Friedrich Hayek was an economist of great influence, Nobel Prize 1974, but he also was intensely interested in epistemology, psychology and the philosophy of Science.
I was reminded of Hayek’s wide-ranging writings and inquiries by this essay on his political and economics ideas.
http://americanthinker.com/2014/03/a_familiar_pattern.html
I was surprised when I was in my Hayek reading many years ago, to find his books on knowledge and science and politics. He was much more than a ground breaking economist.
As for Hayek on Science and philosophy of Science:
Hayek’s philosophy of science was consistent with Karl Popper’s approach in many elements.
Hayek didn’t like Scientism, which has been mentioned here negatively as an unreasonable reliance on scientific methods, or lack of humility of you prefer.
Hayek warned about trying to use scientific methods indiscriminately in an attempt to study social sciences and the oversimplification of things into two-variable linear relationships.
Hayek adheres to the view that science must be modified to deal with complex multivariate and nonlinear phenomena. Hayek’s ideas were introduced in essays in the 50s.
Hayek’s work on epistemology and psych includes such work as “The Counter-Revolution of Science: Studies in the Abuse of Reason”, 1952 and in some of Hayek’s later essays in the philosophy of science such as “Degrees of Explanation” and “The Theory of Complex Phenomena”. and “The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology” (1952). Hayek independently developed a model of learning and memory – an idea which he first conceived in 1920, prior to his study of economics.
Hayek’s global brain theory still gets a lot of attention.
Thanks, John1282. Will Google and Wiki same. I like the latest articles coming in JunkScience regarding more in depth analysis of science abuse. Keep up great work. And please comment on my Kindle Guide book when you have a chance.
of course any google search to Hayek will give his oeuvre of essays and books.
as i said in my comments, i was looking at his economics and read road to serfdom then stumbled all the other stuff. He was at the London School of Econ, his psychology scholarship started even before he became a noted economist.
amazing brain.
do a wiki to his bibliography
i found out about his wider range of works reading Caldwell’s biography Hayek’s Challenge. Can’t remember why i got the book, but sure opened my eyes to why they call him a philosopher as well as economist.
This is interesting. I was not aware Hayek published anything beyond his economic thoughts, such as “Road to . . ” Do you have any links to these essays? I could have quoted him as significant in my Kindle book on “Science? A Guide to Decide.” Certainly philosophy’s greatest contribution to science is in epistemology. Metaphysics is what one views the physical universe to be – knowable, unknowable? Epistemology directly relates reason to knowing the universe.