Hayek's challenge : an intellectual biography of F.A. Hayek / Bruce Caldwell.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Caldwell, Bruce, 1952-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich August), 1899-1992.

Hayek, Friedrich A. von.

Economists--Austria--Biography.

Economists.

Economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (503 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, c2004.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Friedrich A. Hayek is regarded as one of the preeminent economic theorists of the twentieth century, as much for his work outside of economics as for his work within it. During a career spanning several decades, he made contributions in fields as diverse as psychology, political philosophy, the history of ideas, and the methodology of the social sciences. Bruce Caldwell-editor of The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek-understands Hayek's thought like few others, and with this book he offers us the first full intellectual biography of this pivotal social theorist. Caldwell begins by providing the necessary background for understanding Hayek's thought, tracing the emergence, in fin-de-siècle Vienna, of the Austrian school of economics-a distinctive analysis forged in the midst of contending schools of thought. In the second part of the book, Caldwell follows the path by which Hayek, beginning from the standard Austrian assumptions, gradually developed his unique perspective on not only economics but a broad range of social phenomena. In the third part, Caldwell offers both an assessment of Hayek's arguments and, in an epilogue, an insightful estimation of how Hayek's insights can help us to clarify and reexamine changes in the field of economics during the twentieth century. As Hayek's ideas matured, he became increasingly critical of developments within mainstream economics: his works grew increasingly contrarian and evolved in striking-and sometimes seemingly contradictory-ways. Caldwell is ideally suited to explain the complex evolution of Hayek's thought, and his analysis here is nothing short of brilliant, impressively situating Hayek in a broader intellectual context, unpacking the often difficult turns in his thinking, and showing how his economic ideas came to inform his ideas on the other social sciences. Hayek's Challenge will be received as one of the most important works published on this thinker in recent decades.

Contents:

The Austrian school and its opponents-historicists, socialists and positivists

Menger's principles of economics

The German historical school

The methodenstreit

Max Weber and the decline of the historical school

Positivism and socialism

Hayek's journey

Hayek in Vienna

Monetary theory and methodology

Hayek at the London school of economics

Some methodological debates of the 1930s

"Economics and knowledge" and Hayek's transformation

The abuse of reason project

Individualism and the sensory order

Rules, orders and evolution

Hayek's challenge

Journey's end-Hayek's multiple legacies

Epilogue: A meditation on Twentieth-century economics.

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 439-472) and index.

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

9786612538322

9781282538320

1282538322

9780226091921

0226091929

OCLC:

644583642