Human society, construction or voluntary training catallactic?
chains Rousseau's interest free Hayek
By
Nicolas Madelenat di Florio
From the Society of Literary History of France.
Research Associate
Centre for Research in Economic Ethics,
Université Paul Cézanne.
To Jean-Yves Naudet, because "intelligence is to understand the links where others would see nothing;
A C. because knowing the past is already prepare its future.
Paul Valery wondered, picking up a shell on the sand, if this "thing" was build or chance, or limestone sculpture, intention or mechanism? (Emile Brehier, History of Philosophy , preface by Jean-Francois Mattei, Quadriga, PUF.) And under questioning that seemed trivial happening, in the shadow of the diversity of opinion, a question: what guides the construction of social order?
I have selected here only two main approaches, and several reasons for this choice. The first, obvious, for Rousseau, is that the moment my work relate to these theses. The second, more difficult is that I might as well make the separation of two streams of ideological inspiration, with Rousseau, which finds its source based on the subject in the work of Descartes, I present the constructivist approach, with Hayek, a more anthropologically respectful of human nature.
For Rousseau, as a worthy successor to Descartes, is that what can be demonstrated. Thus mathematics, and almost alchemical formulas to explain how reason alone, conscious and demonstrable experience, enough to enclose the construction of the individual and society. This strange approach for which we would, as a person, only digital data governed by parameters pre-determined (just as my computer when I type the text that will be associated with the electrical pulse generated by the typing a character on the screen) is constructivism. Advocates this doctrine to say that the society of men will follow during its history, and more widely throughout its development, from the origins so (with the Social Contract Rousseau) a thread before the lead to its peak, the spring peoples version Enlightenment obscure to Rousseau. But I can not respond to these arguments. Indeed, they raise several errors and a major defect. By it, I believe we must begin. As I already explained in previous articles, ignores Rousseau voluntary early human groups, and passes the state of nature to society, through the drafting and signing of the famous, or smoky, Social Contract. He therefore based his entire thesis on the willingness of men to unite by law drafted and agreed. However, custom and usage, exist. They are an adaptation of the individual in his immediate environment and can be extracted from the intellectual habitus . We welcome all people we know when we happen to cross them. However, our law does not provide for punishment of stoning for who would not shake hands with his neighbor. So there is an initial lack of logic in the constructivist approach. Especially since, to stay on the example of the clenched hand, this practice is not widespread in all groups, nor among all peoples. It is therefore relative, has not always been practiced throughout French society, at all times. Constructivism should admit two things: first that the uses are not rational (why not shake hands and embrace, for example) and the second uses that are not universal (there are nations in Asia, for example, where physical contact is a sign of bad education). The constructivist equation is changed from a zero-sum to an illogical result, it is, just like the idea that individuals are grouped into society by the advent of a desire, spontaneous, and contractually anthropologically impossible. Added to this that the constructivist approach, excluding any decision, so freely, is unethical and can not be considered ethical. It also excludes any possibility of discovery, if everything is already written in some holy book hidden in the stars. However, philosophers should avoid, when they want to put forward ideas as coherent to be confused with fortune tellers.
For Hayek, the company pursues the principle of human development based on mechanisms catallactic. This term, key in the Work of the philosopher, beating heart of all his ideas, means that the individual is constantly interacting, and dynamic with other people as with the environment, the environment in which it operates. This formulation is then assigned to the approaches of the economy centered on free trade, which leads to a spontaneous order, the market or catallaxy. Hayek asks to see what is the origin of these rules that most people observe but few, if any, are able to formulate in words? (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Library classic freedom, belles lettres, in Errors of Constructivism . ) And quickly added that the expression common saying that man has "created" civilization may at first seem like a trivial commonplace. But once it starts to mean-as is often the case that the man was able because it is endowed with reason, its implications become questionable. The man had no reason before civilization. The two have evolved together. Just consider the language, which no one today would think it was "invented" by a rational being, to see that reason and civilization were developed during a mutual interaction constant .(...) We are too easily led to suppose that these phenomena, which are obviously the result of human action, must also have been designed by a human mind, in circumstances that created for the purposes they are used (...) (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Library Classic freedom, belles lettres, in Errors of Constructivism .) Hayek responds to this constructivist assumptions discussed further. Clarifying his thoughts, he will ask that success of an individual in achieving its immediate objectives depends not only on the conscious understanding of causal relations, but also to a large extent on its ability to act according rules that may be unable to express in words, but we can not containing rules that describe. All our skills, knowledge of language mastery of techniques or share games that we "know how" to accomplish without being able to say how we do it, are examples. (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Library classic freedom, belles lettres, in Errors of Constructivism . )
The leader of the Austrian school will then push to the limit of constructivist zealous by the rapid assimilation of their theories by an audience already inclined to recognize in any dumbing down in favor of a mass escape from responsibility. I have already explained, Rousseau likes to include the person in any information or be strangely becomes a cog swap. And Hayek added that the are rules we talking about are not as useful to those individuals who observe that those who (if they are generally observed) all make the group more effective because it gives them opportunities to act in an order office. (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Library classic freedom, belles lettres, in The errors of constructivism . ) Rousseau, of course, would never have accepted this approach the group as a mere adaptation catallactic for a better life for the whole community and formed. It is going against the social contract, and also throw down a few centuries of intellectual despotism. But Hayek confirmed and signed, arguing that this set includes those social rules of law, morality, custom, made all the values that govern a society. The term " values, "I continue to use in this context faute de mieux, is actually a bit misleading, because we tend to interpret it as referring to specific goals of individual action, whereas in areas that I am interested, they are primarily of rules that do not tell us positively what to do, but in most cases only what we should do. (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Classical Library of Liberty, the beautiful letters, in The errors of constructivism . )
In contrast to Rousseau, for Hayek, social order is a factual situation which must be distinguished from the lawfulness of individual conduct. It must be defined as a condition in which individuals are able, based on their respective special knowledge, develop expectations about the conduct of others, which are correct in making possible a successful mutual adjustment of their actions. If each person, when she sees another, was to kill or flee, it would certainly be a pattern of personal conduct, but it certainly does not lead to the formation of ordered groups. Some combinations of such rules can produce a very clear form of higher order, allowing them to expand at the expense of others. (Friedrich August von Hayek, New Essays in Philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Classical Library of Liberty, the beautiful letters, in The errors of constructivism . )
It thus operates a farm of cleavage with the author of Social Contract for whom the law is to separate from the custom, of propriety and manners in general. At the same Rousseau a handful of my colleagues ascribe an imaginary friend, which would have given man, besides the order to sit at the negotiating table to unite in society, a whole set of code conventions social.
The rules of community life, presented by Rousseau as a simple list inserted in the famous, and smoky, Social Contract , Hayek is quite clear. He asserts that these rules of conduct mainly negative (or prohibition) that make possible the formation of a social order are three different kinds, which I will detail now. These are: 1 of rules that are observed in practice but have never been formulated in words, if we talk about "sense of justice" or "sense of language" we refer to rules we can apply, but we do not know explicitly; 2 of rules which, although they have been formulated in words, merely express approximately what has long been generally observed in action; and 3 of rules that were deliberately introduced and which are therefore necessarily in the form of words arranged in sentences. (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays in philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Classical Library of Liberty, the beautiful letters, in The errors of constructivism . )
It is also interesting to note that Hayek also foresaw the advent of determinism and all its variations, explaining that c e type of "world knowledge" which is transmitted from generation to generation and will be largely non-point understanding of the causes and effects, but standards of conduct appropriate to the environment, which act as information on environment, although they say nothing about it. Like scientific theories, they are maintained because they are useful (...) (Friedrich August von Hayek, New essays on philosophy, science politics, economics and history of ideas , Classical Library of Liberty, the beautiful letters, in errors of Constructivism . ). And, years after the publication of his work, a man, a scholar, Rene Girard, would dare to wear high color of reason in presenting his theory of mimetic rivalry. Summarizes the new anthropology is as basic mechanism, the approach catallactic Hayek, coupled with a powerful and ubiquitous phenomenon in the construction of the individual, the mimicry. Hayek sees the advance in mimicking the basis of society, he adds that mimicry by a selection of utility rules, conventions and customs, the famous wisdom of time. The other two approaches, still practiced in our universities, are either Marxists (all based on the class struggle), or constructivist. Proof, if needed, that only the constant adaptation to our environment, our closest connection, coupled with an education just by understanding the past allows everyone to build solidly, beyond any abuse and, worse still, the natural tendency of men to destroy, to submit to slavery or their brother. And revolutionaries, anarchists, meditate on the fact that we must not succumb to the mistaken belief (or illusion) that we could replace it with an order type (social) different because it presupposes that any This knowledge can be concentrated in a central mind, or in a group of spirits of a usable size, (Friedrich August von Hayek, New tests philosophy, political science, economics and history of ideas , Classical Library of Liberty, the beautiful letters, in The errors of constructivism . ) that is a dictatorship.
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