The vast majority of philosophical language floating around in the world is either second-hand, thrid-hand or worse. Folks hear about this or that thinker's ideas from somebody else who has heard about those ideas from somebody who has heard about those ideas from somebody who read something by somebody who read the works of the original thinker. That's just no darn good: all kinds of confusion, miscommunication and chaos results. In the world of post-post modernism, the primary symptoms of this problem are self-important types who have figured out that with the right combination of buzz-words and confidence you don't need to know anything at all to impress people.

Well we're done with that. 

Normally te only ways to train yourself to fight back against the waves of non-sense disguised as intellectual talk involve either a incredible ammount of dedication and hard work and free time (if you plan on reading the texts on your own) or thousands of dollars as well as all of those other things (if you plan on gong to a university to study these things). Our plan is to bypass all of that and ratchet down the requirements to just a little bit of free time and enough interest to pay attention for a little bit longer than a prime-time sitcom.

What we're going to do is get together and read out loud the central texts of (mostly) western thought. With a real-live academic as your guide, we'll then try and make sense of the noises we just listened to. This is essentially the same content you would get at a university, but without any responsibility or requirements, and hopefully a bit more fun.

If you're looking to become a professional philosopher of course, this won't get you the certifications you need to make it into that business, but the vast majority of folks who have some reason to be interested in the intellectual history of their culture (be you an artist, an author, a butcher, baker or candlestick maker, or just someone who has more curiosity than they know what to do with) have no reason to persue a career in philosophy and so no reason to shell out the tens of thousands of dollars it'd take to get those certifications.

Instead, you can come hang out with us, read along and then ask questions and talk about what it all means. You'll come out with a better understanding of the ideas that have made your culture what it is today, and hopefully a hunger for more.

We're entirely donation driven (wth a suggested drop of $5-$10) and open to suggestions for texts to read: so long as we can get 4 or more people dedicated to meeting on a regular basis, we'll tackle just about anything you can throw at us.

So stop echoing the echos of echos of who knows what: get your philosophy first hand, and enter the ranks of those who can call out the pseudo-intellectuals for what they are. It's an ongoing struggle, and we need all the help we can get: sign up for a class (or several) today!