Thought experiments in prison and in pubs: Interview with Bonny Astor

In this post, I interview Bonny Astor on her experience on bringing philosophy to prisons and pubs. To learn more about her initiative to discuss thought experiments in pubs, check this website. Her meet up group is here if you want to join!

Bonny Astor

Lisa Bortolotti: Do you want to tell us just a little bit about your background and how you got interested in philosophy.

Bonny Astor: My academic background is in psychology. Then I did a course in the philosophy of psychology, and I got so interested in that and I had a lot of questions.  I don't really know much philosophy besides what I've taught myself.

LB: But you brought philosophy to prison inmates. Do you want to tell us what you did?

BA: Sure. I was co-facilitating a hearing voices support group in Pentonville Prison and I got a job with that team as an occupational therapy assistant. I was asked what kind of groups I would facilitate, and I wanted to create opportunities for people to talk about their experiences of reality in a sort of open, safe space. That evolved based on the constraints of of the prison environment, and also with some input from Andy West, who teaches philosophy in prisons. So I talked to him, adapted the material to what the group wanted, and it became a regular, quite popular discussion group within the well-being center in Pentonville prison.

LB: Sounds amazing. What were the sessions like? 

BA: Sure. The well-being center is part of health care in Pentonville prison so the group of men that we were working with met some criteria for coming to the wellbeing center instead of potentially going to education or a job, but the but the criteria are very wide. So it was a real mixture of people. My group would run in one of the rooms, and then there might be a cooking group or a pottery group or a music groups that had to compete with the other groups and at first I was thinking of doing it in a progressive way, and then I realized that just wasn't going to work because there is a very high turn over in the prison, and some people wouldn't necessarily be unlocked and allowed there. So it was very unpredictable.

Andy West, who was working in the Education Department in Pentonville, teaching philosophy, recommended to me this book by Julian Baggini, which you might have seen. It's called The pig who wants to be eaten, and it's a series of thought experiments. So I used to pick a couple of thought experiments and we used to discuss them. I'd ask people to pick a number and then or a couple of numbers, and then we'd come up with a few experiments, and then they pick which ones they wanted to talk about. 

I guess my way of of holding the space was to give people as much ownership over what the group would be like and which topics we talk about. I didn't want to impose anything. I thought it would be more valuable if the men in the group picked what they wanted to talk about. Sometimes people would request particular topics, or they'd say, "I don't want to talk about that one today." The most interesting thing was how we all brought our different life experiences to these questions. There were great discussions. I had all sorts of people. I had a philosophy professor in one of my philosophy groups and some people who never heard the term philosophy in their life. So it was very varied.

LB: Did you learn anything from the experience of running this group in prison? Did you notice anything that was different from what you had done previously in the mental health context? 

BA: I think questions about freedom and responsibility came up a lot and had a sort of different feeling to them in that context. I found it quite moving a lot of the time. I also think what the thing that surprised me the most was the group's popularity. When I asked people why they liked coming to the group, they said: "It gives me something else to think about like the rest of the time. I'm just thinking about my case. The court date and prison life, and so to be able to think about these random thought experiments is good." 

And people's life experiences are very powerful. There were points of connection. That was the other thing that really struck me: people who might have kept a distance from each other, and not had a conversation, shared experiences in the group, which then meant that they felt some connection. The group discussion broke down some social barrier that might have been there for all sorts of reasons.

LB: That sounds really valuable in this context. Now you're doing something different. I mean, it may still involve thought experiments, but the context is quite different. Do you want to tell us about this new adventure of yours?

BA: I have a meet up group for doing things outside, and I've been doing that for a while and one of the things we do is watch the sunrise. So I did that with a group of people. And then we went and had coffee, and we got into this really good philosophical conversation, and I really missed the groups that I used to do in the prison. So I created a meet up group, called "Thought Experiments in Pubs" and we had 120 people signed up for the first meeting which is quite unusual.

Thought experiments in pubs

I initially thought we'd be on one table. Obviously we had to split into lots of different tables, and we had to rotate around. But since then we've done 4 meet ups. and I'd say the last one we had about 50% of people who'd already been there. So it feels like a community is forming around this desire to talk about more meaningful things with people from different backgrounds. 

I have a website, and I post four thought experiments on there on the day of the meet up. I want them to be things that people could start a conversation with, but I don't want people to feel like they have to stick to it. On the night of the meet up, I stand up on a chair and and invite people to start talking. Every 20 minutes I stand back up on the chair and say: "If you want to change table or change topic, go ahead." And so usually everyone moves around, and we do that three times. But people stay until the pub closes, still talking on that level which really surprises me. I thought that when the meetup ended, people would go back to small talk. But the conversations seem to just get richer and richer with time.

LB: How is the pub taking it?

BA: They love it, they were asking: "Can you come to our other pub? Can you come back weekly?" because at the moment it's monthly. But it's been very DYI and evolving. I've now got some of my friends to help me explain to people what to do, and people who've been there before. I've made these little badges for people who've been there before, so they can explain what's happening to everyone. Last time we had 3 standing groups, and 5 tables and it was pretty loud.

LB: Is there anything that you find challenging about these sessions? 

BA: I think what has made it successful is asking people what they want and being open to changing the format and the layout. I would say I don't think I haven't actually found it challenging really. Doing these meet ups has been really like a very good thing to do, because I feel like this community are supportive and familiar, and I've made lots of new friends. I think it is because people are talking about meaningful topics. It's possible to share what's going on in your life, and that's what I like doing.

This beautiful illustration of thought experiments in pub is by
Pamela Naidoo, Architecture Masters Student at Central St. Martins

LB: Any advice for people who would be interested in bringing philosophy to new audiences?

BA: I think potentially not calling it philosophy and having ways of explaining what you're doing. Someone once explained to me the difference between like learning philosophy and doing philosophy, and I think for me, feeling a bit intimidated about learning philosophy, it was much easier to think about doing philosophy, sharing my thoughts, hearing other people testing out my beliefs and finding out about people's beliefs. 

Also, thinking about the purpose. Why is this a valuable thing to do? That was clear to me from the initial 120 people signing up, but I think it speaks to maybe a sense of isolation or disconnection, of people not being able to  have those conversations in the rest of their lives. A few people who came have said to me: "You know, I see my friends, but we don't talk about stuff like this" or "Oh, I haven't been to it a pub for ages".

LB: That's great. You told us that people open up and share their life experiences which I think is crucial. But do you think there is anything else about a philosophical discussion that gets people together, get people to share?

BA: I think giving people a thought experiment in particular gives them like a clear thing that they can all talk about. Obviously, people can interpret that differently, and that's where you get the interesting discussion. I think of it as like putting an object on the table and then asking people to talk about it from their different perspectives. I think our life experiences and what we've learned give us different angles on this object, but having an object is very helpful. It gives people some focus. 

LB: Thanks Bonny!

If you want to listen to the whole interview, click below!

Also, Bonny recommends Andy West's book, The Life Inside, which is about teaching philosophy in prisons.