| Some Remarks on Hayek's The Sensory Order | | | |
-
<< Back to editing
-
Previous version by
-
-
<< Older
-
Newer >>
-
Revert to this one
search results
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
/index.php?action=ajax&rs=GDMgetPage&rsargs[]=laissezfaire18_2.pdf&rsargs[]=0
__________________________________________________________________
Kurt
rt
R
.
Leube
Some
Remarks
on
Hayek
’
s
The
Sensory
Order
“
Of
the
Sensory
Order
I
can
truly
say
,
as
Hume
said
of
his
Treatise
,
that
it
‘
fell
deadborn
from
the
press
’
”
I
—
F
.
A
.
von
Hayek
Two
months
short
of
his
18th
birthday
‘
Fritz
’
von
Hayek
dropped
out
of
school
and
made
some
effort
to
pass
a
supplementary
exam
in
order
to
be
entitled
to
an
officer
’
s
training
in
the
Austro-Hungarian
army
.
Having
been
born
into
an
aristocratic
family
that
could
not
only
lay
claim
to
a
long
academic
tradition
but
also
to
a
long
and
dutiful
service
to
the
Empire
,
this
was
the
way
youngsters
of
his
social
class
were
raised
in
fin-de-siecle
Vienna
.
Thus
,
consciously
devoted
to
the
vision
and
splendor
of
the
Habsburg
Empire
he
joined
up
in
March
1917
and
after
some
seven
months
of
basic
military
drill
and
officer
’
s
school
outside
Vienna
,
he
was
anxious
to
be
sent
as
an
artillery
sergeantcadet
to
the
intensely
embattled
Italian
front
.
He
considered
it
an
honor
to
serve
and
“
never
doubted
that
there
are
things
in
life
worth
fighting
for
and
risking
one
’
s
own
life
.”
1
At
that
time
unconfirmed
reports
of
mass
desertions
and
mutinies
of
troops
mostly
from
the
eastern
provinces
of
the
Empire
already
surfaced
in
Vienna
.
Hayek
arrived
in
Gorizia
1
Conversations
and
interviews
with
Hayek
I
,
Salzburg
,
1971-77
.
Tapes
in
my
possession
at
the
Italian
front
and
much
to
his
dislike
missed
by
a
few
days
the
Battle
of
Caporetto
in
October
/
November
1917
that
left
many
dead
and
wounded
.
After
months
in
the
damp
and
dirty
trenches
along
the
Piave
River
in
the
hinterland
of
the
Adriatic
Sea
,
Hayek
’
s
artillery
regiment
took
part
in
the
last
offensive
of
the
Austro-Hungarian
army
in
the
Italian
battleground
in
June
1918
.
By
early
July
,
however
Major-General
Boroevic
gave
order
to
abort
this
last
desperate
assault
due
to
an
appalling
number
of
casualties
,
malnutrition
,
and
a
rapidly
declining
discipline
.
And
in
late
October
of
the
same
year
then
,
Austria
suffered
the
terminal
blow
delivered
by
the
Italians
after
they
crossed
the
Piave
River
.
The
front
lines
broke
down
and
the
Austrian
army
’
s
inner
order
and
command
structure
began
to
disintegrate
.
As
rumors
of
immediate
mutinies
were
abound
,
these
disillusioned
troops
speaking
some
11
different
languages
found
themselves
left
in
the
trenches
,
wounded
and
hungry
without
any
entrusted
command
or
legally
binding
oath
.
Hayek
was
among
those
tens
of
thousands
of
demoralized
soldiers
who
escaped
Italian
imprisonment
and
attempted
to
retreat
into
the
economic
and
political
Kurt
R
.
Leube
is
associated
with
the
Hoover
Institution
(
Stanford
University
,
California
),
and
the
F
.
A
.
von
Hayek
Institute
(
Vienna
).
(
my
translation
).
__________________________________________________________________
Laissez-Faire
12
/index.php?action=ajax&rs=GDMgetPage&rsargs[]=laissezfaire18_2.pdf&rsargs[]=1
__________________________________________________________________
uncertainty
of
their
shattered
homelands
.
Aggressive
nationalistic
and
political
fanaticism
erupted
among
the
soldiers
and
in
countless
occasions
they
turned
violently
against
each
other
.
And
yet
,
as
a
keen
observer
Hayek
witnessed
how
not
before
long
and
with
no
one
formally
in
charge
small
groups
began
to
spontaneously
evolve
among
these
confused
monarchists
,
radical
nationalists
,
or
revolutionary
Marxists
.
He
joined
these
spontaneously
developing
orders
and
structures
,
as
one
soldier
after
an
other
started
to
search
for
some
comrades
to
band
up
,
thus
facilitating
their
a
common
and
arduous
march
back
through
sometimes
hostile
territory
.
On
November
3
a
cease-fire
treaty
was
signed
in
Padua
.
The
once
mighty
Habsburg
Empire
in
which
these
troops
had
been
raised
and
whose
proud
and
traditional
institutions
they
had
vowed
to
defend
has
collapsed
before
their
eyes
and
a
dramatically
changed
world
order
was
about
to
emerge
and
began
to
break
all
bonds
.
Severely
weakened
by
malaria
,
Hayek
returned
into
a
starving
and
deeply
divided
Vienna
on
November
12
,
1918
,
the
very
day
the
self-styled
parliamentary
deputies
of
what
had
remained
of
the
Habsburg
Empire
unanimously
resolved
that
the
German
speaking
Austria
“
from
now
on
shall
be
part
of
a
German
Republic
.”
In
other
words
,
if
there
was
not
to
be
a
new
multi-national
federation
of
the
many
states
and
nations
occupying
the
area
along
the
river
Danube
,
then
the
German
speaking
population
of
Austria
would
naturally
become
a
part
of
a
new
German
state
.
2
Like
so
many
of
his
2
Karl
R
.
Stadler
,
The
Birth
of
the
Austrian
Republic
,
1918-1921
(
Leydijthoff
,
1966
),
friends
,
Hayek
had
grown
to
manhood
within
an
intellectual
milieu
formed
by
individuals
who
had
become
accustomed
to
playing
a
leading
role
in
a
large
cosmopolitan
multi-national
state
.
For
this
entire
group
the
most
important
fact
about
the
newly
founded
Republic
of
German-Austria
was
that
it
simply
did
not
offer
a
field
of
action
commensurate
to
their
aspirations
,
and
they
were
to
respond
accordingly
.
Politically
unprepared
,
democratically
unfit
,
and
totally
cut
off
from
the
fertile
farmlands
and
resources
of
its
former
eastern
provinces
,
the
once
mighty
Empire
of
about
50
million
people
was
reduced
to
the
size
of
a
small
,
land-locked
country
of
barely
seven
million
.
The
unexpected
situation
in
which
‘
German-Austria
’
found
itself
raised
a
set
of
unprecedented
social
problems
which
Hayek
and
his
countless
contemporaries
who
all
had
clearly
assumed
that
their
primary
tasks
were
attached
to
a
vast
empire
before
the
war
,
found
difficult
to
turn
their
attention
to
.
It
was
here
that
von
Hayek
,
Ludwig
von
Mises
and
large
numbers
of
fellow
intellectuals
became
convinced
advocates
of
the
“
Anschluss
”
to
Germany
.
3
They
advocated
the
annexation
not
so
much
for
emotional
reasons
,
rather
it
seemed
for
them
the
only
way
the
little
Austria
could
economically
survive
.
Their
society
had
disappeared
and
the
new
Austria
was
simply
unable
to
offer
the
type
of
opportunities
for
leadership
which
Hayek
and
his
social
class
had
come
to
expect
.
The
experiences
of
his
war
service
,
the
loss
of
his
best
friend
,
and
the
collapse
of
his
social
and
political
milieu
left
3
See
among
other
works
L
.
von
Mises
,
“
Der
Wiedereintritt
Deutsch-Österreichs
in
das
Deutsche
Reich
und
die
Währungsfrage
”,
in
Wirtschaftliche
Verhältnisse
in
Deutsch-
Österreich
:
Schriften
des
Verein
für
Sozial-
pp
.
64-65
,
68
.
politik
,
158
(
1919
),
pp
.
147-71
.
__________________________________________________________________
Laissez-Faire
13
/index.php?action=ajax&rs=GDMgetPage&rsargs[]=laissezfaire18_2.pdf&rsargs[]=2
__________________________________________________________________
a
lasting
impression
on
Hayek
.
And
yet
,
as
he
remarked
in
retrospect
,
“
it
was
like
being
shipwrecked
which
also
leaves
you
without
any
doubt
that
one
has
to
start
anew
,
rather
than
a
slow
decline
.”
4
His
fascination
with
the
natural
sciences
which
clearly
dominated
in
his
family
for
several
generations
,
thus
gave
way
to
the
problems
of
individual
behavior
and
economic
organization
.
5
II
Within
this
political
void
,
Hayek
,
like
many
of
his
fellow
veterans
,
looked
for
some
lead
and
intellectual
orientation
and
attempted
to
find
them
in
the
few
books
they
could
get
.
And
they
found
it
in
the
works
of
Ernst
Mach
(
1838-1916
),
Walter
Rathenau
(
1876-1922
),
the
Webbs
(
1858
/
59-1943
/
47
)
and
Eugen
von
Philippovich
(
1858-1917
),
among
others
.
As
a
passionate
reader
and
book
collector
he
was
at
once
especially
captivated
by
Rathenau
’
s
persuasive
books
Von
Kommenden
Dingen
(
1917
).
It
was
Rathenau
,
a
German
statesman
and
admirer
of
the
utopian
socialist
Saint
Simon
who
probably
more
than
others
drew
Hayek
’
s
attention
to
the
economic
problems
of
society
.
For
a
passing
time
these
ideas
lead
him
to
favor
some
sort
of
a
well-intentioned
“
Fabian
Socialism
”
with
a
moderate
economic
planning
attitude
.
In
order
to
promote
these
ends
he
even
founded
,
with
some
friends
,
the
Deutsch-Demokratische
Hochschüler
Vereinigung
,
a
somewhat
left-leaning
4
Conversations
and
interviews
with
Hayek
I
,
Salzburg
,
1971-77
(
see
Note
1
).
5
In
a
short
letter
to
a
Swedish
neurologist
(
Feb
.
17
,
1983
),
Hayek
claims
that
“
only
the
political
excitements
of
the
time
after
WWI
have
‘
abducted
’
him
into
the
social
sciences
(
my
translation
).”
Hoover
Archive
,
Hayek
left-leaning
student
association
at
the
university
.
As
his
interest
was
almost
equally
divided
among
philosophy
,
psychology
,
and
economics
,
the
circumstances
of
the
time
forced
him
to
chose
between
his
academic
attractions
and
the
dim
expectations
for
landing
a
job
.
Hayek
thus
decided
to
enroll
in
the
Faculty
of
Law
at
the
University
of
Vienna
.
Although
the
Habsburg
Empire
with
its
traditional
institutions
has
ceased
to
exist
,
the
typical
old
Austrian
“
juristic
ethos
”
entrenched
in
the
Central
European
tradition
was
still
present
,
and
economics
thus
was
merely
offered
as
one
major
field
within
the
entire
legal
curriculum
.
Therefore
,
in
order
to
read
economics
one
had
to
study
law
which
provided
a
degree
with
some
prospects
for
a
position
in
the
legal
professions
or
the
civil
service
.
Immediately
after
his
return
to
Vienna
,
Hayek
and
hundreds
of
his
fellow
war
veterans
therefore
flooded
the
University
of
Vienna
and
began
to
study
towards
their
law
degree
.
Despite
the
dismal
material
conditions
at
the
university
,
the
intellectual
climate
was
still
vibrant
and
carried
the
marks
of
such
towering
figures
who
either
had
died
before
or
during
the
war
,
like
Böhm-Bawerk
,
Phillipovich
,
the
philosopher
of
science
and
physicist
Ernst
Mach
,
the
physicist
Jodl
,
the
art
historian
Schlosser
,
the
legal
theorists
Bernatzik
or
Loeffler
,
among
countless
others
.
6
Due
to
his
rather
mixed
success
in
his
school
years
and
his
premature
termination
of
the
Gymnasium
(
he
joined
up
two
months
short
of
his
18th
birthday
),
Hayek
’
s
literary
and
philosophical
education
was
less
than
complete
,
and
most
of
his
friends
6
See
the
very
useful
book
by
J
.
Nautz
and
R
.
Vahrenkamp
,
eds
.,
Die
Wiener
Jahrhundertwende
:
Einflüsse-Umwelt-Wirkungen
,
2
nd
Collection
,
34-4
.
ed
.
(
Vienna
,
1996
).
__________________________________________________________________
Laissez-Faire
14
/index.php?action=ajax&rs=GDMgetPage&rsargs[]=laissezfaire18_2.pdf&rsargs[]=3
__________________________________________________________________
were
far
ahead
intellectually
.
It
was
mainly
for
these
reasons
that
as
soon
as
he
recognized
the
academic
vigor
prevalent
at
the
university
he
at
once
plunged
into
several
branches
of
study
and
after
a
short
period
of
time
surpassed
even
his
most
ambitious
friends
.
The
political
excitement
of
the
time
encouraged
Hayek
to
venture
out
far
beyond
his
own
narrow
subject
,
which
later
enabled
him
to
develop
his
legal
,
economic
and
philosophical
ideas
into
a
comprehensive
socioeconomic
system
.
With
several
positions
vacant
due
to
the
war
and
the
famous
Friedrich
von
Wieser
resuming
his
chair
for
economics
at
the
University
of
Vienna
only
in
1919
,
economics
at
the
time
of
Hayek
’
s
first
semesters
was
somewhat
underrepresented
.
Carl
Menger
had
left
the
university
prematurely
already
in
1903
.
There
were
more
or
less
only
Othmar
Spann
(
1878-1950
)
and
Carl
Grünberg
(
1861-
1940
)
teaching
,
and
thus
Hayek
’
s
first
contact
with
academic
economics
was
the
Marxist
Grünberg
who
introduced
him
among
other
things
to
the
“
Bodenreformer
,”
a
German
blend
of
the
Henry
George
School
and
the
Ricardian
theory
of
land
rent
.
Although
his
attraction
to
Ricardo
’
s
thought
was
a
passing
one
,
this
experience
taught
Hayek
much
and
was
his
decisive
step
into
economic
theory
even
before
he
was
formally
exposed
to
Wieser
.
A
brief
mention
should
also
be
made
here
that
,
since
Ludwig
von
Mises
was
never
promoted
to
full
professor
at
the
University
of
Vienna
and
thus
only
conducted
a
weekly
private
seminar
there
,
Hayek
at
no
time
was
a
student
of
Mises
in
a
formal
sense
.
In
fact
Hayek
checked
out
Mises
at
the
university
only
once
and
quickly
came
to
thoroughly
dislike
him
.
7
It
was
only
later
that
they
developed
their
lasting
and
scientifically
fruitful
relationship
.
During
these
first
months
at
the
university
,
Hayek
devoted
again
much
energy
and
time
to
the
systematic
study
of
Ernst
Mach
’
s
writings
on
scientific
method
.
Mach
,
who
had
died
in
1916
,
still
was
philosophically
by
far
the
most
influential
figure
in
Vienna
of
that
time
.
8
It
was
mainly
Mach
’
s
work
Die
Analyse
der
Empfindungen
(
1885
/
1902
/
1959
)
that
turned
out
to
be
the
main
stimulus
for
Hayek
’
s
increasing
interest
in
physiological
or
sensory
psychology
.
And
yet
,
the
lasting
influence
of
Hayek
’
s
father
,
the
physician
and
eminent
botanist
August
von
Hayek
(
1871-1928
),
should
not
be
underestimated
.
It
was
his
father
who
exposed
him
from
early
boyhood
on
to
accompany
him
on
his
extended
botanical
excursions
and
was
perceptive
enough
to
see
that
his
oldest
son
’
s
mind
was
already
more
theoretical
than
it
was
taxonomical
.
Nurtured
by
his
father
,
at
age
16
Hayek
’
s
interests
began
to
slowly
shift
from
systematic
botany
to
paleontology
and
further
to
the
theory
of
evolution
.
The
exposure
to
his
father
proved
very
educational
.
Without
a
life
teacher
Hayek
also
began
to
study
the
works
of
the
psychologist
von
Helmholtz
and
the
philosophers
Adolph
Stöhr
and
Alois
Riehl
.
The
reading
of
Ludwig
Feuerbach
’
s
(
1804-1872
)
7
Conversations
and
interviews
with
Hayek
I
,
Salzburg
,
1971-1977
.
8
See
especially
Hayek
’
s
“
Preface
”
to
The
Sensory
Order
(
1952
),
as
well
as
his
essay
on
“
Ernst
Mach
und
das
sozialwissenschaftliche
Denken
in
Wien
”,
in
Ernst
Mach
Institut
,
Symposium
aus
Anlass
des
50
.
Todestages
von
Ernst
Mach
(
Freiburg
/
Br
.,
1967
).
__________________________________________________________________
Laissez-Faire
15
|
|