‘I have been enriched. It’s just opened up the possibility of questioning things I believe in, going into the heads and the hearts of others, to try and step in that person’s shoes. It has been so beneficial, and so rich. And I’m really thankful to everyone who organised it, took part in it’
– Kate, Domestic Violence Worker

‘It’s got staying power…people vote with their feet, and they also vote with regard to their sense of feeling authentic, safe, and grateful for what goes on in terms of things being shared. It’s distinctive in that sense, in terms of most of our working or personal lives to have something like this functioning.

There’s no end to the level of which attentiveness, enquiry, putting solutions aside, you know, being willing to live in awkward states of mind, to hear yourself repeating yourself, you know that way, and being prepared to stop. No end to the benefits of those ways of being’ 

– Niall, Artist, Activist, Community Worker

‘I experienced equality, in the sense that, as I would have called it, an appreciative enquiry, where everyone is equal and where everyone has a chance to speak, and there were no dominating voices. It gives an opportunity for us to build on each other, to build on each other’s language, to build on each other’s thoughts and insight. 

And out of that, maybe, I come away some days with a totally different thought, especially if I’m sure when I went in that I knew what we were going to be talking about, and then it turned out I didn’t know at all, and I didn’t realise other people had a very different view than I had myself, and that’s really useful if I’m open to it. 

And the other thing is the interval between sessions. We come to a session, and it’s in the in between that things happen, sometimes unconsciously, but quite often consciously, you know? And so you come next week, and the week after, and these things are kind of stewing around. And, sometimes I’m arrested having a conversation or using a phrase, now, and saying ‘is that so?’.
– Jo, Family Therapist

‘For me it comes back to the space really. And how the space is held. And the facilitation. I mean, I’ve learned that a lot over the last couple of years in doing processes with people. It is about the facilitator holding the space, and actually what is it you bring into the room in terms of, like, setting the ground that this is philosophical, that it’s about dialogue. So, you’re kind of laying the ground work before you even start, and then it is about how people are heard in the space and how do people feel valued. 

We’re having this really interesting conversation and it’s great when we actually have a different view, but maybe in a different space that mightn’t be the same, you know? So, for me it’s really opened up that space about, actually, how can I hear other people, and their lived experience and how that shapes their viewpoint, and accept that’
– Dannielle, Manager, Youth Project

‘I do find I work harder on waiting to hear what other people say, and it doesn’t matter in this group if that clashes what I might want to say. And, I’m trying to do that in other spaces, in my work life and that’
– Noreen, Community Development Worker.

‘The only thing that I remember most about dialogue is that the truth kind of happens in and through the group and somehow.

I think it happens mainly by doing our best to really listen. And by really listening, so that you can pause your judgements and you can pause, or put aside somehow, what I want to say, so that I can really listen. Then something happens. I think that’s dialogue. I think that’s the essence of dialogue to some extent. About the collective, and the common, right? 

Now, about this process we’ve been involved in: I have found it fascinating. And I am sort of gobsmacked by this rational discussion, or rational inquiry, or philosophical thing, that it throws up other areas of life. For instance, spirituality has come up. The soul has come up. Religion has come up. All of them. Paradox has come up - a lot of paradox, right? The question has come up, I think I’ve heard John saying it lots of times, ‘But is there a real there? Is there a truth outside what I’m making of it?’. All them kind of things. Like, I think we’re on a quest for connection in some way. And I’ve been thinking, like, this process starts with philosophy, but it doesn’t end there.

This group, for me, has been a very, kind of… if I can use the word ecumenical, in the broadest sense of the word.  And it has ended up challenging me in whatever I believe, in a good way. And I just feel that this is a brilliant thing that we’re involved in, and thanks, it opens up other vistas and it could be leading us into that space in between the week’
– Tony, Former Youth Project Leader

‘I think there’s real engagement with ideas and real… I do think there are, at times, disagreements. Not in any, you know, nasty or fractious way. We do approach things from different perspectives’
– Lee, Artist & MA student in Arts Management

‘It’s a very respectful space, and I think that’s been really good. 

I love the idea that anyone can do philosophy, that’s the whole point, you know? Anybody can do it, and I think everyone does it, you know, once you can think. You’re thinking: ‘what am I here for?’, at some stage, or ‘what’s going on around me?’. And I’d love to see more people doing it, you know.

And I think it’s just good for your mind, and it should be good for your self-confidence if you’re not used to doing that. Because everyone’s opinion is equally important in this, it’s not just ‘pretend’ in this case.’
– Ger, Manager, Drug Task Force

‘It’s torn my thought processes apart a little bit, and it’s gotten me to maybe think, listen very carefully to a different perspective and to try and say, ‘Well, Jesus, maybe I never thought of it that way’, d’you know what I mean?

And there’d be one or two times where I said, ‘I’m not going into that, because I don’t have a feckin’ breeze about what the hell I’m going to about making a contribution’. But then when you come into the room, and you kind of take the risk… cos I took the risk once or twice, to come into the room, when I thought ‘Nah, I think I’ll stay out today’. And when people begin to tear the statement apart and make sense of it, I was thinking ‘Jeez, I know now… now I know what that’s about’, and I’ve learned from other people in the room more about what that means, and what the thinking behind that means. So it’s been, for me, a very, educational space. 

It gives people a sense of their own power. It gives people a sense of status, and I think people are more likely to participate in society if they feel they equal. There’s a huge inferiority complex with people who feel they’re not intellectual or they haven’t crossed over that world’
– Eilish, Community Development Worker

‘It’s about being open to surprise or something, or being open to actually drill, keep going, and see is there a new way of being together, other than the basic understandings we have of dialogue and of opinion sharing and what’s been thought of already’
– Trish, Community Drugs Worker

‘For me, it’s been quite life changing, which is a bit dramatic, but it’s true. I think, for me this is the biggest action, so it’s like, you know, how do we build a culture of care. And this, for me, is probably one of the safest spaces I’ve been in, that’s been quite transformative.

I think the problem with the world is that spaces like this don’t exist, and that’s a value thing in that we’re conditioned to think ‘sure this is just extra’, you know? When, like, this is the thing’
– Kate, Artist and Activist

‘You know, I come at a lot of things from an ‘Eastern’ perspective on life, because I follow the Dharma, which there is no explanation for. So I find this very similar, right, that we never actually have an answer, you know? And it just poses more and more questions, which I find helps me develop within myself, to think, like, ‘Hmm. I didn’t know that’, you know?...I found it very, very enlightening’
– Nicky

‘All I know so far, in the short time I’ve been part of this group, is that I feel really good when I come away from the sessions. I feel really eh…like, I’d be buzzin’, you know? And there’s not very many things that do that for me. So I’m learning a lot, it’s given me a real hunger to learn more. And I feel very grateful to be part of the group.

Because it’s opening… re-opening the brain cells that closed down for me when I came out of college and I had my son, and I was basically, you know, Teletubbies and nursery rhymes, and now I’m actually able to expand my mind again. It’s really enriching, yeah.

Everybody thinks. Everybody thinks. No matter what background you’re from. Like, what Ciara said about how you have all these thoughts in your head and nowhere to put them, you know, they’re just in your head. And you really could surprise yourself coming on to do a course like this, or a group like this. Maybe you’re not confident, maybe you think what you’re thinking is a load of crap. But actually, when people agree with you or share back on what you’ve said, it really boosts your confidence, you know? That’s it really, just very confidence boosting’
– Barbara

’I love listening to people, but I love dialogue. As much as I love ideas and, kind of, just passively listening to people, I like talking, and how the thing changes. It’s dynamic, it’s different to reading, it’s different to watching a video. I’m glad I found it, or I’m glad you found me! Whatever way it happened! Thanks!

It’s human nature, that’s what I’d say. Be human. Come join us!’
– Conan, Philosophy Student

‘I’d also say that everybody has something to contribute, whether they realise it or not

… But I have been literally blown away by an alternative perspective, you know, that I wouldn’t even have considered until I hear someone else say it, and then it’s like ‘Wow!’. And sometimes that can come from the person who’s been quiet and has to be encouraged a little bit to open up, and when they do it’s mind-blowing’
– Mary Louise, Founder, Coercive Control Support project