PhilomobileBy Laurence BouchetTAILOR-MADE TRAINING · REMOTE OR IN PERSON
A programme built together with you — questioning, argumentation, reading philosophical texts and facilitating workshops — at your own pace, based on your experience and your project.
At the heart of the programme is maieutic questioning: learning to deliver a thought rather than to advise. That means clarifying an idea, defining the terms used, making an assumption explicit, spotting a contradiction and offering a counter-example — the elenchus, the examination that puts a claim to the test, and maieutics, which helps bring to light what someone already thinks without knowing it clearly.
The Introduction and Deepening formats are open to everyone, with no prerequisite; only the coaching for philosophical consultation assumes an established practice. The method leads you to build a critical cast of mind; regularly practising exercises lets you progressively master philosophical skills: questioning, argumentation, analysis, synthesis.
This work on skills goes hand in hand with work on attitudes: being ready to question yourself and to know yourself better.
How could we argue if we remain trapped, without realising it, in our beliefs, our emotions, our tensions?
They are presented below in their logical progression; some can be explored in more depth than others, depending on your needs.
Learning to be questioned, through the philosophical consultation: a filmed dialogue in which you are questioned in order to bring to light your own system of representations, before analysing the recording using a grid of questions. Then learning to question in turn, studying consultation techniques through video analysis: spotting presuppositions, key concepts, rhetorical questions or false questions.
Written argumentation exercises based on questions, assessed and discussed to work back through the main difficulties of argumentation and logic. Then analysis of the main argumentative pitfalls — false evidence, undifferentiated argument, hasty generalisation, absence of argument, subjective response — through targeted exercises: conceptualisation, internal critique, problematisation, exemplification, synthesis, analysis.
Analysis of texts by philosophers from the Western tradition, as well as philosophical tales from Asia or the Middle East, which serve as a basis for a dialogue between the author, you and the consulting philosopher. Then the guided reading of a work, studied in full or in part to draw out its general ideas, key concepts and problems.
For those who want to facilitate philosophical practice workshops: analysing workshop recordings, to develop listening and flexibility, to be surprised, seize the unexpected, and move between the overall picture and the detail. Then taking part in workshops run in connection with the Institut de Pratiques Philosophiques — philosophy cafés, workshops by video call, seminars — before a gradual, hands-on progression towards facilitating a workshop yourself.
Six one-hour individual sessions to clarify how you think, identify your presuppositions and learn to question with precision, rigour and discernment. The training also includes three group workshops, to practise philosophical dialogue with other participants: questioning, listening, building a shared line of thought.
Write to Laurence →Fourteen one-hour individual sessions for precise work on your thinking — clarifying concepts, testing ideas, rigorous questioning — and seven group workshops to put it into practice: listening, rephrasing, challenging, structuring a discussion. You will be gradually guided towards conducting consultations and facilitating workshops yourself, with critical feedback to refine your practice.
Write to Laurence →Intended for people already trained in philosophical consultation who have mastered the basics of questioning.
A practical training in philosophical consultation, focused on mastering maieutic questioning. Working in pairs, one questions and the other is questioned, while Laurence coaches the questioner live to refine their questions and gain precision, clarity and efficiency. The work is based on exercises: to work from your own workshops and consultations, see the practice analysis cycle (in French). There is no fixed calendar: the coaching starts as soon as two participants have come forward, and the dates of the four sessions are then set with them. The aim is not to “chat”, but to learn to ask questions that genuinely make people think, to spot presuppositions, and to hold a demanding frame — which means accepting to be interrupted, questioned, and sometimes unsettled.
Write to Laurence →Cost should not be an obstacle. An adapted rate can be discussed for people on a low income.
By practising face to face, with immediate feedback. You are questioned first, then you question in turn, and every dialogue is reviewed to analyse your questions: the ones that open up thinking, the ones that steer it without your noticing, and the ones that are not really questions at all.
That is the main difference with a group programme: the pace, the length and the exercises are built from your own practice and your own goal.
No — neither for the Introduction nor for the Deepening format. No degree or prior study is required. What matters is the wish to put your ideas to the test and the ability to receive objections.
Only the coaching for philosophical consultation assumes an established practice and a grasp of the basics of questioning.
The Introduction (9 hours) helps you clarify how you think and learn to question with precision. The Deepening format (20 hours) gradually leads you to conduct consultations and facilitate workshops.
The coaching (4 sessions of 1.5 hours) is for trained practitioners who want to sharpen their questioning. If you are unsure, write to Laurence: the format is decided after a conversation.
Yes. The individual programme is the only one offered in three languages: it can be taught in English, French or Spanish, by video call from any time zone.
The two group programmes run in French only.
QUESTIONS AND ENROLMENT
The content, pace and duration are adjusted to your experience and your project.
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