
The Counter-Revolution of Science
Friedrich August Hayek (Liberty Press: 1979), 415 pages.Friedrich Hayek’s The Counter-Revolution of Science is a major critique of the attempt to apply the methodology of the natural sciences to social sciences, which he calls “scientism” or the abuse of reason. The Austrian-British economist and philosopher argues that this positivist approach is flawed because social institutions arise from the independent, voluntary actions of individuals whose knowledge is dispersed and inherently subjective, making their actions too complex to be quantified or predicted like physical phenomena.