ABSTRACT
As I demonstrated in Chapter One, Hayek's idea of spontaneous formations is above all a statement about the limits of human reason. The theory of spontaneous orders explains the emergence of social phenomena which are ‘the results of human action but not of human design’. This theory, Hayek maintains, constitutes probably the most lasting contribution of Bernard Mandeville, David Hume and Adam Smith. In reaction to Cartesian constructivism, these thinkers ‘built up a social theory which made the undesigned results of individual action its central object, and in particular provided a comprehensive theory of the spontaneous order of the market’. 1 Underlying this theory is not only a desire for a more parsimonious explanation of social order, but also the view that ‘our intellect is not capable of grasping reality in all its complexity’. 2 Men cope with the inescapable fact of their constitutional ignorance by following abstract rules of conduct: ‘the reliance on abstract rules is a device we have learned to use because our reason is insufficient to master the full detail of complex reality’. 3
