Philosophy Politics And Austrian Economics

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, as an interdisciplinary endeavour, has surged in popularity in recent years. Work in this field usually draws on standard microeconomics to grapple with questions from political philosophy. But what might Austrian economics, which provides an alternative approach, have to offer to this endeavour?

The Austrian School has made some of the most significant contributions to the social sciences in recent times but attempts to understand it have remained locked in a polemical frame. In contrast, The Philosphy of the Austrian School presents a philosophically grounded account of the School's methodological, political and economic ideas. Whilst acknowledging important differences between the key figures in the School - Menger, Mises, and Hayek - Raimondo Cubeddu finds that they also have significant things in common. Paramount amongst these are theories of subjective value and notions of spontaneous order, both of which rest on theories of seminal avenues of research in the social sciences and a major reformulation of liberal ideology.

Recent years have witnessed a remarkable revival in Hayek's reputation as an economist, a political philosopher, and an intellectual historian. This book shows why this revival has taken place by demonstrating the continuing relevance and vitality of Hayek's ideas. A group of internationally known scholars, of both the left and the right, critically assess his contribution to economics, political philosophy, legal theory, cognitive psychology and the history of ideas.

First published in 1986, this book presents a reissue of the first detailed confrontation between the Austrian school of economics and Austrian philosophy, especially the philosophy of the Brentano school. It contains a study of the roots of Austrian economics in the liberal political theory of the nineteenth-century Hapsburg empire, and a study of the relations between the general theory of value underlying Austrian economics and the new economic approach to human behaviour propounded by Gary Becker and others in Chicago. In addition, it considers the connections between Austrian methodology and contemporary debates in the philosophy of the social sciences.

From a Nobel Laureate economist, a collection of essays outlining ideas on political theory, economic freedom and epistemology. Following on F. A. Hayek’s previous work Studies in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (1967), New Studies in Philosophy, Politics, Economics and the History of Ideas collects some of Hayek’s most notable essays and lectures dealing with problems of philosophy, politics and economics, with many of the essays falling into more than one of these categories. Expanding upon the previous volume the present work also includes a fourth part collecting a series of Hayek’s writings under the heading “History of Ideas.” Of the articles contained in this volume the lectures on “The Errors of Constructivism”and “Competition as a Discovery Procedure” have been published before only in German, while the article on “Liberalism” was written in English to be published in an Italian translation in the Enciclopedia del Novicento by the Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana at Rome.

Here, leading economists explore whether Austrian economics is still relevant today. Starting with Peter Boettke’s lead essay, “What is Wrong with Austrian Economics?”, chapters include an array of perspectives responding to this question, ranging from economics, to intellectual history, to political science, and to philosophy.

The volume is a unique attempt to explore the relationship between two of the most interesting contemporary schools of thought evolving at the interface between social science and social philosophy: The Austrian tradition of F A Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, and the Bloomington tradition of Elinor Ostrom and Vincent Ostrom.