The Sensory Order and Other Writings on the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology

414 Pages·2017·2.181 MB·English

by  Hayek, Friedrich A;Vanberg, Viktor(Contributor)

THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
F. A. Hayek
VOLUME XIV
THE SENSORY ORDER
and other writings on the
foundations of theoretical psychology
PLAN OF THE COLLECTED WORKS
Edited by Bruce Caldwell
Volume I The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (1988)
Volume II The Road to Serfdom: Text and Documents— The Definitive
Edition (2007)
Volume III The Trend of Economic Thinking: Essays on Political
Economists and Economic History (1991)
Volume IV The Fortunes of Liberalism: Essays on Austrian Economics
and the Ideal of Freedom (1992)
Volume V Good Money, Part I: The New World (1999)
Volume VI Good Money, Part II: The Standard (1999)
Volume VII Business Cycles, Part I (2012)
Volume VIII Business Cycles, Part II (2012)
Volume IX Contra Keynes and Cambridge: Essays, Correspondence
(1995)
Volume X Socialism and War: Essays, Documents, Reviews (1997)
Volume XI Capital and Interest (2015)
Volume XII The Pure Theory of Capital (2007)
Volume XIII Studies on the Abuse and Decline of Reason: Text and
Documents (2010)
Volume XIV The Sensory Order and Other Writings on the Foundations of
Theoretical Psychology (2017)
Volume XV The Market and Other Orders (2014)
Volume XVI Hayek on Mill: The Mill-T aylor Friendship and Related
Writings (2015)
Volume XVII The Constitution of Liberty: The Definitive Edition (2011)
Volume XVIII Essays on Liberty and Economics
Volume XIX Law, Legislation and Liberty
Supplement Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue (1994)
The plan is provisional. Minor alterations may occur in titles of individual books,
and several additional volumes may be added.
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF
F. A. Hayek
VOLUME XIV
THE SENSORY ORDER
and other writings on the
foundations of theoretical psychology
EDITED BY
VIKTOR J. VANBERG
The University of Chicago Press
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2017 by The Estate of F. A. Hayek
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced
in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the
case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more
information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St.,
Chicago, IL 60637.
Published 2017
Printed in the United States of America
26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 1 2 3 4 5
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 43642- 5 (cloth)
ISBN- 13: 978- 0- 226- 43656- 2 (e- book)
DOI: 10.7208/chicago/9780226436562.001.0001
“The Sensory Order after 25 Years,” F. A. Hayek. © 1982 Lawrence
Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. Reproduced with permission of Taylor &
Francis Group.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich August), 1899–1992, author. |
Vanberg, Viktor, editor. | Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich August),
1899–1992. Sensory order. | Hayek, Friedrich A. von (Friedrich
August), 1899–1992. Works. English. Selections. | Hayek, Friedrich A.
von (Friedrich August), 1899–1992. Works. 1989 ; v. 14.
Title: The sensory order and other writings on the foundations of
theoretical psychology / F.A. Hayek ; edited by Viktor J. Vanberg.
Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2017. | Series:
Collected works of F.A. Hayek ; volume XIV | Includes works by F.A.
Hayek, translated from the German. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016033851 | ISBN 9780226436425 (cloth : alk.
paper) | ISBN 9780226436562 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Psychophysiology. | Psychology.
Classification: LCC BF181 .H385 2017 | DDC 150.1—dc23 LC record
available at https:// lccn .loc .gov /2016033851
♾ This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48- 1992
(Permanence of Paper).
THE COLLECTED WORKS OF F. A. HAYEK
Founding Editor: W. W. Bartley III
General Editor: Bruce Caldwell
Published with the support of
The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace
Stanford University
The Cato Institute
The Earhart Foundation
The Pierre F. and Enid Goodrich Foundation
The Heritage Foundation
The Morris Foundation, Little Rock

CONTENTS
Editorial Foreword ix
The “Knowledge Problem” as the Integrating Theme of F. A. Hayek’s
Oeuvre: An Introduction to The Sensory Order 1
THE SENSORY ORDER: AN INQUIRY INTO THE
FOUNDATIONS OF THEORETICAL PSYCHOLOGY 113
Preface 115
Table of Contents 123
Introduction, by Heinrich Klüver 127
I. The Nature of the Problem 135
II. An Outline of the Theory 168
III. The Nervous System as an Instrument of Classification 184
IV. Sensation and Behavior 204
V. The Structure of the Mental Order 224
VI. Consciousness and Conceptual Thought 250
VII. Confirmations and Verifications of the Theory 263
VIII. Philosophical Consequences 279
contents
OTHER WRITINGS ON THE FOUNDATIONS OF
THEORETICAL PSYCHOLOGY 319
Contributions to a Theory of How Consciousness Develops 321
What Is Mind? 348
Within Systems and About Systems: A Statement of Some Problems of
a Theory of Communication 361
The Sensory Order after 25 Years 382
Name Index 391
Subject Index 397
viii
EDITORIAL FOREWORD
This new edition of The Sensory Order is supplemented by four texts that are
directly related to what the subtitle describes as Hayek’s Inquiry into the Founda­
tions of Theoretical Psychology.
Firstly, “Contributions to a Theory of How Consciousness Develops” is
the English translation, published here for the first time, of a paper entitled
“Beiträge zur Theorie der Entwicklung des Bewußtseins,” which Hayek wrote
as a student in 1920 before he decided to pursue degrees in law and in eco-
nomics rather than in psychology. Even though, as Hayek notes in his preface
to The Sensory Order, “the basic idea then conceived has continued to occupy
me,” it was only in the second half of the 1940s that he took up again the sub-
ject addressed in his student days’ essay, to expand the arguments he had out-
lined there into a book-l ength manuscript. The title he originally chose for
this project, What Is Mind?, he changed for the 1952 publication to The Sen­
sory Order. Secondly, this volume includes the English translation, also pub-
lished here for the first time, of a lecture Hayek had delivered in 1949 at a
conference in the Tyrolean village Alpbach. Because this lecture, entitled “Das
Wesen des Geistigen,” consists of a brief summary of the core ideas Hayek
had developed in What Is Mind?, the latter title has also been chosen for the
English version published here instead of a literal translation of the original
German title. The third supplemental text, “Within Systems and About Sys-
tems: A Statement of Some Problems of a Theory of Communication,” is a
previously unpublished fragment of a paper Hayek had started to work on in
1952 in which he sought to further clarify issues addressed in The Sensory Order,
but which he left uncompleted. Finally, the fourth supplement included here,
“The Sensory Order after 25 Years,” is Hayek’s contribution, originally published
in 1982, to a conference on Cognition and the Symbolic Process, which was
held in 1977 at Pennsylvania State University. Professor Walter B. Weimer,
who organized at this conference a panel that had The Sensory Order as its spe-
cial subject, deserves credit for having contributed to the increase in interest
Hayek’s Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology enjoys since the 1980s,
after decades during which it was largely ignored.
In order to maintain the character of the contributions collected here as