[Biweekly Symposium] No.391:The Complicated and Systemic Scientific Thought in Hayek’s Economic Theo
Author:Unirule
Time：2010-04-15 14:13:20 Clicks:
Lecturer:Liu Yejin Discussants:Ma Yongxiang, Wang Jun, Ge Fei, Yang Fan, Mao Yushi
The conference was held in Unirule Institute of Economics on July 31st, 2009. The subject was the report lectured by Liu Yejin from Capital University of Economics and Business: The Complexity and System Science Thought in Hayek’s Economic Theory.
Liu deemed that a very important thinking of Hayek’s economic theory was the complicated and systemic scientific thought. In the context, Hayek believed that the fact in social science was not the same as that in physics and chemistry, and we could not understand it from its surface. The task to do a social science research was to construct instead of to reduce. From the systemic science angle, through the physical motive and neural effects of black box, it would become some kind of mental order, and then go to structuralism or holism. Finally, it would form complicated phenomenon and economic system.
Ma Yongxiang commented that Hayek was always trying to explain a lot of phenomenon, no matter political, economic, legal ones, or something in people’s daily life. He wanted to contend a theory against the “one and another correspond” reduction psychological theory by Mach. Hayek believed that human’s knowledge was not correspond with the physical world outside, because nerve pulse caused by physical motive was not one-way conduct in nerve system. Its functional significance was not decided by the physical characteristic, but its location and relationship in the nerve system.
Wang Jun argued that if order would have been set up in a complicated system, it must exist an information communication problem, it was a key point.
Ge Fei thought that the defense for the market in Hayek’s theory had not been completely elucidated in mainstream economics. His thought had a very widely influence. The builder of Wikipedia pointed out under Hayek’s term: why he built Wikipedia was because of the production and price theory by Hayek. It was to say that giving some simple rules and then letting the Internet user interact with each other. Thus, order was produced instead of content being written by his own.
