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Subject Area: Political Theory

Popperian ‘Conjectures & Refutations’ - Leonard P. Liggio, Literature of Liberty, Winter 1982, vol. 5, No. 4 [1982]

Edition used:

Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought was published first by the Cato Institute (1978-1979) and later by the Institute for Humane Studies (1980-1982) under the editorial direction of Leonard P. Liggio.

Part of: Literature of Liberty: A Review of Contemporary Liberal Thought, 20 vols. 19781-982

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


Popperian ‘Conjectures & Refutations’

Hayek's real debts to Popper are, I think, different from those attributed to him by Hutchinson and Barry. It is not that Hayek under Popper's influence abandoned an apodictic-deductive method that was endorsed (in different versions, Kantian and Aristotelian) by Mises and Menger, but rather that he came to adopt Popper's proposal that falsifiability be treated as a demarcation criterion of science from non-science.58 Again, Hayek follows Popper in abandoning his earlier Austrian conviction that there is a radical dualism of method as between natural and social science: this conviction, he tells us, depended on an erroneous conception of method in the natural sciences: as a result of what Popper has taught him, Hayek says, “the differences between the two groups of disciplines has thereby been greatly narrowed.”59 Hayek's debts to Popper are, then, in his seeing that it is the falsifiability of an hypothesis rather than its verifiability which makes it testable and empirical, and, secondly, in his acknowledging the unity of method in all the sciences, natural and social, where this method is seen clearly to be hypothetico-deductive.

Even in these Popperian influences, it is to be noted, there are differences of emphasis from Popper himself. Hayek anticipates Lakatos in perceiving that the theoretical sciences may contain a “hard core” of hypotheses, well-confirmed and valuable in promoting understanding of the phenomena under investigation, which are highly resistant to testing and refutation.60 And Hayek explicitly states that in some fields Popper's ideas of maximum empirical content and falsifiability may be inappropriate:

It is undoubtedly a drawback to have to work with theories which can be refuted only by statements of a high degree of complexity, because anything below that degree of complexity is on that ground alone permitted by our theory. Yet it is still possible that in some fields the more generic theories are the more useful ones...Where only the most general patterns can be observed in a considerable number of instances, the endeavour to become more 'scientific’ by further narrowing down our formulae may well be a waste of effort...61

In general, then, it seems fair to hold that Hayek acknowledges that the proper method in social and economic studies, as elsewhere, is the hypothetico-deductive method of conjectures and refutations set out by Popper. On the other hand, he continues to recognize that in respect of complex phenomena such as are found in the social studies, testability may be a somewhat high level and protracted process, and the ideal of high empirical content captured in a nomothetic framework—a demanding and sometimes unattainable ideal.

Some Applications of Hayek's Methodological Views:
Keynes, Friedman, and Shackle on Economic Policy

Hayek's view that we can at best attain abstract models of social processes, whereas the concrete details of social life will always largely elude theoretical formulation, has large and radical implications in the field of public policy. In brief, it entails that the object of public policy should be confined to the design or reform of institutions within which unknown individuals make and execute their own, largely unpredictable plans of life. In a free society, in fact, whereas there may be a legal policy in respect of economic institutions, there cannot be such a thing as economic policy as it is presently understood, for adherence to the rule of law precludes anything resembling macroeconomic management. Here I do not wish to take up this point, which I will consider later, but rather to spell out the connection between Hayek's methodological views and his belief that most, if not all economic policy as practiced in the postwar world has had a self-defeating effect.

[58.] Hayek, µB-17Õ, New Studies, pp. 51-52.

[59.] Hayek, µB-13Õ, Studies, p. viii.

[60.] Hayek, µB-13Õ, Studies, p. 6: “while this possibility µof falsificationÕ always exists, its liklihood in the case of a well-confirmed hypothesis is so small that we often disregard it in practice.”

[61.] Hayek, µB-13Õ, Studies, p. 16.