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The Sensory Order: An Inquiry into the Foundations of Theoretical Psychology

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Although Hayek's influence on economics and political science has been profound, his work in psychology, of which this book is the sole product, is still relatively unknown. This is unfortunate, not only because Hayek is a great psychologist, in the same league as Helmholtz, Fechner, and Freud, but also because his more influential work is often based on the conceptual framework established in The Sensory Order. I can think of several reasons for the neglect of this book. First, it is not easy to read. Despite a lucid style, the ideas contained are so complex and expressed in so compressed a form that several readings are required to fully appreciate them. Second, the ideas are so revolutionary that we still fail to grasp their implications, though even Hayek himself, it should be said, failed to address them adequately. Hebb's Organization of Behavior, the first explicit proposal of Hebbian learning and cell assemblies, and Gallistel's Organization of Action, a compilation of classic works on motor coordination, contained similar ideas, but they are nowhere as original and profound as this book.

The archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford house the original manuscript in German that Hayek wrote when he was torn between pursuing psychology or economics. Decades later, that manuscript was published as The Sensory Order. Although this is the less known piece by Hayek among economists, it is considered by many pioneers in cognitive science (such as Gerald Edelman, see Neural Darwinism) as foundational in the development of this interdisciplinary study and the examinations into artificial intelligence. The principal thesis of Hayek's piece is that perception cannot be accounted for by means of physical laws, since the effect of sensory stimulus is the first aspect of the complex order of perception. Next, the mind maps the order of the external stimulus. This perceptual experience, however, is not identical to any other from a similar external stimulus since each has its own character in relation to the associations that the mind assigns to any particular sensory experience. Our perception of external objects are, Hayek writes, "never of all the properties which a particular can be said to possess objectively, not even only some of the properties which these objects in fact possess physically, but always on certain aspects, relations to other kinds of objects which we assign to all elements of the classes in which we place the perceived objects." This observation thus anticipates the monist framework presented by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception. This fascinating book is a must read for anyone interested in the mind.

The archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford house the original manuscript in German that Hayek wrote when he was torn between pursuing psychology or economics. Decades later, that manuscript was published as The Sensory Order. Although this is the less known piece by Hayek among economists, it is considered by many pioneers in cognitive science (such as Gerald Edelman, see Neural Darwinism) as foundational in the development of this interdisciplinary study and the examinations into artificial intelligence. The principal thesis of Hayek's piece is that perception cannot be accounted for by means of physical laws, since the effect of sensory stimulus is the first aspect of the complex order of perception. Next, the mind maps the order of the external stimulus. This perceptual experience, however, is not identical to any other from a similar external stimulus since each has its own character in relation to the associations that the mind assigns to any particular sensory experience. Our perception of external objects are, Hayek writes, "never of all the properties which a particular can be said to possess objectively, not even only some of the properties which these objects in fact possess physically, but always on certain aspects, relations to other kinds of objects which we assign to all elements of the classes in which we place the perceived objects." This observation thus anticipates the monist framework presented by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception. This fascinating book is a must read for anyone interested in the mind.

The Sensory Order is an impressive book. While I cannot comment on how it stands up to other works in psychology, the fact that Hayek was able to write a book of such sophistication outside of his own field of expertise shows the breadth of his thinking. Hayek aims at explaining the process by which minds classify perceptions not accounted for by physical laws. This theory is developed in seven chapters. Chapter eight lays out the philosophic implications of Hayek's theory. As an economist, this last chapter is the most important. It would be interesting to find out if psychologists find the other seven compelling.

The archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford house the original manuscript in German that Hayek wrote when he was torn between pursuing psychology or economics. Decades later, that manuscript was published as The Sensory Order. Although this is the less known piece by Hayek among economists, it is considered by many pioneers in cognitive science (such as Gerald Edelman, see Neural Darwinism) as foundational in the development of this interdisciplinary study and the examinations into artificial intelligence. The principal thesis of Hayek's piece is that perception cannot be accounted for by means of physical laws, since the effect of sensory stimulus is the first aspect of the complex order of perception. Next, the mind maps the order of the external stimulus. This perceptual experience, however, is not identical to any other from a similar external stimulus since each has its own character in relation to the associations that the mind assigns to any particular sensory experience. Our perception of external objects are, Hayek writes, "never of all the properties which a particular can be said to possess objectively, not even only some of the properties which these objects in fact possess physically, but always on certain aspects, relations to other kinds of objects which we assign to all elements of the classes in which we place the perceived objects." This observation thus anticipates the monist framework presented by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception. This fascinating book is a must read for anyone interested in the mind.

The archives at the Hoover Institution in Stanford house the original manuscript in German that Hayek wrote when he was torn between pursuing psychology or economics. Decades later, that manuscript was published as The Sensory Order. Although this is the less known piece by Hayek among economists, it is considered by many pioneers in cognitive science (such as Gerald Edelman, see Neural Darwinism) as foundational in the development of this interdisciplinary study and the examinations into artificial intelligence. The principal thesis of Hayek's piece is that perception cannot be accounted for by means of physical laws, since the effect of sensory stimulus is the first aspect of the complex order of perception. Next, the mind maps the order of the external stimulus. This perceptual experience, however, is not identical to any other from a similar external stimulus since each has its own character in relation to the associations that the mind assigns to any particular sensory experience. Our perception of external objects are, Hayek writes, "never of all the properties which a particular can be said to possess objectively, not even only some of the properties which these objects in fact possess physically, but always on certain aspects, relations to other kinds of objects which we assign to all elements of the classes in which we place the perceived objects." This observation thus anticipates the monist framework presented by Maurice Merleau-Ponty in his Phenomenology of Perception. This fascinating book is a must read for anyone interested in the mind.