F.A. Hayek

Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek shared the 1974 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with Gunnar Myrdal for their work on money and economic fluctuations, and the interdependence of economic, social and institutional phenomena. His account of how changing prices communicate information that helps individuals coordinate their plans is widely regarded as an important achievement in economics, leading to his prize.

Hayek served in World War I during his teenage years and said that this experience in the war and his desire to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war drew him into economics. At the University of Vienna, he studied economics, eventually receiving his doctoral degrees in law in 1921 and in political science in 1923. He subsequently lived and worked in Austria, Great Britain, the United States, and Germany; he became a British subject in 1938. Hayek's academic life was mostly spent at the London School of Economics, and later at the University of Chicago, and the University of Freiburg. He is widely considered a leader of the Austrian School of Economics, although he also had close connections with the Chicago School of Economics. Hayek was also a major social theorist and political philosopher of the 20th century and as the co-founder of Mont Pelerin Society he contributed to the revival of classical liberalism in the post-war era. His most popular work, ''The Road to Serfdom'', has sold over 2.25 million copies (as of 2020).

Hayek was appointed a Companion of Honour in 1984 for his academic contributions to economics. He was the first recipient of the Hanns Martin Schleyer Prize in 1984. He also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1991 from President George H. W. Bush. In 2011, his article "The Use of Knowledge in Society" was selected as one of the top 20 articles published in the ''American Economic Review'' during its first 100 years.

Life

Early life

Friedrich August von Hayek was born in Vienna to August von Hayek and Felicitas Hayek (''née'' von Juraschek). His father, born in 1871 also in Vienna, was a medical doctor employed by the municipal ministry of health. August was a part-time botany lecturer at the University of Vienna. Friedrich was the oldest of three brothers, Heinrich (1900–1969) and Erich (1904–1986), who were one-and-a-half and five years younger than he was.

His father's career as a university professor influenced Hayek's goals later in life. Both of his grandfathers, who lived long enough for Hayek to know them, were scholars. Franz von Juraschek was a leading economist in Austria-Hungary and a close friend of Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, one of the founders of the Austrian School of Economics. Hayek's paternal grandfather, Gustav Edler von Hayek, taught natural sciences at the Imperial ''Realobergymnasium'' (secondary school) in Vienna. He wrote works in the field of biological systematics, some of which are relatively well known.

On his mother's side, Hayek was second cousin to the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. His mother often played with Wittgenstein's sisters and had known him well. As a result of their family relationship, Hayek became one of the first to read Wittgenstein's ''Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus'' when the book was published in its original German edition in 1921. Although he met Wittgenstein on only a few occasions, Hayek said that Wittgenstein's philosophy and methods of analysis had a profound influence on his own life and thought. In his later years, Hayek recalled a discussion of philosophy with Wittgenstein when both were officers during World War I. After Wittgenstein's death, Hayek had intended to write a biography of Wittgenstein and worked on collecting family materials and later assisted biographers of Wittgenstein. He was related to Wittgenstein on the non-Jewish side of the Wittgenstein family. Since his youth, Hayek frequently socialized with Jewish intellectuals and he mentions that people often speculated whether he was also of Jewish ancestry. That made him curious, so he spent some time researching his ancestors and found out that he has no Jewish ancestors within five generations. The surname Hayek uses the German spelling of the Czech surname Hájek. Hayek traced his ancestry to an ancestor with the surname "Hagek" who came from Prague.

Hayek displayed an intellectual and academic bent from a very young age and read fluently and frequently before going to school. However, he did quite poorly at school, due to lack of interest and problems with teachers. He was at the bottom of his class in most subjects, and once received three failing grades, in Latin, Greek and mathematics. He was very interested in theater, even attempting to write some tragedies, and biology, regularly helping his father with his botanical work. At his father's suggestion, as a teenager he read the genetic and evolutionary works of Hugo de Vries and August Weismann and the philosophical works of Ludwig Feuerbach. He noted Goethe as the greatest early intellectual influence. In school, Hayek was much taken by one instructor's lectures on Aristotle's ethics. In his unpublished autobiographical notes, Hayek recalled a division between him and his younger brothers who were only a few years younger than him, but he believed that they were somehow of a different generation. He preferred to associate with adults.

In 1917, Hayek joined an artillery regiment in the Austro-Hungarian Army and fought on the Italian front. Hayek suffered damage to his hearing in his left ear during the war and was decorated for bravery. He also survived the 1918 flu pandemic.

Hayek then decided to pursue an academic career, determined to help avoid the mistakes that had led to the war. Hayek said of his experience: "The decisive influence was really World War I. It's bound to draw your attention to the problems of political organization". He vowed to work for a better world.

Education

At the University of Vienna, Hayek initially studied mostly philosophy, psychology and economics. The university allowed students to choose their subjects freely and there wasn't much obligatory written work, or tests except main exams at the end of the study. By the end of his studies Hayek became more interested in economics, mostly for financial and career reasons; he planned to combine law and economics to start a career in diplomatic service. He earned doctorates in law and political science in 1921 and 1923 respectively.

For a short time, when the University of Vienna closed he studied in Constantin von Monakow's Institute of Brain Anatomy, where Hayek spent much of his time staining brain cells.''Some Reflection on Hayek's The Sensory Order'', Caldwell, 2004 Hayek's time in Monakow's lab and his deep interest in the work of Ernst Mach inspired his first intellectual project, eventually published as ''The Sensory Order'' (1952). It located connective learning at the physical and neurological levels, rejecting the "sense data" associationism of the empiricists and logical positivists.
The Sensory Order (1952) on learning
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Hayek presented his work to the private seminar he had created with Herbert Furth

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