About Us

Kosmos provides career advice and intellectual resources for liberty advancing academics. Aspiring libertarian academics can find words of wisdom at Scaling the Ivory Tower, and current liberty advancing professors can explore our intellectual content at View from the Ivory Tower. Academics seeking opportunies in the job market or conference listings can visit our opportunites or calendar pages.

The name “Kosmos” comes from Friedrich Hayek’s use of the Greek word in “Law, Legislation, and Liberty.” “Kosmos” is a grown order, or a spontaneous order.  Its opposite, “taxis” is an order that is constructed, or an imposed order. Hayek used these terms to describe the difference in worldview between those who desire the spontaneous order of society and those who do not.  Our complex society requires the freedom of spontaneous order because the knowledge to make such a society work could never be accumulated by one person or organization. With no central authority controlling knowledge, information and ideas are free to flow in any and all directions. Under spontaneous order, people are freer, more innovative and more productive.  The possibilities are unknown, but limitless.