Sydney’s philosophical taverna
Australia’s olympics of the mind
KATHRYN KOROMILAS  

FOR the classical Greeks a notion of health meant both an active mind and an athletic body. During the 2000 Olympics, thousands of bodies spilled into the city of Sydney all trim, taut and terrific - the athletic ideal. The body, its beautification, its youthfulness, its athleticism and its strength, has become one of contemporary society’s most sought after treasures. For many, sport or just generally keeping fit, has become a religion. But what of the mind?

During my sojourn in the land Down Under, people asked me, “Did you come to Sydney for the Olympics?” I replied “Yes, for the ‘Olympics of the Mind’” - a series of Philosophy Nights held in a small Greek tavern in a tiny side-street in the alternative, fashionably feral, pseudo-intellectual soya-latte-drinking and vegan-eating inner-city suburb of Newtown, just next to the University of Sydney. Behind all the Olympic hype, Steki taverna continued its four year commitment to the exercise of the mind, via a luscious blend of good Greek food and wine, drama and philosophy that take place within this tiny restaurant with its black-and-white photographs of bouzoukia and rembetes. Here, you would be forgiven if you expected to find nothing more than a friendly staff of Greek- 
  
Australians (Costas, Costas and Nikos), a sumptuous selection of Greek food (just like mum’s cooking) and a live music programme featuring the bouzouki, and as for conversation, nothing much more than a pleasantly intoxicated chit-chat. No mind acrobatics.

Indeed, back in early 1997 a young Greek-Australian freelance journalist, Jorge Sotirios, caused a bit of an intellectual storm when his opinion piece - a scathing attack on the lack of intellectual debate in Australian life and especially along King Street in Newtown, considering its proximity to Australia’s oldest university - entitled “Deep thinkers are thin on the ground” was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. The Newtown community was outraged. “How does he know what we are talking about? Does he go around listening to other people’s conversations?” rang the indignant letters to the editors of local newspapers.

But within the walls of that unassuming little tavern, a group of academics, students and friends from the School of Philosophy at the University of Sydney had already begun to meet regularly to eat heartily, drink retsina and talk philosophy.

The catalyst of these philosophically-inspired social nights out was Edward Spence, a philosophy lecturer in the School of Communication at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst, NSW, who founded the Philosophy Nights in 1997 and continues to produce and coordinate. “We gathered together in the spirit of Plato’s Symposium. In the original Greek,” Spence explains, “the word symposion, means coming together in friendship to drink, eat and engage in philosophical dialogue and, above all, celebrate life.”

“In classical Greece, where philosophy as we now understand it began,” wrote Stephen Gaukroger of the Traditional and Modern Philosophy department of the University of Sydney in his 1998 Philosophy Nights “welcome” note, “it was pursued not in universities but in the streets, in gardens, in drama, and over meals and drinks. This open, democratic side of philosophy is beautifully captured in Plato’s dialogue, the Symposium, where a discussion of the nature of love is carried on at a dinner party…” Something not unlike what was occurring at Steki.

“By natural progression,” Spence explained in a 1997 interview with Sotirios, “I thought of organising something more structured and more extensive. The idea was to hold a series of symposia attended by both practising philosophers and members of the community, particularly first and second generation Greeks”.

The last decade or so has seen a “movement away from analytical philosophy and pseudo-scientism to a philosophical engagement with everyday life,” as Luke Slattery observed in The Australian two years ago. A movement which inspired the philosophical counselling trend - commonly believed to have begun back in 1981 when Dr Gerd Achenbach opened his practice near Cologne, Germany - fermenting the ancient Epicurian idea that philosophy can be used to alleviate distress, help individuals come to a better understanding of themselves and their world, and improve a person’s life.

It also led to user-friendly philosophical texts like Alain de Botton’s Consolations of Philosophy (Penguin 2000) - the inspiration for the English television series Philosophy - which looks at what philosophers like Socrates, Epicurus, Seneca, Schopenhauer and Nietszche have to say on issues like “unpopularity”, “not having enough money”, “frustration”, “having a broken heart” and “difficulties”.

Within this general atmosphere of philosophical revitalisation, many other cafe, restaurant and bookshop owners around King Street, Newtown, had a similar idea to Spence’s. That philosophy can be taken out of the universities and brought back to the streets. Indeed, in the aftermath of the “Sotirios Critique,” King Street, Newtown, became a smarter street with regular philosophy seminars and informal meetings aiming to re-establish the habit of intellectual conversation over coffee, beer or wine.

Spence however was interested in doing something a little different. The lecturer in theoretical and applied ethics who was born in Egypt to Greek and Irish parents (his mother from Larnaca, Cyprus, the birthplace of Zeno, founder of Stoic philosophy) worked as a chartered accountant before fulfilling his lifelong ambition when in 1985 he began studying philosophy and later completed his PhD at the University of Sydney. He has since been utterly inspired by classical Greek philosophy. Indeed it was this fascination for the Platonic dialogues that gave Spence the key to his version of “Philosophy Nights,” where philosophy talks and drama became an entertaining mix, bridging the gap, as it were, between abstract philosophical thought and a very personal philosophical experience.

Indeed that’s why audience participation is essential and why the nights revolve around the drama. As Spence explained in a early interview, “the Platonic dialogues, such as the Crito, the Meno and the Republic, eminently lend themselves to dramatisation… I thought the drama component of the talks will not only illustrate visually the issues covered in the talks, but also used rhetorically, as Plato himself had intended, can thus help render the audience more receptive to abstract philosophical thinking.” After all, he maintains, “Plato has been described as the greatest dramatist of reason.”

Spence’s aim is to “make philosophy, including contemporary academic philosophy, more accessible to a greater number of people and to do it in a way that is not only instructive but also entertaining and engaging.” But Spence doesn’t want to simplify things and present a watered down, easily digestible pseudo-philosophical experience. Instead he defines “accessibility” through a “personal experience of the philosophical life.” And so, back in 1997, the Philosophy Nights experience began.

That inaugural night saw Spence take the microphone to talk about one of our most profound concerns, love. “In the film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes,” he had said, “Marilyn Monroe tells us that ‘when love goes wrong nothing goes right’. Plato I think would have agreed.” Two actors then took the tiny stage and metamorphosed themselves into characters from Plato’s Symposium - Socrates and a mysterious woman from Mantinea who teaches the famous philosopher about love and concludes that love is a longing for immortality. Since that night, those who entered Steki have been offered a user-friendly account of the works of the Pre-Socratics, Plato and Aristotle as well as everything from Wittgenstein and Heidegger to Nietszche and Sartre as well as an entire series entitled Zen and Zeno, bringing Eastern and Western philosophical thought together.

Spence, via his Philosophy Nights, has taken philosophy out of the lecture room where its study is deemed “serious” and into the tavern where “serious” becomes “fun” without becoming superficial. And the Philosophy Nights have enjoyed enormous success. One regular, George, reserves a table for every night and manages to fill it with eager and curious friends. “It’s a great night out,” he says, “I never miss it. You know, you can go out anywhere, enjoy good food and wine, but here you actually get to participate in conversation that makes you think about things differently.”

Although many university-based philosophers have passed through the Steki and examined the tavern’s star menu while participating in the post-drama question time and free-flowing conversation, one needs no prerequisite philosophy knowledge to participate in these Philosophy Nights. Love, friendship, humour, god and religion, happiness, emotions, immortality, the body and soul are issues we are often concerned with trying to make sense of for our own daily peace.

A typical philosophy night begins at around 7.30pm as tables are filled with mums, dads, academics, teachers, students - the vaguely curious and the confident know-alls - sitting side-by-side as they tuck into the Greek platter of their choice (being Newtown there’s a vegetarian alternative available) with retsina flowing freely. A philosopher then takes the stage and microphone and presents a talk - less academic, where humour plays an important part as do references to contemporary culture, society and politics.

  
The talk then dissolves into a dramatic presentation - adaptations of dialogues taken from philosophical or literary texts, dramatised letters written by philosophers to friends or lovers, or even original workshop scripts that a philosopher and a group of actors may have worked on.

“It is only as a profoundly personal experience that the examined life can be worth living,” says Spence. Indeed over a drink at a local pub he talks about the “transformation” of the philosophers, largely academic individuals who often find themselves taking on roles in the drama part of the night, transforming from university lecturer to actor to director and to a person who can explore other ways to present philosophy to a largely non-academic crowd.

“One of the most important questions in philosophy is asked by Socrates,” Spence states. “How should one live one’s life?” To be able to answer that question, we must examine our own lives, for as Socrates said when facing death at the hands of the accusers, the unexamined life is not worth living, o anexetastos vios ou viotos anthropo. Spence is adamant that philosophy can “offer practical guidance in people’s lives.”

Visit the Philosophy Nights website at www.usyd.edu.au/philosophy/steki