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The Counter-Revolution of Science

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The Counter-Revolution of Science THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE The Counter- Revolution of Science STUDIES ON THE ABUSE OF REASON By F. A. Hayek THE FREE PRESS GLENCOE, ILLINOIS c,opyrigh. t 1952 by the Free Press, a corporation Printed in the United States of America by American Book-Stratford Press Designed by Sidney Solomon LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER! 52-8157 EREFACE THE STUDIES united in this volume, although in the first instance published separately in the course of a number of years, form part of a single comprehensive plan. For this republication the exposition has been slightly revised and a few gaps have been filled in, but the main argument is unchanged. Their arrangement is now systematic, in the order in which the argument develops, rather than the accidental one of their first appearance. The book thus begins with a theoretical discussion of the general issues and proceeds to an examination of the historical role played by the ideas in question. This is not mere pedantry or a device for avoiding unnecessary repetition but, it seems to me, essential in order to show the true significance of the particular development. But I am quite aware that as a result the opening sections of the book are relatively more difficult than the rest, and that it might have been more politic to put the more concrete matter in the forefront. I still believe that most readers who are interested in this kind of subject will find the present arrangement more con- venient. But any reader who has little taste for abstract discussion may do well to read first the second part which has given the title to this volume. I hope he will then find the general discussion of the same problems in the first study more interesting. These two major sections of the volume were first published in parts in Economica for 1942-1944 and for 1941 respectively. The third study, written more recently as a lecture appeared first in Measure for June 1951 but was prepared from notes collected at the same time as those for the first two essays. I have to thank the editors of both these journals and the London School of Economics and Political Science and the Henry Regnery Company of Chicago as their respective publishers for permission to reprint what first appeared under their auspices. F. A. HAYEK NTS PAGE PREFACE 5 PART ONE. SCIENTISM AND THE STUDY OF SOCIETY 11 I. The Influence of the Natural Sciences on the Social Sciences 13 II. The Problem and the Method of the Natural Sciences 17 III. The Subjective Character of the Data of the Social Sciences 25 IV. The Individualist and "Compositive" Method of the Social Sciences 36 V. The Objectivism of the Scientistic Approach 44 VI. The Collectivism of the Scientistic Approach 53 VII. The Historicism of the Scientistic Approach 64 VIII. "Purposive" Social Formations 80 IX. "Conscious" Direction and the Growth of Reason 87 X. Engineers and Planners 94 PART TWO. THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE 103 I. The Source of the Scientistic Hubris: JJEcole Poly- technique 105 II. The "Accoucheur d'Idees": Henri de Saint-Simon 111 III. Social Physics: Saint-Simon and Comte 129 IV. The Religion of the Engineers: Enfantin and the Saint- Simonians 143 V. Saint-Simonian Influence 156 VI. Sociology: Comte and His Successors 168 PART THREE. COMTE AND HEGEL 189 NOTES 207 INDEX 251 THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE JLE Part One SCIENTISM AND THE STUDY OF SOCIETY. Systems which have universally owed their origin to the lucubrations of those who were acquainted with one art, but ignorant of the other; who therefore explained to themselves the phenomena, in that which was strange to them, by those in that which was familiar; and with whom, upon that account, the analogy, which in other writers gives occasion to a few ingenious similitudes, be- came the great hinge on which every thing turned. ADAM SMITH (Essay on the History of Astronomy). I THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES ON THE SOCIAL SCIENCES IN THE COURSE of its slow development in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the study of economic and social phenomena was guided in the choice of its methods in the main by the nature of the problems it had to face.1 It gradually developed a technique appro- priate to these problems without much reflection on the character of the methods or on their relation to that of other disciplines of knowl- edge. Students of political economy could describe it alternatively as a branch of science or of moral or social philosophy without the least qualms whether their subject was scientific or philosophical. The term "science" had not yet assumed the special narrow meaning it has today,2 nor was there any distinction made which singled out the physical or natural sciences and attributed to them a special dignity. Those who devoted themselves to those fields indeed readily chose the designation of philosophy when they were concerned with the more general aspects of their problems,3 and occasionally we even find "natural philosophy" contrasted with "moral science." During the first half of the nineteenth century a new attitude made its appearance. The term science came more and more to be confined to the physical and biological disciplines which at the same time began to claim for themselves a special rigorousness and certainty which distinguished them from all others. Their success was such that they soon came to exercise an extraordinary fascination on those working in other fields, who rapidly began to imitate their teaching and vocabulary. Thus the tyranny commenced which the methods and technique of the Sciences 4 in the narrow sense of the term have ever since exercised over the other subjects. These became increas- 13 14 THE COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SCIENCE ingly concerned to vindicate their equal status by showing that their methods were the same as those of their brilliantly successful sisters rather than by adapting their methods more and more to their own particular problems. And, although in the hundred and twenty years or so, during which this ambition to imitate Science in its methods rather than its spirit has now dominated social studies, it has con- tributed scarcely anything to our understanding of social phenomena, not only does it continue to confuse and discredit the work of the social disciplines, but demands for further attempts in this direction are still presented to us as the latest revolutionary innovations which, if adopted, will secure rapid undreamed of progress. • Let it be said at once, however, that those who were loudest in these demands were rarely themselves men who had noticeably en- riched our knowledge of the Sciences. From Francis Bacon, the Lord Chancellor, who will forever remain the prototype of the "dema- gogue of science," as he has justly been called, to Auguste Comte and the "physicalists" of our own day, the claims for the exclusive virtues of the specific methods employed by the natural sciences were mostly advanced by men whose right to speak on behalf of the scien- tists were not above suspicion, and who indeed in many cases had shown in the Sciences themselves as much bigoted prejudice as in their attitude to other subjects. Just as Francis Bacon opposed Co- pernican Astronomy,5 and as Comte taught that any too minute in- vestigation of the phenomena by such instruments as the microscope, was harmful and should be suppressed by the spiritual power of the positive society, because it tended to upset the laws of positive sci- ence, so this dogmatic attitude has so often misled men of this type in their own field that there should have been little reason to pay too much deference to their views about problems still more distant from the fields from which they derived their inspiration. There is yet another qualification which the reader ought to keep in mind throughout the following discussion. The methods which sci- entists or men fascinated by the natural sciences have so often tried to force upon the social sciences were not always necessarily those which the scientists in fact followed in their own field, but rather those which they believed that they employed. This is not necessarily the same thing. The scientist reflecting and theorizing about his pro- THE INFLUENCE OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES 15 cedure is not always a reliable guide. The views about the character of the method of Science have undergone various fashions during the last few generations, while we must assume that the methods actually followed have remained essentially the same. But since it was what scientists believed that they did, and even the views which they had held some time before, which have influenced the social sciences, the following comments on the methods of the natural sciences also do not necessarily claim to be a true account of what the scientists in fact do, but an account of the views on the nature of scientific method which were dominant in recent times. The history of this influence, the channels through which it op- erated, and the direction in which it affected social developments, will occupy us throughout the series of historical studies to which the present essay is designed to serve as an introduction. Before we trace the historical course of this influence and its effects, we shall here attempt to describe its general characteristics and the nature of the problems to which the unwarranted and unfortunate extensions of the habits of thought of the physical and biological sciences have given rise. There are certain typical elements of this attitude which we shall meet again and again and whose prima facie plausibility makes it necessary to examine them with some care.
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