Scott Scheall

HAYEK THE APRIORIST

The paper aims to establish that Terence Hutchison’s argument in The Politics and Philosophy of Economics (1981) to the effect that the young F.A. Hayek maintained a methodological position markedly similar to that of Ludwig von Mises fails to establish the relevant conclusion. The first problem with Hutchison’s argument is that it is not clear exactly what conclusion he meant to establish with regard to the methodological views of the two paragons of 20th century Austrian economics. Mises (in)famously maintained a rather extreme methodological apriorism. However, Hutchison’s argument does not support the claim that Hayek was ever an apriorist of the Misesian variety. The concept of a priori knowledge that emerges from Hayek’s epistemology – specifically the epistemology implied by Hayek’s work in theoretical psychology – is the direct opposite of Mises’ treatment of a priori knowledge. Simply stated, Hayek conceived of a priori knowledge as fallible and relative, while Mises considered a priori knowledge to be infallible and absolute. Thus, it cannot be maintained – if, indeed, Hutchison meant to establish – that Hayek was a Misesian apriorist during the years in question. What’s more, the paper shows that Hutchison’s argument does not support a weaker interpretation of the relevant conclusion. There are alternative interpretations of the evidence adduced by Hutchison that are both more charitable and more in line with Hayek’s epistemology that undermine Hutchison’s conclusion.

LESSER DEGREES OF EXPLANATION: SOME IMPLICATIONS OF F.A. HAYEK'S METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCES OF COMPLEX PHENOMENA

From the early-1950s on, F.A. Hayek was concerned with the development of a methodology of sciences that study systems of complex phenomena. Hayek argued that the knowledge that can be acquired about such systems is, in virtue of their complexity (and the comparatively narrow boundaries of human cognitive faculties), relatively limited. The paper aims to elucidate the implications of Hayek’s methodology with respect to the specific dimensions along which the scientist’s knowledge of some complex phenomena may be limited. Hayek’s fallibilism was an essential (if not always explicit) aspect of his arguments against the defenders of both socialism ([1935] 1948, [1940] 1948) and countercyclical monetary policy ([1975] 1978); yet, despite the fact that his conceptions of both complex phenomena and the methodology appropriate to their investigation imply that ignorance might beset the scientist in multiple respects, he never explicated all of these consequences. The specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the extent of the scientist’s knowledge concerning the phenomena under investigation. The paper offers an account of the considerations that determine the extent to which a theory’s implications prohibit the occurrence of particular events in the relevant domain. This theory of “predictive degree” both expresses and – as the phenomena of scientific prediction are themselves complex in Hayek’s sense – exemplifies the intuition that the specificity of a scientific prediction depends on the relevant knowledge available.

Hayek's Epistemic Theory of Industrial Fluctuations

The present paper considers the relationships – logical and historical – between F.A. Hayek’s early business cycle project and his later arguments concerning spontaneous economic orders and the methods appropriate to their investigation. It is a peculiar fact, which familiarity with the contemporary literature on Hayek and the modern Austrian school cannot but make manifest, that those who praise Hayek’s business cycle work often disparage or simply ignore his later writings on spontaneous orders and vice versa. The fact that in branching out from his early interest in the cycle Hayek came to accept the validity of methods other than the praxeology of his mentor Ludwig von Mises and “methodological individualism” (whatever this squishiest of squishy terms means exactly) is treated in some circles as something approaching treachery against the Austrian cause properly understood. On the other hand, consider that in a wellknown chapter in his (1981) The Politics and Philosophy of Economics, Terence Hutchison lavishly praised Hayek’s writings on spontaneous orders and the methods appropriate to their analysis while belittling his business cycle work as that of another, lesser man (whom he called “Hayek I” as opposed to the commendable “Hayek II”). If the arguments of the present essay are sound, then both of these attitudes are largely unjustified. The thesis of the first (non-introductory) part of the paper is that Hayek’s later arguments concerning complex economic orders imply a broad, though by no means universal, explanation of economic-cyclical phenomena; and, moreover, that Hayek’s early explanation of industrial fluctuations is substantively, if not methodologically, an implication of this more general

What is extreme about Mises’s extreme apriorism?

There is something extreme about Ludwig von Mises’s methodological apriorism, namely, his epistemological justification of the a priori element(s) of economic theory. His critics have long recognized and attacked the extremeness of Mises’s epistemology of a priori knowledge. However, several of his defenders have neglected what is (and what has long been recognized by his critics to be) extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Thus, the argument is directed less against Mises than against those contributions to the secondary literature that assert his methodological moderation while overlooking what the most prominent critics have found extreme about Mises’s apriorism. Defending Mises as a merely moderate apriorist because he held only a narrow part of the foundation of economics to be a priori is a straw-man defense against criticisms of his apriorism as epistemologically extreme.

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology

Including chapters on British public debt in the 19th century, French financial controversies in the mid-1800s, and a thoughtful reflection on the USAs New Deal, this volume is a global exploration of public finance history. For researchers interested in the history of economics, this is an essential read containing the most up-to-date research.

Kinds of Scientific Rationalism: The Case for Methodological Liberalism

The present paper considers the implications of the postulate that the activities of scientists constitute complex phenomena in the sense associated with the methodological writings of the Nobel Prize-winning Austrian economist, methodologist, and political philosopher, F.A. Hayek. Although Hayek wrote extensively on the methodology of sciences that investigate systems of complex phenomena, he never addressed the possibility that science itself is such a system. The application of Hayek’s method ology of sciences of complex phenomena to science itself implies some minimal criteria for explanations of scientific rationality. If science is complex in Hayek’s sense, then scientific belief may be rational in more than one way. It is argued that a failure to recognize the possibility of multiple kinds of scientific rationality contributes to an error theory of certain unsuccessful accounts of scientific belief in the history of philosophy of science. It is further argued that, where ecological rationality is operative, rational belief requires an element of methodological liberty. It is shown that acceptance of the possibility of ecologically-rational scientific outcomes–a view here dubbed methodological liberalism–is closely related to Hayeks denial of the possibility of a successful scientism, a denial crucial to his arguments against socialism and Keynesian macroeconomics.

Slaves of the Defunct: The Epistemic Intractability of the Hayek-Keynes Debate

The present essay addresses the epistemic difficulties involved in achieving consensus with respect to the Hayek-Keynes debate. It is argued that the debate cannot be settled on the basis of the observable evidence; or, more precisely, that the empirical implications of the relevant theories are such that, regardless of what is observed, both theories can be interpreted as true, or at least, as not falsified. Regardless of the evidence, both Hayek and Keynes can be interpreted as right. The essay explicates the respects in which the empirical evidence under-determines the choice between the relevant theories. In particular, it is argued both that there are convenient responses one can offer that protect each theory from what appears to be threatening evidence and that, for particular kinds of evidence, the two theories are empirically equivalent.

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on New Directions in Sraffa Scholarship

Volume 35B of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology features a symposium on the economics of Piero Sraffa, guest edited by Scott Carter and Riccardo Bellofiore. It also features general research contributions from Masazumi Wakatabe, and co-authors Eugene Callahan and Andreas Hoffman.

Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology: Including a Symposium on the Historical Epistemology of Economics

Volume 35A of Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology features a symposium on historical epistemology. An internationally renowned cast of contributors offers a variety of perspectives on one of the major approaches in empirical philosophy of science and the historiography of economic thought.