The Gadfly Initiative is a public philosophy initiative dedicated to innovation in the teaching of ancient philosophy while highlighting the timeless relevance of Socratic inquiry. In an era marked by societal, institutional, and technological challenges, this initiative strives to foster critical dialogue and educational engagement in the humanities.
By demonstrating the enduring importance of philosophy and its application to contemporary issues, The Gadfly Initiative seeks to inspire thoughtful engagement with both public discourse and the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence.
Projects and events:
The Gadfly Symposium brings together philosophers, educators, and scholars to explore innovative approaches to teaching. In the gadfly tradition of critical inquiry, participants are invited to reflect on how philosophy can disrupt cognitive complacency, foster intellectual humility, and shape thoughtful engagement with contemporary learning environments.
The Gadfly Symposium Program — June 6, 2026
The Gadfly and the Agora on Medium
A new publication on the social blogging site Medium.com, The Gadfly and the Agora offers an outlet for those treating the classroom as a laboratory and civic space — one where classical ideas are used to productively disrupt how we teach, learn, and participate in democratic culture. It invites essays, dialogues, and pedagogical experiments from philosophy instructors, public philosophers, and independent scholars.
Part irritant, part iterative learning machine...
The gadflAI Podcast is where the cutting edge of technology meets the philosophic sting of Socrates—the original gadfly of Athens. Hosted by two AI voices (with a wink), the series uses Socratic disruption to take on today’s biggest social, institutional, and technological challenges.
Moving past good-old-fashioned AI (GOFAI) and leaving behind inherited pieties, the gadflAI (generated artificial dialogues for learning Ancient Insight) insists that thinking is still a human responsibility.
Every episode is carefully sourced, prompted, vetted, edited, and occasionally scrapped by a human philosopher determined to smuggle in the faint echoes of a human soul (and a little Socratic mischief) from the far side of the uncanny valley.
Listen and follow on Buzzsprout:
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2567074