An error in Frank Knight’s philosophy of science caused an error in his science, and thus he was unable to see the evolutionary potential of Ludwig von Mises’s economic science. In doing so, Knight unwittingly promoted a view of economic science that undermines the scientific import of his own book Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit and the philosophical wisdom of Mises’s Freedom and Reform. Untangling this Knightian knot will be part of our rational reconstruction of the possible future scientific and practical path cleared for us by Mises’s Human Action.
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Peter J. Boettke is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and Professor of Economics and Philosophy at George Mason University.
Other Independent Review articles by Peter J. Boettke | ||
Fall 2023 | Don Lavoie: The Failures of Socialist Central Planning | |
Winter 2022/23 | Mont Pèlerin 1947: Transcripts of the Founding Meeting of the Mont Pèlerin Society | |
Summer 2022 | Academic Entrepreneurship in Sometimes Hostile Environments: James Buchanan and the Virginia School of Political Economy | |
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