Privacy and Doing CoPI with groups

While being interviewed about  The Philosophy Doctor last week , an important issue came up: the issue of privacy. One of the features of my CoPI method that makes it different from other discussion or dialogue practises is that I do not require participants to put forward their own personal opinions. They may if they wish, but their contribution to the dialogue does not have to be their opinion , only their thinking. So I tell every group that participants may not assume that what they hear from someone in the group  is their personal opinion , it might be the opposite of their private opinion.

When I work with groups , I am not investigating any person in the group. Rather I am using the thinking that is contributed by a participant to weave into a philosophical dialogue.

Being interviewed by Ed Weijers from The Netherlands I was explaining that privacy is a big issue in the UK at the moment. What is at issue I think is whether any agency has the right to intrude into a person’s personal private life ?

Do the newspapers, the government, your employers have a right to know about your private life?

Or do you have the right to keep areas of your life personal and private?

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