Here’s my chum Ken McIntyre’s new book. Here’s a review as well. Ken did a lovely essay for Paul and my Oakeshott “Companion“, an essay entitled “Philosophy and Its Moods: Oakeshott on the Practice of Philosophy.”
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Clash of the Titans: When the Market and Science Collide
Coming soon the first of three papers I’ve co-authored with Dave Hardwick, this one due in Advances in Austrian Economics, Vol. 17
ABSTRACT
Purpose/problem statement – The two most successful complex adaptive systems are the Market and Science, each with an inherent tendency toward epistemic imperialism. Of late, science, notably medical science, seems to have become functional or subservient to market imperatives. We offer a two-fold Hayekian analysis: a justification of the multiplicity view of spontaneous orders and a critique of the libertarian justification of market prioricity.
Methodology/approach – This paper brings to light Hayekian continuities between diverse literatures – philosophical, epistemological, cognitive and scientific.
Findings – The very precondition of knowledge is the exploitation of the epistemic virtues accorded by society’s manifold of spontaneous forces, a manifold that gives context and definition, to intimate, regulate, and inform action. The free-flow of information is the life-blood of civil (liberal) society. The commoditization of medical knowledge promotes a dysfunctional free-flow of information that compromises notions of expertise and ultimately has implications for the greater good.
Research limitations/implications – While we accept that there are irresolvable tensions between these epistemic magisteria we are troubled by the overt tampering with the spontaneous order mechanism of medical science. The lessons of Hayek are not being assimilated by many who would go by the adjective Hayekian.
Originality/value of paper – On offer is a Hayekian restatement (contra the libertarian view typically attributed to Hayek) cautioning that no one spontaneous order should dominate over another neither should they be made conversable. Indeed, we argue that the healthy functioning of a market presupposes institutions that should not answer to market imperatives.
Stories, religion, politics and evolution
Staying with the literature theme of a few days ago and earlier today, here is another write up on Jonathan Gottschall’s new book and an article by JG himself here and a related review article of another book by John Gray here.
Beyond Complexity: Can The Sensory Order Defend the Liberal Self?
My chum Chor-yung Cheung who like myself is both an Oakeshottian and a Hayekian introduces his paper below:
Friedrich Hayek’s social philosophy is one of the most systematic and sophisticated among the contributions made by 20th-century liberal thinkers. His defense of the free market and individual freedom and his critique of collectivism of various kinds are mainly based on his epistemological theses, which in turn are derived from his social philosophy. Hayek once famously said, ‘‘the differences between socialists and nonsocialists ultimately rest on purely intellectual issues capable of a scientific resolution and not on different judgments of value,’’ and he believes that the doctrines advocated by the socialists ‘‘can be shown to be based on factually false assumptions,’’ and the whole family of socialist thought can be ‘‘proved erroneous’’ (1973, p. 6). One important area contributing to the development of Hayek’s epistemological theses is his works on theoretical psychology, and his book The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology (1952a) plays a crucial role in this since it helped Hayek spell out the logical character of his social philosophy (1952a, p. v). It can be said that The Sensory Order enables Hayek to develop a conception of mind (which is essentially a classificatory and rule constituting complex order of a mental kind) that, on its own, enhances our understanding of cognitive psychology, and, when linked with Hayek’s social and political thought, helps strengthen Hayek’s epistemological defense of the free market and limited government. Although The Sensory Order did not attract the kind of scholarly attention it deserves for decades after its first publication in 1952, the path-breaking quality of the book and the integral part it plays in Hayek’s social philosophy are now widely recognized (see, e.g., Butos & Koppl, 2006; Caldwell, 2004; Feser, 2006; Gaus, 2006; Horwitz, 2000; Marsh, 2010; Rizzello, 1999; Smith, 1997; Weimer, 1982). Admittedly, The Sensory Order is a difficult book since it deals with questions of the most fundamental kind (such as the nature of mind and the limits of explanation). When one tries to relate The Sensory Order to Hayek’s broader defense of liberalism, the task becomes doubly difficult, and different interpretations of Hayek’s position in The Sensory Order may lead to diametrically opposite assessment of his contribution. Scholars who are unsympathetic to Hayek’s social philosophy tend to characterize his explanation of the mental order in The Sensory Order as ‘‘materialistic and naturalistic’’ and wonder how his brand of materialism with its implied physicalist notion of human agency can sit well with the defense of individual liberty. Contrariwise, defenders of Hayek like to stress his idea that the inherent nature of the mind as a classification apparatus sets limits to its capacity for self-explanation. They argue that social interaction in any developed society must involve so great a degree of complexity that no single mind or central planning unit can fully take into account all the respective preferences of, or the dispersed information possessed by, individual actors, making synoptic planning untenable. This chapter is an attempt to offer an interpretation of The Sensory Order in line with Hayek’s supporters. But it would like to go a step further by arguing that a liberal conception of human agency, in which the individual is characterized as distinct, free, evolutionary, creative yet culturally embedded, can be derived from Hayek’s theoretical psychology. In what follows, I outline my interpretation of The Sensory Order and defend Hayek against some major criticisms, including the criticism that his psychological works express or imply a physicalist conception of the mind. Furthermore, I identify some problems with Hayek’s conception of the self: in particular its ‘‘instrumental’’ tendency and corresponding lack of appreciation of the unique value of individual style and imagination.
Rationalism in Politics
In anticipation of a talk I’m giving later on in the week on Oakeshott’s so-called “dispositional conservatism”, here is a nice little piece by my chum Gene Callahan serving as a good introduction to RIP.
The British philosopher and historian Michael Oakeshott is a curious figure in twentieth-century intellectual history. He is known mostly as a “conservative political theorist,” although he rejected ideology and his conservatism was primarily temperamental. Furthermore, his work on politics was only a fraction of his output, which comprised idealist philosophy, aesthetics, religion, education, the philosophy of history, and even horse racing. His popularity reached its zenith in the 1950s and early 1960s, when he was well known on both sides of the Atlantic, appearing on the BBC and becoming the favorite philosopher at National Review. But he never seemed to seek popularity, and did little or nothing to boost his own when it subsequently faded. Today, despite the growing interest in Oakeshott since his death in 1990, even his best-recognized work, his essay “Rationalism in Politics,” is, I contend, not appreciated widely enough—thus, this article.
Lovers of liberty should keep Oakeshott’s work on rationalism in mind for at least two reasons. First, it offers a complementary but still significantly different critique of planning to those of Mises and Hayek. However, at the same time, it provides a warning to the advocates of freedom not to fall into the rationalist quagmire themselves. The relevance of the latter point is demonstrated by, for example, the tendency of many development economists, even those who are “market oriented,” to attempt to impose their theoretical schemes for taking a shortcut to westernization on some Third World country, while running roughshod over all the traditions, customs, and morals native to the place, which, whatever their short-comings, at least managed to sustain the society in question over previous centuries. Freedom cannot be “imposed” on a people according to some preconceived scheme. We all need to watch out for “the rationalist within.”
Clouding Conservatism
Yet more Oakeshottiana. Here is a brief review by Elizabeth Corey of The Meanings of Michael Oakeshott’s Conservatism (table of contents). Corey summarizes why Oakeshott’s supposed conservatism equally frustrates self-avowed conservatives and liberal critics: in the second excerpt she neatly captures the appeal of Oakeshott for someone such as myself. (See also another recent posting).
In a certain sense, then, to call Oakeshott’s thought “conservative” is to court danger; for it implies that some sort of common understanding of conservatism might apply rather straightforwardly to Oakeshott. It does not.
The heart of Oakeshott’s conservatism thus lay in both recognition and acceptance of the world’s imperfections. He hoped that we might see and appreciate the goods worthy of enjoyment, and that in addition we might know how to enjoy them. This was difficult, in his view, because it required that we put off or ignore our anxiety and aspirations for the future and engage fully in our present lives.
Sullivan’s Oakeshott
Whatever difficulties one might find with Andrew’s eclectic philosophical reconciliation (queer theory, Catholicism, conservatism) he captures the essence of Oakeshott very well he in this “elevator speech.” Oakeshott’s so-called “conservatism” bears absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the ossified character attributed to conservatism by “conservatives” of a fundamentalist stripe. In any event, ideologies are far more fluid than is normally conceded in public discourse (check out Michael Freeden’s classic article on this).
Paul Franco: The Heidegger Controversy and Nietzsche on Liberal Education
My chum and co-editor for A Companion to Michael Oakeshott here talking about the Heidegger controversy and here on Friedrich Nietzsche on Liberal Education. See Paul’s Amazon listing.
Dewey and Oakeshott on Politics and Education
Here’s a very recent paper from the Philosophy of Education. Here is the correct link for Francis Schrag’s reference to Bob Grant’s “On Writing Michael Oakeshott’s Biography.” Speaking of which, Bob Grant has written a fantastic biographical essay “The Pursuit of Intimacy, or Rationalism in Love” for Paul and my Companion.
