I have long admired Diogenes of Sinope, the founder of the Cynic school, who is said to have lived in a tub in the marketplace in Athens.  I have appropriated his tub for my purposes here, and I want all who read my words and comment on them to feel that they, too, are in a tub, with me; that rank and station will count for nothing; and that our words must speak for themselves, as there is no room for anything else. 

I'm a student of philosophy in the broadest sense of the term; I'm uncredentialled and at the moment unmatriculated.  I do have academic ambitions, but I'm also critical of the institutions that make philosophy almost exclusively a professional affair.  In my view every thinking being is born into the mysteries that provoke philosophy, and I regard it as unfortunate that the average person feels unqualified to approach them directly. 

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A friend of mine, the meta-ethicist Muad'Dib Kenobi-Seagull, has kindly offered to tutor me in some key texts in the philosophical tradition.  We are to begin with Descartes' Meditations; then move on to selections from Kant's First Critique; and then on to Husserl.  I have foundered on the waters of phenomenology for years, and Muad'Dib has offered to throw me a line and tow me safely into the channel.  It is a generous offer, and I hope someday to have occasion to repay the kindness.  I will be posting here on topics that arise in our working through these texts.