1st Edition
F. A. Hayek and the Epistemology of Politics The Curious Task of Economics
F. A. Hayek and the Epistemology of Politics is an exploration of an important problem that has largely been ignored heretofore: the problem of policymaker ignorance and the consequences of limited political knowledge. Scott Scheall explores the significance of the fact that the possibilities for effective political action are constrained by policymakers’ epistemic limitations. The book offers an explanation for why policymaking often fails and why constituents, whatever their political affiliations, are so often disappointed with political leaders.
In this philosophical examination of his work, Hayek’s ideas are not merely discussed, analyzed, and contextualized, but extended; the book both draws and defends previously unrecognized implications from the Hayekian canon.
The book will be of interest to scholars of the works of F. A. Hayek and his intellectual adversaries, to policymakers, and to those of all political, philosophical, and social-scientific persuasions.
Dedication
About the Author
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Part One
The Problem of Policymaker Ignorance
Chapter One
Policymaker Ignorance: The First Problem of Politics and Political Inquiry
Some Terminological Clarifications
The Logically Ancillary Nature of the Problem of Policymaker Incentives
The Logical Priority of the Epistemic
More about Epistemic Burdens
The Introspective Argument for the Logical Priority of the Epistemic
The Argument for the Logical Priority of the Epistemic from Ought Implies Can and Similar Principles
The Problematic Nature of Political Decision-Making in Light of the Priority of the Epistemic
Policymaker Ignorance and Constituent Disappointment
A Taxonomy of Ignorant Policymakers
Reflection and Foreshadow
Chapter Two
Beyond the Socialist Oasis: Hayek’s Extensions of Mises’ Calculation Argument
The Insurmountable Epistemic Burden of the Administrator of a Pure and Isolated Socialist Oasis
Hayek’s Epistemology – A First Pass
Explanation, Prediction, and Control of Complex Phenomena
The Epistemic Burdens of Socialist Administrators in Other Contexts
The "Mathematical Solution": Not a Solution
Abrogating Economic Freedom to Facilitate Solution of the Calculation Problem
The Epistemic Burdens of the Central Planner under Market Socialism
The Epistemic Burden of Achieving Consensus concerning a Central Plan
The Epistemic Burdens of Countercyclical Economic Policymaking and Keynesian Demand Management
The Role of Ignorance in Hayek’s Early Theory of Industrial Fluctuations
Hayek’s Epistemic Theory of Industrial Fluctuations
The Generality of the Reasoning Underlying the Austrians’ Political-Epistemological Approach
Reflection and Foreshadow
Chapter Three
Liberalism and the Problem of Policymaker Ignorance
The Epistemic Burdens of Realizing an Effective Liberal Order: The Problem of the Epistemic Requirements of Liberal Transitions
The Artificiality of the Assumption of the Committed Liberalizer
Hayek’s Failure to See the Problem of the Epistemic Requirements of Liberal Transitions
Political Epistemology > "Epistemic Institutionalism"
Robust Political Economy: Not a Solution
The Epistemic Burden of Policymaking within Liberal Environments
The Epistemic Burden of Policy Inaction
Reflection and Foreshadow
Part Two
Hayekian Political Epistemology
Chapter Four
The Epistemological Aspects of Hayekian Political Epistemology
Hayek versus Mises on Matters Epistemological, Part One
Hayek as Theoretical Psychologist and Epistemological Naturalist
Some Historical Background
Hayek’s Conception of Knowledge
Epistemological Normativism vs. Epistemological Naturalism
Association as the Principle that Explains the Complex Phenomena of Mental Life
Hayekian A Priori Knowledge: Pre-Sensory Linkages
Hayek versus Mises on Matters Epistemological, Part Two
Hayek’s Radical Empiricism
Epistemic Justification and Hayek’s Non-Standard Conception of Knowledge
Subjective Data and Objective Data
Hayekian Political Epistemology
Reflection and Foreshadow
Chapter Five
Political Order and Disorder as Epistemic Phenomena
Knowledge, Planning, Social Order, and Epistemic Mechanisms
Further Epistemic Requirements of Social Order
How Prices Tell You "What to Do"
How Reputation Signals Tell Scientists (and Others) "What to Do"
Political Order and Disorder
Reflection and Foreshadow
Chapter Six
Hayekian Political Epistemology as a Science of the Limits of Deliberate Political Action
Hayek versus Keynes Yet Again
A General Schema for Empirical Political Epistemology
The Hayek-Keynes Debate through the Lens of Political Epistemology
A Constitutional Approach to the Problem of Policymaker Ignorance
How Hayek Should Have Responded to Keynes’ Challenge
Functional Omniscience and Omnipotence
Reflection
Reflection and Foreshadow
What the Argument Is and What the Argument Is Not
Bibliography
Index
Biography
Scott Scheall is Assistant Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Faculty of Social Science in Arizona State University’s College of Integrative Sciences and Arts, as well as Project Director for the History of Economic Thought in Arizona State University’s Center for the Study of Economic Liberty. He has published extensively on topics related to the history and philosophy of the Austrian School of economics. Scott is co-host of Smith and Marx Walk into a Bar: A History of Economics Podcast.
