Berne’s ‘philosophical café’: The origins
Sometimes we must review the situations of our lives, especially when we want (or have to) to change our assumptions, to adapt them to changing times and requirements.
Such analyses often take the form of discussions, in which new questions always arise. From these, we may derive a better understanding of our initial uncertainties and of our indecision as to what directions to take. In this way, by working together in groups, with the assistance of professional philosophers, we can deepen our understandings of the issues of our existential and social concerns.
The café philosophique provides a framework in which everyone has the opportunity to express themselves freely, to talk or just to listen. Maybe even in the limited sense of Jean Rudolph von Salis, "Perhaps I always have remained only a questioner."
The French philosopher Marc Sautet founded the first café philosophique in 1992 at the "Café des Phares in the Place de la Bastille in Paris. Unlike unlike in German-speaking countries, where Philosophy is maintained and guarded by an elite in "ivory towers,” philosophers bring the burning questions to the public and have had interested and engaged discussions with their audiences - as at the time of Socrates or even Sartre. Within a few years, dozens of cafés philosophique became established in the world, and now there are hundreds.
In 1997, after several years of experience with "Semaines philosophique" and "Diners philosophique," Silvio Ballinari, Hans Saner and Walter Staub visited the "Café des Phares" in Paris and participated in a philosophical debate. The procedures of the discussion were convincing, and it was decided, to start a café philo in Berne. In February 1998 in the "Blue Angel" in the Bernese Längasse the first discussion in public took place (cf. Berner Zeitung, February 2, 1998).
After two years, the café philo moved from Längasse to the Musigbistro Monbijou. Since 2004, the café philo has taken place at the Bistro Muristalden, always in the same format.