A new roaster and seller of coffee beans, A Posteriori Coffee Co., donates 20% of its profits to support philosophy programs for children in kindergarten through high school and to organizations that provide philosophical resources to the public.

Empiricist philosopher John Locke is featured in the logo of A Posteriori Coffee Co.

The company was launched just last week. Its founder, Will Misback, graduated from the University of Pittsburgh with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy. He writes:

In the course of completing my degree, I experienced the world of good philosophy can do for a person’s critical thinking skills. I became confident in my ability to reason about topics and synthesize my thoughts about them through the mediums of both speech and writing. The benefits of this change extended to more areas of my life than just academics. To put it succinctly, I believe my degree in philosophy undoubtedly changed my life for the better.

So Mr. Misback decided to combine his appreciation of philosophy with his appreciation of coffee (“I credit much of the work I did to achieve my philosophy degree to the energy and productivity that coffee imparted to me”) to create A Posteriori Coffee Co., and to donate a fifth of his firm’s profits to youth education in philosophy:

We believe that philosophy ought to be an integral part of everyone’s education. Philosophy is among one of the best ways to improve one’s critical thinking, reading comprehension, writing ability, and ability ot reason effectively. Unfortunately philosophy is often overlooked as a part of educational curricula for students before they reach university. To this end we seek to increase all people’s access to philosophy, especially K-12 students.

The organizations that will be receiving the company’s donations currently include Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP), and the American Philosophical Association (APA). Mr. Misback says, “If you have suggestions for expanding upon the list below, perhaps you are a member of another philosophy centered nonprofit organization seeking funding, we would love to hear from you. Please get in touch with us at [email protected].”

The coffees are ethically traded and come in several varieties. Here are some (note the names):