Scientific Counter-revolution

Author: Hayek
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-02-01
Features: American Edition (1952)
Preface: The articles collected in this book were originally published in different years but were part of an overall plan. For this reedition, minor revisions were made to the content to remedy several flaws, though the main arguments remain unchanged. The order of the articles is now more systematic, aligning with the development of the arguments, rather than being arbitrary as when they were first published. Thus, the book begins with a theoretical exploration of general issues, followed by an examination of the historical role of related concepts. This is not done to show off scholarship or merely to avoid unnecessary repetition, because in my view, it is crucial to prove the true significance of that special development. However, I am also very aware that this approach results in the first few chapters being more difficult to understand than the rest of the content; it might have been more appropriate to place the more specific discussions first. Nevertheless, I still believe that most readers interested in this topic will find the present order more suitable. For readers who are not particularly interested in abstract discussions, they may start with the second part of the book, which bears the book's title. I hope they will then find that the general discussion in this part is more meaningful. The two main parts of the book were originally published separately in the Economist magazine in 1942–1944 and 1941. The third study was later written as a speech and first published in the June 1951 issue of The Compass, while it was also compiled from notes prepared for the first two papers. These magazines, along with the editors of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and their respectable publishers, the Henry Regnery Company in Chicago, have allowed me to reprint the articles originally published with their support, and I must express my gratitude to them. F.A. Hayek In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the rapid development of natural sciences profoundly transformed the social world and social consciousness. In France, a group of thinkers, represented by Saint-Simon and Comte, attempted to apply the laws of natural sciences to the study of human society. They were dedicated to discovering the "laws" of society and hoped that through the direct control and application of these laws by social science elites, human social life would become more perfect. This abuse of reason deeply influenced the historical of the following two centuries, and in this book, Hayek offers a strong critique of it.