Philosophy & Social Criticism, Volume 48, Issue 3, Page 386-415, March 2022. In light of a growing body of scholarship that has cast doubt on the analytic import of spontaneous order, the purpose of my article is to rethink the intellectual relationship between Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek by suggesting that reading spontaneous order into Burke’s thought introduces greater tensions between the two thinkers than prior scholars have suggested. One crucial tension, I suggest, is that Hayek (...) believed that contractual arrangements, competitive markets and the rule of law could sustain the growth of social order, while Burke maintained that particular social institutions and practices should remain protected from the full power of voluntary contracts and exchange relations. I conclude by suggesting that the tensions between Hayek and Burke could serve as complementary instruments, rather than as foes, in strengthening the liberal project in modernity. (shrink)

In light of a growing body of scholarship that has cast doubt on the analytic import of spontaneous order, the purpose of my article is to rethink the intellectual relationship between Edmund Burke and Friedrich Hayek by suggesting that reading spontaneous order into Burke’s thought introduces greater tensions between the two thinkers than prior scholars have suggested. One crucial tension, I suggest, is that Hayek believed that contractual arrangements, competitive markets and the rule of law could (...) sustain the growth of social order, while Burke maintained that particular social institutions and practices should remain protected from the full power of voluntary contracts and exchange relations. I conclude by suggesting that the tensions between Hayek and Burke could serve as complementary instruments, rather than as foes, in strengthening the liberal project in modernity. (shrink)

This paper compares Hayek and Polanyi on spontaneous social order. Although Hayek is widely believed to have first both coined the name and explicated the idea of ?spontaneous order?, it is in fact Michael Polanyi who did so. Numerous differences emerge between the two thinkers. The characterisation of spontaneous order in Hayek, for example, involves different types of freedom to those advanced by Polanyi. Whereas Hayek (usually) portrays spontaneous order as a single (...) entity, which is equivalent to free society as a whole ? the free?catallactic society ? Polanyi by contrast is disposed to conceive of spontaneous orders as sub?units or components within free society as a whole. These and other aspects of their thought ? including the distinction between spontaneous and planned social orders ? are reviewed and criticised. (shrink)

The concept of spontaneous order is an important framework in many fields of research in the natural and social sciences today, and it bears heavily on methodological problems related to economics in particular. In fact, all domains of scientific and philosophical research where it can be maintained intelligibly that an undesigned but nevertheless effective order has emerged solely through the interaction of the constituent parts of a given system and also through the interaction of this system as (...) a whole with its environment fall under what is now often preferably called the "paradigm of auto-organization". This paradigm can be traced back to Leibniz (Dobuzinkis 1989, p. 245) or even to the Spanish Jesuits of the Salamanca School of the XVIth century (Lepage 1983, p. 347), and a lot of scientific work has now been done from within its conceptual framework, for instance Varela & Maturana's theory of "autopoiesis", Heinz von Foerster's second generation cybernetic models, Ilya Prigogine's thermodynamics of open systems and dissipative structures, and chaos theory. In economics, the concept of social spontaneous order is intimately linked with Friedrich Hayek's work, and Hayek has himself insisted on the effective kinship of such approaches (Hayek 1979, p. 158). One can say that there is today in economics a full-fledged Theory of Spontaneous Order (TSO) which articulates four distinct arguments. (shrink)

Two conservative theorists, F. A. Hayek and Michael Oakeshott, have advanced theories of law with important and plausible central theses focusing on the rule of law. The author argues, however, that in each case the theorist ‐ or at least some of his followers on the contemporary British and American political scene ‐ have wrongly inferred strong conclusions from these theories which are inimical to the welfare state. In conclusion, the author points to possible ways of reconciling rule of law (...) to social justice. (shrink)

How and to what extent can community be imaged as a spontaneous order? Is the spontaneous social order dichotomous or oppositional to state power? Despite vigorous scholarship and policy debate, the theorization of the community has not attended adequately to the ways in which interactional order emerges in various sociopolitical contexts. Reflecting the experience of community building in post-reform urban China, I present an organic statist vision of community, in which community is found to be (...) the concomitant outgrowth of both state intervention and the spontaneous process of place-based identity mobilization. An expanded conception of community as embedded spontaneous order as well as its implication is also discussed. (shrink)

The notion of a spontaneous order has a long history in the philosophy of economics, where it has been used to advance a view of markets as complex networks of information that no single mind can apprehend. Traditionally, the impossibility of grasping all of the information present in the spontaneous order of the market has been invoked as grounds for not subjecting markets to central planning. A less noted feature of the spontaneous order concept (...) is that when it is applied to ecosystems it yields a reasonably strong environmental ethic. Thinking of ecosystems as spontaneous orders generates a presumption against interfering with their natural functioning in a manner that results in anthropogenic species loss. Such a presumption will permit some interventions in nature while precluding others. Environmental ethics could potentially make valuable use of the spontaneous order idea, without necessarily endorsing its traditional application to markets. (shrink)

Polanyi’s theory of spontaneous order is set in historical context, analyzed, and compared to Friedrich Hayek’s version.

Although Schütz’s relationship with the Austrian school of economics was an intimate one, Lavoie and other Austrian scholars have challenged (a) Schütz’s characterization of praxeology as an objective science of subjective phenomena and (b) the ability of Schütz’s phenomenology, which emphasizes the subjective meanings of actors, to really make sense of spontaneous social orders. It is my contention, however, that Schütz can be adequately defended against both these charges. First, for Schütz, the claim that social science is an objective (...) science of subjective phenomena need not imply apodictic apriorism nor solipsism. Second, in spite of his emphasis on subjective meanings, the study of spontaneous social orders need not be difficult to justify. (shrink)

Although Schütz’s relationship with the Austrian school of economics was an intimate one, Lavoie and other Austrian scholars have challenged (a) Schütz’s characterization of praxeology as an objective science of subjective phenomena and (b) the ability of Schütz’s phenomenology, which emphasizes the subjective meanings of actors, to really make sense of spontaneous social orders. It is my contention, however, that Schütz can be adequately defended against both these charges. First, for Schütz, the claim that social science is an objective (...) science of subjective phenomena need not imply apodictic apriorism nor solipsism. Second, in spite of his emphasis on subjective meanings, the study of spontaneous social orders need not be difficult to justify. (shrink)

In Monetary Evolution, Free Banking, and Economic Order, Stephen Horwitz has provided an excellent review of the profound problems in the neoclassical theory of money and an important statement of the alternative Austrian?school approach. However, Horwitz's ?free banking? perspective rests on a false dichotomy between intervention and spontaneous order. In using the extreme case of an entirely undesigned evolutionary process to counter the equally extreme proposition that social order can be wholly designed, Horwitz loses sight of (...) the messy world of intermediate realities and possibilities. Even if money has strong spontaneous qualities, the state may play a vital role in the evolution of the financial system. (shrink)

The article states that in the "Esprit des Lois" Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu famously proposes a version of the doctrine of the separation of judicial, executive and legislative power as a way of protecting political liberty ("the opinion each has of his security"). Given the context in which he situates his arguments: an immense and theoretically opaque excursus which discusses almost everything known to political theory, anthropology and economics before his time, and essentially descriptive methodology, it is not easy (...) to discern a clear line of argument in support of the doctrine of the separation of powers. (shrink)

This article focuses on a religious structure that is intrinsic to the contemporary mechanisms that have enabled the global domination of economic power: faith in the market. Following Foucault’s transition from biopolitics to governmentality, this article articulates the mechanism that generates the ability for human beings to give shape and value to their lives. Through a reading of Schmitt and Hayek, as well as an updated reading of Weber’s thesis on the origin of capitalism, this article argues that we must (...) turn our attention to the Christian motifs that shape our contemporary understanding of the ‘economy’. (shrink)

Friedrich Hayek’s account of “spontaneous order” has generated increasing interest in recent decades. His argument for the superiority of the market in distributing knowledge without the need for central oversight has appealed to progressive democratic theorists, who are wary of the hubris of state planning and attracted to possibilities for self-organization, and to Foucaultians, who have long counseled political theory to cut off the King’s head. A spontaneous social order, organized by an invisible hand, would appear (...) to dispense with arbitrary power and foster creativity and individual liberty. This article challenges this view by highlighting the centrality of submission to Hayek’s account of spontaneous order. It shows that Hayek struggles to obscure the providentialism underpinning the account of social order he derives from Adam Ferguson and the Scottish Enlightenment. Nonetheless, his own account of spontaneous order relies on faith in the workings of the market, and submission to unintelligible market forces. (shrink)

When Adam Smith published his celebrated writings on economics and moral philosophy he famously referred to the operation of an invisible hand. Adam Smith's Political Philosophy makes visible the invisible hand by examining its significance in Smith's political philosophy and relating it to similar concepts used by other philosophers, revealing a distinctive approach to social theory that stresses the significance of the unintended consequences of human action. This book introduces greater conceptual clarity to the discussion of the invisible hand and (...) the related concept of unintended order in the work of Smith and in political theory more generally. By examining the application of spontaneous order ideas in the work of Smith, Hume, Hayek and Popper, Adam Smith's Political Philosophy traces similarities in approach and from these builds a conceptual, composite model of an invisible hand argument. While setting out a clear model of the idea of spontaneous order the book also builds the case for using the idea of spontaneous order as an explanatory social theory, with chapters on its application in the fields of science, moral philosophy, law and government. (shrink)

Abstract The market is sometimes thought to be a largely neutral means for coordinating cooperation among strangers under complex conditions because it is, as Hayek noted, a ?spontaneous order.? But in fact the market actively shapes the kinds of values it rewards, as do other spontaneous orders. Recognizing these biases allows us to see how such orders impinge on one another and on other communities basic to human life, sometimes negatively. In this way we may come to (...) acknowledge the inevitability of placing limits on spontaneous orders. (shrink)

Michael Polanyi is best known for his work in epistemology and the philosophy of science. Less frequently discussed, but still a significant aspect of his work, is his political theory. He is an advocate of a free society which is based on “spontaneous order.” This concept is apparent in an early collection of essays entitled The Logic of Liberty, and is emphasized again in his last book, Meaning. In the latter work, Polanyi's method of argumentation involves citing three (...) objections to the endorsement of spontaneous order, and then offering a rebuttal to each. His discussion in this regard, while brief, provides an excellent opportunity for insight into a pivotal topic in his politics. In what follows here I will offer first a brief summary of Polanyi's position on spontaneous order and certain related concepts. Then I will examine his responses to the three objections he poses, and point out their deficiencies. Involved are a commonplace logical fallacy, the tendency to underestimate the power of economic interests and egoistic motivations, and, ultimately, an overstated and untenable epistemological position which does not adequately support, but instead undermines, his political position. (shrink)

This paper examines the implications for sustainability policy of environmental uncertainty and indeterminacy, and relates the associated problems with a conventional understanding of sustainable development to Hayek's critique of collective planning. It suggests that the appropriate recourse is not, however, a Hayekian endorsement of the free market, but an extension of his key idea of spontaneous order to characterise the learning society. The argument is illustrated by a practical application: the analysis of natural capital explored in this Special (...) Issue is shown to be directly relevant to the improvement of the UK's headline sustainability indicators package. (shrink)

By exploring the writings of Mandeville, Hume and Smith, this book offers a critique of Hayek's theory of cultural evolution and explores the roots of his powerful defence of liberalism.

Hayek Revisited consists of papers presented at four conferences held by the Ludwig von Mises Institute between 1993 and 1996 ‘in honour of Hayek’s] ideas’ xi), and, according to the front flap, the purpose of the volume is ‘to celebrate’, ‘to celebrate … and pay testament to’ Hayek’s contribution. The very first phrase of the Introduction speaks of “The awesome scope of..

La perspectiva historiográfica ofrecida por la teoría de las consecuencias involuntarias puede ser reconceptualizada en una concepción del mercado que explique su funcionamiento como una continua interrelación entre individuos que desconocen las consecuencias colectivas de los cursos de acción que emprenden.Asimismo, podrían distinguirse dos versiones de dicha teoria; de un lado, Ia versión débil, que se correspondería con el concepto de mercado de Hayek, y, deI otro, Ia versión fuerte. EI objetivo de este artículo es proponer el concepto al que (...) hemos denominado el principio de ignorancia, que seria una concepción acerca deI desenvolvimiento deI mercado acorde con los rasgos propios de Ia versión fuerte de Ia teoría de las consecuencias involuntarias.The historiographical perspective of the theory of unintended consequences can be reconceptualized into a conception of the market which explains its operation as a continuous interaction among individuals that do not know the collective consequences of their behaviours.Also, two versions of this theory might be distinguished, the weak version, which corresponds to Hayek’s concept of market, and the strong version. The aim of this paper is to propose the concept that we have termed as ignorance principIe, which is a conception of the operation of the market that fits to the characteristics of the strong version of the theory of unintended consequences. (shrink)

“Every step and every movement of the multitude, even in what are termed enlightened ages, are made with equal blindness to the future; and nations stumble upon establishments, which are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design.”—_Adam Ferguson_ During the Scottish Enlightenment, David Hume, Adam Smith, Adam Ferguson, and other lesser thinkers described a theory of spontaneously generated social order. Ronald Hamowy discusses their contributions to this significant area of social theory, noting (...) that the revolutionary aspect of these philosophers’ thoughts was “the proposition that social phenomena of a high degree of intricacy are not the product of intentional design.” Hamowy shows that Hume is best known for his application of the theory to justice, developing it most thoroughly in the _Treatise of Human Nature. _Adam Smith’s first treatment of it is in the _Theory of Moral Sentiment, _published before the significant _Wealth of Nations. _There Smith uses it to explain the development of general rules that compose the moral fabric of societies. All of these thinkers used their notion of spontaneously generated social order to explain systems of moral rules and social systems. In addition Adam Ferguson and David Hume applied the theory to language, as well as to economic development. (shrink)

I examine the history of the concept of spontaneity in philosophy and the social sciences, particularly as it relates to monetary phenomena. I then offer an argument for the general significance of spontaneity. The essay concludes that scholars across the humanities and social sciences, whatever their (disciplinary, political, ideological, etc.) persuasion, would be well-served to further develop the theory of spontaneity and its social effects.

Discoverers of “market failures” as well as advocates of the general efficiency of a “true, unhampered market” sometimes seem to disregard the fundamental fact that there is no such thing as a “market as such.” What we call a market is always a system of social interaction characterized by a specific institutional framework, that is, by a set of rules defining certain restrictions on the behavior of the market participants, whether these rules are informal, enforced by private sanctions, or formal, (...) enforced by a particular agency, the “protective state,” in J. M. Buchanan's terminology. (shrink)

Beginning with Anderson, spontaneous symmetry breaking in infinite quantum systems is often put forward as an example of emergence in physics, since in theory no finite system should display it. Even the correspondence between theory and reality is at stake here, since numerous real materials show ssb in their ground states, although they are finite. Thus against what is sometimes called ‘Earman's Principle’, a genuine physical effect seems theoretically recovered only in some idealisation, disappearing as soon as the idealisation (...) is removed.We review the well-known arguments that no finite system can exhibit ssb, using the formalism of algebraic quantum theory in order to control the thermodynamic limit and unify the description of finite- and infinite-volume systems. Using the striking mathematical analogy between the thermodynamic limit and the classical limit, we show that a similar situation obtains in quantum mechanics versus classical mechanics.This discrepancy between formalism and reality is quite similar to the measurement problem, and hence we address it in the same way, adapting an argument of the Landsman and Reuvers that was originally intended to explain the collapse of the wave-function within conventional quantum mechanics. Namely, exponential sensitivity to perturbations of the dynamics as the system size increases causes symmetry breaking already in finite but very large quantum systems. This provides continuity between finite- and infinite-volume descriptions of quantum systems featuring ssb and hence restores Earman's Principle. (shrink)

When spontaneous expressions such as smiling or crying have been at issue in Anglophone philosophy of action, the touchstone has been Donald Davidson’s belief-desire account of action. In this essay, I take a different approach. I use Elizabeth Anscombe’s formal conception of intentional action to capture the distinction and unity between intentional action and spontaneous expression. Anscombe’s strategy is to restrict her inquiry to the class of acts to which a certain sense of the question ‘Why?’ has application. (...) Applying Anscombe’s strategy to an area she did not consider other than by contrast, I argue that spontaneous expressions are subject to a different but intimately related why-question. Both questions elicit non-observational knowledge. But where the question posed to intentional actions opens up a means-end order (an order of practical reasoning) this is not true of the corresponding question for spontaneous expressions. Our explanations of our own spontaneous expressions have conceptual and normative dimensions, but they do not display an inferential order. Anscombe, taking a formulation from Aquinas, describes practical knowledge as the cause of what it understands. I conclude by arguing that this formulation also holds true of our understanding of our own smiles and episodes of crying. (shrink)

This paper analyses the emergence and persistence of disorder due to bellicose (i.e. ‘conflict-kindling’) institutions. It does so relying on a novel empirical approach, examining the predatory and productive interactions of 400,000 users of a virtual world as well as its institutions. The paper finds that while there are many cases of spontaneous order in that virtual world, and while the users are not more conflict-loving as such, bellicose institutions sanctioning suicidal attacks in a supposedly safe region spontaneously (...) emerged and rigidly persist, thus upholding disorder (i.e. a particularly violent kind of ordered anarchy). (shrink)

C. I. Lewis’s conception of the given element in perceptual experience was one of the targets of Sellars’ famous charge that many such conceptions fall victim to the Myth of the Given. Yet exactly what makes a conception of the given mythical has remained unclear. Here I aim to clarify this issue by discussing Eric Watkins’ recent claim that a conception exactly like the one Lewis articulated in Mind and the World Order in fact avoids the Myth. Watkins motivates (...) this claim in part by raising objections for John McDowell’s account of the Myth and argues that a better account can be extracted from Kant. I defend McDowell’s position (and reject Watkins’ Kantian account) by arguing that these objections are based on a failure to appreciate an implication of the claim (which Watkins accepts) that rational thought operates in “the logical space of reasons.” Specifically, I focus on the implication that a thinker must be in a position to understand the rational significance of her perceptual experience. Along the way I explain in what ways Watkins’ conception of the given in experience mirrors the view of Lewis. (shrink)

For Kant, both morality and the possibility of objective knowledge presuppose freedom. His theory of freedom is based on the distinction between phenomena and noumena, concepts which represent two different ways of viewing things. The question, however, is whether it is justified to take the noumenal perspective in addition to the phenomenal one. Isn’t freedom an illusion, if we regard ourselves as free, while in fact we are not? The crux of the problem lies in recognizing that there is no (...) objective fact as far as freedom is concerned, for objective fact is a category that belongs to the phenomenal world. Nevertheless, it is argued that freedom must be presupposed in order to account for the objectivity of the phenomenal world as a whole. (shrink)

The hypothetical approach to the supersensible developed by Kant in his three Critiques, exemplified by his analysis of the aesthetic and reflective judgment in his third Critique, with their principle fortuitous purposiveness, can be considered as the basis for a new foundation of metaphysics. According to Kant’s limitation of cognition to the realm of sense intuition, theoretical knowledge of God, the subject, things-in-themselves, transcendental ideas is impossible. This leads to a kind of “negative theology” of the highest principle and the (...) supersensible as a whole. The reasons are rooted in the character of propositional thought, which can only circumscribe a singular, supersensible reality by means of predicative sentences and discursive thought. Taking Kant’s lead, but in contrast to his terminology, I call really existent singularities, including the thinking, knowing, desiring, feeling unique individuals we know as human beings, spontaneities, in order to distinguish them from descriptive characteristics attributed to them by predicative thought. Kant’s “practico-dogmatic” account of the postulates of God and immortality of the soul, based on the “fact of freedom” and its connection to the moral imperative, ensure the possibility of the “highest good” as final aim of moral behaviour — but cannot satisfy our need for knowledge of the supersensible. To “lay the groundwork” for experience of our own self-conscious reality, the reality of others like ourselves, of things which transcend the boundaries of sense intuition, and of true reciprocity, a different method is needed, one which leads us “beyond being and thought” to the unconditional beginning of conditional reality. (shrink)

Kant’s concept of autonomy promises to solve the problem of the actuality of freedom. The latter has actuality as a practical capacity insofar as the will is objectively determined through the form of law. In later writings, however, Kant situates the actuality of freedom in the “absolute spontaneity” of choice, and connects the reality of autonomy itself to the condition of a “radical” act of free choice. The reason for this resides in the fact that his first solution is marked (...) by a certain defect: it does not contain a sufficient concept of the actuality of a practical capacity. This essay elaborates a revised account of Kant’s concept of freedom in light of this insight. The argument is that we need to distinguish force and faculty in order to understand the actuality of a capacity. Only on this basis can we introduce the idea of imagination as a pre-reflexive force of practical reason and the idea of reflective judgment as a power of practical judgment in order to realize how free choice is capable of generating a maxim that has the form of a law spontaneously and of its own accord. In this way, we see that the actuality of freedom necessarily includes the spontaneity of choice, and that human freedom manifests a certain paradoxicality: the university of the will is bound to a subjective ground of determination, to a pre-reflexive act of "radical" choice. (shrink)