Making Democratic Political Culture

This article reflects on the Socratic model for doing public political philosophy. It concentrates on the dialogue form and considers how this form might be adapted to a very different world than the one Socrates inhabited—one that is demographically diverse and huge, highly mediated, and today, intensely polarized. It suggests as well that philosophers are especially suited to facilitating critiques of current conjunctures and predicaments—their organizing terms, assumptions, and frameworks. They do this best through their skills of questioning.