learning areas for formation, which the school as such had to offer (this was the result of the research, so to say – the second aspect of participatory action research.). This bigger picture, however, only became meaningful when each staff member of the school performed a self-reflective action so to say, namely selfreflection in the sense of the question “What are my resources, my potentials – in terms of attitudes, ideas and social skills – to help unleash the potentials that the school as a whole is offering, in order to promote the over-all goal (that is formation with the students)?” In other words, the third aspect of participatory action research – which is action – received a double meaning here: On the one hand, it was about performing self-reflection (and here the narratives told in the dialogue became a vital resource for this type of action). On the other hand, it was about becoming aware of potential actions (as a result of self-reflection), which the respective PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 165 staff member could undertake in order to contribute to the overall goal (which was formation). Case 3: Experience-sharing between colleagues form different work places The last short case is about one of the regional meetings as described previously. At this meeting ten teachers from four folk high schools participated. The Socratic dialogue, which was performed in this meeting was facilitated by two certified philosophical practitioners. The teachers were in the role of participants. One of the goals of this dialogue was to make the teachers more aware of the respective steps and procedures of such a dialogue, so that they could facilitate Socratic dialogues on their own in the upcoming local meetings. The topic of the dialogue was courage, and the teachers were sharing many different stories where they once experienced courage at their schools. The outcome of this dialogue was not only a general definition of courage. But rather, the actual benefit of this dialogue was that by means of story-telling the teachers could become more familiar with each other, as well as familiar with certain educational practices from other schools (the teachers did not know each other at all, or at least not very well). Especially the latter aspect seems to be important for the educational idea of folk high schools: Courage is not just one of the cardinal virtues of Aristotle, but developing virtues with the students is seen as an essential aspect of formation at folk high schools. Now, sharing experiences where someone acted courageously at one school was understood by the other teachers in the sense of “leading by example” – and “leading by example” can be seen as a guiding educational principle at folk high schools. And last but not least, this case shows that the Socratic dialogue method is a suitable approach to make people, who do not know each other MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 166 from before, philosophize together and to share stories with each other – something which should not be taken for granted. In order to point out how this particular dialogue relates to the three central aspects of participatory action research (participation, action and research), we would like to start with the aspect of research: Research in this dialogue was done in the sense that the participants were investigating an ethical value together – they were philosophizing about it (that is, doing philosophical research, so to say). Participation was in place since all dialogue participants were sharing stories and reflecting on them – all of them were engaged and involved in the dialogue process. In contrast to these two aspects, which seem to be rather obvious, was the third aspect: action. The actual action that was performed in this dialogue was not planned or intended, it just happened incidentally – it was “to get familiar with each other”. At first sight this might not appear like an action, however it can be understood as a form of social inter-action, which is vital for any kind of dialogue: “To get familiar with each other” is a necessary prerequisite for the socalled togetherness, which seems to be an indispensable element in any form of dialoguing. Only when this togetherness between the dialogue partners is established, the ethical values of trust, honesty and authenticity (which seem to be essential for the course of a dialogue) can start to evolve. Socratic dialogues as philosophical “versions” of participatory action research By means of these three short case studies we intended to point out how the three main aspects of participatory action research (namely participation, research, action) are also present in Socratic dialogues, and hence, why and how the Socratic dialogue setting can also be understood as a research setting. In this regard, the PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 167 community of inquiry concept, which is central in a Socratic dialogue setting, plays a decisive role: The dialogue participants (those who are concerned with a certain topic, like certain core values in the context of their work) and the dialogue facilitator (the philosophical practitioner) form an investigative fellowship of “coresearchers”, so to say. In a community of inquiry there is no expert-layman-hierarchy, neither is there a counselor-counselee role model in place, there is no teacher and no students. In a Socratic dialogue the philosophical investigation – the research, so to say – is not done “on” nor “for” but “with” people. The philosophical practitioner is seen to be “on eye level” with the dialogue participants – practitioner and participants are philosophizing together. Therefore, if people who are involved in action research processes are also called communities of practice 23 , then the people involved in a Socratic dialogue could be called communities of philosophical practice. The “research objects” of Socratic dialogues when understood as participatory action research As all these three short cases above show, the research objects of a Socratic dialogue are not objects of research in a traditional sense (as cancer or global warming would be, for example). The research objects of a Socratic dialogue are rather phenomena constituted by the language employed within the dialogues (i.e. ethical values). The phenomenon or term under investigation comes to life in and through the dialogues – especially through the narratives, which are shared and which constitute the initial and decisive part of such dialogues. In other words, the research object of a Socratic dialogue 23 see LAVE, Jean & WENGER, Etienne: Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1991. MICHAEL NOAH WEISS – SIGURD OHREM HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 168 when understood as participatory action research is the Socratic dialogue itself, and the phenomena, which are occurring through it – in short: the story-telling as such is the actual action which is investigated. The question now is, what can be the result of such an investigation? Here another reference to more traditional action research comes to the fore: action learning. Socratic dialogues as action learning The short case studies as presented here were about Socratic dialogues, which had certain learning effects on the participants – even though most of these effects were neither intended nor planned. Nevertheless, when understanding Socratic dialoguing as a specific form of action, then one can say that the participants of the previously presented dialogues learned something by means of telling narratives and reflecting them philosophically. However, the decisive point is: What the participants learned cannot be taught, so to say. Through self-reflection and self-insight the participants learned about certain values, attitudes, mindsets and how they can transcend, transform and even further develop and apply them in practice. The outcome of such an action-oriented learning process is not knowledge (which would be the goal in traditional forms of research), rather it is what one could call awareness (i.e. the awareness of how to practice an ethical value in a given situation). In this way, one could also call a Socratic dialogue to be sociopedagogical in nature. Differences between Socratic dialoguing and action research There are of course also main differences between Socratic dialoguing and participatory action research. Participatory action PHILOSOPHICAL PRACTICE AS ACTION RESEARCH HASER. Revista Internacional de Filosofía Aplicada, nº 7, 2016, pp. 145-172 169 research often has a very specific goal, i.e. to solve a certain problem together with the people who are directly concerned with that problem. A Socratic dialogue, on the other hand, is not necessarily goal-oriented. This, however, can also be seen as one of the advantages of the Socratic dialogue setting: Problems are investigated, reflected and seen from different perspectives without the direct intention to solve these problems – and only because of this “intention-free” approach, completely unexpected and genuine ideas on the problem can appear (which then often can be “translated” into solutions). In other words, in a Socratic dialogue you learn to “let go” of a problem – and often it is exactly this “letting go”-attitude, which leads to valuable (self-)insights, and eventually even to unexpected and ground-breaking solutions. But this, again, is a side effect of a Socratic dialogue, so to say, whereas in participatory action research it would be an explicit goal. Concluding questions instead of concluding remarks Instead of making concluding remarks at the end of this article, we would rather like to pose some concluding questions. This simply seems to be more natural in the context of philosophical practice, since authentic philosophizing often leads to further questions than to final conclusions. The questions below may not be so easily understood by those readers who never participated in a Socratic dialogue, since they represent questions, which came to us after and during several years of experience with Socratic dialoguing. Nevertheless, or just because of these years of experience, they feel important to us. In this paper we have, among other things, taken a closer look at the interactive processes unfolding between the participants of a Socratic dialogue. This leads us to our first question: What happens when our personal narratives – and with that also our thinking and