Patterns & Archetypes

In “The Constitution of Liberty” Hayek enrolled his own philosophy in the anti-rationalism. Afterwards, in “Law, Legislation, and Liberty”, he tried to amend some misunderstandings by introducing his thought as “critical rationalism”. In any case, he rejected Cartesian dualism and any attempt to found justice values exclusively on reason. He argued that reason is built on a combination of patterns of conduct and perception that the individual acquires from his environment. Since those patterns are also the source of the sense of justice, reason cannot have a complete command of it –but what does not mean that it cannot at all. It is in this sense that Hayek regards himself as a “critical rationalist”. Since the different patterns of conduct and perception are incorporated into the “sensory order” each one as a whole, we might bring the Jungian term of “archetype” to the Hayekian thought.