Humility's Challenge: The Political Value of Disperse Individual Experience in F. A. Hayek's Thought

The meaning of Hayek’s call for humility changed after the introduction of evolutionism into his thought. Initially, his call pretended to highlight the greater capacity of spontaneous orders to combine disperse knowledge of local circumstances. His account, however, was not able to fully argue why would such knowledge be socially valuable, why could only spontaneous orders combine it, and how could it be relevant for the political institutions of society. Then, through the introduction of evolutionism, widening his conception of knowledge, he renewed his account of social phenomena and became able to answer criticisms that could be associated with his previous works. Ever since, Hayek calls for humility points out at the potentialities of individual learning and innovation. I argue that reinterpreting Hayek’s call for humility in the light of his evolutionism allows for a clear understanding of the value of freedom and the role he assigns to the state.