Socrates Cafe Spring 2026: Continuing Open Dialogue for Life’s Big Questions

Socrates Cafe is back at Elgin Community College this semester with new times and a different leader at the helm. Socrates Cafe has always been a forum for conversations among students, faculty, staff, and community members. 

This semester, ECC Associate Professor of Humanities Geoffrey Pynn will lead the conversation. Pynn led the group for one semester in 2023, when Professor David Zacker (who has led the group for many years, starting in 2006) was on sabbatical. 

“We will stick with the same format, and audience members suggest topics and people ask clarifying questions, and they vote on what we’re going to talk about,” Pynn said. “My experience in the past was to be more heavy-handed as the moderator. I would steer the questions in ways that I could see.”

Past questions include: “Does religion matter?” and “What is happiness?”

Socrates Cafe will be held in Building C, room 120, on the following dates:

• Tuesday, January 27, 12:30-1:45 pm
• Wednesday, February 11, 2-3:15 pm
• Tuesday, February 24, 12:30-1:45 pm
• Wednesday, March 11, 2-3:15 pm
• Tuesday, March 24, 12:30-1:45 pm
• Wednesday, April 8, 2-3:15 pm
• Tuesday, April 21, 12:30-1:45 pm
• Wednesday, May 6, 2-3:15 pm

Something different this semester is that Pynn will sometimes start the session with a short philosophical video to start the conversation. 

“I really am enthusiastic about the idea of this. In some ways, it's just connected to my basic motivations for teaching,” said Pynn. “I teach mostly ethics and critical reasoning. Socrates is the patron saint of critical reasoning, the model of philosophy, the archetypal philosopher in Western philosophy, and what he was famous for saying was that he didn’t know anything.”

Socrates Cafe is open to the public, and Pynn said he is hopeful that more community members will join in on the conversation this semester.