Reviving Culture and the Life of the Mind
The Collective is dedicated to assisting and forming integrated intellectuals through the promotion of a new culture of the life of the mind. We seek to advance the common good through academic and technological inquiry fueled by a renaissance in the hunger for the true, good, and the beautiful. Cultural and institutional innovation is at the heart of our initiatives, with its end lying in the authentic transformation of the human person.
Our Mission
Our goal is to usher in a new era of intellectual culture that is neither divorced from the traditions that have formed our present day and the ever shifting changes in technology and society that are shaping tomorrow. The intellectual life, whether that be in the form of advancing drug development, comparing analytic or continental approaches to philosophy, or discovering new elementary particles, is ultimately the activity of a collective of individuals that necessarily must be steeped within culture yet sufficiently independent from bureaucracy and proceduralism to nimbly progress the human condition.
We believe that inquiry into any subject, approached with the right attitude, is valuable for its own sake. We want to assist and form intellectuals who yearn to venture outside of their speciality and engage deeply with ideas and people who come from diverse priors. We prioritize engagement with areas of inquiry that are most relevant to the common good and that reflect directly on the intellectual life itself. In our late modern world, we are in dire need of serious intellectuals in all areas who are thinking deeply and carefully about how we gain knowledge and wield it, all the way from the lab bench to the world stage.
Where do the world-changing, paradigm-shifting ideas germinate? We believe that more often than not, progress is found in the intimate, informal moments between friends discussing personal interests. It is in those moments of synthesis, where disparate ideas clash in flames of brilliance, that one adopts a new lens to see their subject. We believe that it is most important to connect intellectuals with each other when they obtain independence, whether that be when they obtain their first academic appointment, research lead role at a tech company, or publishing deal.
Our cultural approach to the intellectual life, with a keen eye towards institutional innovation, will be made possible through contemplation, friendship, and patronage, providing an environment where heterodox thinkers can thrive and produce ideas that will not only advance their respective fields, but organically shift minds and hearts across fields towards the common good and a love for the pursuit of knoweldge.
Our Strategy
Contemplation
Collective op-eds
Conferences
Retreats
Friendship
Communal appreciation of art, ideas, and artisanship
Reading groups
Patronage
Unrestricted grants
Cross-discipline mentorship
Institutional collaboration
