"To my amazement, Caldwell in one passage suggests that Hayek identifies a priori reasoning with introspection, when Hayek of course stands innocent of this gross fallacy. Hayek states: "We can derive from the knowledge of our own mind in an 'a priori' or 'deductive' or analytic' fashion an (at least in principle) exhaustive classification of all the possible forms of intelligible reasoning." Concerning this, Caldwell says that when Hayek "refers to knowledge that is derived '"a priori,"' he seems to mean by the phrase something like "knowledge that is gained by introspection" (Both quotations from p. 222).Posted by Greg Ransom at April 9, 2004 09:30 PM | TrackBackNot at all! A priori reasoning concerns the logical relations among concepts. By thinking about the concept of choice, e.g., one sees that an actor will always choose his highest valued alternative. By contrast, introspection merely reports a particular person's thought. Relying on introspection, I report that I prefer vanilla ice cream to pistachio, but there is nothing a priori, deductive, or analytic about my assertion. Hayek surely did not mean anything like this. No wonder Caldwell views the a priori with misgiving: How can you gain knowledge about the world if you confine yourself to your private thoughts? Caldwell's view, I hope to have shown, is a confusion."
The common point between introspection and a priori is that both proceed to the conclusion without recourse to evidence. Where they differ is that evidence invalidates the a priori reason if it's wrong, whereas introspection cannot be disproven.
Statements like this one by Bruce in his Hayek book are one of the reasons why he must always be read very carefully before agreeing with his conclusions.
Posted by: Sam Bostaph at April 16, 2004 02:11 PM