Our Endeavour is built on the following Three Pillars.

First is the Voice of the Intellect which we propose to see as like the Intellectual Assets of the Humanities and an importance source of the Wealth created by the Humanities.  Among these, the thoughts and ideas of 10 thinkers are of special significance and influence to our endeavours though this doesn’t necessarily mean that those of other thinkers are of less significance.  We do not see it as that important to rank and we believe that it is far more important to understand and  appreciate first and we would see one key aspect of our endeavor as an attempt to synthesize what the Voice of the Intellect can say about the Game of Life and the Civilisation of the Humanities, with such voices coming from All Those Who Have Lived and All Walks of Life, East and West, Past and Present. 

Second, is art and aesthetics. Wittgenstein has once made a remark that “a proposition cannot express anything which is higher”; and we understand well that there is a limit to what languages can say about this world. We think it is precisely in these areas that art and aesthetics can complement. Indeed, we see words, images and music as three powerful mediums to transmit human thoughts and feelings and we do attempt to bring these 3 mediums together when we come to express our thoughts and feelings on various subject matters.

If the two above pillars are more about the side of theories, than the third pillar is more about the practices. Among all the intellectual structures we have come across,  we think that of Adam Smith provides the most clear, systematic, inspring and actionable foundation upon which we can put all the others into places; and we see Hong Kong as one of the few — or even the only —  place where some of the main ideas of Adam Smith have been seriously and consciously used in the formulation of  its basic political economy structure.

Meanwhile, although Adam Smith is almost a household name and has been well respected for centuries as one of the greatest thinkers in human history, we still think that the world has yet to fully grasp many of the profound insights offered by him. Most importantly, we believe that Adam Smith has still some unspoken and unfulfilled visions on what are conceivable and attainable for Human Societies and Civilisation. And we also concur with Jerry Muller that “ The Wealth of Nations is the most important book ever written about capitalism and its moral ramification. It was intended to make men better, not just better-off.”

As such, the third force we seek to leverage on is Adam Smith, HK and the Humanities. We think Hong Kong comes into the picture because we believe this little island in the Pacific Ocean has been one of the few or even the only place where a serious political economy experiment along the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith has been tried. In any case, we do believe that Hong Kong did have created some meaningful heritages during its modest period of existence and such Hong Kong Heritages, along with those heritages of the wider humanities, shall constitute the third pillar underpinning our endeavours.